What ist regional development? An approach since the brazilian sociocultural reality

Abstract

This article focuses on regional development issues. The main purpose is to offer a somewhat more contextualized understanding of what regional development might be. Thus, within the limites of a brief and objective article, the context within which a more precise notion of regional development can be formulated will be sought. The concern is not with the elaboration of an abstract concept; it is with the frame of a picture that has gained sharpness in Brazilian graduate studies in the last three decades, in which an understanding of regional development that corresponds to the Brazilian sociocultural reality can be formulated. In order to contribute to the construction of the aforementioned framework, in which a more precise understanding of regional development can be advanced, Brazil is defined as the privileged locus of this attempt, and its sociocultural characteristics (such as language, educational institutions etc.) as immovable references. Finally, the article suggests that the requirements for the recognition of regional development as an autonomous field of knowledge are met.