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Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We would like to start by stating our gratitude to Etienne Nel and Sean Connelly for providing us with the opportunity to review the articles in this special issue, and to provide these summary comments. Regional development policy and practice has undergone many evolutions and iterations as it has responded to global conditions, political trends, and perhaps even the findings of dedicated researchers. Indigenous policy-making and attention to holistic interpretations of health and well-being again offer interesting insights and strategies for reconciling the policy incoherence currently gripping regional development policy internationally. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this paper is to trace community and regional responses to the economic downturn of 2008/2009 in Northern British Columbia, Canada. Our research during this period (2009-2011), the Northern Economic Vision II (NEV II) project, sought to investigate whether communities in the region were incorporating some of the core findings, lessons from an earlier project, the NEV I project (conducted in 2002-2005), in terms of preparing for both economic uncertainty and opportunity through place-oriented community planning and enhanced regional collaboration. Findings suggest that in the face of economic hardship, many communities continued to pursue community and regionally-oriented strategies in an attempt to preserve services and quality of life for local residents, and did not engage in reactive budget cuts in the face of economic decline, as experienced in previous bust periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how concepts of territory and scale are used to create places of benefit from resource activities in remote rural regions. Our case study of mineral development in northwest British Columbia compares the experiences of First Nation, municipal and regional governments in accessing economic benefits from mineral development. Territorial land claims are changing the multi-scalar jurisdictional hierarchy and the socio-spatial relations between senior levels of government, resource companies, and local communities. The territorial rights of First Nation governments provide the political leverage to negotiate with companies seeking to 'earn a social license' to operate within their territories. Municipal and regional governments, however, are restricted by their role in the multi-scalar jurisdictional hierarchy. In response, municipal and regional governments are devising strategies to capture economic benefits. We discuss three economic development strategies used to access benefits from mineral development activities: negotiating commitments during the environmental assessment process, investment attraction strategies, and lobbying the provincial government for a share of the resource revenues generated from mining. These strategies reflect the political and economic context for local government in remote resource-dependent regions and the changing socio-spatial relations between senior levels of government, resource companies, and First Nation, municipal and regional governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based research (CBR) represents a particularly timely approach to rural research. Rural areas in industrialized nations are undergoing dramatic and rapid processes of economic, social and political restructuring. These forces, combined with a trend towards place-based development and territorial policy make CBR an appropriate rural method given its flexibility and sensitivity to local context. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the use and methods of CBR in the rural setting, drawn from our collective research experience in northern British Columbia. There has been increased attention paid to CBR, signalling a form of acceptance within the academy towards community-based and participatory methods. However, gaps exist in addressing the various approaches to conducting CBR and in considering the relevance of CBR in different contexts. Researchers also note the need for better training in the use of community-based methods. We reflect upon our rural CBR experience to offer insights and pragmatic lessons on effective methodological practices using a simplified framework of the key research process stages: preparing for community engagement, doing community-based research and after the fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the building of local development institutions in the hinterland communities of British Columbia and Canada. Hinterland communities in British Columbia and across Canada are struggling to cope with powerful forces of restructuring. Changes in the economy, in government policy and in environmental conditions are eroding traditional sources of economic and sociopolitical stability. These changes are leading communities and regions to pursue new approaches to development in order to ensure their prosperity and, in some cases, survival. While there are many development options, the local development approach, a process whereby a local community plays an active role in the articulation and implementation of its own development goals and objectives, is gaining increasing currency in policy, practitioner and research circles. The idea of local development is not new; rural communities have always relied upon local initiative to contribute to their health and welfare. However, the extent and pace of restructuring in hinterland communities is placing a heavier burden of responsibility for development directly onto communities and regions.

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether place is emerging in practice as a critical dimension in the development of Canadian rural regions. Recently, Jones and Paasi set regional researchers the task of better understanding how regions 'become'. In researching this question, we are particularly interested in the definition and expression of place-based identity as a mobilizing force for regionalism. Our findings suggest that, while identity plays a critical role in fostering regional development processes, it is either too emergent or actively resisted within our research sites to be a significant force for place-based regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]