ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the contested worlds of contemporary human geography. Acts of warfare, terrorism, genocide and torture, for example, are often connected to territorial conflicts, with people seeking to gain access to particular areas of space and/or expel other people from particular places. Massey and a series of other geographers have explored the reasons for these divisions, and also highlighted how these divisions have often been reformulated as firms seek to gain some competitive advantage over their rivals. The book looks at issues of general, global concern, in the third part attention switches to issues of more particular, one might say 'regional' concern. It addresses the partitioning of regional space, although the focus of attention is now South-East Asia, and more particularly the countries in the regional ASEAN grouping. The book explores notions of social and spatial centrality and marginality.
