Cascadia Revisited from European Case Studies: the Socio-Political Space of Cross-Border Networks

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to analyse how cross-border spaces are constructed through the activities and strategies of established and emerging cross-border networks. In order to observe cross-border actors and public policies, I use three case studies, two in the European Union, i.e. the Rhineland Valley, also known as Upper Rhine (France-Germany-Switzerland) and the Mediterranean Euroregion (France-Spain), and one in North America, i.e. Cascadia (Canada-United States). I propose to draw our theoretical approach from a model suggested by P. Bourdieu, so that it is possible to compare a series of factors that structure these borderlands. The ultimate goal of this paper is to sketch the socio-political space of these networks in each cross-border region and eventually to suggest new research lenses for Cascadia.