Geography and the regional study of the world: reflections on two recent works

Abstract

The publication in recent years of «Geografía de la Sociedad Humana». edited by Enric Lluch, and «Espacios y Sociedades», by Ricardo Méndez and Fernando Molinero, appear to offer proof of the existence of a process of methodological renovation in regional world studies in Spanish geography. The interest of these two works, leaving aside their contents (the evaluation of which is not the object of this article), lies in the fact that they are a clear reflection of many of the innovatory tendencies present over the last twenty-five or thirty years, not only in geographical circles, but also within the social sciences in general.

This article is an attempt to portray some of the major renovatory tendencies in methodology and epistomology identifiable throghout these works, tendencies such as the study of the relationship between social, economic and political organization and spatial organization on a world scale and also at state or macro-regional level. The enrichment in terms of perspectives and methodology as a result of three decades of innovation in geography is clearly demonstrated by the publication of «Geografia de la Sociedad Humana» and «Espacios y Sociedades», this making it possible now to undertake spatially-based studies of the world from new standpoints. The consolidation of this «new» style of world regional geography, the heir of classical universal geographies, is an important task in so much as the increased comprehension of our social groups and their living space may well be conceived as one of the social responsibilities of the geographer.