2025/09/08 by Joanie Willett · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Regional resilience and development #Rural development and sustainability #Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/soru.70010
openalex publication_date 2025/09/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
ABSTRACT Place‐based studies of regional policy ask how places can better adapt to economic and social changes. This is especially prescient for research and policy supporting ‘left‐behind’ regions. This paper amends this question, asking not how places adapt, but how the people living and working within them navigate change. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Cornwall in the United Kingdom and the Southwest of Virginia, USA, the paper uses the complex adaptive region assemblage to explore how locals make sense of their changing region and the opportunities that they imagine are available. The paper argues that regional policy needs to reflect that supportive communities are crucial for individuals as they try to navigate changes to their local economies but that currently many community supports are unable to connect people to assemblages where new opportunities exist. Inadequate understanding of peoples lives can lead to ineffective policy‐making with lasting implications.