International representations of Balkan wars: a socio-anthropological approach in international relations perspective

Abstract

This article introduces the socio-anthropological concept of international representations to examine the relationship between a civilizational rhetoric, the West European and the international politics of otherization and containment of Southeast Europe, and an essentialist and timeless bias in international relations theory, including both radical and constructivist trends. We first explore the different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century. Their subsequent problematization is aimed at challenging the way they have constructed commonplace and time-worn representations, which international society shares with different consequences in international affairs. This is a limited conception since international representations as a socio-anthropological concept are always socially, culturally and politically constructed, contested and negotiated. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. Moreover, this limited conception ignores the fact that how, by whom and in whose interest international representations are constructed is itself a form of power in international relations. Therefore, the way international representations are constructed can be problematized as an example of political and ideological projects that operate in the West as well as in the Southeast European countries that are the object of Western foreign policy.

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