The interplay of narratives on regionness, regionhood and regionality: European Union and Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies the interplay between narratives on Central Asia as a region. It compares European Union (EU) narratives with those of the five post-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. By doing so, it investigates the manifestations of narratives, stories and narrators who continue to construct and convey certain discourses about the region, comparing EU discourse and that of the local political elites in Central Asia, respectively. By looking at official discourse conveyed by the presidents of the countries and in key foreign policy documents, the interplay of narratives as dialogues between narrators is analysed, thus expanding into ideational analysis, an emerging trend in the literature on post-Soviet Central Asia.