Search

The aim of this paper is to analyze Anne Louise Germaine de Staël's novel Corinne ou l'Italie (1807) from the point of view of the cultural studies and the visual studies, to shed a light on de Staël's attempt at promoting the construction of a modern Italian national identity, founded on the arts. The article examines how de Staël's participation in the Italian nation-building was half linked to her prejudices upon the Italian lateness in the process of civilization Northern European countries were undergoing, and half focused on creating a transnational, cross-boundary and European artistic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iphigenia is not one. She is multiple. Central to Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding's opera titled ...(Iphigenia) is the layered multiplicity of Iphigenias who are sacrificed/martyred, time and again, for the cause of Grecian nation building. Unlike other stage and filmic renditions of the opera that tell Iphigenia's story once, emphasizing the psychic drama of what it means to give one's blood for the ideological cause of nation building, ...(Iphigenia) repeats the story piling up bodies on stage. Dressed in pink, red, white, silver, fur and more (Fig. 4), Iphigenia's body becomes multiple, becomes collective, becomes sisterhood, becomes interspecies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public systems are facing increasingly complex challenges such as poverty and terrorism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the theoretical as well as practical value of complexity science, by investigating how key characteristics of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) work out in practice within the intelligence organization of the ongoing nation-building mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Our main finding is that the learning properties of the CAS suffer when its structural properties are not sufficiently developed. In MINUSMA, major improvements can especially be made in (re)developing the minimum specs – in which strategic and operational demands, ideally, converge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the example of First Nations housing in British Columbia to explore how culturally legitimate community economies are being advanced to overcome the deficiencies of top-down, state-led housing efforts and market relations. Through the lens of the diverse economy, we highlight how First Nations community institutions can and do serve to oversee the utilization of territorial forest resources for the production and distribution of housing materials locally. The findings point towards First Nations communities navigating (often in latent ways) complex sites of decision-making through: ethical negotiations related to (de)commoditization; needs and surplus evaluation; and transactions and rules of (in) commensurability. While these examples appear to challenge the conventional logics of capitalist-market institutions, First Nations communities also must contend with the many structural barricades to change that exist within the settler-colonial institutional framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between populism, nationalism and religion through evidence from Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule. The literature on the populism's rapport with nationalism has developed in isolation from the burgeoning theorization of populism-religion nexus. This study has a two-fold contribution. Theoretically, it advances a historical approach to deepen our understanding of the widespread appeal of contemporary populism. It argues that populism can capitalize on unique contextual fusions of religion and ethnic (secular) nationalism that originate from historical legacies and ideas of modern nation-building to (re)construct the antagonistic discourse dividing the society into two camps of 'the people' and 'the elites'. Empirically, by drawing upon discourse theory and empirical analysis of the AKP's public discourse, the study offers a nuanced approach to the AKP's much-debated stance on religion as an ideology versus instrument. Three areas are investigated to exemplify AKP's construction of populist dichotomy: a) ethnic and religious minorities, b) women, and c) youth. The analysis reveals that the AKP has built three different, and at times, contradictory articulations of 'people as underdogs', 'people as nation' and 'people as the ummah' against 'the secular elites', 'the enemies within' and 'the West', respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The colonial disruption of organic state formation in Africa through the imposition of an alien state system adversely influenced state-building in the continent with consequences for good governance, belonging, and development in its holistic sense. Looking at the case of Nigeria, the adverse manifestations of the postcolonial state are signposted in the prevalent high level of insecurity that brings the state to the point of failure. This study used a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods to interrogate the origins of the Nigerian state, the perverse character it manifests, and her future trajectory. The findings show that Nigeria is in self-destruct mode unless, for once, the fundamental problem of its imposed origin and essence is addressed. Doing so will require a political mechanism that enables Nigerians to participate in negotiating a social contract between the state and its citizens as equal stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xin shiji was a Chinese journal published in France by Chinese anarchists and revolutionaries from 1907 to 1910. This article examines the views of education and learning and views of Chinese language and script expressed in Xin shiji. Xin shiji presents a cosmopolitan moment of educational imagination in the late Qing and early Republican period of China that has been largely ignored in the scholarly literature on education of this period, which has focused instead on the role of education and educational transformation in state building. Dispassionate about disseminating ideas about citizenship and about exploring the role of education in creating new citizens, writers for Xin shiji emphasized the connection of an autonomous individual member of society who is not bound by the nation-state. This cosmopolitan vision of education did not situate itself within an existing tradition or presuppose the institutional and political forms through which education and learning should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the contemporary challenge of bad leaders and public leadership in Nigeria and identifies the characteristics of Prophet Ibrahim as a model for leaders to enhance development in the country. This study is descriptive and qualitative. The country's aspirations for credible public leadership, Prophetic Leadership Theory, public leadership within the context of spirituality and religion, and the life of Prophet Ibrahim from a Muslim perspective were reviewed to identify a practical approach for Muslim public leadership ethics as a way to promote national development. This article contributes to two main areas of development: Muslim public leadership and various African contexts and cultures. Results show that prophetic public leadership ethics have the necessary attributes to enhance the public leadership quality currently needed in Nigeria. The country's leaders should focus on ethical and moral virtues, courage, avoiding corruption and corrupt practices, having the spirit of sacrifice and devotion, and being able to communicate sincerely to improve the nation-building process. The prophetic public leadership framework proposed in this study can enhance the emergence of credible public leadership and leaders in Nigeria. The paper emphasises the importance of prophetic public leadership ethics as a basis for choosing a leader and proposes a prophetic public leadership framework as shown by Prophet Ibrahim's approach to be applied in Nigeria's public leadership structure as a way of promoting national development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the recruitment and training of Africans as sanitary inspectors during the British colonial administration of Lagos. The role of these indigenous health workers in shaping the colonial health system shows that colonial hygiene, an essential part of the European "civilizing mission" in Africa, was more than an imperial project in which British colonial health officials led "ignorant" Africans to sanitary enlightenment. Faced with the problem of preventable diseases, rapid and mismanaged urbanization, poor funding of sanitary services, and deteriorating public health conditions, African health inspectors, known locally as wole-wole (house searchers), served as sanitation infrastructure. The nonmedical health workers supported the British colonial efforts to improve public health in Lagos by bridging the cultural gap between European medical officials and the African public. Indeed, African sanitary inspectors aided European colonial officials in extending their "civilizing mission," sometimes using their office to pursue their own interests and breaching the privacy of the local population. Yet, working as intermediaries between the colonial government and Africans, the local sanitary inspectors improved the colonial state's ability to effect positive social change and relatively deal with preventable diseases in Lagos. The contributions of these Africans, especially Dr. Isaac Ladipo Oluwole, reveal the ability of indigenous people to take care of their health and their active role in colonial state-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Language Problems & Language Planning is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of History Studies (13094688) is the property of History Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Indian art engages with the cartographic representation of the motherland and utilizes feminine iconography as an integral tool for interpreting socio-cultural changes at micro/macro level of the nation. Bharat Mata's anthropomorphic image as a 'living mother' can be traced as the idealized, asexual, pure figure of the past which attempts in recognizing the secular-national terrain where she can claim her own 'geo-body'. With nudity emerging as a hyper-visible metonym for obscene sexuality in the popular imagination, it turns out to be a set of jumbled 'attitudes' and 'rationalizations' Positing the painting against this backdrop of aestheticism/obscenity, this paper attempts to foreground how the female body inscribed with the symbolic value of both 'mater' (mother) and 'materia' (matter) related to nation-building has engendered 'naked' figure of a woman 'clothed' in art to transgress from the aesthetic framework into parameters of obscenity thereby nullifying artistic subjectivity and creativity. The paper draws attention towards how certain feminine depictions representing the spiritual and motherly attributes are idolized and the depiction of the physical or sensual, if not actively censored continue to be regulated from the public eye by certain institutions operating as discreet forms of 'censorship' on female nudity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is focused on Slovene and Serbian state socialist experts and their role in the scientific field of researching the Yugoslav national question in the first half of the 1960s, with emphasis on their research and debates regarding the concept of national Yugoslavism. The institutes being examined are the Institute for Ethnic Studies (Inštitut za narodnostna vprašanja, INV) in Ljubljana and the Institute of Social Sciences (Institut društvenih nauka, IDN) in Belgrade. In the early 1960s, Yugoslav soft nation-building reached its peak with the famous Ćosić–Pirjevec debate. The latter coincided with the end of the 'transitional period' at INV and its new leadership under Drago Druškovič. Some Serbian lawyers shifted the fight for the establishment of a socialist Yugoslav nation from political debates to the Yugoslav Association for International Law, where the dispute reached a climax in late 1964. With the abandonment of the Yugoslav national idea, IDN prepared an ambitious programme of researching Yugoslav interethnic relations, which would include several institutions from all Yugoslav republics. The League of Communists of Yugoslavia financed research on interethnic relations in Yugoslavia to create 'correct' policies with regard to the national question. Huge amounts of data were collected (public opinion polls, newspaper clippings) and analysed by the research institutions mentioned earlier, which often gave expert opinions to leading Communists. In the late 1960s, amateur research and opinion polling conducted by Yugoslav newspapers challenged the monopoly of the Party on the scientific research field of interethnic relations. Thus, in the early 1970s, the Party struggled to retake control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to existing nationalism studies on Central Asia, I argue that state‐sponsored celebrations in Kyrgyzstan were multi‐functional and were used to maintain political legitimation based on the politics of Kyrgyz mega‐celebrations held during the presidency of Askar Akaev (1991–2005). I propose that in weak democracies like Kyrgyzstan, with widespread electoral malpractice, political legitimacy is shaky and that therefore the political leadership seeks to maintain its legitimacy using various means. Rule by coercion is not a practical option for such regimes because it does not provide them with long‐term legitimacy. As I demonstrate in the paper, Akaev's regime relied on the cultural performance mode of self‐legitimization because it lacked other options for legitimation. Specifically, the mega‐celebrations for the 1,000‐year anniversary of The Epic of Manas in 1995, for the 3,000‐year anniversary of the city of Osh in 2000, and for the 2,200‐year anniversary of Kyrgyz statehood in 2003 – each of them led and promoted by Akaev – secured his re‐election and ensured the political stability and legitimacy of his regime. I conclude that in Central Asia nation‐building and legitimacy do not exist as separate processes and that state‐sponsored celebrations should therefore be treated as both nation‐building and legitimation projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the structure and editorial practices of the phonographic industry in postcolonial Mozambique during the so-called 'socialist period'. It details the production phases, the associated companies and delves into the material conditions and aesthetic values that guided the phonograms published by NGOMA—dubbed as 'the Mozambican national label'—and their relationship with state-defined cultural policy between 1978 (when production on this series commenced) and 1990 (when vinyl production officially ceased in the country). Several themes are explored, such as predominant topics of song lyrics, repertoires and artists, copyright, women artists, and the restrictions on music production during the civil war. After analysing the main musical trends and acknowledging noteworthy absences, I reflect on NGOMA's efficiency in the nation-building process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our article conducts a critical reassessment of one of the most influential cultural myths in Eastern Europe throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the nationalist definition of peasantry as embodying the quintessence of the nation. In order to evaluate the imagological scope and ideological implications engendered by this so-called 'people-nation myth', we focus on the Romanian culture, whom we consider fully representative for the Eastern European context. More exactly, our study employs a distant reading of the Romanian rural novel from the first half of the twentieth century, precisely the literary subgenre supposed to reflect the coalescence between the peasantry and the nation. By analysing the co-occurrences in these novels between words belonging to the vocabularies of nation and rurality, we aim at showing that – contrary to traditional historiographic consensus – nation building has less to do with language or ethnicity, and much more to do with social emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how electricity and electrical technologies were used to generate a whole series of narratives about national regeneration in a context of national (and imperial) decline. It will follow the debates that the advent of the "electrical era" triggered among a group of Spanish engineers that in 1902 published the book La ciencia y la industria eléctrica en España al subir al trono S.M. el Rey Don Alfonso XIII. The publication acted as a memorandum addressed to the young monarch aimed at encouraging the promising applications of electricity in Spain. As members of an international community, engineers embraced the alleged universal promises of electricity but adapted them to Spain's local conditions. Accordingly, through the pages of the book they used technologies of electrification and electricity as cultural resources to refashion national identity and establish the foundations of a new modernity. By analysing how Spanish engineers conceived the relationship between energy and the future of the nation, this article aims at enriching the historiography of Spanish nationalisms through the lenses of the history of technology (particularly, histories of techno-nationalism) and cultural histories of electricity and energies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive review of academic writings on the convergence of religions (COR) in Nigeria shows that many online academic papers and related conversations gave more attention to its negative implications. Agreeably, Nigeria is the hotbed of religious crises in Africa. However, with the benefits of hindsight, filling the gap of insufficient capture of the positive impact of COR is considered in this exercise with three questions in view: (1) Where do religions meet? (2) Why do religions meet? (3) What are the positive implications of their convergence in Nigeria? Answers were adequately captured with examples, scenarios, case studies, historical evidence, and concomitant academic literature. Overall, this exercise projected three arguments. Firstly, it posited that commitment to religion is not at the heart of COR in Nigeria, rather, COR is premised on personal or group interests. Secondly, it argued that positive reflections on the COR can promote inter-religious tolerance, peace, and unity. Thirdly, it proposed that the COR has far-reaching positive implications socially, politically, and economically. Lastly, it made brief recommendations for improved co-existence and nation-building. Contribution: This article contributes to inter-religious dialogue in Africa as it focuses on the social, political and economic value of religion in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working within the framework of the "city-as-archive," this article investigates recent place-making processes that have occurred in Seoul, South Korea—debates over the function and symbolism of Gwanghwamun Square. The nature of the dynamics in who archives a city is determined by which actors hold power in place-making. In turn, archiving a city is a vigorously political process. In order to understand how the actors of Gwanghwamun Square's place-making affect the visualization and formation of shared city stories and memories, three significant stages of development at Gwangwmun Square will be examined: 1) the construction of a historical site that archives political ambition and nation-building, 2) the creation of an icon for global brand-building, and 3) as the archival site of conflicts between political leaders' ambitions and their citizens' priorities. By analyzing three phases of re-development, it becomes clear how power shifts, and how the scope of stakeholders expands and changes. It reveals the city as an archive, how a public space has been (re)collected, revised, retrieved, and erased by different stakeholders during different political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the ideology of the nation-building process in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The key features of this process are uncovered through a discourse analysis of school textbooks published in the People's Republics and in Transnistria, and of the 'Russian Donbas' ideology. This is compared to the history and interpretations of the concept of 'Novorossiya'. This research demonstrates the difference between Donbas and other the post-Soviet contested states, and highlights the role of the Russian government and Russian radical right-wing intellectuals in the formation of the 'Russian Donbas' ideology. It concludes that, although Russia had a decisive influence on the development of the conflict in Donbas, Donbas also affected the ideological transformation of Putin's Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the political contention around the implementation of the Minsk Accords in Ukraine, and why the pluralist nation-building project required for the success of these accords failed. The much-debated cleavage between the more 'pro-Western' and more 'pro-Russian' regions of Ukraine requires that such an alternative be taken seriously. The article argues that neither the change of the balance in favor of the pro-Western electorate in 2014, nor the rise of Ukraine's civic identity in response to Russian aggression can adequately explain the failure to develop a positive, pluralist nation-building project in the context of Minsk. It argues instead that the profound class and political asymmetry between Ukraine's 'Western' and 'Eastern' political camps created different capacities for the universalization of their particular interests, and for effective political mobilization for and against the Minsk Accords in the context of Euromaidan's revolutionary dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution fits into the framework of Digital Heritage, within the diagnostic process, leading up to restoration. Control and monitoring of architectural heritage are still open topics, with respect to requirements as simplicity, non-invasiveness and cost-effectiveness of both procedures and equipment. A peculiar gap concerns the accessibility to the artefact, which could be compromised by bad state of preservation, poor hygienic/sanitary conditions, or unsafe post-emergency circumstances, as well as by considerable extent, complex morphology, or incidental access conditions, due to the simultaneous presence of multiple working groups.In recent years, literature is moving towards an optimization of the investigation phases, by implementing digital technologies for the acquisition, elaboration and interpretation of 2D/3D data, to assess the state of conservation of a building or its main components. Besides, digital image processing and artificial intelligence are progressively rationalizing the analysis of the collected data. Furthermore, easy common devices, like spherical cameras or smartphones, have been introduced for the virtual reconstruction and representation of architectural environments, with the purpose of assessing their morphology and conditions. However, there is still an absence of harmonized standard procedures.To address these issues, the paper proposes a rapid pipeline, involving easy-to-use devices and expeditious procedures, to remotely assess, quantify, and monitor the extension of surface decay of historical buildings. A workflow based on the use of 360° images and videogrammetry has been defined and tested on a representative case study, both for its cultural value and for its limited accessibility, demonstrating a great suitability to the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of East Asia, particularly those based at Western institutions, have only just begun to study children and childhoods in earnest. This Special Issue considers three young authors' approaches to the historical study of children within and right at the institutional edges of religion, pedagogy, and nation building. Rather than reinforcing binary opposites between flesh-and-blood children on the one hand and symbolisms of childhood on the other, the present authors carefully ponder where on various continuums the children they study ought to be placed––of children as autonomous actors or victims of discipline and punishment, as objects or agents of Christian proselytizing, sexual desire, and revolutionary nation building. My critical introduction aims to highlight how these histories matter and how they ought to complicate the histories of pretty much everything. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first European Games hosted in the crossroad Republic of Azerbaijan in 2015 provides a framework for studying both the contemporary approach of this profoundly Eastern society to the European community and the limits of the enlargement of the European political edifice. As conceived by the Azerbaijani elite, the largest national event to be held in this post-Soviet state since its independence in 1991 was meant to reflect the attainment of modern standards as expected by the European and Western world. Conversely, however, it also served for the portrayal of the new national narrative of Azerbaijan without further integration into the European political framework and its normative dogmas of society. The article employs a qualitative methodology and analyses 20 in-depth interviews conducted with relevant local figures of the sports event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It asses the legitimacy of the war itself (jus ad bellum), nor does it suggest precise guidelines on how to terminate war (jus post bellum). It also mentions reversing what many considered twenty years of societal gains, especially in regard to women's rights and proposition that foreseeably disastrous endings of nation-building enterprises.

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Political Science Studies / Studia Politologiczne is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Introduction: In addition to the main and announced goals of the US government for attacking Afghanistan, including: the destruction of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda Network, advancing the process of democratization and nation-state building, strengthening the governmental and political structure, creating stability and security, there were other goals on the agenda, the most important of which was access to important mineral resources and energy transfer routes from Central Asia to South Asia, preventing Russia from regaining power and controlling China and Iran. It is obvious that the achievement of the above-mentioned goals by the United States required the existence of a grand strategy in the foreign policy of this country regarding the issue of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a review of the actions and approaches announced and implemented by the American government during the three terms of the presidency of George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, clearly confirms this issue. Adopting different and sometimes conflicting approaches and strategies, Bush's "Anti-Terrorism and "Counterinsurgency Strategies", Obama, and Trump's "Zero Base Strategy" is at least three distinct strategies of the US government in this era, which ultimately ended in the withdrawal of the US military forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of presence in this country. Research Question: The main question of the article is what are the evidence for the change in the approach of the US foreign policy towards Afghanistan in the three mentioned periods? And what is the relationship between Afghanistan's internal developments and this change of approach? Research Hypothesis: The change in the US foreign policy approach towards Afghanistan has been affected by the internal developments of this country caused by the resistance of armed groups, especially the Taliban, against US policies and the failure of the announced and implemented programs of this country during the presidency of Bush, Obama and Trump. Methodology and Theoretical Framework: Since the first question of the article seeks to provide evidence of the change in the strategy of the United States regarding Afghanistan in the three terms of the presidency, by adapting the methodology of a comparative study at the descriptive level, the most important features that support the change in these three periods should be mentioned. Next, by focusing on the second question, we will investigate the relationship between two variables: the change in the US approach with the internal developments of this country from a descriptive and inferential point of view and analyzing the logic governing this change of approach, focusing on one of the causes mentioned in the systemic theory of James Rosena Results and Discussion: The findings show that the US diplomatic system did not follow the same approach in Afghanistan during the two terms of Bush's presidency and unlike the 2002 strategy, which sought a combination of ideological and strategic goals from its presence in Afghanistan, in the 2006 strategy, the security aspect of these goals was dominant got more priority. In the Obama administration, the revival of the US global influence and the destruction of terrorist groups required a transition from a counterterrorism strategy to a counter-insurgency. In the Obama administration, the restoration of the US global influence and the destruction of terrorist groups required a transition from anti-terrorism strategy to counter-insurgency. From this point of view, both the weakening of Bush's anti-terrorism strategy and the clarification of Obama's counter-insurgency strategy clearly indicate the role of Afghan internal groups in the failure of America's policies and successive changes in strategy. Conclusion: Apart from the ups and downs of the US relations with Afghan government officials, there are three other reasons: the rise of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban during the time of the US presence, the emergence of many internal problems in Afghanistan and the disgust of a large part of the Afghan people with the US government due to its inability to reduce insecurity. There are three reasons all of which confirm the prominent role of internal developments, especially the confrontation of groups such as the Taliban with the US policies. This means that even armed local groups with minimal facilities, if they stand up, can force them to make continuous changes in their strategy in addition to the failure of the policies of the great and superior powers. It is not possible simply by relying on the established approaches of power in the paradigm of realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a compelling need to address the protracted and recurring multidimensional insecurity in Nigeria. The prevalence of insecurity in the country is multipronged and caught in a cyclic web. Insecurity in Nigeria comprises insurgency, killer herdsmen, extrajudicial killings, ethnoreligious conflict, armed robbery, militancy, banditry, cybercrime and attacks by unknown gunmen, among other things. The incidence of attacks by unknown gunmen is pervasive and symptomatic of a fragile state where the government's monopoly of force is challenged and where marginalisation, crises and contested spaces are ubiquitous. The thrust of this paper is that the menace of unknown gunmen is pervasive and threatens to plunge Nigeria into a cesspit of fragility. The argument is predicated on the conceptual and theoretical suppositions of a fragile state. To this end, the paper adopts the documentary method of data collection and uses qualitative descriptive analysis to expound on the phenomenon. The findings reveal that the words unknown gunmen - terminology that is used to describe the spate of insecurity in the country - are a bane to peaceful coexistence. The paper also shows that the insecurity caused by these armed attacks and other forms of threat is emblematic of a fragile state. Consequently, policy recommendations - state-building and peace-building - are proffered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of ideologies on the translation of literature for children and young adults (YA). I discuss the novel Le Capitaine Casse-Cou by French writer Louis Boussenard, which was translated into Ukrainian twice using different strategies. The analysis combines Andre Lefevere’s concepts of rewriting in translation with Lawrence Venuti’s discussion of foreignization and domestication translation strategies, Gideon Toury’s concept of norms of translation framed within postcolonial theory. Ideologies in translation are realized through the system of patronage, rewriting according to the system of social norms and through strategies of domestication and foreignization, which can shape colonial and national cultures. The paper focuses on representation of colonial and nation-building ideologies in two translations for Ukrainian young adults, which I call Soviet-Ukrainian, or Russian assimilation, and Diasporic-Ukrainian translation. I suggest that Boussenard’s novel is open to two opposite interpretations: from a metropolis and from a colonial viewpoint. I begin by examining representations of colonial and nation-building strategies used in the Soviet Union and in Ukrainian institutions abroad. I then explore how Boussenard’s novel was adapted to these ideologies. The analysis shows that translation can be used strategically to adapt the ideological norms of society — foreignization and domestication; they describe different social and cultural models for children and YA; and also reproduce a status of translators and of using opposite language ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) is the first museum dedicated to orthodox Chinese history in Hong Kong. Opened in July 2022, the HKPM emerged amid an accelerating integration of the city with mainland China and closely adheres to Chinese nationalist ideologies. However, among museums in Hong Kong and mainland China that foster nation-building, it features conventional yet distinctive presentation strategies. We critically analyse the objects displayed, the textual evidence from labels and panels, and the spatial arrangement of the opening thematic exhibitions to deconstruct the nationalistic agenda embedded in the narrative. On one hand, the HKPM guides local visitors to (re)imagine the Chinese nation based on a flourishing, continuing, Confucian-centric, and culturally diverse Chinese civilisation, following customary nationalistic narratives. On the other hand, the HKPM customises its narrative to legitimise Hong Kong's unification with China and affix Hong Kong's past, present, and future to the development of the Chinese nation. Together, the exhibitions attempt to bolster visitors' sense of belonging to the nation through cognitive and affective means, while invoking a sense of obligation to contribute to the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1892, in the shadow of the tumultuous fall of the Brazilian monarchy and the rise of the First Republic just three years earlier, composer Carlos Gomes premiered his new piece Colombo in Rio de Janeiro. Intended for the 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago, Colombo hagiographically narrates the story of Christopher Columbus and his supposed heroic journey of discovery to the "New World". However, the piece's disastrous reception in Rio led to it being left out of the Exposition and in the shadows of the composer's oeuvre. In this article, I examine the history of Gomes's Colombo within the context of the nation-building project of Brazil's First Republic. Interrogating the piece alongside the other forms of cultural production that represented Brazil at the Exposition, I argue that Colombo reveals the uncomfortable and tense mediations between the national and non-national, as necessitated by Brazil's search for a place within the cosmopolitan modernity of the fin-de-siècle world order. The article traces the construction of an exported image of "Brazil" and the universal, cosmopolitan notion of "Brazilianness" that the composition represents and, in doing so, seeks to nuance the oppositions between periphery/metropole and nationalist/cosmopolitan on which the nineteenth-century nation-state was based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant advances in Sikh studies, Sikh nationalism is still poorly understood. As a complex community with competing narratives of self-identity – as a religion, as an ethnicity, and as a global and national minority (in India and in the diaspora) – Sikh nationalism requires an integrated framework that recognises the rich symbolic heritage and how the nation and state-building projects of India and Pakistan have defined Sikh politics. Such a framework also needs to rethink the role of the diaspora as the agent of long-distance nationalism against the background of the rise of religious nationalisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the multifaceted political and cultural meanings of electrical supply and technologies in a context of recent loss of an empire and a contested nation-building process. It explores how some Spanish engineers employed electricity to articulate a nationalist modernism that saw electricity as a secure path to development and industrialization, particularly following the final collapse of the overseas empire in 1898. At a time in which several groups confronted the challenges of Spanish modernization and the reconfiguration of post-imperial national identity, electricity became involved in several socio-technical (and energy) imaginaries as well as in techno-political strategies. However, conceptions of how the new 'electrified' future should look like varied greatly, especially when dealing with the specifics of designing large-scale electrical infrastructures. Given the diverse professional, social, and political outlooks of the different Spanish engineering communities, mobilisations of electricity were inscribed within complex and evolving social and political agendas. This article highlights the need to understand electrification – and by extension, energy transitions – as a contingent process that must be adapted to pre-existing political and socio-cultural forms to ensure the most socially inclusive and culturally nuanced account of its heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the nineteenth century, the forces of imperialism, nationalism, and revolution were changing the world's geopolitical landscape at the same time that steamships enabled unprecedented mobility in the Pacific. This article examines Kawata Masazō's life and news reports to ask what he can tell us about how travel, foreign encounter, and intellectual exchange intersected with East Asian geopolitics just prior to the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in the summer of 1894. Kawata's micro-historical perspective shows that the unique nexus of relationships among Japan, Korea, and China were embedded in the deeply intertwined and contradictory tensions of imperialism, nationalism, and revolution that were playing out across multiple societies in the Pacific world. His story also shows that travel and imperialism are not always, or only, mutually supporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of place-based identity politics in constructions of the Russian nation by nongovernmental actors in the cities of Kazan and Ekaterinburg. Departing from more established approaches to the study of nation building concerned with elite strategies and actions, it contributes to an emerging line of inquiry focused on the agency of mesolevel actors. Drawing on interviews and analysis of public communications, the article demonstrates that actors such as museums, activist groups, and religious institutions creatively employ mainstream discursive practices present also in state narratives to anchor the nation in local symbols. At the same time, they position themselves in locally specific identity cleavages concerning city, regional, and ethnonational minority identities. The findings show that the imbrication of local identity politics in their narratives can problematize nation building by exposing contradictions in federal discourses or troubling the association of nation and state. Emphasizing the importance of locally situated processes of constructing the nation in conjunction with other scales of belonging, the article argues that nation building in Russia is complicated by mesolevel practices of identity making that can simultaneously support and subvert it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings to light the lesser-known case of Gagauzia, an autonomous region in Moldova, to examine how global frameworks of authenticity and heritage are drawn upon and performed in three local ethnically centered initiatives. Drawing on data from twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2015 and 2018, this case study provides insight into the ways that notions of nationhood are constructed and perpetuated, with a focus on the role of a specific segment of society, ethnopolitical entrepreneurs. These are neither fully top-down nor bottom-up actors. Focusing on three Gagauzian "firsts" that claim to represent the "last" of disappearing cultural practices and identities, this article interrogates how the given initiatives fuse heritage and innovation to create metacultural discourses that advance notions of Gagauzian ethnic or national particularism. The article gives food for thought about the salience – or not – of elite actors' articulations of nation, particularly within post-Soviet societies and underscores the array of social actors involved in any nation-building activity. Further, by highlighting the heterogeneity of intersectional, lived experience and articulations of belonging, the article problematizes group-based analysis and methodological nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy initiatives in the Trump administration and the Biden-Harris administration significantly accelerated the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. This article supports the conclusion that the major factors in this defeat were the historical difficulty in governing Afghanistan, the Afghan republic's two inefficient and corrupt governments, an ineffective US strategy, operational shortcomings by US forces, an ineffective Afghan military, Pakistan's duplicitous policy, and the strength and determination of the Taliban. This article rejects the claim that the United States' nation-building effort was a major factor in its defeat and concludes with a discussion of lessons encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sketches the emergence, institutionalisation and emergent issues and challenges in the scholarly field of history of education in Latin America. It argues that these processes have been closely linked with nation-building and the decisive role of national politics. The impact of national politics is herein called a 'beneficial tyranny'. This was certainly true for the first major works written in the late nineteenth century and the major waves of historiography until the slow institutionalisation of the major site of research in history of education: the study of education at universities in the 1960s as well as the institutionalisation of the field of history of education with the establishment of academic societies and specific journals in the 1990s. Yet this interpretation does not explain more recent developments in the field. By looking at recent publications in all major journals of the region for the years 2020 and 2021, new historiographical trends clearly emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National genome projects are often celebrated as assertions of genomic sovereignty, with limited critique of their potential as instruments of biopolitical control and extraction by the state. This paper extends analyses of genomics and nationalism by examining how genomics is mobilized in service of an authoritarian nation-state and ideology in Pakistan. Since independence, Pakistan has sought to unify and centralize the state under a militarized project of Islamic nationalism. I demonstrate how the Pakistani genome was scientifically characterized along key contours of statist ideology to naturalize an imagined religious-nationalist-genetic community. Further, I discuss how genomics attempted to resolve two major tensions in statist narratives: the nation's immense ethnocultural diversity under a homogenous national identity, and a territorial disjuncture between its geographical "homeland" and ideological "heartland". Thus, I situate Pakistan's genomics effort in the history of ideological collaboration between state and intellectual elites, and challenge the inherently emancipatory assumptions of national genomics initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyze the impact of the war in Ukraine on European integration. In particular, bellicist theories will be analyzed. The following research questions are examined below: (1) Has the security threat from Russian imperialism prompted the European Union (EU) to develop its own defense capabilities? and (2) Did it stimulate the development of state functions of this organization such as centralization or federalization to guarantee security to member states, especially those along the bloc’s eastern wing? The paper also examines the reasons why the state-building of the EU has encountered difficulties during the war in Ukraine. The main focus is put on distinct perceptions of the security situation within NATO’s eastern flank, including those of Poland, and Western European countries amid the war in Ukraine, as well as their possible impact on the development of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]