Everyday regionalisation

From Geography

"Everyday regionalisations" is a concept elaborated in action-centered structurationist (not structuralist) geography, or can also be cast as an approach of 'action-centered social geography' by scholars with a background in German-speaking geography, social theory and philosophy.

At its roots it accepts that ultimately, it is in individual human beings as acting subjects that the dynamics for all social life occurs.

How space is treated in this approach is crucial and differs significantly from older forms of regional geography.

In the study of regions, it requests researchers to take serious note of what is referred to as "geography-making": how human beings mark out - through their ideas and practices - what they evidently regard and act upon as meaningful places or 'regional' entities, in the course of which they lend a constructed reality to such 'regions' within the conduct of their everyday lives.

Thus, rather than regarding regions as 'containers' of human activities, it is suggested to view them as thought-and practice constructs of people for whom, for whatever reason, they come to matter. Therefore, the term 'everyday regionalizations'(Werlen, 2009,pp.1-2).

Benno Werlen in his paper 'everyday regionalisations' argues that regional analysis investigating relations between 'place' and 'subject' have to be given up and should rather focus on the acting of the subjects - a change from 'regional geography' to the geographical exploration of 'everyday regionalization' processes (Werlen, 2009, pp.8).

References

• Werlen, B. (2009). Everyday Regionalisations. Elsevier.