Changing Regions in a Global Context

Area-studies textbooks often present regions as somewhat static or inflexible aggregations of features. Boundaries are seen as durable and unchangeable, with regional unity typically couched within the context of this collection of traits. This creates a level of homogeneity that has discouraged linkages to more global-local questions. Alexander B. Murphy's series, Changing Regions in a Global Context: New Perspectives in Regional Geography, moves away from this trait approach toward a more process-driven framework. Recognizing that the regions that dominate our global map are neither permanent nor inflexible, the series focuses on significant areas of human organization that drive the disparate flows that characterize the contemporary global system. This set of innovative texts thus problematizes the regions that dominate our global map, treating them not simply as inflexible geographical facts but as evolving spatial frameworks that reflect and shape the arrangement and movement of people, ideas, goods, capital, institutions, and information.