Land Use Policy 24 (2007) 434–442 Affirmation of territorial identity: A development policy issue Zoran Roca a,Ã , Maria de Nazare´ Oliveira-Roca b a CEGED–Centre for Geographic and Development Studies, Universidade Luso´fona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal b e-GEO–Centre for Geographic and Regional Planning Studies, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal Received 25 July 2005; received in revised form 5 January 2006; accepted 19 May 2006 Abstract The quests for the (re)affirmation of the identity of places and regions in the era of globalised economy and culture gained momentum on local and regional development research and policy agendas since the early nineties. However, there has been a gap between the pro- identity/development discourse and reality, especially in some rural areas of the peripheral and lagging European regions and countries, such as Portugal, marked by land use anarchy, environmental degradation, loss of cultural authenticity, etc., as well as by the asymmetrical interests and power-relations between local and global development stakeholders. The gap between the pro-identity discourse and reality could be overcome if ‘‘territorial identity’’, basically an ambiguous and inoperative concept, would be transformed into an analytical category, susceptible to measurement, monitoring and evaluation. It is argued in this paper that territorial identity features can be studied empirically if conceptualised as sets of spatially anchored contents of natural and cultural landscape features (‘‘spatial fixes’’) that are associated with activities, relations and meanings within horizontal and vertical networks and systems that determine lifestyle features (‘‘spatial flows’’) in a given geographical area. To this end, a new conceptual-methodological framework, the IDENTERRA Model, is proposed. Its application, based on macroscopically established evidence and fieldwork records of the changing identity features, could lay grounds for a greater synergy between the pro-identity quests and their operationalisation in development policies and instruments. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Territorial identity; Local and regional development policies; Development stakeholders; Local/global nexus Introduction The need to prevent losses and/or to promote affirma- tion of the identity of places and regions in the context of globalised economy and culture gained momentum on development research and policy agendas since the early nineties (Massey, 1991; Amin and Thrift, 1994; Hadjimichalis, 1994; Todtling, 1994; Santos et al., 1994; Massey, 1995; Massey and Jess, 1995; Rose, 1995; Agnew, 2000; Haartsen, 2004; Harner, 2001; Boneschansker et al., 2004). In the European Union, a major argument has been that the (re)valorisation and strengthening of the identity of the peripheral and lagging rural regions is the key to their competitiveness on the global market of goods, services and ideas, and may be decisive for sustainable ‘‘local development engineering’’ (Commission Europe´ - enne, 1994). However, there has been a growing gap between the pro- identity/development quests and anti-identity/development realities of many places and regions: degradation of environmental, economic, cultural and other identity features have taken place more frequently and at a much larger scale than their effective enhancement. For example, in Portugal, most rural areas have suffered from sharp declines in small-scale agricultural diversity, under-utilisa- tion or abandonment of cultivable land, lack of invest- ments in alternative productive activities, as well as from the continuous weakening of demographic vitality and depletion of endogenous human resources, referred to as ‘‘human desertification’’ (Cavaco, 1994; Roca, 1998; Barreto, 2000; Oliveira-Roca, 2000). Conflicting interests and unequal power-relations between local and global development stakeholders have left marks in land use anarchy and environmental degradation, fading cultural ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol 0264-8377/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2006.05.007 Ã Corresponding author. E-mail address: zoran.roca@netcabo.pt (Z. Roca).