The Psychology of Regions - A Vygotskian Perspective

Author(s): 
Publication Date: 
01 October 2020
Publisher: 
Berghahn Journals
Publication Language: 
EN
Appearing in: 
Regions and Cohesion
Volume: 
10
Issue: 
3
Pages: 
30-42
DOI: 
https://doi.org/10.3167/reco.2020.100305
Abstract: 

There exists today a large consensus among scholars of different disciplines that regions are more than a geographical concept and that they are socially constructed. This implies that somehow people must play a role in the emergence of a region as an entity of governance and as a source of identity. But the relation between regions and the socio-psychological processes that constitute them remains unclear. This article aims to clarify what the social construction process of a region means and what kind of psychological processes play a role in it as well how such social construction relates with how regions contribute to people’s identity formation. For this theoretical exercise, use will be made of the so-called Vygotsky scheme that distinguishes between four different conversational spaces.

Keywords: 
governance; identity; regionalism; social construction; statehood; Vygotsky; construcción social; identidad; gobernabilidad; regionalismo; construction sociale; gouvernance; identité; régionalisme