The Region as Cloister

ABSTRACT

Social science is haunted by “the regional question.” Societal laws fail to explain geographically unequal developments. This may be the consequence of a philosophical discourse that neglects the region as an ontologi- cal category. It is argued that social science and regional geography study society and region from a different perspective. In regional geography the roles of region and society are reversed: region as institutional shape, is the object; society is its property or attribute. Regions should be observed on at least two levels of analysis: as a collective and as a member. Mobility and stability are the two antithetic principles underlying six regional geographical axioms and three basic models of regions as collectives. This methodology is demonstrated in the case of the German province Tübingen.

Key words:

• regional geography
• region and society
• power of place
• methodology
• levels of analysis
• crossroad region
• corridor region
• interstice region
• Tübingen