Regional immunity complexes: A plurospherical and autoimmunological reimagining of regional security

Abstract

This article proposes a categorical reframing of regional security theory that builds on and extends the recent theoretical turn towards immunology. Specifically, the article argues that the systems of regional security should be recast as systems of regional immunity in order to draw attention not only to the spatial complexities of post-national and increasingly deterritorialised regionalism, fuelled by the spatial modalities of late modernity, but also to the autoimmunitary processes that are at work in all protective and resilience-building systems, biological and political alike. The discussion departs from Peter Sloterdijk's immunological theory of spheres in order to delineate the broad outlines of what the article terms Regional Immunity Complexes (RIC's). Through this reading, structures of regional security take on the form of a plurosphere of atmospherically differentiated and immunised lifeworlds that rhizomatically unfold through the connected isolations of Sloterdijk's foams. Through the exploration of specific examples, the article shows how the dynamics of regional plurospheres affect the processes of regional security and resilience and how these then engender the very counter-processes of autoimmunological erasure.