Page 14 - Pelc, Stanko, and Miha Koderman, eds., 2016. Regional development, sustainability, and marginalization. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
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ional development, sustainability, and marginalization 12 In 2016, the commission plans to have sessions at the Beijing Con-
gress and, immediately afterwards, the conference in Slovenia. The
theme of the Beijing sessions is: »Long forgotten backward spaces« in
the focus of the global economy.
The session title is provocative and may not be politically correct,
but it aims to encompass a wide range of places that attracted the
attention of global economic players or of their national and re-
gional governments that are considering their hidden potential as
worthwhile for national and global economies. What kind of ac-
tions are going on in these kinds of spaces, what the consequenc-
es for individuals and for the local community are as well as for the
environment are the topics that we expect to deal with within the
proposed session(s).
The commission intends to continue its work in the 2016-2020 pe-
riod. There are several options for future conferences, but the fi-
nal decision about the annual meetings has not yet been taken. That
decision is left to the new steering committee as soon as it be-
comes operational after it is confirmed by the General Assembly.
The commission plans to organize its major event in Canada at the
IGU Regional Conference in 2018, as proposed by the future chair
of the steering committee Steve Déry from Quebec. The main
themes for the 2017-2020 conferences will be globalization and its
impact on local and regional development, further work on the the-
ory of marginalization, the transformation of rural areas from the
viewpoint of globalization and marginalization and drivers of mar-
ginalization in border and peripheral areas. It is intended that these
topics be put within the authentic regional environment so that we
can be as close to the problem areas as possible. In particular, Latin
America and Africa, as well as SE Asia, are the parts of the world to
which that the commission would like to devote its main attention.
The mission of the Commission in the new period of work is to re-
search marginality and the processes of marginalization from differ-
ent perspectives and on a geographical basis. The main focus is to
better understand multi-scalar relations between the globalization
process and how marginality evolves at the local and regional lev-
els. Moreover, the commission will seek to improve understanding
of local and regional responses to different forms of marginality and
marginalization processes.
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