Contribution short abstract:

This contribution aims to inquire into the ambiguous ways regional pride and belonging can act as catalysts of societal critique. Focusing on radically localised, 'anti-mobile' placemaking practices, it makes visible the powerful role ideas of regionality occupy in the current political moment.

Contribution long abstract:

In my contribution to this roundtable, I aim to reflect on the ambiguous ways ideas of regional pride and belonging can act as catalysts of societal critique. Drawing on village ethnography in the Austrian Alpen-Adria region, I will shed light on placemaking practices in rural communities that are at once characterised by long histories of cross-border mobilities and a pronounced support for radically localised, “anti-mobile” (Lems 2023) worldviews. By zooming in on the ways village inhabitants use ideas of regionality to contest the perceived horizonlessness of the liberal paradigm, I will discuss the ambiguous and often-times exclusionary ways people create a sense of belonging to place. I argue that rather than writing such radically regionalised placemaking efforts off as backward, traditionalist ways of relating to the world, anthropologists need to pay attention to them. They make visible a deepening chasm between scholarly imaginaries about mobile, cosmopolitan identities and people’s lived experiences in an increasingly fragmented global political arena.