Nationalism and Cultural

Identities

The Rise of New Europe

Introduction

Europe as a region of relatively stable though fragile nation states

Each characterized (to varying degrees) by both centripetal and centrifugal forces

Centripetal: Nationalism (Sports, War, History)Centrifugal: Devolution, Globalization, politics of difference

For N. Johnson (citing Agnew) the complexities and fragility of nation-states have become more pronounced in Post-Cold War era

Question of the geographical ‘scale’ of cultural identity

Max Weber, Sociologist

“. . . a nation is a community of sentiment which would adequately manifest itself in a state of its own; hence, a nation is a community which normally tends to produce a state of its own.” (quoted in Johnson, 1998: 86)

Nations + States=Nation-statesEuropean nation-states emerged with the rise of industrial (economic) power and expansion of global empires

Nations are a culturally similar groupings of peopleStates are political institutions for organizing nationsNation-States are the products of a socio-political process of ‘nation-building’

Nation-states are territorially based. Why?Nation-state as a way of containing power

Economic: national currencies, taxation, infrastructure Political: representation (hence need for National Censuses)

Means of normalizing extent of institutionsNation-states foster “imagined” community

“It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. . . . The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion human beings, has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind. . . . It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm.”

Benedict Anderson (1983: 15)

“Imagined” National Communities

Nationalism: ideology that links nation to state

Homogeneity of languagePrinting press: advent of popular literatureSchool textbooks

Standardization of timeAchieved through information: factual and mythical

“invented traditions”Suggest continuity with ancient (and significant) pastBecome essence of national “culture”

“Imagined” National Communities

Imperial Encounters with the “Other”

Sense of community through encounter with colonial subjectsAppropriation of “exotic” culture

Foodspices; crops: tea

ArchitectureFabrics

Nationalism as Xenophobia

Summary

Nationalism ideology of nationhood: belonging to state (citizenship)State nationalism challenged by devolution and Supranationalism of EUNations as imagined communities are being reimagined