Foregrounding the region

Anssi Paasi and Jonathan Metzger

Regional Studies, 2017, vol. 51, issue 1, 19-30

Abstract: Foregrounding the region. Regional Studies. This paper scrutinizes the everlasting but transforming significance of the concept of region for regional studies and social practice. After tracing the changing meanings of this category, it highlights one characteristic aspect of the progress of the academic conceptualizations of the region: recurrent iterations of critiques regarding various forms of essentialism and fetishism. The main focus then moves to the conceptualization of the region and the articulation of ideas about what regions substantially ‘are’ and ‘do’, and what makes the region a worthy object of attention (scholarly or otherwise). The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of the perspective on regions developed in the article for the future of regional studies.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00343404.2016.1239818 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:regstd:v:51:y:2017:i:1:p:19-30

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRES20

DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2016.1239818

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Studies is currently edited by Ivan Turok

More articles in Regional Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().