DEVELOPMENT STAKEHOLDERS AND TERRITORIAL IDENTITY IN

Abstract: The need to (re)affirm the diversity of places and regions in order to make them economically and culturally “more competitive ” on the globalised market of goods and services has been widely accepted in regional and local development policies in Portugal, but much more rhetorically than in operational terms. This largely reflects the fact that policies, as well as their instruments, do not rely on empirical evidence of the changing character of territorial identity. In particular, there are virtually no records regarding representations of territorial identity features and issues by local/regional development stakeholders, both individual and institutional ones. The problem is that appropriate conceptualisations and analytical tools for comprehensive identification and assessment of various dimensions of territorial identity have been lacking. Since it has not been clear what the identity of places and regions means in factual and verifiable terms to different development stakeholders, it is has not been possible to determine what aspects of the identity need to be strengthened, preserved, diversified, or made “more competitive ” in regional and local development policy design and implementation. This paper brings forward discussion on the conceptual-methodological issues in the study of territorial identity and the role of local/regional development stakeholders in this change in rural Portugal. The evidence obtained from a nation-wide field survey of Portuguese local development agents ’ knowledge, attitudes and practice related to territorial identity as a development asset is presented, and a future research agenda is outlined