<TITLE: The Social Construction of Regions
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: international relations
EVENT TYPE: seminar discussion
FILE ID: USEMD110
NOTES: seminar includes presentations USEMP03A-C

RECORDING DURATION: 36 min 6 sec

RECORDING DATE: 9.12.2004

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 11

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 7

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: male; AGE: 24-30

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: German; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 17-23

S4: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Bulgarian; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 17-23

S5: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Romanian; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

S6: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 17-23

S7: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Japanese; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 24-30

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S2> okay then then i start with the normal that usual question like every time how many presentations do we have today </S2>
<PRESENTERS PUT UP THEIR HANDS>
<S1> [okay] </S1>
<S2> [that] gives us about 30 minutes for each presentation and discussion . who wants to start </S2>
<S3> mhm i can start <S2> okay [alright] </S2> [erm] i have to apologise for my voice 'cause i was sick and i just got it back yesterday so it may fade away but don't mind about that </S3>

<PRESENTATION USEMP03A by S3>

<S1> thanks </S1>
<S2> well can you say couple of words about the sources or the references you used you mentioned jyrki käkönen er do you use other sources as well </S2>
<S3> er well i used quite much jyrki käkönen but er well basically his thoughts to the regionalisation , not others to that but of course there is others' thoughts in the different things but i thought that that was the c- closest thing that i thought would be a good to , study this area </S3>
<S2> yes erm and and the work of jyrki käkönen you cited when was it published <S3> [mhm] </S3> [i think] that that's quite important in this context because there is some well dynamic in the northern dimension and northern cooperation and what he wrote for example in 1994 may not be really relevant to the situation today and the other way around </S2>
<S3> yeah it was 1996 i think <S2> okay </S2> but i tried to think by myself that would it be er good for today also <S2> mhm </S2> and that's why i also thought the EU things and what the situation is with the baltic states also <S2> mhm </S2> <COUGH> </S3>
<S2> and when you think about this these six stages of region building that you mentioned are there any profound developments of the last well since since 1996 or would you say that this analysis er can can still be maintained as as as you er introduced us with this well first (the) historical ties and geographical environmental region and shared sense of history and identity er system infrastructure there's certainly been a lot of improvement over the <S3> [yeah] </S3> [last] couple of years er civil society sense of belonging and political system how would you say <S3> well i [would say about them] </S3> [are there any changes] </S2>
<S3> er well basically i think that almost everything is tied to EU nowadays and all the peoples are just talking about european identity and things like that but i would also say that at least in my thoughts people can still feel that they are people of the north and but i i i really don't know i i couldn't find any sources for well couple of sources that estonian can feel northern people but , nothing more and 'cause i don't know any estonians i didn't go deeper to that , but i think that there could be possibilities to build a well region inside the region to the north and that would be a li- er link to the EU also but i think that north isn't a political region 'cause we have a political cooperation and er these organisations like er different councils and things like that but it is more linked to the EU nowadays </S3>
<S2> okay <P:07> any further questions </S2>
<S1> you mentioned the role of civil society and in in a way seeing that in a way that the civil society is somehow lacking in this process er in this political region building process er i was then just starting to think about whether whether the picture would be actually so that there is a lot of civil , like civil society movements and and things like that but they just don't fit together with this political top-down type of region building </S1>
<S3> yeah that might be true <COUGH> <P:06> but i still think that , well if i think myself in this region i still feel myself as finnish <S1> mhm </S1> and i can't i can't think that well i can think but i think that we are in at that point that we could feel that swedish people are er like us and estonians are like us 'cause there is still the history which is making the things difficult <S1> mhm </S1> and i think that it still needs time that people can see mhm themself and all the other peoples more openly and feel the well the civil society </S3>
<S1> yeah </S1>
<P:05>
<S2> (just notice) these these different layers of identity they are by no means mutually exclusive so you can feel yourself to be a finn but you can say i'm i'm also from the northern region but i feel like a european </S2>
<S3> yeah but that's i think that well if i go to the er er like france i can say that i'm from the north but if i'm here i of course say that i'm finnish and if i think the region er well how we see the northern region it's not the like we share the same identity here but when we go to other places we can see that the this is a region and we can er share a northern identity but not inside of . but to , maybe to , other persons who aren't living here they can see this a region but inside of this it's , well identity region basically <S2> okay </S2> but i think that that's the deepest region we have er been able to get so far so that's why i used this jyrki käkönen <S2> mhm </S2> 'cause he shared the same thoughts as i think </S3>
<S2> okay , what what do you mean by centre you've used sometimes the word centre so bringing the north closer to the centre what is the centre who defines what the centre is </S2>
<S3> well basically the historical centre when we think the periphery and the centre so , er i would say <FOREIGN> mikä on manner </FOREIGN> er the continental europe would be the centre because of the history and then there would be peripheries like mediterranean countries although they are nearer to the centre than than we are but still the main players on the stage like france and germany according to history </S3>
<S2> mhm . your thoughts are probably according to world centres of political decision-making <S3> yeah </S3> the most important political decisions within the european union for example are probably not made in helsinki <S3> yeah </S3> yeah okay er would of course be possible to construct something very different so kind of centre and periphery construction which deviates from this which which you use and which is the most most common probably </S2>
<S3> that was the my first aim for my essay to er to look this thing from the periphery and centre point of view <S2> mhm </S2> in many ways but then i get lost to got lost to the so many sources and <S2> yeah </S2> @@ so then this is the way i wanted to look <S2> yes </S2> at last </S3>
<S2> well it would be possible for example to to look at the the welfare degree in different regions and then suddenly well the nordic states certainly would become the centre and some of the so-called centres would be pushed in well in the background <S3> yeah </S3> could also be possible to look at this question from the point of view of peaceful conflict resolution where the nordic states have a good record and some of these so-called central states well don't have such a good record , so i think well it's always interesting to call these kind of categories into question which we i think too often use without much thinking about it like centre and periphery what are the kind of discourses behind constructions of centres and and and peripheries what are the er power relations who has the power to define a centre i think for most people it's er more comfortable to be a part of the centre than of the periphery so er who who defines what is centre what is periphery what is what are the power relations and kind of representations of discourse structures which construct some parts of the world as periphery and what does it mean politically on terms of identity and so on just i mean it's very often i think from an academic point of view quite interesting to look er or to call to call it to question this kind of naturalised terms like centre periphery which we i think all of us use too often without much thinking about what is what is really behind them </S2>
<S3> er i have to also say that maybe this northern parts of the europe are too close to me 'cause i live here 'cause when i started to search things i noticed that there is really , really really much to er study about this and that's why i got lost to the @@ <S2> yeah sure </S2> different sources 'cause there was er so many interesting things and , and i'm i'm pretty happy that i took this to me 'cause now i'm @probably@ more keen to the north than before </S3>
<S2> okay fine . anything else or should we move to the second paper . okay who wants to continue </S2>
<S4> me </S4>
<S2> okay </S2>

<PRESENTATION USEMP03B by S4>

<S2> okay thanks very much can you also say something about the sources you have used </S2>
<S4> well i used pretty much sources from the internet because i could not get any book from the library was not available and i have reserved some and if i could get them this week or maybe the next one i will add some some more information because i wanted to have some <S2> mhm </S2> book resources </S4>
<S2> i think that's the same problem we had on the last session with this the other presentation about the balkans that <S5> [yes] </S5> [some] of the most important books are simply not available <S4> yeah </S4> at least not within a reasonable period of time </S2>
<S4> that's why i'll probably make some changes and then will will give it to you @@ </S4>
<S2> okay </S2>
<S5> as i understand you are coming from these region which is called <S4> [yeah i'm bulgarian] </S4> [the balkan] okay er i'm wondering do you think that er that there is such a thing as a balkan mentality or is it a western construct western imagination seeing the the region </S5>
<S4> well i think it's more like the western imagination because <S5> mhm </S5> even if we speak about the balkans , people there are very much different from each other and even though this the ottoman heritage and historical background they have been like close together for a for a long time i i still think they are pretty different and there are many differences between them so cannot like just generalise , they're on the balkans and they have the same mentality </S4>
<S2> does it then make sense at all to talk about things like balkan identity or is this just repeating some kind of prejudices which are cultivated in the west 'cause it's easier for western observers to just talk about the balkans rather than differentiating which is much more complicated </S2>
<S4> yeah maybe </S4>
<P:09>
<S2> mhm the last presentation on on on tuesday er we heard that there's still a very strong fixation in the region on on the nation state and not so much talk not so much practise in regional cooperation and the person who made the presentation recommended very much that there should be more regional cooperation between these states in order to come closer to the european union and also maybe in order to get rid of this kind of negative image which is assigned to the balkans which is usually referred to only in terms as you said violence ethnic (xx) and well no solution whatsoever </S2>
<S4> well i wasn't here last time because i had other course so @@ <S2> yeah sure no er what </S2> and i'm not very </S4>
<S2> er what do you think about this idea of regional cooperation stronger regional cooperation maybe breaking with this very strong emphasis on on the nation state </S2>
<S4> well personally i think it's a good idea but as i mentioned all these conflicts are caused by the differences and these religious differences the ethnic conflicts and maybe now the situation is a bit more peaceful and this dialogue and cooperation is more possible than before and i think now they are seeking for it but i don't know how far they will go with that . but i think now it's more stable than before so it gives it a bigger chance to to cooperate </S4>
<S2> okay </S2>
<S5> when you are talking about the ethnic groups different ethnic groups are you referring only to former yugoslavia or are you referring to some other countries in the region , what about bulgaria because you mentioned <S4> [yeah well] </S4> [that these] ethnic that there are ethnic boundaries which prevent cooperation among [among the peoples] </S5>
<S4> [yeah well] specifically in bulgaria there are roma minorities and turks but i think there are like no ethnic conflicts at least now but and it's more significant in these countries and the clashes between the minorities and different ethnic groups that's why i i picked them as an example </S4>
<S5> mhm do you think that that in the balkans the clashes between ethnic groups are more significant than the clashes between ethnic groups in the western countries for instance in taking the example of er of er the basque basque country or northern ireland so , would you say that in the balkans they are more violent or they they are of a different importance or different significance </S5>
<S4> well maybe @more violent@ i would say consider all these wars and fights and even that it caused an interference like the united states and the united nations that to to prevent further conflicts and i guess they are different than in the western countries in a sense <P:07> i don't know if it answered @your question or@ </S4>
<S5> yeah i i got your @opinion about it@ that's for sure and in in your presentation you often mentioned the force of the muslim communi- communities to muslimise some other other communities <S4> yeah </S4> but do you think this is just one way one way er one way effort or one way tendency do you think that these kind of tendencies exist in the other communities some other communities try to get the muslim people into their communities </S5>
<S4> yeah of course the majority will try to assimilate the minority and to inte- in a way to integrate it <S5> mhm </S5> so when it it's a muslim majority it will try to assimilate the other minorities and the other way around i guess </S4>
<S5> mhm so according to your theory it would mean that in bulgaria the bulgarian majority would try to <S4> yes </S4> assimilate <S4> [yes i would say that] </S4> [the turkish minority] mhm </S5>
<S4> and i think it kind of works because like the minorities well i i speak about bulgaria at the moment that er it's like more peaceful to live in that way in in the way of the majority <S5> mhm </S5> because yeah sure they have rights and they're equal but er not that people do not accept them but it there's like still some tension so , maybe they themselves are trying to to accept that situation and integration , i don't know if i'm right </S4>
<S1> i don't know whether i got this er phrase right but you , you mentioned something about the privatisation of of common history am i right </S1>
<S4> yeah it's like in , quotes that <S1> yeah </S1> there all say , actually it's all common history <S1> [yeah] </S1> [because] these have been under common rule for for centuries <S1> mhm </S1> but now everyone is trying like to say no that we did that and we were greater than you <S1> mhm </S1> and kind of just take some pieces of the of this shared history and say it's our history it's not yours </S4>
<S1> yeah i think that's a quite good this kind of ana- analytical starting point to to study this kind of way of using like shared or common history or shared memories or or things like that just a </S1>
<S4> but there is that now they're trying to be as difficult as possible <S1> mhm </S1> or as different as possible from the others <S1> yeah </S1> besides that all like this past doesn't exist <S1> mhm </S1> and they want to start from scratch </S4>
<S1> yeah </S1>
<S2> can you say more precisely who they are </S2>
<S4> well the @all these countries@ that i talk about </S4>
<S2> i i mean in terms of of people is it everybody just common people in their everyday lives or is it university professors teaching history <S4> well </S4> is it politicians </S2>
<S4> i think it's opinion of the people and i i will say again an example with bulgarian and macedonia for example that macedonia is been a part of bulgaria back in history for for for many many decades but now they're telling for example that they're different nation they have completely different language even though it's very very close to bulgarian and that they have their own history and stuff like that , although it's part of the bulgarian history . and i'm tell it as my personal opinion @@ i just tell this to show an example </S4>
<S5> you said in your presentation that that on balkan it many time associated with conflict and er violence and i think this is one reason or the main reason why in many countries , many countries have tried to dissociate themselves from the balkans and they have to have claimed to have belonged to a different <S4> yeah </S4> a different region for instance romania has been claiming or romanian politicians have been claiming that romania is central european and the same happened in [slovenia] </S5>
<S4> [yeah (xx)] i was searching for data that some of the countries that are like belonging to the balkans like geographically let's say they they claim that they're more central european countries or something they try to differentiate from this part </S4>
<S5> what about bulgaria is it the term balkan accepted by <S4> [yeah i think] </S4> [bulgarian politicians for instance] or bulgarian people </S5>
<S4> i think it is accepted but now i will say again that with bulgarian looking forward to join the european union they're talking more now for the european identity and that we're bec- not becoming we're considered to be europeans because we are in europe but nowadays i would say it's more focused than on this joining in the in the european union and the european identity more than the balkan identity </S4>
<S5> mhm what about you because er in the first presentation you you mentioned that if you're going to france for instance you would say that i'm coming from the north would you say coming from bulgaria here would you say to somebody that i'm coming from the balkans </S5>
<S4> no from bulgaria @@ or if i go somewhere else i would say that i'm coming from eastern europe because <S5> okay </S5> @they don't know where bulgaria is@ </S4>
<S5> so you wouldn't use the word balkan <S4> no </S4> okay </S5>
<P:09>
<S2> so if there are no further questions then thanks very much for your presentation we can move forward to the third one </S2>

<PRESENTATION USEMP03C by S6>

<S2> okay thank you very much same question as always what are your sources </S2>
<S6> okay well i focused mainly on well one of the biggest source was the security community book and acharya's er article over there and then er eero palmujoki has also studied at the university a lot about south-east asia so there were two of his books and then ASEAN sec dot com er so ASEAN's official web pages were one and then er south-east asian affairs this book series was also one one source but there were also others not so significant sources that i used </S6>
<S2> mhm and what do you mean precisely by this this security community book </S2>
<S6> well it was i don't have my list of er [quotes here because] </S6>
<S2> [but do you mean] the original study by by karl deutsch or do you mean this cambridge </S2>
<S6> this cambridge press book yes which we had here at class in the beginning which deals with security communities , it's called security communities <S2> [that's right] </S2> [isn't it] yes </S6>
<P:07>
<S2> questions please </S2>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<P:05>
<S6> maybe this topic is not so familiar for for us finns but i've been always very interested in south-east asia and things there </S6>
<S2> maybe not familiar but in any case it's very interesting and what i find interesting is the title of this organisation which is well er association of south-eastern er nations <S6> yes </S6> not not states not for example in the baltic sea area we have the CBSS which is the council of the baltic sea states not the council of the baltic sea nations er nevertheless you were talking mostly about what states do what governments do and i think this this if i got it correctly this 67 or 71 one of the declarations was er aiming at regional peace and stability through intergovernmental cooperation <S6> mhm </S6> er so how does this this relate to to people is there a kind of community sense also among the people in general or is it would you say more or still more of the kind of intergovernmental cooperation </S2>
<S6> well i i think well this is my opinion but <S2> mhm </S2> erm i don't think there used to be before this association was was formed er i think the cultures and religions and everything are very multiple in in this area there are indonesia for example the biggest muslim country in the world and there's hindus and buddhists and everything but still and this ASEAN is very highly based on on intergovernmental cooperation so they it's not anything like EU or others the countries and their leaders want to keep the power to themselves but er but from the aspects the whole thing started i think it has gone quite far and surprised many many people and i guess in that way there can be a sort of feeling of of community through through this organisation i don't know about the people if they know there in the countryside that you know yes we are , @belong to the ASEAN@ but at least they identify themself as the south-east asian people , and not for example south southern asian people with india and other things and there have been some as i think unofficial er talk about india or other countries like that joining but they have never really applied for membership but still the countries weren't very pleased about the idea of for example india joining they don't feel that it has the same identity as the that area </S6>
<S2> mhm but didn't you didn't you also say that there is still a kind of a lack of trust among the countries due to historical experiences </S2>
<S6> yeah that's one of the biggest problems and of course while thinking that it's been the organisation started in the 60s it's been up for forty years only so from , well if you compare it to for example the european community or so they started from way lower level to build this cooperation so i think it just takes might take a lot more time , time to er build it but even though they have this consensus er and it's very strict they still have been managing to kind of have a same opinion about things and </S6>
<S7> i have a question <S6> mhm </S6> you said something about asian thinking and then what does it exact meaning asian thinking </S7>
<S6> well here i just i maybe you know as an @@ [@asian a bit better@] <S7> [(xx)] asian thinking </S7> mhm well here they just said sort of that especially in the south-east asia i think it has to do with the wars and everything they've had and the colonial background that the peop- the countries are not that willing to share information and things like that so they are still kind of having this realist point of view that they have to defend their own country and so they don't trust trust each other maybe that much like for example here in europe EU everything is all about intelligence sharing and everything so that's just what i meant that i don't know how general that is but here it was just mentioned that one obstacle for creating a better like a s- community is that then they need kind of the countries need to learn to trust each other a bit more to be able to cooperate </S6>
<S7> mhm thank you </S7>
<S5> you mentioned a lot about erm political and military cooperation within these countries what about economic cooperation because i think it was in some in relation to some economic forum that i i have heard that the first time this name this the name of this organisation </S5>
<S6> yeah well yeah here i wanted to focus only on this so <S5> mhm </S5> i didn't talk anything about the economic cooperation but of course this is in the in the ASEAN declaration in the 60s the two main points were the security and the economic <S5> okay </S5> integration but still erm i found it surprising that even in this er security community book which was from i think 2003 or something it was quite new there was statistic that said that still the countries of ASEAN have more er economic business to outside of the region and not so much inside the region so may maybe it hasn't developed as well as they thought in the economic sense but of course they are trying to sort of do business in the region and help them er well all these border things and everything they are trying to make them easier and they have well and as this security aspect they have general or help (done) cooperation in the border controls and everything so i i'm sure it has to er reflect on economic issues too but still i found it surprising that they it's it hasn't developed so well within the area </S6>
<S1> er then what about er think about er ASEAN as a as a region so what are er relationship relationship with the other regions could you say something about because i just er listened er yeah is it ASEM this kind of asia europe meeting <S6> yes yes </S6> so so obviously not just kind of er making the the region stronger by er inside the region but also kind of the region looking at the other regions <S6> yeah </S6> is it more like in economic terms or also </S1>
<S6> well they they have this er ASEAN regional forum A-R-F <S1> mhm </S1> and that of course ASEM is very important to <S1> yeah </S1> relations to europe but er they started this A-R-F in 1994 and it's basically because i said that be er before the relations have been very bilateral <S1> mhm </S1> so this is sort of er er forum to put all those bilateral things together and er well just said that it's er , <READING ALOUD> ASEAN its dialogue partners decided to create reg- the regional forum for multilateral consultations confidence building and prevention of conflicts </READING ALOUD> so this is mainly about the security issues <S1> yeah </S1> but of course they also focus on economic issues and here they have a er many dialogue partners big as such as china and russia and er democratic people's republic of korea <S1> mhm </S1> and so this is one way of kind of doing external business <S1> yeah </S1> as a community </S6>
<S1> just one well at least in economic terms one could think about that while there is a EU as a kind of economic area an then there is this NAFTA north american <S6> mhm </S6> free trade area so and of course these er , these whole south-east asian area has a kind of economic well there was this kind of economic boost some ten years years ago <S6> yeah </S6> so kind of making this region as a way of kind of keeping they economic competitiveness against EU or and and some other er economic areas [or] </S1>
<S6> [well i] remember last year i took this course about south asia and then i remember that er there was said that EU is the biggest trading partner <S1> mhm </S1> for ASEAN so it's a cooperation partner <S1> yeah </S1> but i can't really say because for this presentation i didn't really look at the economic stuff at all 'cause i wanted to limit it to some <S1> mhm </S1> some er ideas </S6>
<S1> yeah </S1>
<S5> are there any ambitions to develop this organisation further </S5>
<S6> er [well i think] </S6>
<S5> [like it] it has been the case with the EU all the time to go <S6> [yeah] </S6> [further] and further </S5>
<S6> well i think er it's not being developed as at least as as strongly or as er quickly as EU because the countries the nature of these count- </S6>
<DISC CHANGE>
<S2> it's it's still much better than than <S6> [mhm] </S6> [most of] the recent work which is done on security communities or if you refer to the to the to the more recent work then make clear that you are r- referring to the more recent work not to the original concept <S6> [okay] </S6> [and] okay . i think that's all then for today <S1> yeah </S1> thanks to all of you </S2>
<S3> can i leave my paper now </S3>
<S2> yeah sure </S2>
