Regionalism in the Light of the Personalistic Category of Participation

Abstract

Regionalism is not only a sociological phenomenon, but also an important culture-forming process influencing the development of the human person. The social thought of the Church refers to it straightforwardly as an anthropological phenomenon and interprets it as an axiological category. Referring to these assumptions, the article analyzes regionalism through the prism of the personalistic category of participation described by Karol Wojtyła in the book The Acting Person, the structure of which is based on two principles: solidarity and objection. These principles can serve as a criterion for assessing individual forms of regionalism in terms of answering the question of to what extent they recognize and acknowledge the subjectivity of each member of the regional community, and to what extent they refer to the key values of regional solidarity and the region’s common good.