A Political Geography of Polarising Identities: Contested Iconic Places

 

Kees Terlouw           kees@geoterlouw.nl         https://geoterlouw.nl/                      

 

A Political Geography of Polarising Identities: Contested Iconic Places

 

Routledge will publish this end 2025 as paperback in their Research in Space, Place and Politics Series

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Polarisation in politics and society is on the increase. Some are waging 'culture wars', while others demand drastic action to solve the 'climate emergency'. The rise in support for populism is the most visible and debated aspect of this polarisation. The geographical distribution of support for populism indicates a growing polarisation between globalising cities and left-behind regions. Geographical analyses focus on the characteristics of these peripheral regions. This book takes a broader perspective, not only spatially, by analysing the role of cities but also by analysing the relations between polarisation at different scales, ranging from the global to the local. Besides analysing more spaces, this book also analyses the use of spaces in political polarisation differently. It takes the rhetoric used by populists and their opponents concerning places seriously. Polarisation takes place not only in space but also through the diverging valuation of spaces. To understand the polarisation between globalised cities and more peripheral regions, it is necessary to move beyond generalisations and analyse the specific meanings and values attached to iconic places with a particularly positive or negative connotation to opposing groups. This book does this by analysing how conflicts over specific iconic sites at different spatial scales developed in four European countries.

The growing importance of identities is widely recognised and linked to political and social polarisation. The changing role of identities is hardly analysed from a geographical perspective. This book analyses the changing role of spaces and places in opposite identity discourses. It goes beyond other books that focus on only the EU, a particular nation-state, a city, a neighbourhood or a nature reserve. It analyses the interrelations between the different interpretations and valuations of these iconic places in opposing identity discourses. It shows that the political polarisation exemplified by the growing support and fear for populists in national politics is part of a much broader and deeper polarisation in society.

 

 

Outline

 

This book analyses how the polarisation between cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses drives the current political polarisation. The anti-urban backlash of the populists is the most visible expression of this. This book analyses how the divergent valuation of and conflicts over iconic places at different spatial scales institutionalise these differences in identity discourses. It analyses the different valuations of the European borders, gentrified cities, peripheral regions, villages, industrial livestock farms and nature reserves in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK.

During industrial modernity, the relationship between identity and space focused on the nation-state. This changed in recent decades. A society of singularities has emerged, focussing on individualised excelling in every sphere of life. This quest for competitiveness strengthened cosmopolitan identity discourses focusing on the world, the EU and cities. This globalisation process drives polarisation. Not so much through an increase in material and cultural differences but through the different political use of these differences. These were previously integrated through a broadly shared national identity discourse. Material and cultural differences are now linked to different valuations and a polarising process which drives cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses apart. This book analyses this process and focuses on the different valuations of iconic places at different spatial scales and how these are linked.

This book shows the deep roots of the current polarisation and how the opposition between identity discourses further strengthens these differences. The analysis of the role of many different iconic places in different national contexts shows how these processes work out in practice. It shows the deep roots of this polarisation, which goes further back in time than the rise in populism and has many different but related aspects. These case studies also show that polarisation is not predetermined to increase but is sometimes possible to control.

 

Chapter 1 Introduction: the polarisation of everything

This chapter introduces the different economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of polarisation in society. It gives a broad overview of the various academic approaches to polarisation. These frequently refer to some spatial aspects of polarisation, such as the growing importance of cosmopolitanism in cities and the concentration of support for populism in left-behind regions. This chapter outlines the importance of political geography to analyse this polarisation. Instead of polarisation in space using different statistical indicators, it outlines how the conceptualisation of space has become a driver of polarisation over the last decades. The reconceptualisation of space during globalisation undermined national identities and transformed for many the role of space in identity discourses. This chapter ends with an outline of how this argument is developed in subsequent chapters.

 

 

Chapter 2 Iconic places and the cultivation of identity discourses

This chapter develops the theoretical framework for this book. The discursive and normative character of identities is stressed. Identity discourses provide a reference framework to understand and evaluate society. Identity discourses are cultivated as they constantly reinterpret and revalue existing elements when circumstances change. Public claims of their authenticity, stability, consistency and widely shared character hide their changeable and contradictory nature. This is especially the case for the relation between space and individual and collective identities. Spatial elements are selectively used in different identity discourses. The valuation and devaluation of specific places by different identity discourses make these places icons which communicate values by physically showing desired or feared visions of the future.

Identity discourses use different types of signs. In semiotics, an icon is a sign that represents an object, place or idea. While other signs used in communication, like symbols, are more abstract conventions, icons are more material and recognisable. The meaning of the iconic sign is more visible, while based on the likeness between the iconic sign and its meaning. Icons are signs that reflect the qualitative features of the object. These are open to different interpretations and valuations. Iconic places and their development are not only signifiers in spatial identity discourses but also objects of spatial policies. They link fundamental but more abstract differences in value systems with the political struggle over real places. The mutual (de)valuation of iconic places makes them valuable tools for analysing the polarisation in and on space. Before examining how political disputes over specific iconic places have developed over the last decades and how these are linked to diverging identity discourses, the following two chapters analyse the transformation of society in recent decades.

 

 

Chapter 3 The nation-state and its iconic places during industrial modernity

The national territory became the dominant space in layered national identity discourses. The traditions in individual regions, cities and villages were to be protected by the nation-state, which also created a better future by modernising the national economy and society in the entire national territory. The role of urban elites in promoting nationalism is discussed. Through the cultivation of the hierarchical layering of local and national identities, they obscured the class differences between groups living within local communities.

This chapter analyses how iconic places were used to cultivate national identity discourses in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. These include historical heritage sites and newly created iconic places of modernisation, such as through the Emslandplan in Germany, land consolidation in the Netherlands and the planning of coal mining towns in Germany, Belgium and the UK. This chapter ends with examples of the current contestation of some of these iconic places, which undermine the national focus of the traditional hierarchical layering of spatial identities.

 

 

Chapter 4  The transformation into the society of singularities and the (de)valuation of lifestyles

Over the last decades, the focus of identity discourses cultivated by the urban elite has shifted from the nation to the world. This is linked to globalisation and individualisation, which have transformed Western societies. Not only products have to be outstanding to compete in global markets, but excelling has become the norm which permeates all walks of life. The focus has shifted from similarity to singularity. Everybody is driven to excel in competition in the society of singularities by promoting and evaluating the unique qualities of individuals, products and places. There has been a shift from collective class interests disciplined by nationalism to individuals excelling and adapting to changes. Instead of an overarching national identity, cultivating individual identity discourses is linked to lifestyle communities. These are linked to collective urban cosmopolitan identity discourses, which developed in opposition to traditional national identity discourses.

The national society transformed into an urban society materially, economically, politically and ideologically. There has been a shift from maximising production quantities to valuing quality for consumption. The educated, cosmopolitan bourgeoisie in cities dominates the valuation of products and individual achievements. Competition in the society of singularities is based on the winner-takes-all principle. Those who lose out in the competition lose out not only materially but also morally. Their loss is legitimised by the negative valuation of those who lose out. They are marginalised as inferior and abject. This takes place at different spatial scales, including countries, cities, regions, villages, neighbourhoods, groups and individuals.

This generated an anti-urban backlash, as exemplified by the rise in populism. Politics has shifted from disputes over material distribution between classes within the national community to epistemic disputes over values, status and identities between local communities. This polarisation between identity discourses is facilitated by spatial polarisation through processes like selective migration and adjusting to the dominant values within a local community. The hegemony of the thin cosmopolitan identities valuing fluidity of relations and welcoming changes is now challenged by parochial thick resistance identities focussing on territories for protection against uncontrolled and unwanted changes. This chapter develops a typology of the primary differences between cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses, which will be used and elaborated in subsequent chapters. These chapters analyse how the polarisation developed in relation to disputes over iconic places. They analyse the different phases of polarisation. Latent differences are first recognised and can later on become polarising political conflicts through valuation and vocalisation.

 

 

Chapter 5 Internal and external EU borders: global justice versus national sovereignty

National borders were icons of the territorial sovereignty of the nation-state and valued elements in traditional national identity discourses. Opening national borders within the EU made abandoned border infrastructure like border posts and fortifications iconic places of European integration and globalisation. These were predominantly positively valued in the decades after the second world war. These became, for instance, iconic places for the new, more cosmopolitan, German national identity discourse. Borders in the EU also played an essential role in the BREXIT debate in the UK. The polarisation between cosmopolitans and parochialists in the Netherlands and Belgium is more muted and changeable towards the EU. Many Flemish parochialists positively value the EU to gain more autonomy from the Belgium state in their interpretation of a Europe of the regions.

The external EU borders are iconic places in the debate on migration. Their increasing fortification and the pushbacks of migrants at these borders are negative icons in cosmopolitan identity discourses. The parochialists focus more on controlling the national territory and its borders. They question the idea of a shared EU space and interests in the geopolitical rivalry with states like China and Russia. Parochialists value sovereignty to protect traditional values within the national territory over an international order based on global justice.

 

 

Chapter 6 Cities: incubators of social justice or gentrified ghettos?

After the second world war, inner cities were subjected to welfare state policies focusing on slum clearing and social housing. The solving of urban problems was part of national identity discourses. Cities are now drivers of economic globalisation and the society of singularity. This is where cosmopolitans predominantly live and work and which provides their care network. This is where the support for the EU is most robust. Cities, in general, profited from globalisation. Their economic success based on global connections and the diversity of their population and lifestyles is central to cosmopolitan identity discourses. The developments in cities set them apart from the rest of the country. Not only are economic fortunes redistributed in favour of the cities, but the whole organisation of production and consumption becomes urban. The urban valuation markets are dominated by the new bourgeoisie of the educated middle class, who focus on excelling and individuality. This is the basis of their individual and collective identity discourses.

Through branding, cities try to increase their competitiveness and cultivate a widely supported identity discourse. Waterfront development with new attractive apartments partly realised in industrial heritage sites and old warehouses are powerful iconic places used in urban branding for cosmopolitans. This chapter illustrates this by comparing how these waterfront developments in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg and London are used in identity discourses. Parochialists see these global cities and their elite waterfront housing estates as icons of unwanted social change and as increasingly detached from their values and their more traditional inward and backwards oriented life world. They resent the urban arrogance toward the rest of the country and the related focus of public investments favouring these urban projects. Parochialists also value distributive justice based on the entitlements of communities over the focus of cosmopolitans on social justice and the universal right to the city for all individuals.

 

Chapter 7 Regions: threatened by urbanisation

Urbanisation increasingly affects nearby regions. Many regions near cities are valued by cosmopolitans as recreation and housing areas. In contrast, from the parochial perspective, this urbanisation in these metropolitan regions threatens the identity and autonomy of local communities.

 

Chapter 8 The peripheralization of rural regions

Traditional national identity discourses included peripheral non-urban regions as pristine icons of the true nation whose traditions had to be preserved but developed economically by the modern nation-state. This layering of regional and national identities is now unstacked. In cosmopolitan identity discourses, peripheral regions are now icons of incapable losers in the society of singularities who lack the innovative potential to compete. Some peripheral regions are negative icons of nature degradation through intensive agriculture in cosmopolitan identity discourses. This is discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters. Regions discussed in this chapter: Limburg (Belgium), East Germany (Thüringen), Groningen (Netherlands), and Yorkshire (UK).

 

 

Chapter 9 Villages: obstacles to individual freedom or threatened caring community?

The villages in the regions were not only left behind, but their devaluation became part of the dominant cosmopolitan identity discourse. Whereas in Chapter 7 and 8, the focus was on the landscape and economic competitiveness of regions, this chapter focuses on the values linked to village communities. Villages are icons of the traditional local community. Parochialists see their community values focusing on mutual care and sociability as positive icons threatened by urban lead social changes. Mutual care in local networks is a livelihood strategy for those losing out in the society of singularities. This resilience of the immobile links up with their traditional values of solidarity and hard work, which are expressed in parochialist identity discourses on villages. It contrasts with the cosmopolitan outward orientation of networks promoting individual achievements. A village is, for them, an iconic place of traditional local communities' restrictions on personal freedom and their parochial bigoted attitudes to diversity and change. For parochialists, the village is their most valued icon in their resistance identity discourses against urbanisation and globalisation. The local community in villages is also linked to the icons discussed in the previous chapter on regions and the subsequent chapters on industrial life stock farms and new nature reserves.

Besides a more general analysis of the village as a generalised icon in identity discourses, this chapter analyses the resistance in specific villages to urbanisation threats in the Netherlands (Katwijk), Belgium (Edegem), Germany (Hausberge) and the UK (TBD).

 

Chapter 10 Industrial life stock farms: protecting animal rights or rural livelihoods?

Industrial life stock farms were icons of rural modernisation promoted by the nation-state. This has now changed. Industrial life stock farms and the policies to restrict them based on concerns over animal rights and environmental pollution are icons in both cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses. For the former, they are abhorrible icons of the necessity of the transformations towards a more sustainable society. For the latter, they are icons of the success of the hard-working local farmers and the incursions threatening local communities' livelihoods and autonomy. Reported examples of animal abuse, epidemics and farm fires are analysed to show how these fit into the cosmopolitan identity discourse. How accounts of life stock farmers struggling with environmental protection policies and animal rights protests are used in parochial identity discourses are also analysed. This is done in the Dutch, Belgium, German and British national contexts. This is partly done by analysing in each country an iconic example of a large industrial life stock farm and an example of an iconic biological farm.

 

Chapter 11 New nature reserves: ecological protection or threat to farming?

During industrial modernity, land was seen as an underdeveloped factor of production. Farmland was to expand and be used more intensely by cultivating unused wastelands and rationalising existing farmland to facilitate large-scale industrial mechanisation. Now ecological degradation, through pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity, have become part of cosmopolitan identity discourses on the necessary transformation towards a more sustainable future. These support policies to reduce and renature farmland. Parochialist identity discourses resist this negative valuation of established industrialised farming and regard this development of new nature as iconic places exemplifying the threats to the livelihood of hard-working farmers, as discussed in the previous chapter. They also challenge the general discourse on environmental protection and climate change. This chapter analyses the different valuations of iconic new nature reserves in the Netherlands (Hedwige polder), Belgium (Vinderhoutse bossen), Germany (Kellerwald) and the UK (South London Downs).

 

 

Chapter 12 Conclusion: The inevitable polarisation between cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses?

This chapter systemises the different ways in which iconic places are used in identity discourses. It analyses how these are strengthened through the layered use of iconic places across scales. Besides these connections within identity discourses, the polarising relations between the cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses are analysed. This results in constructing a schematic overview of the conditions stimulating or hindering the different phases of polarisation. This contributes to the current debate on the role of space in political polarisation and how to deal with it.