Globalization vs regionalization

GLOBALIZATION VERSUS REGIONALIZATION
OMAR H. GEJO and ANA M. LIBERALI

Editorial Globalization versus Regionalization Estrategias Geopolíticas en América Latina El Medio Natural y la Formación Profesional en Geografía. Aportes para la Gestión Social del Territorio Evidencias Geográficas de "Big Brother" en la Red!

Globalization vs. Regionalization
Something more than an apparentcontradiction

Prof. Omar Horacio Gejo
Lic. Ana María Liberali
National University of Luján
Alexander von Humboldt Centro of Studies
ARGENTINA

Due to its imposing presence over the last few years and being the subject matter of almost every relevant discussion, not taking into account the level of formality of the former, the concept of globalisation has turned into a supreme idea inwhich its explanatory and descriptive capacity have achieved an absolute consensus including not only its supporters but also those who are against it.
However, beyond all discourse maelstrom brought about by this phenomenon, it is convenient to maintain a “healthy prudence”, that is a preservative scepticism so as to avoid being carried away by the fierce forces generated by context imposition,which tends to produce “ thought-killers”, vacuous consensus which leads to the so-called statu quo.

GLOBALIZATION: BACK TO GEOGRAPHY?

The main goal of this new concept has been that of highlighting substantial differences if we compare it with what we had previously experienced. To put it in a nutshell, globalisation would imply being in the presence of a different world, dissimilar in manyaspects, of course. (1)
We are bound to find various opinions about the surge of this new term. Some people date back to the 60’s.
The majority, however, agree that it was the decade of 80 that triggered this situation, to become, later on, the onset of significant controversies leaving the 90’s marked by a vast phraseology that derives from the simple utterance of this allencompassing wordwhich will end up compressing and squashing everything on its way. (2)
But the massive consent to its existence has been accompanied by an extreme difficulty in reaching an agreement on the several meanings that this word carries. That is to say, if there’s no disagreement on the acceptance of its reality, the question will be much less clear when dealing with its implications, laying bare itslack of consistency and paradoxical baseline of the previous extended agreement.
The sudden irruption of these issues have allowed Geography to regain certain importance in the Science field due to the resurgence of the spatial dimension as a necessary step for the analysis –or study- of societies development and evolution.
Over many decades we had witnessed a total domination of the sociologicalapproaches to reality. The many analysis of social organisations came across as a phenomenal abstraction from which the conditions, in which social relations took place, were bound to be elided.(3)
This period, probably open during the 60’s, was beginning to close-at least formally- when in the 90’s the spatial or territorial issue was firmly re-installed, giving way to the inevitable need ofgeographical contextualization of the events.
From this point of view, globalisation has been the vehicle that Geography has found to make its approach necessary once more, in its attempt to understand the evolution of reality. (4)

THE SCOPE

The concept of globalisation gathers a series of implications that greatly present a geographical characteristic.
The first of them is probably, thatof greatest amplitude, and what is more, because it’s the support from which structures of arguments tell us about this conceptual updating, renovation.
Distance has historically constituted one of the most powerful differentiating mechanisms: What is distant presupposes something distinct.
The different conceptions of Orient and Occident, find their source on this. In the same way, the least...