TRAJECTORIES OF REGIONS AND SPATIAL INTEGRATION IN THE WORLD-SYSTEM

In this paper, we reconstruct the trajectories of the southern Low Countries as part of the world-system and of the Campine, initially as part of the Duchy of Brabant (itself part of a small world-economy), and later as part of the southern Low Countries, on the basis of a hypothesis that spatial integration/fragmentation involves the upgrading/downgrading of the status of a region in the world-economy. Spatial integration is conceived of as a process of transformation that (re)produces a coherent pattern of functional shapes. However, the degree of coherence is not necessarily measured by the volume of horizontal relations between the integrated areas. Moreover, a distinction should be made between the factors of transformation that (re)produce the pattern and other factors that produce a configuration that happens to coincide with that pattern. Finally, the world-economy should be considered as an autopoietic system, functioning in the manner of a transformation matrix. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.