ABSTRACT
Regionalism has become one of the hottest issues of debate in the globalized world. What globalization means is clear. It is an attempt to overcome boundaries that divide the world, impede exchanges and interactions and lead, more often unintentionally, to a ‘flat world’ deprived of particularities. Less clear is what the regionalist response should and can be. Many of discussions have proven frustratingly unproductive and confusing. One of the basic reasons for this is the fuzziness of the term resulting from its complicated historical evolution. The idea has carried many different, occasionally contradictory meanings, and has been associated with different and often contradictory campaigns and interests. In this essay we will try to demystify and unpack regionalism by referring to some aspects of its historical evolution in the hope that it will help the ongoing debate and perhaps point out that it offers what Wang Shu has called ‘an alternative view.’
