História econômica e regionalização: Contribuição a um desafio teórico-metodológico

Abstract

This paper intends to contribute to the theoretical and methodological debate on regionalization and history. Firstly, it starts discussing the very concept of region on its several related approaches: geography, political economy, history and historiography. Then, a methodological issue is analyzed, that is to say: the paper tries to articulate the most important criteria of spatial segmentation embedded on regionalization (analytical functionalism, heterogeneity and homogeneity) with: a) the necessity of non-anachronism; and b) the necessity of a historical dynamic approach on definition of regional boundaries.