A perception of space as unbounded and formed through non-territorial flows and networks. Ash (2004) Geografiska B 86, 1 sees regions as ‘places of overlapping—but not necessarily connected—relational networks’. Hudson, too (2005, PHG 29, 5), sees regions as ‘constituted from spatialized relations stretched out over space and materialized in various forms, and representational narratives’. Jones (2005, Reg. Studs Ass. Conf.) points out that regions and networks should not be seen as non-spatial and without ‘geographical anchors’, nor should territories and scales be viewed as closed and static. There have been criticisms. Yeung (2006) W. Paper Series 2006–15 stresses that regions ‘are not some kind of autonomous actors capable of effecting spatial change’, and Tomany (2007) Env. & Plan. D 25, 2 challenges those advocates of the relational region ‘who see places as simply the local articulation of global flows and who present any concern with local culture and identity as atavistic and archaic’.