Abstract
What role should the discipline of geography play in the academic community and the general public in the twenty-first century. This article attempts to propose a frame of reference for analyzing and explaining the world by combining the traditional viewpoint of human and nature, origin and dispersal, region and landscape, and time and change with the concept of globalization and localization. Sugar was chosen for examination. World’s sugar has been supplied by the cane sugar production circuit and the beet sugar production circuit, both circuits being composed of numerous sugar producing regions. By examining the elements that constitute a sugar producing region such as the capital, sugar factories, the supply system of raw materials, and the type of labor, geographers can clarify the characteristics of sugar manufacturing, relationships between sugar producing regions around the world, the supply system of sugar on a global scale, and the sustainability of sugar production. Searching the regional structure of sweetness is a challenging research frontier for geographers.
