The Learning Region
The Learning Region

Summary/Abstract: The ‘learning region’ discourse emerged from the debates of the neoliberal views of socio- economic and cultural change. These views stressed the overall trends of globalisation which had to transform the traditional economic, social and cultural institutions. In opposition of these views, the ‘learning region’ discourse pointed out the importance of locality. The ‘learning region’ discourse has challenged the globalisation arguments in three dimensions. (a) Market forces work only in the traditional sense (local markets) and lose sense in a global environment. (b) Democratic governance is also a local idea; ‘democracy’ in a globalised world makes no sense. (c) Social networking, communities of practices and similar efforts to use the forces of cooperation for innovation are also bound to localities. Thus the ‘globalisation’ discourse of the 1990s makes only sense with the ‘learning region’ discourse of the 2000s.

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