Abstract:

Space-based cooperation is an important form of interurban cooperation and a multidimensional sociospatial process concerning reterritorialization, network building, and rescaling. Based on the case study of the Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone and considering three sociospatial dimensions including territory, network, and scale, the production and restructuring of interurban cooperative space is analyzed. This research suggests that the reterritorialization involved both capital and regulatory power; the network that link actors together serves as tools for political mobilization and information sharing; the key factor for rescaling is the mobilization of actors at higher scales. Common interests of relevant actors are fundamental factors of space-based interurban cooperation. Specifically, the actors at higher scales tend to embed their own interests into the political strategies crossing scales. Moreover, a complex interaction is found among the three sociospatial dimensions, with four major types of combination including identical, parallel, substitution, and realization, which could be of significance in future studies aiming to further examining the production of multidimensional space.

Key words: interurban cooperation, scale, territory, network, production of space, Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone