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This article challenges the prima facie differences between the Scottish independence and pro-Brexit movements, drawing similarities based on shared promotion of nationalism, incorporation of populism, and policy radicalism challenging consensuses over austerity/immigration. The analysis tests four hypotheses: first, their respective supporters hold nationalist beliefs; second, their supporters adhere to different but relatively radical policy preferences (tested on three dimensions: economic, cultural, immigration); third, their supporters adhere with populism; and fourth, their supporters are cynical towards perceived experts. The article finds the expected nationalist support, as well as supporters of independence/Brexit holding more radical policy beliefs compared to anti-independence/anti-Brexit voters. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a clearer picture of anti-expert and anti-elite populism support for Brexit, with little evidence showing these being features of Scottish independence support. This leaves the conclusion of some voter-level similarities between supporters of both movements, but also differences in the levels of populism among their respective voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ali Meghji's A Critical Synergy provides a thought-provoking framework for putting two bodies of thought in conversation with one another. Doing so advances the project of imagining alternative, anti-racist futures. I reflect on the central argument of the book within the context of contemporary sociology. I then engage with three themes of the book: ways of knowing and being, methodological nationalism, and postcolonial melancholia. I approach each theme from my vantage point as a scholar of decolonial (and postcolonial) thought, taking up Meghji's invitation to engage with critical race theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the impact of socio-psychological factors, such as nationalism, internationalism, collectivism, conservativism, patriotism, and cultural openness, on consumer ethnocentrism and its effect on purchase intentions among South African consumers. A total of 203 responses were collected from South African consumers over the age of 18 through an electronic self-administered survey. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that internationalism and conservativism have a significant positive impact on consumer ethnocentrism. Furthermore, consumer ethnocentrism has an influence on purchase intentions. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on predicting and understanding consumer preferences and behavioral intentions in developing countries, particularly in relation to purchasing foreign goods versus domestic goods. The results of this study can help businesses in South Africa better understand the factors that influence behavior and tailor their marketing strategies accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Eoin McNamee's Resurrection Man (1994) as a Troubles novel acutely interested in the ways violence is transcribed into text. It argues McNamee's depictions of the media satirise their attempt to contain historical explanations of the Troubles exclusively within the inherent sectarianism of the region. Instead, McNamee creates discursive encounters between Ulster and different trouble spots around the world, summoning the spectres of British imperialism. Through a discussion of decolonisation, memory and the legacies of Empire, the paper engages with the ways the local and the international intersect to interrogate nationalisms, borders, identities and historical representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current Civil War in Yemen based on Human Needs Theory. Developed by John Burton, Human Needs Theory rests on the premise that certain groups of people resort to violence when their basic needs are not met or when they need understanding, respect, and consideration for their needs. Needs for security and identity recognition are particularly salient in civil wars and devastating identity conflicts. An important conclusion is that many of the human needs violations that the Shia minority group has suffered in Yemen stem from the long-established Sunni-Shia conflict that has fueled this civil war. This has caused Saudi Arabia (i.e., Sunni) and Iran (i.e., Shia) to support both sides of the conflict. As a result, a significant number of Yemenis have had difficulties living out their religious identity and achieve well-being. In particular, not only have their basic human rights been denied (i.e., essential needs to maintain survival) but, also, basic aid to children has been rejected as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Ernst B. Haas is recognized among European integration scholars as a founding figure of neo-functionalism, his later writing on nationalism is less known to European integration scholars. I contribute to this special issue by discussing Haas' later work on liberal nationalism and by reflecting on its insights for the study of collective identities in the European Union today. In a nutshell, Haas expected that (1) national and supranational identities are inherently rational and the expression of a deliberate choice, (2) citizens shift their identities from the national to the European level due to utilitarian considerations, (3) nationalism is not per se destructive, but it comes in many moulds and can be the basis for the international community. I argue that Haas' emphasis on rational and deliberate identity choice clashes with our current understanding of identity as implicit and subliminal. Moreover, his optimism is challenged by the rise of radical-right-wing parties who have successfully mobilized exclusive nationalist identities against European integration. On the other hand, Haas' emphasis on the double-edged nature of collective identity is an important reminder that also European identity, while striving to overcome exclusive nationalism, can reify its exclusiveness at the supranational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ernst B. Haas pioneered the formation of European integration studies outside the field of International Relations. The European Coal and Steal Community of 1951 was already more supranational than any existing international organisation to date. Supranationalism subsequently expanded with European integration. In his attempt to account for the supranationalism of European regionalism, Haas had developed his neofunctionalism as a general theory, which could be applied to other regions as well as the global level. EU scholars, in contrast, began to treat the EU as a case sui generis insisting on its unique supranational nature. The paper revisits the question of the uniqueness of European regionalism. Combining Ernst Haas' works on supranational regionalism and liberal nationalism, the EU is approached as a strong form of supranational regionalism that has transformed interstate relations in Europe towards what he called 'cosmopolitan internationalism'. The paper argues that liberal nationalism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for this transformation. It, however, provides an explanation for the contestation of the EU as a model of liberal regionalism by non-liberal forms of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the argumentative legitimation of discriminatory attitudes against Silvia Romano on Italian newspapers front pages. A volunteer-aid worker and activist, Romano was kidnapped in northeast Kenya in 2018 and eventually released after 18 months of captivity. Upon her return to Italy, a jilbāb-covered Romano declared she converted to Islam while held hostage and changed her name to Aisha. Romano’s conversion triggered a wave of exclusionary rhetoric across Italian media and opened the dam to a deluge of misogynous and Islamophobic attacks against the newly liberated activist, accused of having betrayed Catholic religion and Italian culture. Our corpus comprises 86 front pages from mainstream Italian newspapers of different ideological backgrounds, collected during the first week after Romano’s release in May 2020. Following the agenda of Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies and drawing on van Leeuwen’s language of legitimation, we study the recontextualization of social practice on the front pages and the main argumentation strategies, namely topoi, that emerge on the basis of this recontextualization, ending up argumentatively legitimizing discriminatory attitudes against the intended target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the significant impact of archaeology on English national identity and heritage interpretation, focusing on key sites like Stonehenge, Sutton Hoo, and Hadrian’s Wall. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we analyze how archaeological discoveries shape national narratives, emphasizing continuity, rootedness, and cultural uniqueness. Through qualitative methods, including interviews and focus groups, we find that public perceptions of these sites highlight themes of engagement, inclusivity, and the need for more comprehensive interpretations. Our results reveal that archaeological interpretations evolve with societal values and political agendas, often reinforcing or challenging notions of national identity. This study underscores the dynamic relationship between archaeology, nationalism, and cultural memory, advocating for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to heritage management and public engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to shed light on the contemporary issue of exile and diaspora and their manifestations in the poetry of Abdullah al-Baradouni, a modern Yemeni poet. Within the postcolonial hermeneutics and postmodernist theory, exile in the poetry of al-Baradouni becomes a signifier indicating not only being expelled outside one’s homeland but experiencing the feelings of isolation, exile, and diaspora caused by hard conditions, power struggle, ideological heterodoxy, and identity loss. Al-Baradouni’s dialectics of exile revolves on the concept that exile is a human condition beyond physical boundaries. Thus, exile is no longer treated as a singular event, it rather becomes a heterogeneous and multifaceted phenomenon. He succeeds in depicting the impactful consequences of exile and diaspora through the employment of bizarre, macabre, and surrealistic images and techniques. Hence, this piece of research adopts surrealism as a theoretical framework in illuminating and investigating al-Baradouni’s poetic texts under study. In his poetry, al-Baradouni becomes the voice of the voiceless and embodies a collective national consciousness as he engages himself in poetic enterprises that demand intrepidity, determination, articulateness, genius, vision, and prophecy. His contribution to the literature of exile and diaspora is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of the 'humanitarian border' in its specific local context of Polish nationalism and the use of patriotic sentiments to justify violence at the border. The intensification of asylum-seeker migration from Asia and Africa on the EU's eastern border, triggered by the Lukashenka regime since the summer of 2021, was quickly dubbed as 'hybrid war', enabling the Polish government to take decisive military action against border crossers. The justification for this violence became both the patriotic duty, expressed in national idioms, and the discursively produced humanitarian concern for refugees whose lives and health were threatened precisely by the harshness of border controls. The labelling of repression and violence as the heroism and care of the Polish uniformed services, present both in the discursive framework of the description of the 'crisis' by the government media and in the cooperation of border guards with humanitarian actors, has become a specific form of 'epistemic borderwork'. The grassroots solidarity movement that opposes these hegemonic discourses seeks to create counter-narratives highlighting the state's illegal actions and the refugees' right to freedom of movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the complex ways in which narratives about food function as mediums for conveying nationalist and racist ideologies, highlighting a broad view that encompasses discriminatory ideologies like xenophobia, nativism, suprematism, and protectionism. Given the pivotal role of food in cultural identity and symbolism – a role particularly pronounced in the rich food heritage of Italian culture – this research offers profound insights into the subtle manifestations of nationalism and racism within the context of Italian food culture. Employing semi-structured interviews with thirty individuals from diverse backgrounds in the Italian food sector, including production, preparation, and distribution, the study unveils that expressions of nationalism and racism often stem from a deep-seated impulse to defend and protect Italian cultural heritage. However, the investigation also uncovers the inherent ambiguities and contradictions in these attitudes, illustrating how nationalist and racist sentiments are frequently set aside in efforts to promote and globalize Italian culinary traditions. This paradox underscores the complex and often contradictory nature of cultural nationalism and racism, challenging the consistency of such ideological stances in the face of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of the discourse of exceptionality of Iran on contemporary Iranian thought, particularly its intricate relationship with the ideology of nationalism. It focuses on the scholarly contributions of Javad Tabatabai (1945–2023), whose work has significantly impacted recent Iranian intellectual debates in both academic and broader public discussions on Iranian nationhood and identity. The paper traces the evolution of Tabatabai’s work from its initial philosophical-theoretical foundation aimed at addressing the ‘problem of Iran’ to its final emphasis on Iran’s exceptional nature, reflecting a nationalist-exceptionalist perspective. By examining the ‘power of exception’ and its utilization in history and social science disciplines, the paper illustrates how claims of exceptionality wield rhetorical influence despite lacking empirical support in scholarly discourse. It argues that Tabatabai’s historiographical assumptions are shaped by a combination of historical exceptionalism and ‘methodological nationalism’. Drawing from insights in Global History, the paper challenges these assumptions in favour of more integrative perspectives. It advocates for transcending the confines of ‘national history’, and explores the possibility of contending historical and contemporary inquiries of Iranian nationhood and identity without succumbing to the charm of exceptionalist narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following China’s rise as an economic powerhouse, the country’s immigrant population has quickly increased and diversified, leading to an increase in romantic relationships between foreign and Chinese citizens. This article analyzes the racialization of belonging and citizenship of Chinese nationals born into Chinese-foreign families living in China. Drawing on data gathered through analyzing online debates and media reports, supplemented by interviews and fieldwork observations, the article investigates how discussions about the identity of vloggers, pop stars, and athletes of mixed Chinese-foreign descent shed light on rising Chinese racial nationalism at a time when China has become a destination for international migration and a new frontier for racial knowledge production. We argue that this process is characterized by a tension between China’s emergence as an immigrant society and the hardening boundaries of its national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does China signal foreign policy intentions to domestic and international audiences during territorial conflicts? While China can signal its resolve by provoking nationalism at home, doing so may risk appearing threatening to neighbouring countries in the region. We argue that China resolves the dilemma by sending different types of messages to domestic and international audiences. Focusing on China’s maritime conflicts in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, we examine China’s narratives regarding the maritime disputes through the analysis of state-run media. Our findings from text mining and topic analyses of more than 31,000 state media reports from 2002 to 2021 suggest that China signals to the international audience on international cooperation emphasising diplomatic and peaceful resolutions while relatively less so in domestic media. The analyses have implications for how China signals foreign policy intentions amidst rising nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominant narratives of the Australian New Wave tend to frame the efflorescence of national filmmaking in the 1970s through the lens of Gough Whitlam's brand of cultural nationalism. The narrative usually runs as follows: state-funded films tended to favour a conservative, genteel and respectable aesthetic that came to be known as the "Australian Film Commission genre". This article uses Mark Fisher's concept of "popular modernism" to challenge this dominant account of the Australian New Wave first put forth by Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, outlining the ways in which social democracy and state funding provided the conditions that allowed filmmakers to produce radical films that were anti-nationalist in character. As we will argue, when national film production deviated from this configuration and became circumscribed by neoliberal restructuring and economic rationalism in the 1980s, the New Wave took on an increasingly nationalist impulse. The article will trace this trajectory through a narrative analysis of two films from lauded Australian director Peter Weir: The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and Gallipoli (1981). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that nationalities policy under Lenin and Stalin, its commitment to territorial autonomy notwithstanding, effectively put into practice the Austro-Marxist vision of a socialist multinational state and party that patronised national culture to assuage separatist tendencies. Highlighting the ideological common ground between Habsburg remedies for imperial disintegration along national lines and Soviet policies for imperial integration along the same lines, it argues that the Bolsheviks' Marxist premise of promoting national diversity and culture to defuse nationalism was prefigured and informed by the Austro-Marxist premise of making national cultural autonomy the hallmark rather than the antithesis of socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International pressure on human rights can mobilize domestic social and political change but can also be manipulated and resisted, which necessitates exploring the problems and mechanisms within human rights discourses. Focusing on Chinese LGBT issues and examining Chinese sexual nationalist discourses, this study investigates how Chinese nationalism is employed to resist international LGBT rights pressure. It reveals that, although external entities have pressured LGBT rights through naming, shaming, and even direct advocacy, these external pressures face two dilemmas rooted in the principles of particularism and noninterference. These dilemmas have become significant points of contention for the Chinese state and nationalists, who respond to external LGBT rights pressure by emphasizing discourses of authenticity and security. Specifically, Chinese nationalist discourse leverages the principle of particularism to emphasize its distinctive sexual traditions and values, while employing the principle of noninterference to manipulate external LGBT rights pressure as originating from hostile foreign forces. Notably, Chinese nationalism is not a monolithic ideology; instead, it encompasses two contrasting forms of sexual nationalism—namely, macho nationalism and homonationalism. Despite differences in defining authentic Chinese sexual traditions, both forms of nationalism converge in perceiving external LGBT support as foreign forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I discuss the radical gender equality reforms in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, and how they have affected women's lives since the implementation of the Women's Law in 2014. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, eight group interviews, and participant observation, this ethnographic study illustrates how the ideal of the "free" woman permeates society in North and East Syria, prescribing desired forms of behavior and appearance. Drawing on the literature on gender and nationalism in postcolonial processes of state building, my study provides an analysis of the AANES' gender discourse that considers the real-life governing effects of the reforms. Building from the Foucauldian premise that modern power engenders disciplinary practices, I examine how awareness-raising efforts and education seminars establish new forms of control in the public sphere. I contend that the reforms operate as governing tools and, as such, shape women's subjectivities. Engendering both discipline and resistance, they result in the emergence of new subjectivities that are not entirely determined by either ideology or by patriarchal structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the lives of sex workers in late twentieth-century Ireland. In 1979, at least 98 women worked in one small area of Dublin alone, and in 1980 many of them helped Jim Finucane TD produce a report outlining their plight and demanding support. However, this was a period of great uncertainty and change, and there was little appetite to provide progressive aid for sex workers. Political and economic instability caused anxiety about the future of the republic. The patriarchal and restrictive moral practices of the Catholic Church came into conflict with an increasingly complex, modern society. The impact of this turbulence upon the lives of Ireland's marginalised communities has been under-investigated. Sex workers, whilst made visible in the Finucane report, have been absent from historical research. This article examines the relationship between working-class women and the institutions of Church, State and society. It highlights the abuse and ignorance sex workers faced in the 1970s and 1980s, linking their marginalisation to Ireland's containment culture and the protection of a morally pure, Catholic Irish national identity. This research affords Dublin's sex workers the attention they deserve within historiography concerning containment culture, nationalism, and feminism in late twentieth-century Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Japan's resource diplomacy in the Middle East by focusing on the activities and ideologies of business leaders before the First Oil Crisis in 1973. By analysing the roles played by four prominent leaders in the oil industry (Idemitsu Sazō, Yamashita Tarō, Tanaka Seigen, and Sugimoto Shigeru), the article illustrates how the beliefs of these leaders intersected with those of the political class in Japan's oil diplomacy towards Middle East. The approach they took to oil diplomacy reflected the notion of Kōdōshugi (Imperial Way principles and ethics). This form of nationalism had some continuity with the prewar Greater Asianism insofar as it was infused with the religious ethics and doctrines of the 'Japanese Imperial Way' and the avoidance of dependence on the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complex process of symbolic boundary-making of 'Hongkonger' cultural identities through the lens of the controversial 2015 film Ten Years, which is a celebrated omnibus production comprised of five short segments that picture a dystopic end to Hong Kong's cherished way of life in the year 2025. The article is premised on an interdisciplinary approach engaging with cultural studies and film studies. On one hand, it explores how Ten Years functioned as a boundary object, a vast terrain within which cultural identities of what it means to be a Hongkonger are constructed, banished, imagined, and performed under the rubric of bodily performatives. On the other hand, it offers blurring encounters into unfamiliar and precarious territories where the formation and formulation of Hongkonger identities and sense of belonging are negotiated, evacuated, and inhabited. In the end, the key tropes in Ten Years suggest that boundary work in post-Umbrella Hong Kong affectively negotiates with state-level nationalism advocated by the central government in Beijing through establishing and reformulating notions of 'localism' and Hongkonger identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Frankfurt School Critical Theory, we examine the political outcomes of how Asian populist authoritarian regimes seized the COVID-19 pandemic context for regime maintenance and power consolidation. The pandemic revealed interesting India-Philippines parallels highlighting three inter-connected political-economic development patterns contextualising analogous state responses to COVID-19. First, how neo-liberal economic policies pursued through old and new technologies of domination accompanied phenomenal economic growth rates without addressing structural socio-economic inequalities. Second, how parallel predisposing conditions of failed political promises, increased rent-seeking opportunities, and corruption under constricted neo-liberal democracies, gave rise to populist authoritarian leaders. Third, how combined neo-liberalism and populist authoritarianism conditioned conflictual and contested government responses to the pandemic, bolstering power consolidation and regime maintenance, on the one hand, and ensuing political contestations on the other. Populist authoritarianism persists during pandemics through three significant connected elements of ideological domination propagated through mass media, the hetero-patriarchal family, and educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a pilot study on the relationship between speaking Irish and belonging, with a focus on Irish-speakers of diverse ethnicities and/or nationalities in Ireland. The research includes twelve respondents with diverse backgrounds in terms of nationality and/or ethnicity. We examine whether the language gives them a sense of belonging to Ireland, but also if they experience any exclusion on the basis that it does not 'belong' to them. Our research is qualitative and we analyse the data through the lens of nationalism studies. We suggest that Irish can be an important tool in the hands of speakers of diverse ethnicities and/or nationalities, a power that they can use in diverse ways, including to foster integration, avoid alienation, legitimise their presence in the country and fight against forms of discrimination. Yet, questions arise when the national heritage is passed on by individuals that many people do not consider 'national'. Do clashes occur between people who consider themselves to be of Irish ethnicity and nationality and Irish speakers of diverse ethnicities and/or nationalities? What are the reasons for the clashes and what are the consequences? This study offers some answers while pointing to the needs of more investigation of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past century, Mexico has tightly managed its heritage resources to emphasise the achievements of Prehispanic civilisations which contribute to national patrimony. Public interest in these great civilisations has fuelled an impressive national archaeological programme that has resulted in cutting-edge research and sometimes helped elevate the status and visibility of living indigenous communities. However, nationalist narratives of the past tend to be somewhat monolithic, and in the case of Mexico, they have emphasised hierarchical, exploitative states with powerful, urban capitals. The social value of Aztec identity and icons has become so potent that even in places with unique archaeological signatures and their own exceptional histories, local heritages are often intertwined with the Aztec narratives. This paper analyses two modern monuments in the small central Mexican town of Xaltocan, reflecting on long-term and recent developments in the region that have influenced the perceived social and political values of narratives of the past and the identities connected to them. Based on these analyses and drawing on interview responses from current residents, I argue that the monuments are important testaments to the complex ways that locals conceptualise and strategically articulate their heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of six months in 1986, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) eliminated their rival militant organizations, despite being significantly outgunned and outmanned by some of these groups. Relying primarily on contemporaneous accounts in Tamil and English, this article traces the process by which the LTTE became the primary avatar of Tamil nationalism, and explores the question of why consolidation unfolded so violently in this case. We argue that the answer lies in the LTTE's successful portrayal of this violence as order-upholding rather than destructive, and attribute their ability to do this to the fact that much of the population perceived the LTTE as the most legitimate user of violence among the militants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Ann Yearsley, a milkwoman, mother, and poet, not yet fully recovered into the British literary canon, challenges stereotypical representations of breastfeeding mothers created and perpetuated primarily by male authors in Romantic poetry, philosophy, and medical discourse. Her poem "To Mira, on the Care of Her Infant" depicts breastfeeding as a complex labor that requires skill, intelligence, empathy, and discipline. In this poem, Yearsley rejects the arguments of Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and William Cadogan, who depict nursing mothers as passive vessels of milk or substitutes for a nurturing "mother nature." I further locate Yearsley in rich networks of subscribers, printers, and periodicals adjacent to canon authors and texts. Thinking particularly about the conventions of epic and georgic forms, and their relationship to nationalism, labor, and motherhood, I ultimately show how Yearsley recasts the nursing mother as a subject rather than an object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses distinctions between Irish and British literary theory and writing on education to sketch an intellectual tradition in which women's education and public roles were accepted, even promoted. This tradition informs Lady Morgan's representation of intellectual women, particularly in her later writings, as "instruments" of social change. Eighteenth-century Irish arguments for women's intellectual equality, at least one so prominent that it was repeatedly republished and excerpted in periodicals, aligned with nationalist arguments at the end of the century which prioritized widespread education as a foundation for progress, peace, and self-government. Irish literary theory around 1800, particularly in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, resonated with such concerns about the collective rather than the individual, stressing community and collaboration on terms consistent with Dublin circles' practices. The social function of literature was also understood in collective rather than expressive terms and thus those who shape events are characterized by Morgan, Preston, and others as "instruments" rather than leaders. These intellectual trends and cultural practices provide a key context not only for Morgan's later writings about women as politically active but also for a distinctive feature of Irish Romanticism more broadly: the centrality of women writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of symbols, which can be influenced by school ethos, informs identity construction in primary school children. This study aimed to explore Gaelscoil (Irish-medium) and English-medium primary school children's familiarity with Irish and European symbols. Thirty 9–12-year-old children in Ireland participated in this study; 15 from two Irish-medium and 15 from an English-medium primary school. A draw-and-tell data collection design was used and qualitative data was analysed using the constant comparative method. Results indicate children from both school types shared a number of Irish symbols, namely Irish emblems, Irish mythology, sports and material aspects of culture. Irish-medium primary school children had two further Irish symbol categories, the past as a symbol and physical characteristics of Ireland. European symbols shared across children from both school types included signifiers of the European Union (EU), monetary symbols and European countries. The Irish-medium primary school children had two further categories, Europe through an Irish lens and European cuisine, while the English-medium children had one further category, sport. The results suggest that by middle childhood, children in both school types have knowledge about a number of symbols associated with both national and European identities. Implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I focus on designations of 'our culture and heritage' that defend practices and symbols of religious majorities. I consider the entanglement of nationalist narratives, secularity and the 'us' in the claims of social actors and public discussions about culture and heritage. What is understood as being religious and what is culture/heritage is dependent on the social actors involved, their position in society and the interpretive frameworks available to them. I consider the following questions: How are culture and heritage used in legal and public discourse to justify the continued presence of such symbols and practices in Christian majority countries in the West? What are the religious histories implicated in this process? Who is imagined to be included when crosses and prayers are staked out as 'our culture and heritage'? What is the relationship between culture and heritage and national imaginaries? Ultimately, as religious majorities see their numbers dwindle and power relations shift, the attempt to imbricate religious practices and beliefs in public spaces and rituals is quite possibly a translation of the religious to the secular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the work of Luisa Elena Delgado as a public intellectual and commentator on Spanish politics and society, particularly the growing forms of nationalism that defined the 2010s and early 2020s in Spain. It discusses Delgado's book "La nación singular. Fantasías de la normalidad democrática española: 1996-2011," which brought many new readers to her work. It describes the contribution of interviews given by Delgado in building her public presence.

This article contributes to the debate about democratic discontent and far right party support taking into account the heterogeneity of the far right voter pool. Distinguishing between peripheral far right voters driven by discontent, and core far right voters driven by nationalism, we argue that citizens' evaluations of the democratic process are associated with their electoral behaviour; but this relationship varies depending on their immigration attitudes. Using data from 9 waves of the European Social Survey (2002-2018), we confirm that whereas among the general population positive evaluations of the democratic process may serve as a deterrent for far right party support, the same assessments are unlikely to deter the far right's core ideological voters. In some circumstances, they might have a galvanising effect, prompting a backlash among some core voters. Our findings add nuance to voting behaviour theories, and illustrate why scholars should pay more attention to far right intra-partisan heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of Hindu nationalist ideologies in public universities in India has partly been accredited to the growing prominence of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The ABVP is the student organization of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and operates on college campuses. For most observers, ABVP's influence is linked to the dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), RSS' political organ. But in the Western Maharashtrian city of Pune, a region that has had an ABVP presence for several generations, the unit explicitly denies all associations with the BJP. In this article, I explore the historical and strategic logics behind this denial. I argue that the ABVP's strategy in Pune is part of a longer and understudied history of an anti-political discourse that emerged in universities over the course of a century. By appealing to apolitical student interests, the ABVP is further contributing to universities becoming key sites for the production of Hindu nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1920s, Kilis was a mid-size town situated in the north of the Ottoman province of Aleppo. The border introduced in October 1921 between Turkey and French Syria passed right to the south of Kilis, leaving the landowning elites who lived in the city detached from their lands located in Syria. This article reconstructs the complex episodes that unfolded both before and after the introduction of this border, as the territorial future of Kilis’ agricultural hinterland intimately shaped how the town’s landed notables interacted with the coming of colonial rule to the region and the ensuing resistance efforts. In tracing these post-war developments in Kilis, this study is an attempt to come to terms with the complex ways in which historical actors operated in a world that was increasingly defined by the uncertainties of the future, and hopes to show how historians could best approach such key moments while navigating the study of futures past. As we will see, the immediate post-war years in Kilis not only led old problems to flare up with greater intensity, but also quickly resulted in the consolidation of new discursive positions in line with the emerging post-Ottoman order across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the memoirs of two Bengali revolutionary women, Bina Das’ Srinkhal Jhankar published in 1948, translated as Bina Das: A Memoir, and Kamala Dasgupta’s Rakter Akshare (Written in Blood) in 1954 to argue how their subjective desire and experience dismantle the gendered rhetoric of nationalism in colonial Bengal. The accounts of Bina and Kamala present their involvement in militant activism and subsequent imprisonment. Notably, there is an inherent urge in their writings to sacrifice life for the nation and a determination not to retreat from the torturous conditions of the colonial prison. The paper contends that the rhetoric of nationalism in colonial Bengal is embedded in hegemonic masculinity that initially confined women to the spiritual and domestic realm and later allowed them to be educated and modern without acknowledging their subjectivity. Activities of these political women thus destabilise the gender discourse prevalent in the private and public sphere of colonial society, which calls for a revision of the nationalist historiography. So, this essay will examine how tropes of the body, self-sacrifice, and penal experience, as produced in these memoirs, negotiate the nationalist ideology, subvert the binary of masculine and feminine, and establish their political subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pad Thai, an innovation of Chinese kway teow through Thai-ization that became an iconic national dish of Thailand, played a significant role in shaping national identity and constructing the country's national image. This study explored the relationship between nationalist policies and the localization of kway teow during the Phibunsongkhram government (1938-1944), which contributed to the popularity of kway teow in Thailand's lower class in terms of both production and consumption. The examination of government policies and recipes revealed that Thais infused their emotions and the sense of national identity into the production and consumption of kway teow, thereby enhancing the bond between individuals and the nation and laying a more solid base for the implementation of nationalist policies. The innovation of Pad Thai was one such nationalist policy that was disseminated top-down by the Phibunsongkhram government, making it a national food of Thailand by highlighting its Thai characteristics and including it in its National Nutrition Project. However, Pad Thai was not purely a national Thai dish; rather, it was one that existed in Thais' imagination. In revealing the nature of national cuisine and its importance in nation-building, this study's findings contribute to the significant role of localizing Chinese food in Thai nation-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In much extant scholarship, Dante is either misused as the prophet of the modern Italian nation-state or dismissed as a naive imperialist. This paper steers clear of both these characterizations and gives serious consideration to Dante’s own understanding of nationhood. I examine the construction of language and national community in De vulgari eloquentia and then place Dante’s idea of the nation in the context of his argument for world government in Monarchia. Grappling with the received view that for Dante, as for Aristotle, language is inherently political, the paper suggests that Dante’s nation is first and foremost a kind of psychological bond arising from the experience and use of common language; it is not embodied in political-juridical institutions, nor is it a suitable sphere for human self-realization through civic discourse and participation. The recovery of Dante’s ‘non-political’ understanding of the nation cautions against a blanket dismissal of premodern ideas of the nation and offers a more nuanced perspective on language, national identity, and the future of nation-states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractFrom a resonant and highly mythologized symbol of an imagined national coherence in the 1950s, today the iconic yellow Brazilian football (soccer) shirt–the amarelinha–is an emotive site for political contestation and struggle between the forces of the Brazilian right and left. Within a contemporary Brazilian conjuncture fraught by conjoined political, economic, and cultural schisms, the shirt has become what Stuart Hall (p. 354) referred to as a “constant battlefield” upon which warring national political ideologies and imaginaries have fought for ascendancy. In contextually mapping the shifting and increasingly contentious relationship between the amarelinha and the Brazilian national imaginary, we utilize a critical conjuncturalism in critically explicating three indicative moments: 1) the shirt’s historical articulation, and initial relative stasis, as a symbol of a modern Brazilian national unity, pride, and optimism in the period from the 1950s to 2010s; 2) the disarticulation and hijacking of the shirt by an emergent right-wing populist movement during the mid-2010s, vanguarded by future President Jair Bolsonaro, and visibly supported by many popular athletes (i.e. Neymar, Nelson Piquet); and 3) the subsequent rearticulation of the shirt, and indeed the national political imaginary, by the countervailing forces of the Brazilian political left including leading journalists and athletes (i.e. Richarlison, Walter Casagrande). As such, our aim is to contextually examine how the shirt has, in a dialectical sense, become both a product and producer of the ideological and affective schisms responsible for the fraying (yet also potentially rebuilding) of Brazilian national identity and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the adoption process of a TVET policy, usually driven by the state, by private actors. Considering a Cultural Political Economy analytical approach, we use the adoption of Sector Skills Councils in three Chilean sectors (mining, wine, maintenance) to examine the different factors that explain the process. We draw on interviews with key informants at the sectoral and national levels, sectoral documents, and press articles. Our analysis shows that the framing actions of a local policy entrepreneur and their interaction with neoliberal political-economic institutions were key to explaining the policy's attractiveness for private actors. Furthermore, economic and organisational conditions at the sectoral level explain why these three sectors adopted SSCs. We offer further insights about the TVET policy transfer process from the perspective of local and sectoral actors, and in particular, the role of non-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the nationalist, business-centric, elite-led and labour-subsuming logics of development in contemporary China are mirrored in contingent and locally-mediated ways in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In China's present 'de-revolutionary' moment [Wang, 2006], non-elite populations are conceived as labour inputs to be used and moulded in the pursuit of national development through market means. This same developmental ethos, mediated by a plethora of Chinese and non-Chinese actors, underpins the authoritarian tendencies of BRI-branded projects across the world. While authoritarian practices in China have both Leninist and capitalist genealogies and drivers, I argue here that Global China's most tangible and remarkable impacts on international authoritarianism are found in the practices required to secure capital accumulation along the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses International Baccalaureate schools in Poland from the perspective of their educational function to serve as a resistance to counterbalance trends toward nationalisation in the Polish educational landscape. To address this aim, a review of the relevant legislation has been carried out, accompanied by interviews with teachers and students from 9 IB schools in Poland. Results show that during the 30-year history of IB in Poland, international schools seem to have become places where international education is not opposed to its national education programme, however, they do demonstrate their potential to break away from intra-national education in this country. IB programmes have come to represent a counter-revolutionary force that supports grassroots initiatives in schools. International schools potentially remain safe from any authoritarian interference from the government and become 'islands of educational resistance' against intra-national tendencies in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the historical antecedents, character and implications of Assam’s National Register of Citizens as a socio-legal instrument. It seeks to understand how dominant nationalisms and the state produce volatile paper citizenship regimes, and use law – as a reified transcendental performance of social will – to construct the ‘minority citizen’ through categories of ‘belonging’ and ‘citizenship’. The paper does this by analysing three typologies of the law-society interaction. First, it examines what/who is a citizen from within law. Second, it critiques the mythology of law by giving an account of belonging and suffering of minority citizens without law. Third, it foregrounds peripheral subjectivities by offering an account of minority citizenship beyond law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes the concept of ‘imperism’ as an analytical tool apt to describe political processes in Putin’s Russia and beyond. Imperism denotes an ontological orientation, or nomos (the term derives from theories of religion and politics by Berger and Schmitt), that undergirds a plurality of civic positions, informs policy, and fundamentally casts imperialness as a political entity’s normal, desirable state. Russia’s imperist nomos shall be explored in its key dimensions, including cosmology, authority, sociology, and aesthetics. However, imperism’s analytical purchase is not limited to the Russian case. In particular, this paper considers the merits of this category vis-à-vis an array of related but distinct concepts: imperialism, authoritarianism, fascism, nationalism, and irredentism. On those grounds, it will be argued that Putinist Russia’s military adventurism manifests a peculiar, imperist form of imperialism; that the Putin regime, albeit hard to categorise, appears to share an imperist nomos with historical fascisms; and that imperism’s ultimate scope exceeds that of nationalist irredentism. The paper ends with a reflection on the advantageous epistemological potentialities of imperism as a category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationalism calls for one’s loyalty and affiliation towards their chosen nation. Various versions of nationalism emphasise that one must prioritise said nation above themselves and their personal ethics, hence, allowing the nation to overpower the nationalist’s individuality. In this article, we use Critical Discourse Analysis to deconstruct the narratives of nationalism as portrayed in two popular films, viz. The Kashmir Files and Uri: The Surgical Strike, which are based on real historical events – the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus and the surgical strike by the Indian Army in retaliation to the Uri attack. Both films use narrative strategies to frame key historical events into certain ideological contexts, and hence they serve the populist purpose of swaying viewers’ opinion in favour of the dominant socio-political class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Middle East, as elsewhere, the protracted transition from empire to nation-state was accompanied by a brutal tide of ethnoreligious homogenisation. One of the more dramatic examples was the destruction of the Arab world’s millennia-old Jewish communities.While this destruction is often discussed only in reference to the creation of the State of Israel, this article proposes a complementary model for understanding it, a model predicated on these Jews’ status as ordinary, not exceptional, inhabitants of the Ottoman world, and the disruption caused by the end of the Ottoman empire and its replacement with European colonial rule.Using interwar Aleppo as a case study, this article demonstrates how the end of the Ottoman system of religious communities led to an extended period of dysfunction for Aleppo’s Jewish communal institutions. Under the French Mandate, this dysfunction left Aleppo’s Jews unable to contend with a succession of crises, including a three-way competition for the community’s loyalty between French administrators, Arab nationalists and the Zionist movement. This dysfunction set the stage for the community’s terminal crisis – the 1947 pogroms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationalism, an ideological concept that people of shared national identity adopt, is one of the most explored genres of the Hindi film industry. The theme of nationalism which once demanded a sacred and elevated treatment from cinema-makers has faced a comparatively light-hearted, ordinary, and relatable approach in contemporary times. Rather than confining the notion of nationalism within the nation's territory, such new-age movies depict how exiles and immigrants redefine the notion of nationalism. Replacing the exaggerated, parochial, and exclusive depictions of hyper-nationalism in early Hindi war movies with what Benedict Anderson calls ‘long-distance nationalism’, contemporary movies have the potential to expand the idea of the nation beyond its borders. Two such movies that depict characters redefining the notion of nationalism through their acts of transnationalism are Meghna Gulzar's Raazi and Raja Krishna Menon’s Airlift. Both the films refrain from engaging in the classical discourse of nationalism to reveal how dispersed immigrants contribute to the spirit of Indian nationalism through their acts of political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catalonia has become a rich site to investigate minorised-language identity, with the reemergence of a movement calling for independence. Our case study analyses how pro-/anti-secessionist protests are (counter)-fought in urban Linguistic Landscapes. We approach LLs as identity-markers and place-makers delivering messages of political subversion/dominance where majority/minorised-language choice and utopian/dystopian discourse become crucial for understanding their meanings during social upheaval, with renewed nationalist protests linked to an independence Referendum. We employed a content analysis based on a semiotic/semantic interpretation and thematic categorisation of the data. We show that two antithetical “Catalans”/“Spaniards” identities reemerge which mobilise either utopian projects written in Catalan or dystopian visions in Spanish, through intertextuality. The former, categorised as pro-independence “political resistance LLs,” project a hopeful impossible to extend a liberating possible. The latter, pro-unionist “threats to Catalan protesters LLs,” reinstate order, enforcing the suppression of dissent. This reveals that ethnolinguistic identities are newly reconfigured/resignified, unpacking how a social-semiotics focus on language choice and utopia/dystopia can prefigure social conflict development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of the Alliance Française in the United States inspired Germany to enhance its relations with the USA from a cultural perspective. Germany’s own cultural policy traditions and its foreign cultural policy practices provided the theoretical basis for the development of a cultural policy towards the USA. Germany, which firmly believed in its position as a pioneer of world culture, hoped to distinguish itself from the cultural competition with France by generously transferring knowledge to the Americans and to gain a political and economic ally. In German-American academic diplomacy at the beginning of the twentieth century, German intellectual elites had already attempted to move away from the power-state and militaristic foreign-policy thinking that had prevailed in the Empire, and they harboured internationalist dreams of culture as a means of overcoming national antagonisms. Nevertheless, unfortunately, these intellectual elites were still unable to shake off nationalist values, even as Karl Lamprecht, who had joined the Society for International Understanding, embraced Pan-Germanism again after the beginning of World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian nationalism and race are both important predictors of firearm policy preferences in the United States, and a growing body of research argues that ideas about gun control tend to be racially coded. Building on these findings, we use data from the 2021 General Social Survey to examine how race and ethnicity moderate the association between Christian nationalism and firearm policy preferences – specifically requiring a police permit to purchase a gun. Analyses show strong, racially divergent associations between Christian nationalism and opposition to requiring gun permits. Christian nationalism is associated with higher opposition to requiring gun permits for non-Hispanic White Americans, but lower opposition for non-Hispanic Black Americans. Moreover, accounting for biblical literalism attenuates the association for White Americans but amplifies the association for Black Americans. These findings support the conceptualization of Christian nationalism as a racialized ideology, i.e. one which has different meanings and effects across ethno-racial identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of C. J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake novels (2003–2018), considering the fact that both crime and historical fiction may be used to reconceptualise collective memory in subversive ways, and with important implications for both genres. I will attempt to demonstrate that Sansom's narrative illustrates the shift in recent crime fiction from the crime itself to the historical conditions of its setting. As a result, Henrician England is presented as a very different context from that foundational time identified by Whig historiography, thereby questioning the very pillars of Englishness / Britishness that were such a central part of the country's political climate leading up to the Brexit referendum. This is not achieved through the use of any postmodern technique. Instead, the reader perceives a sense of 'neo-historical' authenticity in Sansom's fiction that results from its sensorially approaching the historico-geographical locus of the narrative through the eyes of its anachronistically cosmopolitan stranger protagonist (the lawyer Matthew Shardlake), whose walks and rides through the Tudor city turn the reader into a privileged flâneur, ultimately raising awareness of the subversive power of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]