An Art of the Region: Towards a Politics of Regionness

Recent analysis on New Regionalism has, for Björn Hettne, raised important ontological questions over 'what we study when we study regionalism'. The paper contributes to this debate by focusing on the shared beliefs, norms and rituals that hold a region together. Working between the New Re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNew political economy Vol. 19; no. 4; pp. 559 - 577
Main Author Emerson, R. Guy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 04.07.2014
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Discourse
Identity
inter-subjectivity
International regimes
Latin America
new regionalism
Ontology
Political behavior
Political economy
Regionalism
regionness
Rituals
Social Structure
Studies
Subjectivity
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Summary:Recent analysis on New Regionalism has, for Björn Hettne, raised important ontological questions over 'what we study when we study regionalism'. The paper contributes to this debate by focusing on the shared beliefs, norms and rituals that hold a region together. Working between the New Regionalism literature and thinking on international regimes, this paper - to paraphrase Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie - outlines the 'inescapable inter-subjective quality' of a region. This focus on inter-subjectivity seeks to improve on existing approaches that consider shared social structures as already fixed, and/or as autonomous constructs operating over and above regional actors. In order to appreciate how inter-subjective structures and regional agents interact with each other, the paper explores the social construction of Latin America. Specifically, it examines the politics of regionness - understood here in relation to identity, space and agents - to demonstrate how various regional actors operate within, and reconstruct, shared meaning. In so doing, it interrogates the practices that govern and continually produce the region.
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ISSN:1356-3467
1469-9923
DOI:10.1080/13563467.2013.829434