In this research I study regional transformation processes in the region of Southwest Finland from 1985 to 2001. The special focus is on the relations between regional change and technological development. The core of my argument is the view that a regional information economy is based on a form of relational geography that separates it from the previous modes of economic development. This relational geography is a consequence of the new perspective on economic activity. In this perspective, information is understood as a universal resource that is “placelessly” mobilizable and is simultaneously the input and the output, the product, of economic activities. I call this perspective informational episteme.

...

Through the lens of this shifting frame, I analyze the construction of information economy in various selected regional development processes between the years 1985 and 2001. I have demarcated the field of my study via the following four markers. I study (1) different forms and manifestations of the information economy (2)
in the regional development processes and activities conducted (3) in the region of South-West Finland, and especially in the cities of Turku and Salo, (4) between the years 1985 and 2001.

...

As a societal context for my study, I have made an interpretation of the national level waves of the information economy in the research period from 1985 to 2001. In the first wave of information economy, the casino economy of 1985–1989, the emphasis of the national level policy activities accentuated the price competition and endorsing of exportation of goods. The logic of Finnish economy was then increasingly based on a credit-based expansion fed by heating growth expectations. The main societal discussion line from the viewpoint of my research was about regional centralization of competencies and the creation of national knowledge poles. There was also a  counterbalancing discussion line that emphasised regionally egalitarian policies and criticized the “techno system” strongly on the rise in the Finnish economy.

...

In the second wave of information economy, i.e. the renewal through depression of 1990–1993, the heated casino economy collapsed and the policies of fixed currency were ceased. There was a flash flood of bankruptcies in the enterprise and private sectors. However, the depression opened up a possibility for the renewal of the national economy with market liberal recipes. The third wave of the information economy was the so-called new economy of 1994–2001. This was a high growth period for the Finnish economy. The economic growth was, on the one side, based on industrially credible high technology production. But then there was also a rapidly growing layer in the economy that was based on fictitious capital, i.e. value increase based on future expectations.

...

In the empirical part of my research, I utilize and combine different primary materials to answer the questions posed above. Primary material consists of (1) archive material, (2) regional plans and strategy documents, (3) newspaper material and (4) interview material. I have applied Michel Foucault’s notion of genealogy as the theoretical framework to analyze the primary material. I approach genealogy as an interpretative method to analyze the construction of a regional information economy as a spatiotemporal process.

...

In the empirical analysis, I made three genealogies of the information
economy in the region Southwest Finland (table I). The focal point of the
genealogies was to analyze the intertwining of regional concepts and technology
concepts as the process unfolds in regional space-time. The first genealogy is
Information economy and the dynamics of space-time 1985–2001. In this
genealogy, I focused on the construction of regional knowledge and the dynamics
of spatial governance in the period from 1985 to 2001. The second  genealogy is
called Information economy and the strategic management of space-time. In this
genealogy, I studied those strategic activities which aim to transfer the
regional unit in spatial and temporal levels and position the region in
relation with other regions and other spatial scales. The third genealogy is
called Technology centre and the regionalization of a sociotechnical idea. In
this genealogy, I studied the formation of a sociotechnical idea of synergy in
the context technology centre in Turku. I focus mainly on the local
consequences of the idea, i.e. how its frame of meaning was constructed and
extended.