Foregrounding the region
审视了区域概念在区域研究和社会实践中持久但不断变化的意义，追踪其含义演变，并探讨区域本质与作用，最后讨论该视角对区域研究未来的影响。
Foregrounding the region. Regional Studies. This paper scrutinizes the everlasting but transforming significance of the concept of region for regional studies and social practice. After tracing the changing meanings of this category, it highlights one characteristic aspect of the progress of the academic conceptualizations of the region: recurrent iterations of critiques regarding various forms of essentialism and fetishism. The main focus then moves to the conceptualization of the region and the articulation of ideas about what regions substantially ‘are’ and ‘do’, and what makes the region a worthy object of attention (scholarly or otherwise). The paper concludes with a discussion about the implications of the perspective on regions developed in the article for the future of regional studies.