ABSTRACT

The chapter suggests an open inter-disciplinary dialogue across the Humanities and Social Sciences over the relevance of regions and area studies, to further our understanding of regionalism, trans-regional processes, and globalization, both at the theoretical and empirical levels. We address several key questions, related to the origin and dynamics of regions, as follows: (1) What comprises a region? (2) What are the different regional dynamic processes that take place? (3) What is the relationship between the regional and the global dimensions? and (4) What is the role of identity building when studying regions and trans-regional processes?