The Nation
Reading
• Valentine Ch 9
esp. pp. 295-306
• Nations
• National Identity
• Nationalism
The Nation
• Nation-states a product of a specific
historical epoch
– Industrial Capitalism
• Nation-States under threat
– From Globalization
– From internal division
Nations
•
•
•
•
A collective form of identity
Socially constructed
A legacy of the modern period
Nation-States under threat:
– Identity being re-constructed
Nationalism: Michael Ignatieff
• Ethnic nationalism
• Civic nationalism
Civic Nationalism
• Nation is composed of all who subscribe to
its political creed
–
–
–
–
a nation based on citizenship
regardless of birth, ethnic origin, language etc.,
Socially realistic
Example: Canada outside of Quebec
Ethnic Nationalism
• Nation composed of those of a common
ethnic heritage
– a nation based on blood, language
– rule by the ethnic majority
– Socially unrealistic
Ethnic Nationalism
• Nations are idealised as “pure” cultures
– motherland; fatherland; homeland;
cradle/berceau
– idealised landscapes
– association of space & people, blood & soil
Ethnic Nationalism
• Constructs a Gaze
– Ethnocentric self vs Others
– Can be hostile toward Others
State Capitol, Austin TX
Civic Nationalism
• In debunking the mythologies of ethnic
nationalism (blood & soil etc.,) Ignatieff
creates other mythologies:
– culture, history, tradition still matter in a “civic
nation”
– “Civic nations” have their own traditions,
mythologies, tribal myths etc.,
– Civic Nationalism as politically-correct wishful
thinking link
Imagined communities
Benedict Anderson (1983)
• Nations are imagined
communities
• But they are not purely
imaginary
– Created out of preexisting identities
Nation State
• Historically specific
• Invented in C16th Europe
Nation State
• Importance of media, schools
– Disseminates idea of community
– Co-ordinates common experience
Benedict Anderson:
• Print capitalism and
• Ethnic diversity
– Promote imagined communities
Gerrard St East
• Video capitalism and
• Thriving Indian
expatriate community
– Promotes the
imagination of an India
by the expatriate
community
Invented traditions
• Creating or falsifying the past
– for promoting an invented community
Nationalism
“...what nationalism really is: the dream that a
whole nation could be like a congregation;
singing the same hymns, listening to the
same gospel, sharing the same emotions,
linked not only to each other, but to the
dead buried beneath their feet.”
-- Michael Ignatieff Blood & Belonging
Assad’s Funeral, Syria
National Identity
French
Nationalism
US Nationalism
the beaver is a
proud and truly
noble
animal….
Nationalist Kitsch
“There is no nationalist art that is not kitsch,
no patriotic creation that does not
pantomime sincerity. Why? Perhaps no art
that is not personal can ever be genuinely
sincere, and nationalist art, by definition,
cannot be personal.”
-- Michael Ignatieff Blood & Belonging
Banal Nationalism
• Where nationalist
symbolism
becomes more
important than
any deeper social
reality
Conclusion:
• Nations, Nationalism are social phenomena
– socially constructed
– socially meaningful to some extent
– importance of mythology and symbolism in
creating national identity