Search

The study of Hong Kong identity has traditionally been positioned in a local–national dichotomy, where Hong Kong identity is viewed primarily as a local identity while the label of national identity is reserved for identification with the Chinese nation. Hong Kong nationalism, on the other hand, is generally considered a new phenomenon, the study of which has focused predominantly on the political activities in the post-handover period. Drawing on Partha Chatterjee's theory of anti-colonial nationalism, this paper seeks to broaden the understanding of Hong Kong nationalism by examining the nationalistic sentiments manifested during the Chinese language campaign (1964–1971). This paper draws on archival materials to shed light on the presence of anti-colonial nationalism in colonial Hong Kong, an aspect often overlooked or considered a mere extension of Chinese nationalism from mainland China. This paper also discusses the distinctions between anti-colonial nationalism in Hong Kong and Chinese nationalism, highlighting the intricate nature of the concept of Chineseness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an implication of the ethnically and nationally diverse nature of Mediterranean polities, identification-driven boundary-making strategies bear considerable relevance for their political processes, both in the contemporary context and in the historical past. By utilizing a Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), this study provides an interpretative exploration of Greek-Cypriot elite discursive framing strategies regarding Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot ethno-national identity during the Cypriot Civil War (1963–1967). The available historical interpretations of this period lead us to expect an exclusionary strategy of boundary contraction to be more prevalent than the inclusionary one of boundary expansion in the discourse of Greek-Cypriot elites. Through an examination of a sample of primary textual sources, the analysis disconfirms such an expectation, as elite figures primarily constructed broader, inclusive frames of ethno-national identity during the civil war. The relative absence of boundary contraction and the prevalence of boundary expansion indicate the applicability of Wimmer's (2008) universalist approach to ethnic boundary-making, in contrast to the expectations that are built by the Cyprus-specific historical evidence. This study thus lays the groundwork for future research to delineate the discursive framing strategies of elite figures in Cyprus and beyond the ethno-nationally divided island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines self-disparaging representations of "the German man" in humorous middle-class visual and textual publications of the 1840s. Considering contemporary notions of German national character and the emergence of contradictory masculine ideals, the analysis traces the dual representation of the German man as either an emasculated philistine or a hypermasculine quixotic hero. Based on this analysis, it argues that just as a German national movement was acquiring unprecedented political potency, a highly gendered sense of German national ineptness was widespread among the German bourgeoisie. Both the philistine and the quixotic German were cast as inadequate in the face of a corruptive, feminized modernity that was unfairly advantageous to the French. These findings underscore how gender and national stereotypes in nineteenth-century Germany were mutually destabilizing and repeatedly negotiated, profoundly shaping contemporaries' understanding of the world changing around them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the national identity argument in unsettled times by using the COVID-19 pandemic as a test case. It uses a longitudinal survey among Jewish Israelis to examine whether the pandemic influenced levels of national identity and solidarity and whether it altered their relationship. The findings indicate a clear reduction in levels of solidarity, national attachment, and national chauvinism over time. They also show that the positive connection between national attachment and solidarity grew stronger, while the connection between national chauvinism and solidarity became weaker and insignificant. These findings provide complex evidence for the national identity argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three case studies depict different attitudes of anthropologists toward the politics of nationalism promoted by the prewar Polish state. Ethnographer Stanisław Dworakowski, involved in a governmental Committee for the Issues of Petty Nobility in Eastern Poland, elaborated a study on this social stratum. Although based on reliable field research, it can hardly be considered scientific work, as it has many features of political propaganda. Quite opposite is the case of folklorist Joachim Chajes, secretary of the Ethnographical Commission of YIVO. Contemporary Soviet folklore was one of the fields of his research, which Polish anticommunist and antisemitic authorities found suspicious. Accused of communist activity, he was imprisoned. Social anthropologist Józef Obrębski can be situated between those two extremes. His field research among East Slavic peasants in Eastern Poland, concerning their developing national identity, although conducted within a national scientific program and financed by the state, is an example of intellectual independence. By revealing the negative attitude of the peasants toward Polish authorities, Obrębski achieved an outcome, which did not fulfill the official political expectations. These three trajectories show competitive coexistence of the meta-field of power and the scientific field, focused on their respective stakes: power and recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of nationalism in North America has focused heavily on national identity. Much of the scholarship in the region indicates that most individuals define their respective national identities as attainable and inclusive. In contrast to these findings, other evidence from nationalism and ethnic politics scholarship in North America suggests a strong racial link to national understandings. Focusing on national identity research in North America, primarily the United States, but also findings from Canada and Mexico, I try to address the connection between national identity, its political effects, and the boundaries of national identity content. This article identifies important findings from research in North America and proposes that scholars look beyond the current research to study national development – understood both historically and through the study of individuals' constructive deployment of nationalism in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In new democracies, what is the role of nationalism in terms of democratic behavior such as voter turnout? Previous studies have found that, in Western democracies, constructive national pride increases voter turnout, while blind national pride decreases it. However, little scholarly attention has been paid to new democracies. Given different political contexts, we argue that blind national pride can boost turnout in some new democracies that have lingering authoritarian legacies. Using the case of South Korea, we offer a theory about the relationship between blind national pride and voter turnout. We show that, in contrast to the West, blind national pride is positively associated with turnout in South Korea, and that the relationship appears more robust among both older cohorts, who experienced authoritarianism directly in the recent past, and those with conservative ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years, Silvana Patriarca, a professor of Contemporary History at Fordham University, New York, has deeply and consistently investigated the construction of the Italian national narrative: its 'long term' genealogy, its characteristics, its tensions. Her first book, Numbers and Nationhood (Patriarca 1996), focused on the co-production of statistical knowledge and the national image of Italy during the Restoration and the Risorgimento, rereading the interplay of science, culture, and politics in the formation of bourgeois 'public opinion' in the liberal period. In Italian Vices (Patriarca 2010), she dissected the rhetoric and tropes of the national character, its ostensible fragility, and the different political uses of the recurring discourse on Italian vices and virtues, from the Risorgimento to the Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how the Soviet government perceived higher birth rates in Central Asia as a threat to national identity and the stability of the USSR. The issue of demographic change was complex, and concerns about differential fertility between republics were not informed solely by prejudice. Rather, prejudice and racism mingled with practical concerns about labor surpluses and shortages. The Central Asian Republics had low labor mobility because people were unwilling to leave their cultural community, had a low level of Russian, and tended to not to be trained in the kind of heavy industries that required workers elsewhere in the Soviet Union. I argue that rather than aiming to change these factors, the government misdiagnosed economic problems as demographic ones. They placed primary emphasis on changing patterns of reproduction to remedy the situation by changing the population itself, portraying Slavs and Central Asians as distinct groups who had a predetermined role and place in life. In doing so, Moscow elites failed to address the structural and operational issues of Soviet socialism and inflamed tensions with local leaders who saw demographic campaigns as an attack on their culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how population genetics has impacted on nationalist discourses across the Taiwan Straits and affected the relationship between Taiwan and China since the 1990s. In Taiwan this cutting-edge science has helped to construct a native-based and Taiwan-centred national identity through promoting indigenous peoples' rights, rejecting a blood-based, cross-Straits nationalism, and founding a pan-Pacific indigenous peoples' community through genetic links and cultural affinity. In China, after subverting the nationalist myth of Peking Man (a Homo erectus group believed to be the common ancestor of the Chinese) by analysing genetic data, the same group of Chinese genetic scientists have constructed another nationalist myth of a genetically homogenous nationhood. Such a discourse not only valorizes Chinese nationalism through claiming a DNA-based Chineseness across ethnic distinctions but also asserts genetic links between China and Taiwan, therefore providing a 'scientific' basis for China's nationalism in the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative studies of nationalism rarely incorporate China as a case in their observations. Despite the rise of nationalism in salience throughout Chinese society, studies of nationalism in China are frequently tagged as insularly focused and unsuitable for comparison. However, a survey of the literature in Chinese nationalism studies reveals that similar blind spots and limitations challenge studies of China with more general comparative research on nationalism. Given this parallelism in development, I argue that looking to observations of China provides scholars of nationalism with vital opportunities to expand and refine theory to include insights from a non-western, non-democratic case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to create a national opera in Spain repeatedly failed throughout the 19th century. Some authors have attributed this phenomenon to a deficit in the nationalization process. Others, to the contrary, have proved that there was a strong sense of Spanish national musicality from the middle of the 19th century onward. This article tries to explain this paradox underlining some essential elements that are not always attended by specialists: the importance of transnational, social, and economic dynamics that interfered in the process of the cultural construction of modern national identities. The projects of the Spanish nationalist intellectuals of the 19th century in relation to the definition of a national music were marked by the Romantic construction of Spanish musical exoticism, the new industry of entertainment, the existential situation of Spanish musicians, the formation of new artistic and musical fields, and the appearance of new forms of social distinction in the aftermath of the Spanish Liberal Revolution of the 1830s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarian nationalism is on the rise in many countries around the world, threatening liberal democracies. Many on the left rightly fear that any and all celebrations of national identities risk heightening these dangers. It is questionable, however, whether illiberal nationalism can be defeated politically without some reliance on progressive stories of national identity that advance themes of equality, freedom, and inclusion in ways that resonate with many of the traditions in which those whom progressives seek to mobilize have been raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the practice of ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag at wedding ceremonies in public spaces. The wedding custom is analyzed through the lens of Hannah Arendt's discussion of the way nationalism in the modern era links family and state. After a tragic war, flag power in this context appears to exacerbate nationalism and ethnic tensions in a polyethnic society trapped in a dysfunctional state structure created by the Dayton Accords. The empirical study finds that flag power does not, in fact, privilege ethnic solidarity over national solidarity to the degree that social and political theory would have us imagine. The national identity of being Bosnian is more likely to be exemplified. A clustered, stratified, random sample of 2,500 subjects over the age of eighteen was drawn from the country's population, including the two entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska and Brčko District. Survey questions involving face-to-face structured questions asked participants whether flags were flown at their weddings, which flags were flown, and attitudes toward the wedding custom. Variations by age, religiosity, education, ethnicity, type of flag flown, and political party affiliation are reported and interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how the Turkish nation's composition has changed under Justice and Development Party rule. Turkish nationalism and Turkish national identity have dramatically changed since 2010, when the Kurdish Opening process was started by former prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Syrian refugee crisis and the influx of Syrian refugees into Turkey created another change in Turkish national identity. Increasing religiosity in Turkey and the use of Islam by the Justice and Development Party created a flexible nation, where all Sunni Muslims can be considered members even though they are not ethnically Turkish. The author uses primary sources, such as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's speeches since 2010, to show how his discourse became more embracing of non-Turkish Muslim groups and created a dynastic understanding of nationalism based on religion rather than the idea of an ethnically homogenous, secular Turkish nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of media nationalism has had a curious history. Some of the "classic" studies of nationalism have placed the media at the heart of their work but say very little about media theory or research. More recently, studies of populism and nationalist parties have talked quite a lot about the impact of digital technologies but have very little to say about nationalism. This piece first provides a brief overview of some of these classic studies before noting how insights from the study of media, and in particular audiences, began to filter through to nationalism research in the 1990s and early 2000s. It then addresses both the discursive and digital turns that influenced wider debates around the relationship between media and nationalism over the past decade or so, before outlining the limitations of such work and possible avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solidarity is a key ingredient to making society work. Yet, recent developments such as the refugee crisis and the declining support for social democratic parties question the degree of solidarity in Western societies. So what could increase solidarity? The national identity argument (NIA) claims that a stronger national identity can foster solidarity. While this claim was proven in some cases, several others challenged it. This paper sets out to put the NIA to a severe empirical test by distinguishing five different forms of national identity: national belonging, national pride, patriotism, national chauvinism, and the normative perception of national boundaries. The data stems from national surveys in Germany, the UK, and the USA linked to the ISSP. The results reveal no clear support for the NIA. Whether national identity fosters solidarity depends on what type of national identity and what country one is looking at. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the current scholarship around racism and nationalism, two of the mostly hotly debated issues in contemporary politics. Both racism and nationalism involve dividing humanity into groups and setting up some groups as innately superior to others. Until recently, racism and nationalism were both widely seen as unpleasant relics of times past, destined to disappear as the principles of equality and human rights become universally embraced. But both concepts have proved their resilience in recent years. Scholars have been devoting new attention to the "racialization" of ethnic and national identities in the former Soviet Union and East Europe, the regions that are the main focus of this journal. The article examines the prevailing approaches to understanding the terms "racism" and "nationalism," which are distinct but overlapping categories of analysis and vehicles of political mobilization. Developments in genomics have complicated the relationship between perceptions of race as a purely social phenomenon. The essay explores the way racism and nationalism play out in two self-proclaimed "exceptional" political systems – the Soviet Union and the United States – which have played a prominent role in global debates about race and nation. It briefly discusses developments in other regions, such as the debate over multiculturalism in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, Pakistan has faced challenges of ethnic-nationalism from her ethnicities. State efforts to mold these diverse identities into one communal Muslim identity have been continually resisted by the different nationalities comprising Pakistan. The demands of ethno-national movements have fluctuated between independence and autonomy, depending upon the relation between the state and the respective ethnic group. Sometimes the demand for autonomy has expanded into a desire for independence, as was the case with Bengali ethnic nationalism. At other times, the desire for independence has shrunk to a demand for autonomy, as manifested by Pashtun nationalism. This shift is explicated through the relationship between the state and ethnic groups. The author analyzes this shift through the prism of Paul Brass's instrumental theory of elite competition. The factors that contributed to the success of Bengali nationalism in achieving statehood and the failure of Baloch nationalism to do so are viewed through Ted Gurr's concept of relative deprivation. The integration of Sindhi and Pashtun ethnic groups into the state structure is explained via Andreas Wimmer's notion of ownership of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The youngest generation of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Turkey was formed almost immediately after the downfall of the Soviet Union, resulting in the increased emigration of Azerbaijanis to foreign countries, in particular to Turkey, where the language barrier is minimal due to linguistic proximity. This article is an attempt to investigate the dynamics of identity production (and, consequently, senses of belonging) of the most recent generations of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Turkey in relationship to their linguistic and cultural repertoires. While language and culture are key factors in identity production, linguistic and cultural practices may be influenced by various social factors. I have therefore tried to examine the identity paradigms of Azerbaijanis living in Turkey in the frameworks of their ethno-national, socio-cultural, and socio-communicative perceptions. The survey I conducted for this purpose mostly covers post-Soviet immigrants to Turkey and, to a lesser extent, earlier generations of Azerbaijanis who settled in Turkey during Soviet times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to shed light on the process of nation-building and the formation of national identity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. The peculiarity of Azerbaijani nation-building is that the debates on how to build a nation and define national identity were nourished by two discourses: Azerbaijanism (Azerbaycançılıq) and Turkism (Tűrkçűlűk). The article focuses firstly on the discourses on national identity and nation-building in the pre-independence period while elaborating on the roots and premises of the nationalist independence movement. Secondly, it highlights the discourses of nation-building in the post-independence period while discussing the meanings attributed to national identity and nationhood. It shows how these two discourses shaped the existing identity formation in Azerbaijan with a particular emphasis on citizenship identity, marked by multiculturalism, hospitality, tolerance, and patriotism. Yet one can still categorize the country as having an incomplete nation-building process, due the violation of territorial integrity as a result of the Karabakh conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociocultural divide in Western Europe is increasingly focused on issues of national identity, namely immigration. It is commonly assumed that opponents of immigration also exhibit conservatism on other sociocultural issues. Yet recent research suggests that general social conservatism is declining in the region. Do immigration attitudes fit squarely into the sociocultural dimension? Using survey data from eleven West European countries, as well as a Dutch household panel from 2007–2019, this study finds that gender attitudes, a key sociocultural issue, are subject to change through both cohort and life cycle effects, while immigration attitudes are stable over the course of the panel and exhibit little variation across cohorts. Immigration attitudes also appear to be immune to period effects resulting from the 2015 refugee crisis. Further, those born during and after the 'post-materialist revolution' have weakened associations between these two attitudes, while older individuals' attitudes are strongly correlated. The combination of gender egalitarianism and anti-immigrant sentiment may become increasingly common as acceptance of the former spreads, while immigration remains a hotly contested issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution the focus is on nationalism, i.e. the view that one's own country and people are unique and superior, implying a negative comparison with regard to other national groups and countries. The research questions we set out to answer are: (1) what are the cross-national differences and trends in nationalism across Europe? (2) Which individual and national characteristics can explain these differences and changes in nationalism in European countries? We use high-quality cross-national data from 20 countries from the 'National Identity' modules of the International Social Survey Programme, collected in 1995, 2003 and 2013. Considerable differences between countries were found; however, within countries the level of nationalism remained rather stable over the period from 1995 to 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new wave of scholarship has made major advances in how we understand the politics of civilizational identity by drawing powerfully from conceptual tools developed over the years to study other forms of identity. What unites this wave is treating civilizations not as distinctive "things" that might "clash" but as meaningful social imaginings. This growing body of work is far from monolithic, generating alternative theories that should structure scholarly debate going forward. Central issues include whether civilizational identity is primarily elite led or mass driven, whether it inherently involves conflictual human impulses, what the role of religion and values are in driving it, what its relationship is to nationalism, and how similarly we can expect the countries and people who share civilizational identity to behave. We also find emerging debates on what this newly conceptualized civilizational identity explains in contemporary world politics. Social scientists are now only beginning to apply important tools of social science to this question, with even public opinion research in its infancy. Early findings suggest civilizational identity may be shaping not only elite foreign policy making but also patterns of domestic politics, including the recent rise of populism and levels of democracy and authoritarianism more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a post-structuralist, post-Marxist discursive approach to nation, this paper aims to (1) explore the constitutive elements of the national ideology of Polish ultras, (2) study what means of expression are used in their choreographies in order to disseminate their vision of the nation, and (3) map the events that stimulate the production of choreographies related to national issues. The study is based on the content analysis of ultras' displays using data from a print fanzine devoted to football fandom culture in Poland. The results indicate that the national ideology of Polish ultras can be viewed as a resistance ideology. They also reveal that the national ideology of ultras is only presented in particular contexts and is not a dominant issue in their performances. The study introduces the concept of occasional nationalism, which can be a useful analytical tool to map and quantify the presence of nation in practices of articulation of a particular community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on "everyday nationalism" foregrounds constructivist practice theory as well as interpretivist methodologies. Our project—Making Identity Count—does something similar but with an aim to advance the study of International Relations rather than the study of nationalism. Here, we suggest that these two approaches are basically complementary, and that a theoretical and methodological cross-fertilization between them may yield new insights in both fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political debates on the Baltics, and in particular Estonia, have often pointed to "nationalisting" and exclusive narratives constructed at the institutional level. Accordingly, emphasis has been put on the lack of opportunities for Russians to integrate into an Estonian context. While acknowledging the shortfalls of the Estonian political project, this article contrasts these views in two ways. By emphasizing people's agency and their capacity to question, contrast, or even reject the identity markers proposed by Estonian official narratives, we maintain that the integration of Russians might be more advanced than insofar claimed by other studies. We then look at the way identities are lived in an everyday context by inhabitants of Estonia to counterpose national narratives proposed by the state and its political institutions, with the way people live and whether they accept these narratives. By doing this, we explore the role of the everyday in the reconstruction of national identity narratives, in which citizens actively participate in their individual capacity. We suggest that, from a James Scott "infrapolitics" perspective, these micro-actions have a fundamental role in the reshaping of a national identity and its acceptance among citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we show how judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have provided nationalists with an unexpected opportunity to promote a nationalist discourse that is seemingly in line with human rights while fundamentally at odds with the counter-majoritarian core of human rights. We start our analysis with two judgments in which the Court accepted the arguments of liberal democratic states to infringe fundamental rights of persons belonging to (immigrant) Muslim minorities in the name of "requirements of living together" or "social integration": SAS v France (2014) and Osmanoglu and Kocabas v Switzerland (2017). Strikingly, the justifications by the states for these infringements point to concerns about perceived threats to national identity and culture. We show how nationalist politicians in countries with minority populations, including those in East Central Europe, have used justifications in terms of national self-protection, tacitly or explicitly, to pursue old anti–human rights agendas. The case law discussed here enabled them to present these justifications as ECtHR proof, notwithstanding the underlying nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines an ideological and a narrative rift between two elitist formations and two forms of nationalism that a practice of memory-making embodies. In the subterranean polemic where Soviet generation intelligentsia and liberal intellectuals animate the past on Russian–Georgian relations in two distinct ways, past becomes a critical terrain where the struggle over Georgia's geopolitical belonging and the resulting disputes on national identity take place. This analysis not only flashes out recent discursive rifts, linking them to the broader political processes, but traces the genealogies of the narrative practices that enable two idioms of nationalist discourse. It is both an analysis of post-socialist class formations and of the semantic fields within which their idioms are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an overview of myths that may become a foundation of for shared memories of the Ukrainian nation's past. According to Anthony Smith, common historical myths play a key role in the "ethnic" model of nationhood that constitutes the East European path to building a nation-state. The list of key myths that help constitute the Ukrainian identity includes Cossackdom, freedom, national independence, individualism, and democracy. It is argued that the existing historical myths have to be carefully assessed and adapted to the needs of nation-state building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, Barcelona's local institutions have been pioneers in creating a close relationship between culture, urban regeneration, and the social and economic development of the city, and subsequently in implementing a new paradigm in cultural policy for entrepreneurial, cultural, and creative cities. As a consequence, the city has also become a model for place branding and cultural tourism. In this context, Born, an archaeological site of the early eighteenth century which offers detailed testimony to both the cultural and economic lifestyle of the city at that time and the defeat of the Catalans during the War of the Spanish Succession, has been preserved and opened to the public in line with the city's varying cultural policies and attitudes to national identity over the last two decades. This article discusses Born from 2000 to 2017 and the political and cultural management context in relation to the Barcelona model that has defined its current form as a cultural centre. In this context, this article also discusses the role of archaeology in Barcelona's cultural governance, as a case study through which to consider the role of urban archaeological heritage management today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines a key attribute of Russian national identity—national pride—as it is reflected in mass consciousness. To trace the dynamics of multiple facets of national pride and related phenomena from 1996 to 2015, we use data from five surveys. The results demonstrate a substantial growth in Russian national pride in specific country achievements and general pride in Russian citizenship over the last 20 years. This change is the result of the population's and state's need for positive social identity as well as from both real and imagined progress in the Russian economy and political influence, and it started long before the Crimea mobilization and Olympics of 2014. The structural difference in pride in various achievements persisted for the 20 years examined here, but became less distinct. Across the years examined here, Russian national pride has become more strongly related to belief in the superiority of the country and is therefore increasingly competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and where were new African nations made at the moment of decolonization? Focusing on the periphery rather than the center provides an insightful answer to this question: imposing national identity in border regions with mixed and mobile populations, dynamic migrant flows, and cross-border linkages was a task fraught with contradiction. This article explores the establishment of Zambian political and diplomatic space in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the activities of Zambian political and diplomatic representatives in the southern Congolese city of Elisabethville in the early-to-mid 1960s. It does not assess how effective these officials were in imposing a sense of Zambian national identity, but rather what their efforts reveal about the ideas and values that informed state elites' assertions of national identity and their relationship to history, local identities, and moral codes regarding, among other things, customary authority and gendered behavior. The article argues that nation-making in newly independent states involved the assertion of not only state sovereignty over territorial space but also symbolic power, the right to classify, and the moral and political notions that underlay ostensibly bureaucratic, disinterested state structures. Analysis of the attempts of Zambia's first diplomatic representatives to establish and assert their notion of Zambian-ness reveals the fragility of new national identities and the extent to which elites sought to underpin these identities by the assertion of moral certainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead of thinking about “national identity,” scholars of nationalism would do well to study nationalism as a process of classification, treating national conflict as disputes over nationalized categories. Disputes over national classification take various forms: patriots argue over which category applies, which categories exist, and which categories have which status. Techniques for imposing classificatory categories also deserve attention. The contributors to this themed issue of Nationalities Papers illustrate the power of analysis based on classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one case study of state-sponsored cultural activities that occurred throughout 2014, Turkmenistan’s Year of Magtymguly, the 290th anniversary of this Turkmen poet’s birth. Such activities constitute examples of public culture; they can organize representations of a society’s past and present to reaffirm for participants the values and power structure of their society and revalidate its philosophical underpinnings. After examining this Turkic poet’s iconicity, this paper compiles 2014's celebratory events from disparate sources, complementing broader general literature on Central Asia’s spectacles of public culture and their role in nation-building and identity-formation. Rather than merely resulting from any top-down decision specifying required activities nationwide, the year’s events involved numerous synergies as artists, museum and theater administrators, composers, and other cultural-sector workers benefited by responding to the potential of aligning their work with a theme as broad, as widely appreciated, and as eligible for various forms of support as this one. In addition, Turkmenistan’s strong central leadership benefited from this widely shared and highly visible celebration, especially emphasizing one element within Magtymguly’s eighteenth-century vision, an end to his people’s tribal conflicts within a unified Turkmenistan under one leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines constructions of national musical identity in early twentieth-century Britain by exploring and contextualizing hitherto neglected discourses and practices concerning the production of an ‘English’ singing voice. Tracing the origins and development of ideas surrounding native vocal performance and pedagogy, I reconstruct a culture of English singing as a backdrop against which to offer, by way of conclusion, a reading of the ‘English voice’ performed in Ralph Vaughan Williams's song ‘Silent Noon’. By drawing upon perspectives derived from recent studies of song, vocal production, and national and aesthetic identity, I demonstrate that ‘song’ became a place in which the literal and figurative voices of performers and composers were drawn together in the making of a national music. As such, I advance a series of new historical perspectives through which to rethink notions of an English musical renaissance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Italian court case Angelo Alberto Torresi v Consiglio dell'Ordine degli Avvocati di Macerata wherein law graduates Angelo Alberto Torresi and Pierfrancesco Torresi tried to become established lawyers in Spain after obtaining law degrees from Macerata, Italy. It states that the court did not recognize abuse of rights in the act of migration of lawyers from the state where they earn their degrees. It mentions that the national identity of states was taken into consideration.

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) was created for strengthening the development of a European soul. But generally speaking, one can say it has been used as a tool for nation-branding, and as a means for Central and Eastern countries to “return” to Europe, in particular after the fall of their Communist regimes. In the difficult social, economic, political, and historical context of the Republic of Moldova nowadays, the ESC furthermore allows the discursive construction of the nation and the building of a particularself. Accordingly, based on a method inspired by the Critical Discourse Analysis methodology applied to three local newspapers, the research demonstrates how the ESC acts as a sound box when building the Moldovanself. The Moldovan identity that emerges from the articles seems to be an identity in crisis which proves much different from the usual political constructions of the nation. This bottom-up identity put forward by journalists has indeed to be related to the twofold crisis in which Moldova is at the moment: social and economic, on the one hand, and linked to a permanent struggle between a separate Moldovan or an integrated Romanian identity, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article I explore the making of national culture through bureaucratic routines in the Centre for National Culture in Wa, North-Western Ghana. I focus on an aspect of bureaucracy that is usually left aside: the productivity and creativity of bureaucratic routines. State, nation and culture are not fixed entities, but have to be constantly produced through processes of negotiation and meaning-making and through the continual reproduction of their boundaries and the categories that determine what is to be promoted or preserved. Bureaucratic routines and administrative processes are analysed as practices objectifying and nationalising culture and naturalising the boundaries and categories created through the cultural officers' practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although much attention has been paid to national construction in Soviet and post- Soviet Central Asia, the field of literary and cultural analysis of the origins of current national symbols and texts in this region is yet not fully acknowledged and discovered. This article tries to shed light onto the literary construction of an ethnic identity and its historical background in Soviet Kazakhstan and its influence on the post-Soviet ideology in this multicultural country. In doing so it investigates the ways and the time when most of the important historical epics were "re-written," brought back by the Kazakh writers and intellectuals in the mid-twentieth century. The importance of investigating this period and this phenomenon is twofold. First, it provides further contribution to the Soviet creation of binary approaches to the formation of ethnic identities and the continuous attack on local nationalisms. Following the arguments of some scholars in the field (e.g. [Adams, Laura. 1999. "Invention, Institutionalization and Renewal in Uzbekistan's National Culture." European Journal of Cultural Studies 2; Dave, Bhavna. 2007. Kazakhstan: Ethnicity and Power. London: Routledge]) this asserts that the local cultural elites found ways of bargaining and re-structuring such identity contributing to its "localization" through the usage of pre-Soviet and pre-Russian historical symbols. In a way, they were able to construct their own "imagined community" and resistance to the past and existing (according to them) colonialism within the given framework of Kazakh- Soviet literature. Secondly, the historicity that became a leitmotif of most important literary works and later on a main focus of national ideology in post-Soviet Kazakhstan must be viewed not just as an instrument of legitimation in this post- colonial state but also as a strong continuity of cultural and ethnic identity lines. The very fact that a detailed and continued genealogy of Kazakh medieval tribes and rulers was the main focus of major works by such famous Kazakh writers as Mukhtar Auezov or Ilyas Yessenberlin demonstrates the importance of the "continuity" and kinship and family lines for Kazakhs. The paper raises the questions of how national and elitist these movements were before the independence and how the further post-independent projects of using and re-establishing these links and continuity formed more questions than answers for the nation-builders in independent Kazakhstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital cities play an integral role in the construction of national identity. This is particularly true when the capital is the country's only major urban center. Over the course of its history, Mongolia's capital of Ulaanbaatar has been periodically reshaped to reflect competing trajectories of national culture. This article examines the evolving symbolism of architecture, urban design, and public space in Ulaanbaatar as a means of exploring Mongolia's complex negotiation between its traditional culture (mobile pastoralism and Shamanism/Buddhism), its socialist legacy, and globalization. Amidst the rampant social change of the last two decades, rather ambiguous national narratives have emerged in Mongolia. Like the capital's cityscape, these narratives reflect aspects of both recent and distant pasts, as well as contemporary economic, political, and social realities. This article reveals how increasingly palpable global economic and cultural practices are fomenting material change in the current phase of Ulaanbaatar's evolution. A combination of secondary source research and observations drawn from several months of fieldwork provide the basis for a discussion of the city's role as a forum for cultural contestation and national reform. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since 1991, the absence of the concept of a Ukrainian nation and national identity has led to a controversial, often ambivalent process of identity formation. The aim of this paper is to analyze and map the widely shared concepts about national identity that exist in Ukrainian society after 20 years of independence. Analysis of 43 interviews with Ukrainian political and intellectual elites reveals five different shared narratives: (1) dual identity; (2) being pro-Soviet; (3) a fight for Ukrainian identity; (4) a recognition of Ukrainian identity; and (5) a multicultural-civic concept. Each narrative is characterized by three main features: a coherent structure with strong internal logic and justification of its legitimacy; connection to a specific conception of power and morality; and an opposition to other narratives. All these features lead to the perception of society as a zero-sum game where one narrative must prevail over all others. At the same time, all these features ensure that there can be neither an overwhelming victory of one narrative over others nor a satisfying compromise between them. The results shed light on the complex process of narrative construction of identity and power in newly independent states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article intends to combine contemporary debates about nations and nationalism with a sociological perspective on collective emotions in its attempt to gain a better understanding of the process of constructing national identity. It will further present interdisciplinary evidence that collective emotions evoked in rituals instigate a number of group-related sociocognitive processes that reinforce enduring feelings of belonging and an emotional priming of collective representations. I will suggest that states of “collective effervescence” (Durkheim) do not only tie individuals to a community, but also provide a strong frame for the creation of symbols and the embodiment of shared meanings defining a community. The second part of the article analyzes examples taken from the football media coverage of the FIFA World Cups 2006 and 1974 (both were held in Germany) in order to provide a comparative case study exemplifying the proposed theoretical approach. The sample illuminates some interesting changes that invite further hypotheses about corresponding changes of national identity in a larger context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Early commentators on the newly independent Belarusian state of the 1990s indicated that there was something lacking in Belarusian identity. The people did not seem to respond powerfully to the new symbols of the state, use of the national language intermingled with Russian, and economic concerns appeared to trump popular concerns with promoting Belarusian language or culture. Other former Soviet states were embracing ethnic national ideals, and as such, many assumed that Belarus should follow a similar path. However, as an examination of the history of the Belarusian territory demonstrates, a national ideal based on ethnicity was problematic in Belarusian society, and as such, the ethnic notions of Belarusian identity forwarded by some Belarusian elites failed to appeal to the masses. Instead, Belarus seems better suited to a more inclusive civic identity than an exclusive ethnic one. This research examines the nature of contemporary Belarusian identity, with particular attention to the civic versus ethnic aspects of that identity. We argue that although Belarusian identity is obviously in flux and subject to heavy debate, it is currently demonstrating more civic aspects than ethnic ones. This finding is based on original survey data obtained in Belarus in 2009 and 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italians are among the stronger supporters of European integration process: they have developed a considerable sense of attachment to the new social-political entity called Europe, probably by the fact that it is considered a source of benefits and could give them a more efficient political system than domestic one. Nor does the sense of attachment to their country, rather accentuated in Italy, threatens the feelings toward Europe. To be sure, the role of national attachment is different, according to the meaning of national identification. The civic national identity increase Italian Europeanism while cultural national attachment depresses it. These evidences, in contrast with previous research, are probably due to the recent enlargement of Europe to Eastern countries on the one hand threatens the cultural heritage, on the other reduces the benefits granted and could lead Italy among the Eurosceptic countries. Italians now have a domestic political system efficient, by virtue of stabilizing the national political scenario and with the inevitable reduction of EU benefits, due to the eastern enlargement, they could change the attitudes toward Europe. Mainly if Europe, now, threatens national culture and traditions and especially if Euroscepticism is a relevant issue of many influential parties and the same national government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the Chinese Second World War victims' reparations movement (CWRM) against Japan as a case of contemporary Chinese memory politics. While many studies indicate the Chinese government's use of the war memories for political purposes, ours focuses on how official discourses are translated into citizens' political participation and how the state-society interactions lead to variation in the development of the movement sectors within the case of CWRM. Drawing on textual and ethnographic data and a theoretical "dynamic statism," we argue that the central government's ambivalent attitude towards this ideologically useful yet institutionally troublesome movement created room for local governments and the movement to pursue their own causes. Yet the local and central governments' strong interventions, either facilitation or repression, discouraged civil society's participation and led to the underdevelopment of some movement sectors. In the sectors where the local governments held an attitude of absenteeism or co-operation, the movement was able to mobilize resources from civil society and state institutions and finally developed well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Tajik civil war in 1997, the Tajik authorities have being seeking to instill a new national consciousness. Here the educational system plays a crucial role, not least the way history is taught. Through a state-approved history curriculum, the authorities offer a common understanding of the past that is intended to strengthen the (imagined) community of the present. In this article, we examine the set of history textbooks currently used in Tajik schools and compare them with Soviet textbooks, exploring continuities and changes in the understanding of the Tajik nation. We distinguish between changes in the perception of the national “self” and the new “other,” the Uzbeks, and introduce two intermediary categories: the Soviet/Russian heritage as an “external self” and Islam as an “internal other.” The main battle for the further delimitation of the Tajik “self” is likely to take place within the discursive gray zone between the two latter categories, where the authorities will have to find a balance between a continued secular state ideology and the heavy presence of Islam, as well as between a Soviet past and a Tajik present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between American studies and affective production? In what specific ways does our scholarship participate in the creation, circulation, and appreciation of affective practices ? These questions provide a foundation for understanding the sometimes obscure connections between academic scholarship and mass culture. I argue that the history of American studies involves a specific and influential imbrication with affective production that has shaped notions of identity and affect since the nineteenth century. Usually this history is understood in terms of how the field used to advocate conservative notions of nativist national identity ; this paper brings the history of this advocacy into new focus by histricizing the relationship between scholarship and affective production in the often-overlooked field of humor studies. The first section traces the invention of an academic tradition that articulated humor practice to national character, and identifies this articulation itself as the affective labor of that scholarship. The second section addresses alternative histories that might be written once we recognize this articulation of affective practice to identity as itself a form of affective labor. In three case studies, I briefly explore the relations between humor, mass culture, and politics in the works of the late nineteenth-century humorists David Ker, Marietta Holley, and Bill Nye, whose humor was produced in the same period that saw the durable articulation of humor practice to national identity emerge. These cases gesture, polemically, to the important work American studies can still do with humor, especially as we realize the key role of affective production in our disciplinary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most contemporary theories of nationalism and identity formation rest on some form of social constructivism, few theorists of nationalism and identity formation interrogate social constructivism as a social construction - a social science concept “imposed” on the non-self-consciously constructivist behaviors of people, who generally do not believe they are engaging in construction. Since social constructivism - unless it is a metaphysics about what is real - is really about the concept of social construction, the first task of constructivists is to ask not how various populations have engaged in social construction but how social construction should be defined. As this article shows, constructivism is at best a run-of-the-mill theoretical approach - perfectly respectable, but no different from any other theoretical approach in the social sciences. It is only when social constructivism makes outlandishly radical claims - that all of reality or all of social reality is constructed - that it is unusual, exciting, and wrong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]