University of Kiel, Germany Regional Geography of Southern Europe, B.Sc. Geography

1. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms
Regional
Geography
of Southern
Europe
WS 2021-2022
Lecture 1
03/11/2021

2. Today’s lecture
• Module structure and
background
• Teaching strategy
• Course goals
• Learning objectives
• Structure
• Key references
• Details on the assessment
• Regional Geography
• Defining it
• Pioneers
• Current strands of
reasoning
• Future perspectives

3. Eduardo Oliveira
oliveira@geographie.uni-kiel.de
(office hours = send me an email)
Economic Geography Working Group
• 11 lectures
• Examination (23/02/2022)
Google Scholar profile
OLAT Group

5. Housekeeping
• II Parts of 40 minutes (this will vary)
• 10 minutes break
• This is a co-created and interactive territory
• Everyone’s cooperation, mutual support
• Throw in some challenging questions
• Continue the debate beyond the lecture
(email // Forum at OLAT Group)

6. Teaching approach
Real-life problems
involving the
economic landscape
and sustainability
Teaching as
a learning-
experience
Student-centred,
co-creative
and interdisciplinary
problem-based learning
Piaget's theory of constructivism
The Pedagogy of John Dewey
Bear in mind: social constructivism of the learning

7. Lecturer
Focused
Student
Focused

9. My teaching
approach or
Pedagogy in
practice means:
A relaxing
atmosphere is
the best way to
learn
Share your
thoughts
> constructive
debates
Informative
slides, including
several (useful)
hyperlinks
Think critically
and
independently
Literature shared via OpenOlat
(I will suggest KEY literature)

10. Practice /
policy-oriented
perspectives
• Governance
• Cross-border
• Social dimension
• Planning systems
• R & D
• Sustainability

11. Oliveira (2015); Oliveira (2016)
Regional geography expertise
regional attractiveness / competitiveness
Economic Geography
Northern Portugal-Galicia
Left-behind region, or
Low-income region (EU, 2017)
Regional identity & Regional distinctiveness

12. Overall
Goal
Understanding the spatial (regional difference and
uniqueness) and temporal (regional change and
development) aspects of Southern Europe with special
references to Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.

13. @ OLAT

14. • Advancing the understanding
of the sociocultural
construction of regions in
Southern Europe and the
power relations embedded in
region-building processes;
• Understanding better the
importance of Southern
Europe for political
governance and for
managing economic
development and planning of
the EU.
• Investigating the specificities
of Southern Europe (R&D;
Energy transitions), the
present conditions, and
anticipating its role in the
long-term future of Europe.
Course goals

15. You will learn
• The history of regional geography and its pioneers
(von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Ritter (1779–1859));
• The governance and economic prospects of
Southern Europe;
• The role of Southern Europe in the EU;
• Regionalism and the distinctiveness of cross-border
relations in Southern Europe;
• Planning regional futures in Europe and beyond;
• Improving your writing skills, capacity to narrow down.

16. 1) 03/11/21: Introduction to regional geography and the focal study region
2) 10/11/21: Regional geography of Southern Europe: differences & uniqueness (all about maps)
3) 17/11/21: The territorial governance of Southern Europe
4) 24/11/21: Planning and Planning systems of Southern Europe
5) 01/12/21: The economic geography of Southern Europe
6) 08/12/21: Southern Europe, EU integration and funding mechanisms for development
7) 15/12/21: Southern Europe, low-income EU regions and EU Cohesion Policy
8) 12/01/22: Research and development in Southern Europe: where and what for
9) 19/01/22: The social dimension of cross-border relations across Southern Europe
10) 26/01/22: Southern Europe and sustainability transition efforts
11) 02/02/22: Conclusion: Regional futures across Southern Europe
Lectures, November 2021 – February 2022
:::Wednesdays 12:15 - 13:45 via Zoom:::
Structure of
the course

17. Download the slides at OLAT Download the recordings at Google Drive
Resources

18. The quality of the material you are reading
https://scholar.google.com/ http://www.webofknowledge.com/ https://www.semanticscholar.org/
The Circular Economy in Cities
and Regions
EU Science Hub
EU Commission

19. “regional geography” AND “Europe”

20. Few
important
references
to keep in
mind
• João Ferrão, University of Lisbon
• Valeria Lingua, Università di Firenze
• Lúcio Cunha, University of Porto
• José Cadima Ribeiro, University of Minho, Braga
• John Harrison, Loughborough University
• Anssi Paasi, University of Oulu
• Jamie Peck, Western Sydney University
• Julia Affolderbach, University of Trier
• Heike Mayer, University of Bern
• Bernhard Truffer, Eawag
• Teis Hansen, Lund University
• Boris Braun, University of Cologne
• Ron Boschma, Utrecht University
• David Gibbs, University of Hull
• James Murphy, Clark University
• Canfei He, Peking University
• Dimitris Ballas, University of Groningen
• Alexander Murphy, University of Oregon
• Martin Jones, Staffordshire University
• Bjorn Terje Asheim, University of Stavanger

21. Few
important
sources to
keep in
mind
Academic Journals:
• Regional Studies, IF 3.3
• Regional & Federal Studies, IF 2.3
• Regional Studies, Regional Science
• European Planning Studies, IF 2.2
• Research Policy, Impact Factor (IF): 5.3
• Environmental Innovation and Societal
Transitions, IF 8.4
• Global Environmental Change, IF 10.4
• Regional Environmental Change, IF 3.4
• Economic Geography; IF 8.2
• Journal of Economic Geography, IF 3,2
• Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and
Society, IF 4.4
• Australasian Journal of Regional Studies
• Ecology & Society
• Revista Portuguesa de Estudos Regionais
• REVISTA EURORREGIONAL

22. Examination 23/02/2022 - online
• 3+1 questions
• 3 questions as classic exam (EN / DE) (60%)
• 12:00 – 14:00 - 120 minutes (3 questions)
• 1 take home question/request i.e., you are
asked to write a maximum of 1000 words
essay on a topic of your choice related to
regional geography in general (first two
lectures) or Southern Europe.
• This is like a mini-essay (EN / DE) (40%)
• To be delivered together with 3 Q
23/02/2022

23. Questions about the Assessment?

24. Take the time to think
beyond the mainstream

25. Effective contribution for science and society
• Grand societal challenges
• Thinking regionally and how regional-based
solutions help to address global challenges

26. Regional
Geography
• Defining regional geography (RG)
• The history and pioneers
• Current strands of reasoning in RG
• Case study area i.e., Southern Europe but
focused on PT, ES, IT, GR

27. • Defining “regional geography” has been a
contested question in the history of the field.
• Robert E. Dickinson (1905-1981) defined it in
the 1970s as the treatment of a variety of
spatially distributed phenomena in a
particular area, whether it is a local area, a
country, or a continent thus implying that
regional geographers should operate at all
spatial scales.
Defining
Regional
Geography

28. The challenge for
the regional
geographer
• Is to discover integrating processes
that give some measure of identity
and uniqueness to an area or a
certain spatial scale
• To assume a regional consciousness
and identity (regional feeling)
These issues have become ever more significant also in political practice and
European strategic planning since the turn of the millennium, partly because
the EU Commission led by Romano Prodi (1999 to 2004) recognized regional
identity as one of the corner stones for regional and economic development

30. Regional consciousness and identity
To do regional geography, to research, to delivery regional
policies there is no need for a physical boundary

31. Defining Regional Geography
In the early 1960s, Edmund William Gilbert defined
regional geography as the art of recognizing, describing,
and interpreting the “personalities” of regions and
noted how the “characters” of regions constantly
change and develop > evolutionary perspective
For J.F. Hart, writing in the early 1980s,
the task of regional geography was to
produce vivid descriptions that
facilitate an understanding and
appreciation of regions, places, and
areas. Regions were for him subjective
artistic tools that must be designed to
fit the hands of the users. (Harrison, 2015; Paasi 2020)

32. Defining Regional Geography
Terms such as Whole, synthesis, uniqueness, total
composition, or complexity, holism, individual, totality,
organism, or personality, or German terms
Zusammenhang and Ganzheit, for example,
have been used over time to convince geographers, and
perhaps also others, of the power of the region as a
unity or an organizing principle that brings nature and
culture together.
(Harrison,
2015; Paasi
2020)

33. Defining Regional Geography
Sidney William Wooldridge the aim of regional
geography is to bring together the different strands of
the systematic studies, the “geographical aspects” of
other disciplines (the where of the things).
The aim is to create a coherent and focused unity, that
is, to see nature and nurture, physique and personality,
as intimately related and interdependent features in
specific regions.
For many scholars, the region seemingly carries a certain
“primordialism,” hence reminding of the term
“community” in sociology that has attracted similar
massive attention.
(Harrison, 2015; Paasi 2020)

34. The Historical Roots
(Harrison, 2015; Paasi 2020)
Strabo Greek geographer (63/64
BCE–c. CE 24)
As ancestors of chorographic thinking.
Chorography term comes from khŏros,
“place,” and graphein, “writing,” thus
meaning literally
“writing about place.”
Geographica

36. The Iberian Peninsula (Spain & Portugal), by Henricus Hondius. 1641

38. The Historical Roots
(Harrison, 2015; Paasi 2020)
Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Ritter (1779–1859) developed
comparative methods for geography. Whereas Humboldt developed his
approach in the tradition of natural sciences by collecting data and by
generalizing, Ritter, following a historical approach, tried to identify distinct
regions and to find a unity in diversity.
Humboldt’s
Kosmos and
Ritter’s Erdkunde
are often
recognized as the
founding works of
modern regional
geography.

39. The Historical Roots

40. The Historical Roots

41. The Historical Roots

42. Paul Vidal de la Blache (1845–
1918), widely seen as the founder
of modern French geography,
developed the notion of genres de
vie (or local lifestyles), which
celebrated the uniqueness of rural
landscapes in French pays.
Noting the variations across France
in the face of a common climate,
he maintained that culture—not
nature—was primarily responsible,
using this theme to stick
environmental determinism and
introduce possibilism (cultural
environment sets certain
constraints or limitations).
The Historical Roots

43. Learn more
She specialized
in Marxist
geography, feminist
geography, and cultural
geography, as well as
other topics
Cartographies of power

44. The Historical Roots

45. The cover of The Geographia
Generalis by Bernhard
Varenius (1650).
The division between general
(systematic) and specific
(regional) geography was
introduced in this book
The emergence of geography

46. An increasing variety of schools of thought have emerged over time in the discipline of
geography. Source: Peet, Richard, 1998. Modern Geographical Thought. Blackwell, Oxford;
p. 10.
Schools of modern and postmodern human
geographical thought
Regional
geography

47. The
Historical
Roots
Regional geography turned out
to be important soon after
geography became an academic
subject at the end of the 19th
Century.

48. For many geographers working in British,
French, German, or North American
universities, regional geography was
then for a long time the “crown” of the
discipline, a synthetic approach that
intended to bring together separate
subareas of geography, such as
geomorphology, climatology,
biogeography, urban geography,
economic geography, and social
geography.
After the institutionalization of
geography, regional geography
dominated over systematic approaches
until the 1940s–1950s. Since then
systematic approaches have become
gradually more significant.

49. Chorology or the study of the causal relations between
geographical phenomena occurring within a particular region

50. For chorologists, regional geography was a way to enact
the geographical method:
that is, to study the natural and human worlds according to
their areal differentiation, stressing the “areal” differences
between regions, and to map out, describe, and explain
the causal relationships obtaining within the distinctive
assemblages of phenomena within (and in effect
constituting) different regions.
The Historical Roots
Disciplinary identity The region was regarded as
a central element for the
identity of the discipline

51. Take home
message
• In regional geography all the
knowledge of the interrelations
of all features at given places -
obtained in part from the
different systems of systematic
geography - is integrated, in
terms of the interrelations which
these features have to each
other, to provide the total
geography of those places.
(Hartshorne 1939: 463-5)

52. In much of the popular conception of geography, the
discipline is concerned with the study of regions.
Geographers have examined regions at a variety of
spatial scales and from a diversity of conceptual
perspectives.

53. Regional geography
evolved through time,
by the thinking of
many pioneers and the
essence of it is the
study of different
features of a specific
space

54. The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
New regional geography that has emerged since the 1980s
Here, the region is cast as both an
absolute space and an abstract field of
experience where things and processes
exist.
For new regional geographers, both the
questions and answers regarding the
existence and manifestation of regions
are inevitably based on social practice.

55. The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
New regional geography
Hence new regional geographers have been interested in the power
relations, practices, and discourses through which people,
communities, and social classes produce and reproduce “regions”
and localities in their daily life through various institutional settings.
Politics,
governance,
economy,
education, media,
or communication

56. The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
A typical feature has been that geographers do not prefer any
specific spatial scale: the understanding of regions requires
recognizing and analyzing the processes that take place in,
between, and across different spatial scales.
New regional geography

57. This is useful for understanding both the complexities of
contemporary spatiality and the inherent relations of power.
The problematization of all assumptions concerning society,
human beings, social change, and territorial transformation.
The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
New regional geography

58. New regional geographers have demonstrated that
there is no reason to distinguish between historical and
other geographies:
• Regions and their construction are constantly
ongoing, never-completed processes (evolutionary)
The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
New regional geography

59. The Rise of “New Regional Geography” and
Current strands of reasoning
New regional geography Challenges for policy and research
Find methodological approaches for studying broader social
and spatial transformations taking place in a world
characterized by the increasing dynamics of the globalizing
capitalism

60. Current strands of reasoning

61. Current strands
of reasoning
• Regional geography now pay
attention not only to how regions
and region-building processes are
materially embedded and
constituted, as well as to the
“stretching” of regions across
supposed regional borders, but
they also closely examine the
regionalities and regionalizations
of social and everyday life.

62. Current
strands of
reasoning
• Some geographers are interested in the
sense of belonging, structures of feeling,
loyalties, or the mobilization of memory in
regional contexts. Regions and regionality
thus start to appear as constructed in the
dialectics of materiality, individual and
social imagination, and the formation of
subjectivities.

63. Current strands
of reasoning

64. Current
strands of
reasoning
Space and spatial patterns are not
independent of social, cultural, and
natural or ecological processes. Space is
not seen as a causal power that would as
such determine social processes. Rather
social (and cultural) and spatial are
understood as constituents and
outcomes of each other.
(Paasi, Harrison & Jones, 2018)

65. Regions, their borders,
symbols, and institutions are
expressions of a perpetual
struggle over power and
over the meanings
associated with space,
representation, democracy,
and welfare.

66. Regions, as a set of cultural and
emotional relations between a
specific human group and a
particular place; it is a people bound
category, conceived less with regard
to individuals but rather more with
social groupings or communities
(Paasi, Harrison & Jones, 2018)

67. Conclusions: regional geography
✓ Regional geography has been an important subarea of academic
geography, both as a concrete research field and as an object of
theorization;
✓ New regional geography brought both regional geography and the
region back on to theoretical debates since the 1980s;
✓ New regional geographers have theorized both the ideas of the
region and the role of regional knowledge in the frameworks
inspired by social and cultural theory, taking seriously historically
contingent societal conditions (context-specific);
✓ It occurs most effectively when scholars become interested in the
power relations associated with region-building processes,
regional identity narratives, or regional development.
(Paasi, Harrison & Jones, 2018)

68. • Regions are today understood as complex
institutional structures, “institutional facts,”
since they are dependent on both human
agreement and the operation and decisions
made in the context of such social
institutions as political organization,
governance, economy, media, or education
systems;
• These institutions operate across scales,
which contests traditional concepts of
regions as isolated, bounded units
(boundedness);
Conclusions: regions
(Paasi, Harrison & Jones, 2018)

69. Conclusions: regions
(Paasi, Harrison & Jones, 2018)
• Making regions always includes
normative components because
institutional structures are
sedimentations of rules, power, and trust,
in which borders, symbols, and
institutions merge through material and
discursive practice.
• Once created, they are also social facts in
the sense that they can generate and are
generated by action if people believe in
their existence and they have a legitimate
role in the spaces of “publicity” (e.g., in
the media) or in governance. This action
may be simultaneously reproductive,
resistant, or transformative.

70. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms

71. Lecture 1 - Introduction: economic geography and its recent paradigms
Regional geography of Southern
Europe: differences and uniqueness