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Visualising Nationhood

Visualising Nationhood. A Grand Theory of National Identity Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College, University of London. A Grand Theory. Agnostic re source of changes About effects rather than causes Heuristic Device rather than positive theory

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Visualising Nationhood

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  1. Visualising Nationhood A Grand Theory of National Identity Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck College, University of London

  2. 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

  3. 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?

  4. 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)

  5. Ideology and Nationalism • Ethnic-Civic

  6. Lens: British Unionist Ideology

  7. Lens: Multicultural Ideology

  8. 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)

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

  10. Aristocratic-Upper Class Social Location

  11. Whig-Middle Class Social Location

  12. Relationship between individual identity and collective Identity

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

  14. 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/n&e.htm

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