Unterhalb der Netzwerke – Anbieterorganisationen von Erwachsenenbildung als ProduzentInnen von Region

Below the Network Level – Adult Education Providers as Regional Producers
Regional connections are nothing new in adult education. However, the physical and symbolic aspects of the region are often ignored, as is the perspective of individual organisations on regional educational spaces “below” the network level. This article develops a concept of the region that encompasses social, physical and symbolic aspects alongside action-oriented geography and applies this concept to organisations that provide adult education. It presents a research project in which a qualitative investigation was conducted of ten organisations in the SaarLorLux and Neisse-Nysa-Nisa Euroregions from 2012 to 2015. The central question was how and where a region is constituted from the perspective of a continuing education organisation. The author’s conclusion: organisations (re)produce their regions as a jurisdiction at the administrative and territorial level, as a market or sphere of influence at the physical level and as an interpretation of physical conditions at the content level. (Ed.)