Territorial identity: Between local and global

Abstract

Paper takes a territory as a social construct and relational concept, according to which a society is seen as being in a constant process of deterritorilaization and retrriatorialization. First part of the paper focuses on transformation of territorial identity of individuals, from identity of island towards identity based on selective association of various territorial levels, or from old to new localism. Second part of the paper connects dimensions of territorial identity with the concepts of new regionalism and glocalism, which are related to local-global dichotomy, and issues on local development based on endogenous resources within the global context. The main arguments are driven at the conceptual level, but both parts of the paper also rely on empirical insights from the research „Changes in basic structures of society in Serbia“, conducted by the Institute for Sociological Research, Faculty of Philosophy University of Belgrade, on the representative sample for citizens in Serbia (N=2557), in 2012. Empirical data illustrate that territorial identity of respondents has been profiled through selective association of different territorial levels. However, only half of respondents (44,7%) feel attached to any supranational territory, while such attachment is not considerably related to respondents’ structural and value characteristics. Besides that, respondents show relatively low level of glocalism, which, in accordance to new regionalism, is taken as local actors’ readiness for global connections through strategies based on locally specific resources. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179035: Izazovi nove društvene integracije u Srbiji - koncepti i akteri]

Keywords

• territory
• territorial identity
• new regionalism
• new localism
• glocalism