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The sheer variety of examples in the chaptersuggests that hauntings are present in cities inmany respects, but there does not alwaysappear to be enough space for Pile to coverall the examples in as much detail as wemight like.

Pile concludes the book with a summary ofhis themes, and a move towards using dreamsand phantasmagorias as ways of imaginingand creating new futures for the city. Indeed,

Real Cities

ends on a resoundingly hopeful note.There is a significant number of examples andprocesses outlined by the book which could helpus to begin ‘dreaming new futures’ for cities. Pilerelies predominantly on Freud and Benjamin todo this, and it would be up to his readers todecide whether to dream alongside these theoristsor take a different approach. The lack of critiqueof Freud is of some concern, as are the relativelyselect cities on which Pile’s book relies. Thesetend to be very large, global cities, particularlyiconic cities, or both. This makes it unclear whatthe status of smaller cities is as regards some ofPile’s phantasmagorias. We might ask: is there acertain scale or depth of history needed for a cityto be phantasmagoric? The book is surprisinglyempirical: Pile rarely sets out long expositionsof the theory behind his arguments, preferringinstead to weave theory and example together.This results in a brisk, readable and relativelyclear text, which should not be intimidating tothose uninitiated into psychoanalysis or psycho-geography. However, it does mean that it can behard to make a fully critical engagement withthe text and with Pile’s approach to his examples.The book effectively seems to be its own phantas-magoria, full of diverse elements, themselvesreplete with various meanings, some passingquickly, others more drawn out. For readers whowish to explore the theory behind these narra-tions of the emotional and phantasmagoric lifeof cities, it will probably be necessary to followup some of Pile’s previous work, or furtherexplore the mix of Freud and Benjamin thatunderpins the book. Overall, the book wouldmake an interesting read for anyone interested inemotional geographies, psychoanalysis, or themore-than-rational geographies of the city, anddelving more deeply into its arguments shouldlead to fruitful considerations about just whatthe ‘real’ life of cities is.

Matthew Collins

University of SheffieldUK

New Regionalism in Australia

Al Rainnie and Mardelene Grobbelaar (eds),Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 2005, xiii + 327pp, ISBN 0 7546 3958 4 (hardback), US$114.95.

This book brings together a selection of papersfocusing on New Regionalism in Australia. Mostof the chapters were presented at a 2002‘New Regionalism’ conference convened by theMonash University Institute for Regional Studies.There are 16 chapters structured into five looselythemed sections: New Regionalism in theory andpractice; the new economy; a new governance;a new industrial relations, and the local response.The authors are Australian-based academics orpractitioners (with the exception of KevinMorgan), with most of the papers presentingresearch based on experiences of regionaldevelopment in New South Wales, Queensland,Victoria and South Australia.

New Regionalism is a contested concept,particularly in its application to Australia. MacLeod(2001) describes New Regionalism as a short-hand term to convey the work of mostly NorthAmerican and Western European scholarswho focus on the region as a functional spacefor economic planning and political governance.Proponents of New Regionalism see the regionsas key economic units, with localised geographicalagglomeration and spatial clustering stimulatingeconomic revitalisation and/or development(MacLeod, 2001). Localised networks, institutionsand other un-traded inter-dependences (createdby localised social practices) are seen as havingsignificant roles in determining the success ofregions, particularly as centralised governmentbecomes less involved in regional economiesand governance. The two well known andoft-cited examples of this New Regionalism areSilicone Valley and Emilia-Romagna.

Critics argue that New Regionalists fail toeffectively define ‘the region’ and do not considerregional change and the de-territorialisation andre-territorialisation processes in a wider politicaleconomy. In a frequently cited and influentialcritique of New Regionalism, Lovering (1999)identifies a theoretical inadequacy in the practiceof some New Regionalists abstracting ‘lessons’from exemplars of economic success to otherless successful regions, with little or no con-sideration of the localised factors or the widerpolitical economic processes that influenceregions. For Lovering (1999) and other critics,New Regionalism is limited in its geographicalscope and analytical rigour.

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In their introduction Rainnie and Grant out-line the book’s key arguments, but unfortunatelypay only brief attention to the criticisms of NewRegionalism. They do address the criticism thatNew Regionalism is problematic in its applica-tion to Australia because of its North Americanand Western European origin, stating that ‘NewRegionalism is not simply an Anglo-Saxon ortransatlantic phenomenon. The archetypes comefrom across Europe and much of the seminalliterature emanates from Scandinavia’ (p. 9).Furthermore, Rainnie and Grant fail to tightlydefine the term ‘New Regionalism’, suggestinginstead that the slightly differing definitionswithin the book reflect the elasticity of theconcept. In Section Two of the book, Morganand O’Neill address the criticisms of NewRegionalism more comprehensively thanRainnie and Grant.

In Chapter Two, Morgan sets up a ‘defence’of New Regionalism in questioning the scale ofregional governance. Morgan (p. 27) asks: ‘doesdevolution of power to the regional scale signala progressive or regressive political step?’ and‘do regional governance systems allow regionsto design policies more attuned to their circum-stances or do they devolve portfolios rather thanpower, allowing central governments to divestthemselves of responsibility for regional affairs?’Morgan addresses criticism of his work withCooke in

The Associational Economy

(Cooke andMorgan, 1998) and outlines why it is importantto consider the role of regional innovationstrategies in less favoured regions. Morgan’sargument is well developed and if you areinterested in the debates surrounding NewRegionalism, it provides an interesting anduseful read.

Chapter Three by O’Neill is a standout in thebook. O’Neill delves into some of the difficultconceptual issues of New Regionalism, particu-larly within the Australian context. Early in thechapter, O’Neill asks: ‘So what can we salvagefrom what is already the wreckage of NewRegionalism in Australia?’ (p. 50), referringhere to the appropriation of New Regionalism inpolicy as an alternate pathway to neo-liberalism.O’Neill argues that policy makers need toconsider the histories (political and economic)through which social and economic practicesare created and re-created and the role thatinstitutional and institutionalised practices haveon regional economies. O’Neill uses examplesfrom the Hunter Valley region in New SouthWales to support his arguments and in doing so

provides an interesting account of the develop-ment of that region.

Section Three consists of three chapters whichreview, with the use of case studies, the develop-ment of ‘new economies’ within Australia’s regions.Two chapters review call centres, while thethird focuses on Cooperative Research Centresand industrial clusters as examples of ‘NewRegionalism’ in practice. While these papers areinteresting in the data they provide, they largelyfailed to engage with the theoretical under-pinnings of New Regionalism. Little considerationis given to how much the ‘success’ of each ‘neweconomy’ could be attributed to networks,processes, assets and efforts outside of the localspace. I am not convinced that call centrescould be ‘a path for regional survival andgrowth’ (p. 75).

Sections Four (A New Governance) andFive (A New Industrial Relations) consist of acollection of ‘case study’-based papers address-ing each section’s theme. The first paper inSection Four by Wiseman is a data-rich accountof the evolution of the Victorian Government’sintegrated approach to social, economic andenvironmental policy for regional developmentand the influence of markets on policy makinglogic. Like the other three papers in Section Four,and the two papers in Section Five, Wisemancontributes to understandings of regional develop-ment policy and practice, but does not engagewith the New Regionalism theories, literature,or criticisms.

The final section of the book consists of fourpapers loosely themed around local responses toregional development policies and practices.The most interesting paper in this section isDredge’s paper, ‘Local versus State-drivenproduction of “the region”: regional tourismpolicy in the Hunter, New South Wales’. Dredgeconfidently tackles the debates surroundingNew Regionalism and its application to regionaldevelopment in Australia. She uses an exampleof regional tourism in the Hunter Valley inseeking ‘to put the analytical dog before thepolicy tail’ (p. 302).

In summary,

New Regionalism in Australia

usefully advances the debates about NewRegionalism and its application to regionaldevelopment in Australia. While many of thepapers fail to engage with the New Regionalismliterature (indeed, some did not contain a singlereference to New Regionalism), the often rich dataand interesting case studies do further the under-standing of contemporary regional development

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processes. The papers by Morgan, O’Neill andDredge are an especially worthwhile read forthose who want to know more about NewRegionalism in Australia.

REFERENCESCooke, P. and Morgan, K., 1998:

The Associational Eco-nomy: Firms, Regions and Innovation

. Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford.

Lovering, J., 1999: Theory led by policy: the inadequaciesof the ‘new regionalism’.

International Journal of Urbanand Regional Research

23, 379–395.MacLeod, G., 2001: New Regionalism reconsidered: glo-

balization and the remaking of political economic space.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

25, 804–829.

Amanda Davies

University of Western Australia

Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Womenand the Spatial Politics of Home

Alison Blunt, RGS-IBG Book Series, BlackwellPublishing, 2005, xiv + 288 pp, ISBN9 7814 0510 0540 (hardback), A$212.00, ISBN9 7814 0510 0557 (paperback), A$96.95.

Allison Blunt describes this unusual story ofMcCluskieganj and other homes imagined andcreated by the Anglo-Indians in eight rather longchapters. Multiple voices speak out throughher work. Her introductory chapter outlinesthe three major themes running through thebook: the fact of being ‘domiciled’ – living andbelonging in ‘somebody else’s home’ where theperceived home is far away, and often imagined,yet constituting an essential part of the fluididentity; the homing desire of diasporic Anglo-Indians locating the spatial politics of home in aspecific and highly gendered context; and howmemory and nostalgia weave through each otherto invoke not only spaces of home but alsostereotypes of gendered identities. It also outlinesher research strategies that span several years,and enormous amounts of archival and interviewmaterial. Chapter 2 considers the place of theAnglo-Indians both at home and abroad, focus-ing on the national and imperial discourses ofBritain as fatherland and India as motherland. InChapter 3, she describes how such discoursesare reproduced and resisted on a domesticscale, and in Chapter 4, the mobilisation ofsuch discourses in establishing the homeland ofMcCluskieganj. Chapters 5 and 6 examine thetwo migratory flows in Britain and in Australia,

and the book returns in Chapter 7 to considerthe place of the Anglo-Indian community whoremained to live in independent India, andconcludes with Chapter 8 explaining the notionsthat this revitalisation of an Anglo-Indianidentity and sense of belonging have for trans

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national connections.In writing the gendered history of the search

for a homeland,

Domicile and Diaspora

doesnot attribute a gender to this primordial longingfor a space, but wades through how rigidcolonial gender codes created spatial divisionsfor women and men. It shows women as beingcrucial in creating the community, in propagatingit, and ‘centrally important in political debatesabout the future and status of the communityboth before and since the independence [of India]’(p. 16). Above all, it shows how women werecritical in maintaining Anglo-Indian homes andidentities in the wider diaspora by informallydetermining the image of the particular race thatthe community would have modelled itselfafter. As the book reveals, this identity is not asingular and static one for the Anglo-Indians, itis a multiple identity reliant heavily on timeand location from which the homeland is beingviewed. In the process of negotiating the tensionsthat these multiple identities generate, ‘home’ orthe ‘homeland’ too becomes an imagined space.This imagined terrain over which the contesta-tions take place is as flowing as the memories ofit, constantly creating and recreating that spaceone always wanted, but could never belong to:‘Colonization and settlement at McCluskieganjenacted the homing desire of many Anglo-Indians who imagined themselves to be living inan imperial diaspora and sought to create, ratherthan return to, a “homeland”’ (p. 103). Anglo-Indian women are crucial in this siting of mem-ory and the politics of home and homeland thatare associated with it. Alison Blunt equates thiscreation of an ordered and imagined spacedesignated to be the home as a gendered processin which the Anglo-Indian women bothembodied and transgressed an ideal of feminiseddomesticity through their lives and beyond thehome.

As the Anglo-Indians are the product of themixing of the peoples of two far separatedcontinents, Alison Blunt’s work too has aspectacularly global canvas, straddling three vastcontinents, a long time period of history, and abroad range of source materials that includehistorical documents, contemporary interviewsand modern website content. The painstaking