Regionalist Movements

Research on regionalist social movements lies at the intersection of two fields: studies of ethnic conflicts and studies of social movements. The term “regionalist movements” is used, in a broadly defined sense, to encompass a large spectrum of sociopolitical movements which share the claiming of sovereignty over a particular territory. They include activities that range from small‐scale, sporadic events to well‐developed campaigns that demand territorial rearrangements such as home rule, devolution, separatism, diaspora settlements, independence and/or secession. Cases in point, just to mention a few, are the Basques and the Catalans in Spain, the Welsh, the Scots, and the Northern Irish in Great Britain, the Corsicans and Bretons in France. One of the distinctive characteristics of the regionalist movement family is its internal diversity in relation not only to its goals, but also to its identity, ideology, organizational forms, and the repertoires used. Ethnic identity, for example, is not a requirement for regionalist mobilization. Nevertheless, it is usually instrumentally constructed and organized in the process of collective action as it helps to overcome the seemingly natural resistance of individuals to get involved in movement activities. Thus many regionalist movements invoke ascribed characteristics such as culture and language, as well as histories of ethnic discrimination and systemic subordination from political and/or economic participation, which can be real or only perceived as such.