The 'left-behind place' is an emerging spatial imaginary that evokes an idealised set of social, economic and political conditions assigned to a generalised type of place.
This talk unpacks how US policy entrepreneurs – a set of actors whose collective knowledge influences how policies are designed to correct regional inequality – construct the ‘left-behind places’ spatial imaginary and narrate the policy problems in such places.
Through a ‘what is the problem represented to be?’ (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016) analysis of 31 interviews with US policy experts, our speaker finds that the ‘left-behind places’ spatial imaginary is bifurcated into two asset- versus deficit-based narratives.
The first constructs a narrative of 'latent potential places': such regions have been 'left behind' by globalised markets, but hold promising comparative advantages in property and labour markets.
However a second narrative frames 'left-behind places' through their deficits, constructing what can be called 'foreclosed potential places'. These places are imagined to have been 'left behind' by the US state, and are now locked-in to maladaptive social and economic paths and federal dependencies.
Extending evidence that spatial imaginaries influence material policy outcomes, this paper traces how contrasting problem frames surrounding regional inequality influence policy design, with implications for how central states relate to 'left behind' communities.
Biography
Dr Grete Gansauer is an economic geographer and interdisciplinary public policy researcher focused on regional development, place-based policy, and the local state in peripheral regions and ‘left-behind’ places.
She is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming, where she is currently focused on leading research and service-learning projects concerning foundational economy provision in socioeconomically distressed rural communities of Wyoming.
She is a board member of the Regional Studies Association and has previously held visiting fellowships at the University of Cambridge and the National Academies of Sciences in Washington DC.