Jan PÍŠA, Faculty of Science, J. E. Purkyn? University, Czechia
Vladan HRUŠKA, Faculty of Science, J. E. Purkyn? University, Czechia
Despite the development obstacles present in old industrial regions (OIR), we can find here also many examples of human agency that positively influence their transformation and the possibility to create new development paths. The change agency (as it is defined by Grillitsch et al. 2019) of individuals (hereinafter agents of change) is nurtured by various resources such as finances, knowledge and social networks, but at the initial point, there is always some kind of motivation of individual agents. This paper aims to answer what are the motivations of agents of change that make them to start their transformative activities. Based on 49 semi-structured interviews conducted in four case study towns in the Ústí nad Labem Region (NW Czechia) we found out that the change agency forms usually at the moment when the combination of local embeddedness (relationship to the place and rooting in local social networks), knowledge of local specifics and the extra-regional inspiration (similarly as describes Fromhold-Eisebith 2004) emerges. Characteristics of OIR (for example social exclusion, a small number of skilled jobs, presence of brownfields, lack of services, and cultural and community initiatives), from this point of view, are therefore understood as problems that should be solved, or on other hand, as regionally specific opportunity spaces (Grillitsch and Sotarauta 2020) which can be used for the benefit of the agent and whole region consequently. According to this, particular forms of agencies are based on the effort to improve own local environment. In doing this, agents often use past life experiences that make this transformative agency at least partially path dependent (Martin and Sunley 2006).
Mots clés : human agency|development|old industrial region|Czechia|motivations
A103662JP