Area Studies at Utrecht University: A Regional Geographical Approach

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Notes

Correspondence Address: Kees Terlouw, Department of Human Geography and Planning, Faculty of Geosciences, PO Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]

There are also traditional country based interdisciplinary area studies programmes at the Utrecht University, like the interfaculty Master's programme Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Gerard Hoekveld & Gerda Hoekveld‐Meijer. ‘Het Beeld van de Geografie een Rotterdam a la Zadkine?’, Geografie, Vol. 4, December 1995, pp. 32‐35.

‘Editorial and Introductory Survey’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2003, p. 9. Michael L. Smith, ‘Creating a New Space: UK European Studies Programmes at the Crossroads’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2003, pp. 21‐34.

Smith, p. 24.

Chris Rumford & Philomena Murray, ‘Globalization and the Limitations of European Integration Studies: Interdisciplinary Considerations’. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2003, pp. 85‐93.

This can contribute to the perspective Rumford & Murrey p. 92, advocate for area studies: ‘In EU studies, social scientists are learning to be attentive to spaces – both conceptual and transnational – and the various meanings attached to boundaries. We advocate multidisciplinarity, an increasingly autonomous vision, and new spaces within which the study of the EU and the nature of its boundaries can flourish’.

Kees Terlouw, ‘Regions in Geography and the Regional Geography of Semiperipheral Development’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol. 92, 2001, pp. 76‐87.

Peter J. Taylor, ‘A Theory and Practice of Regions: the Case of Europe’, Environment and Planning D, Vol. 9, 1991, pp. 183‐195. Hans Heinrich Blotevogel, ‘Auf dem Wege zu einer ‘Theorie der Regionalita¨t’: Die Region als Forschungsobject der Geographie’. In: Gerhard Brunn (ed.), Region und Regionsbildung in Europa, Baden‐Baden, 1996, pp. 44‐68. Anssi Paasi, ‘The Instututionalization of Regions: a Theoretical Framework for Understanding the Emergence of Regions and the Constitution of Regional Identity, Fennia, Vol. 164, No. 1, 1986, pp. 105‐146. Anssi Paasi, ‘Place and Region: Regional Worlds and Words’, Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2002, pp. 802‐811.

Blotevogel, p. 58.

Paasi.

Ron Johnston, Joost Hauer, Gerard Hoekveld, ‘Regional Geography: Current Developments and Future Prospects, London, 1990, p. 5.

Anthony Giddens, ‘The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration’, Cambridge, 1984, p.122.

Giddens, p. 170.

Peter Weichhart, ‘Die Region: Chima¨re, Artefakt oder Structurprinzip sozialer Systeme?’, in: Gerhard Brunn, Region und Regionsbildung in Europa, Baden‐Baden, 1996, pp. 25‐43.

Bruno Werlen, ‘Regionale oder kulturelle Identitat? Eine Problemskizze’, Berichte zur Deutschen Landeskunde, Vol. 66, 1992, pp 9‐32.

H. Arnold, ‘Kritik der sozialgeographischen Konzeption von Benno Werlen’, Geographische Zeitschrift Vol. 86, 1998, pp. 135‐157.

Paasi.

T. Jordan, ‘Territoralita¨t und ihre Funktionen in Konflikten: eine psychogeographische Betrachtung’, in: P. Ju¨ngst, Identita¨t, Aggressivita¨t, Territorialita¨t, zur Psychogeographie – und Psychohistorie – des Verha¨ltnisses von Subjekt, Kollektiv und ra¨umlicher Umwelt, Kassel, 1997.

Ernest Gellner, ‘Encounters with Nationalism’, Oxford, 1996.

Dieter La¨pple, ‘Essay u¨ber den Raum’, in: H. Ha¨ußermann et al., Stadt und Raum: Soziologischen Analysen, Pfaffenweiler, 1992, pp. 196‐197.

Gerard Hoekveld & Gerda Hoekveld‐Meijer, ‘The Region as Cloister: the Relation between Society and Region reconsidered’, Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 77 B, 1995, pp. 159‐176.

Terlouw, p. 82.

Rumford & Murray, p. 89.

Erik Swyngedouw, ‘Homing in and Spacing out: re‐configuring Scale’, In: Hans Gebhardt, Gu¨nter Heinritz, Reinhard Wiessner, (eds.), Europa im Globalisierungsprozeß von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 81‐100.

The area studies programme in Utrecht developed not only to accommodate the social constructivist perspective on regions, but also out of practical considerations.

• Rumford & Murray, p. 91.

• Landscape is the traditional core of Dutch cultural geography. Sako Musterd & Ben de Pater, ‘Eclectic and Pragmatic: the Colours of Dutch social and cultural Geography’, Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 4, No. 4, December 2003, p. 552. Through landscape this course comes quite close to the more ecological approach of “Europe as a shaper of, and shaped by, the earth” advocated by Ian Manners, ‘Europaian Studies’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2003, p. 80.

• The more traditional cross‐disciplinary approach of describing the differences within Europe which Ian Manners, p. 80 describes as the ‘details of geography’ are only of secondary importance in this course.

Its geographical basis enables it to optimise the trade‐off between the disciplinary and locational dimensions as identified by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, ‘Area Studies’, Gloucester, 2002, p.2.