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Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at the Parliament of Quebec, I highlight the limits of analyses based on self-determination or left/right politics and focus on the interdependence and interactions between Quebec and a host of other stakeholders.

Contribution long abstract:

Using the concept of “the region” to challenge the hierarchies between various actors allows us to contribute to broader theoretical debates questioning the nation-state as the necessary form of the political. Since the 1980s, anthropology has made significant strides in analyzing a growing diversity of political forms and in arguing that sovereignty is not a black or white question. However, regions have been notably absent from these discussions focused on nation-states, international or supranational bodies and nongovernmental associations. I conducted fieldwork at the Parliament of Quebec during a rare single-party minority government formed by the pro-independence Parti Québécois. As such, I was able to question the narrative whereby a dominant cleavage based on questions of self-determination or constitutional debates was gradually being replaced by a left/right split. By looking at how existing political structures actually work on the ground, we can see these that two cleavages have intersected in complex ways alongside a multiplicity of ever-changing topical issues of the day. We can also emphasize the interdependencies of regions and other political categories or forms. The Parliament of Quebec is in near-constant interaction not only with domestic, mostly nongovernmental social forces, but also with a wide variety of other political forms inside and outside Canada. This includes, in the first category, witnesses at parliamentary committees and, in the second, inter-parliamentary relations with other orders of government in Canada’s federal structure, other “regions” outside of Canada, sovereign countries and international or supranational organizations.