Visualising Nationhood

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Visualising Nationhood

• A Grand Theory of National Identity
• Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College,
• University of London

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A Grand Theory

• Agnostic re source of changes
• About effects rather than causes
• Heuristic Device rather than positive theory
• Builds upon work of Zimmer (2003) Hutchinson
  (2005) Confino and others

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Helps Clarify Major Issues

• Ideology and national identity
• 'Ethnic-Civic' Nations
• 'Nations before Nationalism'
• Universalism (Islam, Neoconservatism) as
  nationalism?
• 'Nations as Zones of Conflict' (Hutchinson 2005)
• Local vs National
• Relationship between individual identity and
  collective identity (ie. 'consumption v
  production')
• Ethnosymbolism continuity of nations or revival
  of resources?

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Optical Metaphor

• Referent Frame of Reference for the Individual
  (Territory, Population). Can change for
  subjective and geopolitical reasons
• Lenses Ideologies, Location (Social,
  Geographic), Interests, Psychological
  predispositions
• Resources Landscape, History, Genealogy,
  Institutions, Values, Culture, Economy (Zimmer
  2003)

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• Ideology and Nationalism
• Ethnic-Civic

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• Ideology and the Nation
• 'Nations before Nationalism'
• Universalism (Islam, Neoconservatism) as
  nationalism?

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Values
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Lens British Unionist Ideology
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Lens Multicultural Ideology
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• Collective representations of the nation are also
  ideologies
• Must distinguish Ireland as referent from
  collective ideology of Irish national identity
  produced by intellectuals/elites, and this is
  then different from an individual's image of
  their Irish national identity
• Can have individuals identifying with Ireland
  before the ideology of Irish national identity
  has crystallized
• People may see Ireland through prism of other
  ideologies (i.e. Catholic, Unionist)

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• Social Location 'Nations as Zones of Conflict'
  (Hutchinson 2005)
• Geographic Location Local vs National

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Aristocratic-Upper Class Social Location
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Whig-Middle Class Social Location
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• Interests and the construction of national
  identity
• Psychology and individual's national identity

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• Relationship between individual identity and
  collective Identity

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• Ethnosymbolism continuity of nations or revival
  of resources?

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• Can locate the underpinnings of any theory
• As well as elements which do not easily fit
  within established theories (i.e. ideology,
  social location)

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Read All About It..

• 'The Lenses of Nationhood An Optical Model of
  Identity', Nations and Nationalism, forthcoming
• "Dominant Ethnicity and Dominant Nationhood
  Empirical and Normative Aspects" in Lecours, A.
  and G. Nootens (eds.), Dominant Nationalism,
  Dominant Ethnicity Identity, Federalism and
  Democracy (Berlin Peter Lang, forthcoming)
• http//www.sneps.net/NNE/ne.htm

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Helps Clarify Major Issues

• Ideology and national identity
• 'Ethnic-Civic' Nations
• 'Nations before Nationalism'
• Universalism (Islam, Neoconservatism) as
  nationalism?
• 'Nations as Zones of Conflict' (Hutchinson 2005)
• Local vs National
• Relationship between individual identity and
  collective identity (ie. 'consumption v
  production')
• Ethnosymbolism continuity of nations or revival
  of resources?

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