2021-09-17 08:59:34 CEST
The 2021 Vega Symposium honours Anssi Paasi, professor at the University of Oulu, recipient of SSAG’s Vega Medal 2021, for his profound contributions to human geography, especially political geography. The symposium will explore the conceptual and empirical meanings of territories and regions, and will problematize borders as material and ideological tools, processes and symbols in region/territory and identity building. Speakers will address questions such as: How can we best make sense of the contemporary functions and the perpetual appeal of regions and territories? What will be the future of such units in the ever more dynamic world? How to best theorize territories, borders/bordering, and their contextual character? What can geography do to promote compassion and ethics inside and across borders? The symposium instigates from the fact that the geography of regions and territories is always also political geography. This seems to hold true whether we talk about the conceptu- alization of regions and regionalism, or the practices of regional planning and policy.