Perceptions of regional neglect: Deepening the deviant Dutch case

Abstract

Over the past decade polarisation has deepened across geographic divides, characterised in part by the sense that one's region does not matter to people in the metropolitan centre and central state. Much of the literature on the geographies of discontent has primarily examined economic hardship and the populist appeal. This paper offers a new perspective, using a deviant case study of the Netherlands to better understand why people see their place as being neglected. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with community leaders and residents from the rural periphery, more specifically northeast Fryslân, this research develops detailed descriptions of six perceptions of regional neglect. The findings highlight a deeply ingrained place recognition gap, stemming from perceptions of one's place being sidelined in regional development plans serving urban growth, being devalued for rural and regional ways of living, and being dominated from a distance by central politics. Even the atypical Dutch case reflects perceptions of one's region being kept at the bottom found in more typical cases. The Netherlands is an outlier that fits in. This paper concludes that the geography of discontent is not about hardship alone, but for an important part is driven by relative deprivation and self-perceived status of place.