Southern Africa: The geopolitical configuration of a lived region

Groping in the Dark with the “Non-Places” BRICS: Geopolitics of the Emergence of an Empire or States Racing to the Bottom?

“…Notwithstanding the complex and multifaceted processes as well as diverse actors in such a space (Lee 2003), regionalism implies that member states would act in unison in their management of international geopolitics, notwithstanding their uniqueness in cultures, histories and ideologies. More importantly, the ideal regional space for regionalism is contiguous (Ramutsindela, 2005(Ramutsindela, , 2011. Intricately connected with theories of development such as modernization and dependency, regionalism was accepted among emerging economies as a counterforce against neoliberal globalization (Gibb, 2009).…”

Trade Regionalism, Decolonization-Bordering and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development

“…If states and other actors (forces) compete and/or collaborate in "shaping a regional space", then regions must also be central to non-spatial processes, in addition to their evident territoriality; and spaces of regionalism should therefore be territorial terrains for articulation and contestations of power and politics of engagement (Agnew, 2000;MacLeod & Jones, 2007;. This paper holds that trade regionalism is intrinsically a bordering and socio-spatial process of transformation, which should be deliberately used to create and recreate "territorial power" as well as to produce and reproduce dominion thereupon (Paasi, 1999(Paasi, , 2004(Paasi, , 2005(Paasi, , 2009a(Paasi, , 2010Sidaway, 2002;Ramutsindela, 2009Ramutsindela, , 2010bRamutsindela, , 2011bOverman et al, 2010). Africa's desire for decolonization through trade regionalism is longstanding and evident in initiatives such as the 1991 Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (AEC), and recently NEPAD.…”