Regionalism

What makes a region?

Learning Objectives

• To explain different views on what makes a region

• To judge whether regional identities are real or imagined, natural or imposed

What makes a region?

Geography

• Regions may form a distinctive geographical area

• Can be identified by consulting maps• Leads to tendency to identify regions with

continents

Examples? Weaknesses?

Socio-cultural

• Regions can be based on similarities of religion, language, history or ideological belief

• A region may even be the geographical expression of a ‘civilisation’

Examples? Weaknesses?

Overlapping identities

• Regional identities are not simple– Multiple and overlapping• Mexico? (NAFTA, Central America, Latin America, APEC)

• Not mutually exclusive – and not incompatible with national identity

Political & Social constructs

• The region is an ‘imagined community’ (like nations)

• They are ideas – not concrete entities• Almost endlessly fluid– Change shape and size over time– Changing extent and purposes of cooperation

• Explains why regional identities are contested

Your nation state

• Invent a nation state and note down statistics and facts about it

• Using the example of your nation state – – What regional bodies would it belong to?– What purpose would they serve?– Would there be multiple, overlapping identities?

Regions as a popular idea?

• How much are regions a grassroots idea, coming from ‘the people’?

• How much are regions imposed from above?

NAFTA

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSXmB_my0ls

How does the film present NAFTA?Is this fair?