Visualising Nationhood
A Grand Theory of National Identity
Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College,
University of London
A Grand Theory
• Agnostic re source of changes
• About effects rather than causes
• Heuristic Device rather than positive
theory
• Builds upon work of Zimmer (2003);
Hutchinson (2005); Confino and others
Helps Clarify Major Issues
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Ideology and national identity
'Ethnic-Civic' Nations
'Nations before Nationalism'
Universalism (Islam, Neoconservatism) as
nationalism?
'Nations as Zones of Conflict' (Hutchinson 2005)
Local vs National
Relationship between individual identity and
collective identity (ie. 'consumption v production')
Ethnosymbolism: continuity of nations or revival
of resources?
Optical Metaphor
• Referent: Frame of Reference for the Individual
(Territory, Population). Can change for subjective
and geopolitical reasons
• Lenses: Ideologies, Location (Social,
Geographic), Interests, Psychological
predispositions
• Resources: Landscape, History, Genealogy,
Institutions, Values, Culture, Economy (Zimmer
2003)
• Ideology and Nationalism
• Ethnic-Civic
Lens: British Unionist Ideology
Lens: Multicultural Ideology
• Collective representations of the nation are also
ideologies
• Must distinguish Ireland as referent from
collective ideology of Irish national identity
produced by intellectuals/elites, and this is then
different from an individual's image of their Irish
national identity
• Can have individuals identifying with Ireland
before the ideology of Irish national identity has
crystallized
• People may see Ireland through prism of other
ideologies (i.e. Catholic, Unionist)
• Social Location: 'Nations as Zones of
Conflict' (Hutchinson 2005)
• Geographic Location: Local vs National
Aristocratic-Upper Class Social
Location
Whig-Middle Class Social Location
• Relationship between individual identity
and collective Identity
• Can locate the underpinnings of any
theory
• As well as elements which do not easily fit
within established theories (i.e. ideology,
social location)
Read All About It……..
• 'The Lenses of Nationhood: An Optical Model of
Identity', Nations and Nationalism, forthcoming
• "Dominant Ethnicity and Dominant Nationhood:
Empirical and Normative Aspects" in Lecours, A.
and G. Nootens (eds.), Dominant Nationalism,
Dominant Ethnicity: Identity, Federalism and
Democracy (Berlin: Peter Lang, forthcoming)
• http://www.sneps.net/NNE/n&e.htm