Contextual regional geography
From Geography
Contextual regional geography (everyday regional geography) is the answer to the deficiencies of compositional regional geography (traditional regional geography). Important contributors to this form of geography are, among others, Anthony Giddens and Nigel Thrift. Contextual regional geography is intimately related to the theory of structuration (structuralism)and the research related to this kind of geography would distinguish two components, namely 'locale' and 'social action'.
Thrift aims to take the postmodern conditions into account when looked at the contextual regional geography (Werlen, 2009, p.3). There is a focus upon the human agency. According to Thrift the regional is a "Contextual aspect of social practices". This means that the way these practices come together within a regional context, determine the distinctive character of that region (Werlen, 2009).
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Steps to be taken
Yhrift's approach is justified by the assumption that a transfer of social theory into human geography is impossible without revising the definition of the relationschip between human geography and social science (Werlen, 2009, p.3.Two steps should be taken to 'translate' traditional regional geography into a new (everyday) regional geography.
First step: Redefining the regional At first, it is important not to eliminate the elemental perspective of traditional geography, but to reorientate it. This means that "action-related differentiations and emancipatory standards are to be introduced into this physically defined space" (Werlen, 2009, p.4). So "the region is certainly regarded as a physically defined space within which social action takes place, but not solely in the sense of being an empty, meaningless environment. On the contrary, the region here is given a constitutive meaning - constitutive for human action"(p.4). This means that the region is an indirectly active entity.
Second step: From a compositional to a contextual geography Second, we can come to a real 'translation' to contextual regional geography by looking at the 'locale' and 'social action'. "Locales can be characterized as particular time-space patterns or structures having a determining impact on life-paths" (Werlen, 2009, p.5). In this way it elaborates categories of Time geography. 'Social action', next to that, identifies four aspects:
1.Personality and socialisation
2.Penetration and the availability of knowledge
Critique
In the Contextual regional geography Thrift is spatializing the social. The theory concentrates on human action, but still uses space as most important object of research. "Contextual geography with a space-centered research perspective is and stays a contradiction because, logically, there cannot be a spatially defined context prior to human praxis." In stead of focussing on the subject (people) it should focus on the acting of these subjects. Trift fails to resist the tendency to spatialize the nonspatial (Werlen, 2009, p.8). A contextual geography can't have a space centered research because, there can't be a spatially defined context prior to human praxis. "We need a change from ‘regional geography’ to the geographical exploration of ‘everyday regionalization’ processes.(Werlen, 2009, p. 292-293) "
References
Werlen, B. (2009). Everyday Regionalizations. In: International Encyclopedia for Human Geography. Elsevier.
Contributors
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