The Mytho-Logics of Othering and Containment: Culture, Politics and Theory in International Relations

ABSTRACT In this article, we adopt a socio-anthropological approach to understand how hegemonic international representations are constructed in the politics and theory of international relations, specifically how Southeast Europe is perceived in West European imagination. We focus on various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy making, truth claims and expert accounts related to different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912–1913) and new (1991–1999). We show how these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicizations, and how they contribute to international representations that affect international politics, particularly in relation to perpetuating othering and containment of Southeast Europe. We demonstrate through a detailed analysis and problematization how these international representations are culturally and politically constructed. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. As such, how international representations are constructed is itself a form of power and hegemony in both the practice and the theory of international relations.