This research aims to analyse critically the discourses, policies and practices of a set of diverse international development actors engaged in relationships and interactions of ‘cross border cooperation’ as processes of the creation of “a common European space” unfold. More precisely,
- to understand the ways in which the Prespa region has, over time, been constituted as a space of unities, diversities, movements and stabilities; moving from a pre-national, trans-local area, to being divided between nation states and/or to eventual European integration
- to explore the discourses of contemporary international development agencies in constructing the region as a space for interventions, exercising transnational policy making, designed to promote co-operation and inclusion rather than confrontation and exclusion
- to address how these discourses are amplified, mediated, and resisted in practice by a range of local, regional and national actors, including intermediaries and elites
- to contribute to an emerging literature which understands development as a series of transactions operating at multiple scales and levels.
