6533b822fe1ef96bd127cb0e

RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Discursive Constitution of a World-Spanning Region and the Role of Empty Signifiers: The Case of Francophonia

subject

description

The cultural turn in political science, history, and political geography has opened new perspectives on the division of the world into geographic entities. Nation-states, regions, districts, etc., are no longer qualified as quasi-natural objects based upon intrinsic qualities but, rather, as contingent results of social or accordingly discursive processes. The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) defines Francophonia as an “geocultural space” (espace geoculturel) and an international community of more than 50 states. In this contribution, the concept of political communities as “imagined communities” and the advancements of discourse theory by Laclau and Mouffe are used in order to conceptualise and analyse the discursive constitution of this world-spanning region. The findings show that Francophonia has been constituted during the process of decolonisation as a community bound together by the idea of a shared language – largely by reproducing patterns of a superiority of French language a...