The Relevance of Regions in a Globalized World

This volume provides an unique open inter-disciplinary dialogue across the Humanities and Social Sciences to further our understanding of the phenomenon of regions and regionalism in a globalized world both at the theoretical and empirical levels.

This volume provides a unique open inter-disciplinary dialogue across the Humanities and Social Sciences to further our understanding of the phenomenon of regions and regionalism in a globalized world both at the theoretical and empirical levels.

What comprises a region? What are the different regional dynamic processes that take place? What is the relationship between the regional and the global? What role does identity building play? Bringing together scholars from various disciplines within and across the Social Sciences and the Humanities to reflect on these questions, the book explores how regions are imagined, constructed, understood, and explained in different academic disciplines. Each chapter addresses these common questions and uses its own disciplinary lenses to answer them. In addition, the volume offers interesting reflections on the academic borders constructed in the study of regions, thus demonstrating the importance of obtaining insights from both social scientists and humanities scholars in order to better understand the relevance of regions in a complex and globalized world.

An important work for scholars and postgraduate students in many fields, including political science, international relations, sociology, economics, geography, history and literature, as well as for those interested in regionalism and area studies.

Autorentext

Galia Press-Barnathan is Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Ruth Fine is Salomon and Victoria Cohen Professor in Iberian and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where she acted as Director of the European Forum and of the Institute of Western Cultures.

Arie M. Kacowicz is Professor of International Relations and the Chaim Weizmann Chair in International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Inhalt

Chapter One: Regions in a Globalized World: Bridging the Social SciencesHumanities Gap

Chapter Two: Preferential Trade Agreements in the Developing World

Chapter Three: Linking Economic Performance and Regional Institutionalism: More Local, Less Global?

Chapter Four: Overlapping Regionalism and Region-Building in Africa **

Chapter Five: Focusing on Regions as the Way to Understand War and Peace

Chapter Six: A New Cultural Geography of East Asia: Imagining a 'Region' through Popular Culture

Chapter Seven: Nationalism, Religion, and Sub-State National Identity in Southeast Asia: Regional and Global Relevance

Chapter Eight: The Middle East: A Volatile Region in Transition

Chapter Nine: The Cantonese Pacific in the Making of Nations

Chapter Ten: 'Linguistic Peace'? Reflections on the Interstate Security Consequences of Iberian American Linguistic Kinships versus European Linguistic Fragmentation

Chapter Eleven: Regions of History: The International Congress for the Defense of Culture, Paris 1935

Chapter Twelve: The Role of Translatio/n in the Constitution of Community (Regional) Identities: The Interdependence of Europe and Latin America

Chapter Thirteen: How the Ethiopians Changed their Skin: The Orient, Africa, and their Diasporas

Chapter Fourteen: Conclusions: Imagining, Perceiving, Constructing, Explaining, and Understanding Regions