Territorial modes of governance and the discourses of community reaction in the state of Tasmania

Abstract

Reflecting on neo-liberal and Deleuzian theory, this paper examines how new modes of governance are shaping Australian regions and what kind of resistance is emerging in response to them, in particular to government encouragement of business and commercial appropriation. The first part of the paper discusses recent literature on regional policy making in the context of neo-liberalism. It is argued that Deleuzian metaphors such as ‘reterritorialisation’, ‘deterritorialisation’, ‘machinic assemblages’, ‘folding’, and ‘lines of flight’ provide a rich conceptual vocabulary that can be used to enhance an understanding of contemporary regional policy making. To demonstrate the efficacy of this claim, the paper draws upon the example of policy making in the Australian State of Tasmania and the conflicts these policies have generated. Amongst the paper’s conclusions is that the competitive practices now being pursued within the auspices of regional policy-making generate a set of new interactions that have significance both across Australia and beyond.