Hi there
Apologies for cross-posting, but this event might be of interest to list members.
Best regards
Paul.
CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
“WHAT DOES CULTURE MEANS FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN OLD INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES?”
Third annual meeting of the Regional Studies Association Old Industrial Knowledges Working Group, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands, 28th-30th January 2007.
We are pleased to announce the third in the series of annual conferences of the Regional Studies Association Old Industrial Knowledges Working Group will take place at the University of Twente, Enschede the Netherlands. The conference will be held over two days 29th and 30th January 2007, and will be preceded by a one-day study tour related to the main conference theme. We are now inviting abstracts from interested participants for the third conference, around the central topic of “What does culture means for regional development in old industrial economies?”
In the first meeting in Newcastle (2005), the group established that there was a significant opportunity to build academic knowledge in regional development by studying how old industrial regions engaged with the knowledge economy in the process of industrial transition. In the second conference, held in Gdansk (2006), an attempt to focus on policies and practices of ‘doing’ old industrial knowledges frequently came back to the notion that industrial “culture” was potentially a sufficiently strong asset to drive regional development.
In this third conference, we plan to explore this theme in further detail, both to understand the dynamics of cultural economies in old industrial regions but also to better conceptualise the dynamics and processes of industrial conversion and restructuring. Cultural industries have been enthusiastically embraced by regional policy-makers as a source of economic growth, and as a reinforcement for the tourism strategies and policies that proliferated in the 1990s. These tendencies have been reinforced by the rising influence of Richard Florida, whose work on creativity and urbanity have flowed into debates around cultural economies.
But this trend is not unproblematic, as cultural industries appear to be as prone to concentration in core, urban areas as other knowledge based sectors, and to lack the potential to create the large numbers of high productivity jobs necessary for successful economic restructuring.
To explore these tensions and issues, we invite papers that address the conference topic, potentially from one of the following perspectives.
• Innovation, architecture and change: industrial archaeology in restructuring regions.
• Images of restructuring: re-presenting the industrial periphery in economic development discourses
• From coal and steel to heavy metal: culture as an economic driver in declining industrial regions
• Identity, regional uniqueness/ products and informal economies in the periphery
• The relationship of old industrial knowledges and novel cultures and cultural sectors, and
• Creative cities in the periphery: are talent, technology and tolerance enough?
The conference will follow the form of previous events. On 28th January there will be a pre-meeting and fieldtrip, and there will be two days of plenary and workshop sessions on 29th-30th January. Thanks to very kind support from the Regional Studies Association and the Institute of Governance Studies at the University of Twente, we also cordially invite all delegates to the conference dinner on 29th January.
The fieldtrip on 28th January will explore how the host region, the EUREGIO, a former textiles region spanning the Dutch-German border has come to terms with deindustrialisation and the inheritance of its heavy industries. In the morning we will visit the Roombeek cultural development project in Enschede, the site of the 2000 fireworks factory disaster and now an ambitious renovation of a once derelict but nevertheless symbolically important textiles quarter. In the afternoon, we will make the short train hop across the border to Gronau and look at the urban waterfront development based around the German Museum of Rock and Pop music, which we intend to visit. This impressive redevelopment provides the perfect setting for a relaxed evening meal, before the delegates return to Enschede in plenty of time for the conference sessions the following day.
The conference will be free to attend, although delegates will be expected to pay for their own accommodation. This conference is being sponsored by the Institute of Governance Studies at the University of Twente, and their support will be used to provide up to eight travel and accommodation bursaries for presenters. Bursaries will be provided - in preference to non-established scholars from Central and Eastern Europe - to a maximum value of ˆ250.
To register for this event, to submit an abstract or to apply for a bursary, contact [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] before 30th November 2006.
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Dr. Paul Benneworth
Research Councils UK Academic Fellow
Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies
Institute of Policy and Practice
Newcastle University
NE1 7RU
Work: 0191 222 8015
Home: 0191 258 7437
Mobl: 07801 538 758
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Dr. Paul Benneworth
Research Councils UK Academic Fellow
Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies
Institute of Policy and Practice
Newcastle University
NE1 7RU
Work: 0191 222 8015
Home: 0191 258 7437
Mobl: 07801 538 758
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