The oceans as new regions: emerging narratives and the Bay of Bengal

ABSTRACT

Traditionally geo-political spatial imaginations have been restricted to the continental expanse with the understanding that oceans formed the shared commons. However, he delimitation of oceanic spaces as ‘natural regions’ is therefore increasingly becoming as significant today to strategic discourse as continental spaces and subject to similar terminological transformations. This article argues that the emergence of a common narrative built around historical interactions along sea lanes, the re-conceptualization of ocean spaces and the increasing recognition of the significance of ‘Blue Economy’ calls for a critical understanding of ocean spaces. In the twenty-first century this has become a structural component of international politics expanding into a wider array of policy fields in a way that was seldom evident even in the last decade of the previous century, when the mapping of oceans assumed critical political relevance. In this background, this article examines the emergence of the Bay of Bengal as a ‘new’ region with associated regional organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• maritime regionalism
• Indo-Pacific
• Bay of Bengal
• BIMSTEC

Acknowledgements

This article is part of an ongoing research project on Historic Connects and New Corridors: India's Asian alternatives in an era of connectivity, sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi. The author is grateful to ICSSR for the support extended for the study. The author is also grateful to the two anonymous referees for their insightful comments and suggestions and the many useful inputs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Note on the Contributor

Anita Sengupta is Senior Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi India. Her areas of interest include issues of identity politics, migration, gender, borders, critical geopolitics and logistics. She is a regular commentator on debates on Asian affairs. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Notes

1 As Lewis and Wigen note one of the most elementary is the ‘myth of continents’.

2 For a detailed study of the proposed reframing see Lewis and Wigen (1997, pp. 161–168).

3 For a detailed examination of the varying constructions of the Indo Pacific see Doyle and Rumley (2019, pp. 6–7).

4 See report by Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury (2019), based on special report in Globe Times.

5 See for instance Doyle and Rumley (2019). However, there is a considerable existing scholarship on sea spaces like the Mediterranean. See for instance Cooke (1999, pp. 290–300).

6 The term is borrowed from Timothy Doyle arguments about maritime regionalism. See Doyle (2018). For a detailed examination of how the Look East and Act East Policies are interwoven with a new understanding of regionalism see Sengupta (2017).

7 For studies on BIMSTEC, see De (2018); Kundu (2014, pp. 207–224); Wagner & Tripathy (2018); Yahya (2005, pp. 391–410).