Epistemological conundrums are raised in Agnew's "Regions on the mind does not equal regions of the mind." Let's think of a local question. The boundaries of Nevada were created for certain reasons, but are these regional schemes at all intellectual? Or are they socially constructed? Agnew claims that, "they must reflect the biases, intellectual and political, of their originators" (95). In 1861 President Buchanan signed a Congressional Bill which created the Territory of Nevada. On March 2nd, just two days later, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as the 16th President of the U. S. Nevada was established by railroads, mining, and vast landscapes. Economic scenarios infested Eastern reveries. Truthfully, Nevada was founded under economic pretenses. The region was socially created. According to Agnew it can be argued as otherwise. “Realists” claim that a region “exists ‘out there’ in the world, even if there is a prior requirement to think that the world is divided up in this way” (92).
I think Nevada was part of a social construction. The name and boundary is a product of economic circumstances in the mid nineteenth century. Nevada could have expanded further north, occupying the Sierras and most of, what is now, Boise. But the region was chosen for certain reasons that may seem arbitrary to us today. The state could have easily been called something other than “snowcapped.” Nevada could have easily been named “James Warren Nye World”: de Saussure would argue for “Spoon,” or “Catworld.” Agnew's greatest point in the essay is when he refuses to understand the foundation of regions solely through binary oppositions – realism vs. constructionism. He states:
Regions both reflect differences in the world and ideas about differences. They cannot be reduced to one or the other. Observers and people in the world use regional designations to make sense of the world and these draw on real differences between parts of the world but they cannot claim total fit to the world because they are based on ideas about regional differences that are not simply about those differences per se but also about ideas of how the world works (93).
One can argue that the oppositions are temperamental and reflexive. They feed off one another. There are instrumental ideas that coalesce and materialize into regions, all because of antiquated, familiar ideas of previous social progressions.
. . . I'm not sure if that's worded correctly. Thoughts?
