On the Post-Structure Geography Perspective of Regional Integration: A Case Study of Water Distribution in Pingtung Plain, Taiwan

This study discusses the theoretical and empirical analysis of regional integration as the policy objective in the process of water distribution. The main purpose is to explain the new region generated by distribution and regional integration with local scale cases. The approach was post-structuralism’s theoretical views on fragmentation and heterogeneity. The research methods applied to this study include case study, secondary literature review, interview, and field investigation. The period of water conflicts was from 1973 to 2017, and the spatial scope is distributed in the groundwater area. The two local cases are “Ligung well closure and power shutdown” and “Meinong anti deep well”. The research derives the following specific results. First, the goal of regional integration is achieved through the process of reterritorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization, mainly implemented through the method of multiple scales of authority and responsibility. Second, the self-explanatory form of the new region is a special social cohesion that can resist reterritorialization effectively. Third, the market proxies are a major mechanism connecting politics and economy to use currency and contract to carry out the spatial reterriorialization and the power re-consolidation to implement the regional integration. Fourth, those two cases found that water distribution often leads to the possibility of Negotiation, cooperation, and reform after regional integration.