ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the debate on the controversy between inherent regional character versus arbitrarily imposed divisions of area is presented, with the aim of defining one of the rationales espoused by power-knowledge nexus, that there are no "natural" or "real" regions out there to be discovered, but only fragments of the earth's surface materialized into regions by reiterative regional discursive practices. The general acceptance of a region named "Middle East" and how it relates to the Arab world are discussed as an instance of the relation between the ability to create regions as geographic and discursive entities and the capability to enforce. The chapter focuses the way Arab regionalism is imprisoned in negative connotations in most anthologies on studies of regions and regionalism published in the last few decades. The chapter describes Iver Neumann's region building approach as he developed in A Region-Building Approach to Northern Europe.