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John Agnew

Abstract

The regions–cohesion nexus focuses on how much people and place “prosperity” cannot be readily distinguished but are intimately connected. After reviewing some older sources on this logic, the article examines the current status of social cohesion within the European Union and what the future might hold depending on how much a crucial balance between global competitiveness and social cohesion is restored as the centerpiece of the supranational union. Current trends point in different directions, so critical choices will have to be made if the European Union as a whole is to survive and prosper. The income and fiscal divides between East and West and North and South should be the primary focus for rehabilitating the regions–cohesion nexus.

Resumen

El nexo regiones–cohesión se centra en la dificultad de distinguir las personas de los lugares en “prosperidad”, porque están intrínsecamente conectados. Después de revisar algunas referencias clásicas sobre esta lógica, este artículo examina el estado actual de la cohesión social dentro de la UE y lo que puede deparar el futuro dependiendo de cuánto se puede restablecer un equilibrio crucial entre la competitividad global y la cohesión social, como pieza central de la unión supranacional. Las tendencias actuales apuntan en diferentes direcciones. Será necesario tomar decisiones críticas para que la UE en su conjunto pueda sobrevivir y prosperar. El ingreso y las divisiones fiscales entre Oriente y Occidente, Norte y Sur, deberían ser el foco principal de atención para rehabilitar el nexo regiones–cohesión.

Résumé

L'étude du lien entre régions et cohésion montre l'interdépendance qui existe entre la prospérité des peuples de celles des lieux. A partir d'une revue de la bibliographie sur ce sujet, cet article examine l'état actuel de la cohésion sociale à l'intérieur de l'Union européenne. Il s'intéresse également à son futur et à l'importance de la restauration d'un équilibre entre la compétitivité globale et la cohésion sociale en faveur de l'union supranationale. Les tendances actuelles indiquent différentes directions de telle manière que des choix critiques devront être faits pour que l'EU dans son ensemble survive et prospère. Le nivelement des disparités salariales et fiscales entre l'Est et l'Ouest et le Nord et le Sud devrait être le premier objectif visant à réhabiliter le lien entre régions et cohésion.

Open access

State of Uncertainty

Educating the First Railroaders in Central Sakha (Yakutiya)

Sigrid Irene Wentzel

Abstract

In July 2019, the village of Nizhniy Bestyakh in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutiya), the Russian Far East, was finally able to celebrate the opening of an eagerly awaited railroad passenger connection. Through analysis of rich ethnographic data, this article explores the “state of uncertainty” caused by repeated delays in construction of the railroad prior to this and focuses on the effect of these delays on students of a local transportation college. This college prepares young people for railroad jobs and careers, promising a steady income and a place in the Republic's wider modernization project. The research also reveals how the state of uncertainty led to unforeseen consequences, such as the seeding of doubt among students about their desire to be a part of the Republic's industrialization drive.

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Sébastien Dubé

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution, between 2010 and 2020, of the organizations created during the Latin American post–liberal regionalism wave. It describes their rise and decline and includes recent public opinion data to claim that there is no demand or supply for an eventual fifth wave of regionalism that would replicate the previous models. Considering the failure of national governments in fulfilling basic human needs, it nonetheless claims that the deepening of the critical social and economic conditions, especially in the COVID-19 pandemic context, could lead to a fifth wave of regionalism in Latin America. Nevertheless, to succeed, such a wave could be inspired by international and regional technical organizations in a way that would recall the principles of David Mitrany's functionalist theory.

Resumen

Este artículo analiza la evolución de las organizaciones creadas durante la ola de regionalismo post-liberal en América Latina entre 2010 y 2020. Describe su auge y caída e incluye datos recientes de opinión pública para plantear que no existe una demanda ni una oferta para una quinta ola de regionalismo similar a las olas anteriores. Sin embargo, el fracaso de los Estados en asegurar las necesidades sociales básicas y la degradación de las condiciones socioeconómicas, particularmente en el contexto de la pandemia COVID-19, podrían llevar a una quinta ola de regionalismo latinoamericano. Para que dicha ola pudiese tener éxito, podría inspirarse en las acciones de organizaciones técnicas internacionales y regionales, de una manera que recuerda los principios de la teoría funcionalista de David Mitrany.

Résumé

Cet article analyse l'évolution, entre 2010 et 2020, des organisations créées durant la vague de régionalisme postlibéral en Amérique latine. Il décrit leur montée et leur déclin et inclut des données récentes d'opinion publique afin de soutenir l'argument selon lequel il n'y a actuellement ni demande, ni offre d'une cinquième vague de régionalisme latino-américain semblable aux vagues précédentes. Cependant, l'échec des États à assurer les besoins humains fondamentaux et la dégradation des conditions sociales et économiques, notamment dans le contexte de la pandémie de Covid-19, pourraient mener à une cinquième vague de régionalisme dans la région. Pour donner des résultats concrets, celle-ci pourrait être inspirée par l'action des organisations techniques internationales et régionales d'une façon rappelant les principes de la théorie fonctionnaliste de David Mitrany.

Free access

Leonardo Morlino

A decade ago, Regions & Cohesion started with an editorial article by Harlan Koff and Carmen Maganda, who proposed launching “a multilingual (English, French, and Spanish) and interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of the human and environmental impacts of regional integration as well as governance processes.”

Free access

Harlan Koff, Carmen Maganda, Philippe De Lombaerde, Edith Kauffer, and Julia Ros Cuellar

The year 2020 has been challenging due to the different overlapping crises related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is difficult to celebrate amidst the awareness of the worst global suffering in generations. Nonetheless, we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to commemorate ten years of Regions & Cohesion. It is not lost on us that our commemoration occurs amidst the above-cited crises. The inaugural issue of Regions & Cohesion (2011) was entitled “Regiones, régions, regions, everywhere. … But what about the people?” It noted that regional integration had proliferated throughout the 1990s and early 2000s to the point that some scholarship was suggesting that regions could one day substitute nation-states as prominent actors in global affairs. The opening editorial of this issue noted that successful region-building, at the supranational, transnational, and sub-national level was measured in terms of economic prosperity and political stability. The inaugural issue questioned this approach by studying how well regions respond to the needs of citizens. It asked whether regions serve the needs of their people or whether people serve the needs of regional economies. The coronavirus-related crises have merely emphasized many of the shortcomings of regions and regionalisms that this journal has documented throughout its first decade of existence.

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Traveling with Trained Man

Decolonizing Directions in Railway Mobilities

Katie Maher

Abstract

This article considers the railways as a decolonial option for moving toward mobility justice. It views the photographic artwork Trained Man by Ngalkban Australian artist Darren Siwes through a mobilities lens, considering how the artist plays with time and attends to space, making visible what colonial projects of protection and assimilation have attempted to erase. Attending to the truths and imaginaries that reside and move with Trained Man, it draws on the work of Aboriginal and Black artists, scholars, and activists to trace Australia's past and present colonial history of training Aboriginal people into whiteness. It considers the railways as carrying “two lines of destiny” with potential moving in both colonial and decolonial directions. The article concludes by suggesting that shared spaces such as the railways open possibilities for mobilizing the decolonial project.

Full access

The Ukrainian divide

The power of historical narratives, imagined communities, and collective memories

Alina Penkala, Ilse Derluyn, and Ine Lietaert

Abstract

Ukraine is usually portrayed as a cleft country with a determining internal East–West divide. However, critical researchers in Ukrainian scholarship emphasize that the East–West paradigm fails to adequately reflect the complex reality of the Ukrainian society and its historical, linguistic, economic, and political mixture. This article deconstructs the origins and evolution of the eastern and western Ukrainian identities and argues that the current clash between the two regions should not be explained by linguistic and ethnic differences, geopolitical strategies, economic interests, or political gains but rather by symbolic geographies, historical myths, and political imaginations. As a consequence, Ukraine is unable to make clear choices about its geopolitical future and remains a liminal space of east and west, where the broader EU-centered and Russia-centered regions overlap.

Resumen

Ucrania suele ser retratada como un país caracterizado por una división interna determinante entre el este y el oeste. Sin embargo, algunos investigadores critican este paradigma Este-Oeste, que no refleja la compleja realidad de la sociedad ucraniana y su mezcla histórica, lingüística, económica y política. En este artículo se deconstruyen los orígenes y la evolución de las identidades ucranianas orientales y occidentales y se argumenta que el actual choque entre las dos regiones debería explicarse por el nuevo enfoque de geografías simbólicas, mitos históricos e imaginaciones políticas. En caso contrario, Ucrania no puede tomar decisiones claras sobre su futuro geopolítico y sigue siendo un espacio liminal de este y oeste, donde se superponen las regiones más amplias centradas en la UE y en Rusia, respectivamente.

Résumé

L'Ukraine est généralement présentée comme un pays avec une division interne Est-Ouest déterminante. Cependant, des chercheurs ukrainiens critiquent ce paradigme Est-Ouest, qui ne reflèterait pas la réalité complexe de la société ukrainienne ni son mélange historique, linguistique, économique et politique. Cet article déconstruit les origines et l'évolution des identités ukrainiennes orientales et occidentales et soutient que le conflit qui les oppose actuellement devrait être expliqué par la nouvelle approche des géographies symboliques, des mythes historiques et des imaginations politiques. A défaut, l'Ukraine est incapable de faire des choix clairs quant à son avenir géopolitique et reste un espace liminaire entre l'Est et l'Ouest, où les régions plus larges centrées sur l'UE et la Russie se chevauchent.

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Underwater

Where Environmental Aesthetics Meets Magical Realism

Rodanthi Tzanelli

A unique exhibition was held between 19 and 22 September 2018 in the deep blue waters of Amorgos, Greece.1 Amorgos is the easternmost of the Cyclades islands, neighboring the Dodecanese island group. The island's rich aquatic life and architectural beauty featured prominently in French director Luc Besson's internationally acclaimed English-language film on freediving, The Big Blue (Le Grand Bleu, 1988), transforming the island into an international destination for tourists and freedivers. The exhibition, Underwater Gallery: On a Single Breath, was installed at a depth of 7 to 17 meters inside a sea cave in the area of Aghios Pavlos, below the Monastery of Hozoviotissa. Hozoviotissa's famous top-floor window of the “big blue” opens to the Aegean Sea, affording visitors a bird's eye view to the Aegean. It is clear that the gallery's connection to Besson's artwork is indisputable.

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Walking as a Metaphor

COVID Pandemic and the Politics of Mobility

Avishek Ray

Abstract

This article reflects on the dissenting act of mobility as articulated by migrant workers in India, who, during the nationwide lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, are walking back home, hundreds of miles away, in lieu of public transport. Their mobility—precisely, the act of walking—has thus acquired a metaphoric status, and laid bare the ideological practices of territorializing the city-space. This article argues that the migrant worker's mobility, from within the axiomatic of the prevalent “mobility regime,” can be read as a powerful metaphor of our tensions within the global political-economic order that the pandemic has so starkly exposed. The article provokes less literal, but more literary, understandings of mobilities in general, in order to come to grips with the manifold contradictions, paradoxes, and counteractions in the way the world moves.

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Djénéba Traoré

Abstract

This article addresses the commitments of ECOWAS to citizen perspectives, and it underlines the added value of scientific research in the successful achievement of regional integration for West Africans. Specifically, it asks, how can the effectiveness and relevance of academic studies be used to enhance economic growth and social development? The creation of the West Africa Institute (WAI), a research center and think tank dedicated to regional integration and social transformations, was a major step in the search for adequate local and regional development solutions fitting with the West African context. WAI works with a participatory approach, promoting free debates among policy makers, open spaces for dialogue, and exchange among all social actors concerned with issues of regional integration and social transformation.

Resumen

Este artículo analiza los compromisos de la CEDEAO en términos de perspectivas ciudadanas y enfatiza el valor agregado de la investigación científica en el éxito de la integración regional para África Occidental. Específicamente, pregunta cómo la eficiencia y relevancia de los estudios universitarios pueden usarse para mejorar el crecimiento económico y el desarrollo social. La creación del Instituto de África Occidental (IAO) fue un paso importante en la búsqueda de soluciones para un desarrollo apropiado, adaptado a los contextos local y regional de África Occidental. La IAO trabaja con un enfoque participativo promoviendo el flujo libre de debates entre los tomadores de decisiones y espacios abiertos para el diálogo e intercambio entre todos los actores sociales interesados en temas de integración regional y transformación social.

Résumé

Cet article traite des engagements de la CEDEAO en matière de perspectives citoyennes et met l'accent sur la valeur ajoutée de la recherche scientifique dans la réussite de l'intégration régionale pour l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Plus précisément, il étudie comment l'efficacité et la pertinence de la recherche scientifique peuvent être utilisées pour améliorer la croissance économique et le développement social. La création de l'Institut de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (IAO), un centre de recherche et un groupe de réflexion dédié à l'intégration régionale et aux transformations sociales, a été une étape majeure dans la recherche de solutions de développement local et régional adéquates adaptées au contexte ouest-africain. L'IAO travaille avec une approche participative, favorisant la libre circulation des débats entre les décideurs et des espaces ouverts pour le dialogue et l'échange entre tous les acteurs sociaux concernés par les questions d'intégration régionale et de transformation sociale.