Theories of nationalism Week 17 Ethnicity and Race

Theories of nationalism Week 17 Ethnicity and ‘Race’

Recap • Considered complexity of concepts • Considered the contested nature of the idea of institutional racism. • Looked at ‘whiteness’ to explore the relationship between ethnicity and identity

Outline • What is nationalism? • Explore Anderson’s theory of ‘imagined communities’ • Look at how nationalism is gendered and the consequences that this has for women in particular

• What is Britishness? • Talk to the person sitting next to you about what you think it is?

Definitions of Nationalism • Nationality is often taken as a given – Most people have one – Rarely questioned – But what are they?

Definitions of Nationalism • Nation, Nationalism, and Nationality can be difficult to define exactly • Related to the rise of the Nation-State • But not reducible to it (Kurdish, Basque)

Imagined Communities Anderson suggests that nations are: – ‘Imagined political communities’ – Imagined as limited and sovereign – But they usually feel ‘natural’ not chosen

Why ‘imagined’ • Most members will not know all the other members • Yet connections are imagined • Ideas of common destiny are constructed • Constructed ideas specific to each ‘nationality’

Why limited and sovereign • Usually associated with an claim for political representation for the collective • Bounded by other similar constructions and may be developed in opposition • Often tied geographically • Nationalists fight to maintain or develop borders rather than for mergence with other nationalities

Why community? • Regardless of inequalities within nations, nation is imagined as ‘comradeship’ • People willing to die to protect this imagining • But how is it created?

Imagined communities? • Do you think Anderson’s notion of imagined communities is plausible?

Cultural Constructions • For Anderson, the idea of nationalism is created and maintained through symbols and ceremonies of the nation – Tomb of the Unknown Soldier symbolises unity and national sacrifice (yet nationality unknown) – Museums, State Occasions, Traditions

Symbols of Britishness? • Patterns of Celebrations? – – – State Opening of Parliament Trooping of the Colour Remembrance Sunday Guy Fawkes Night FA Cup • Operate both to bind the nation together and re/create image of national identity

(Be)Longing • These imagined communities can be dispersed • Migrants may ‘belong’ to a Mother Country • Diaspora may take steps to communicate notions of nationalism • Nationalism is related to ethnic origin but not reducible to it

• In what ways do you think nations control the ‘reproduction’ of themselves?

Reproducing the Nation • Genetic Inheritance often a strong factor in imagined communities – Being born into it, may be the only way in • Physical reproduction of the nation is through women’s bodies • Sexuality and reproduction become crucial factors in the reproducing the nation

Reproducing the Nation • Women are both part of the collective and subject to specialist rules • These often relate to ‘risky’ physical reproduction of the nation • Behaviour becomes a marker of cultural politics

Cultural Imaginings of Gender • Notions of nations as female (Mother India) • Women subject to direct controls over sexuality and reproduction • Women become to symbolic bearers of ‘honour’ – ‘Honour’ crimes linked to breaches in behaviour (extra-marital sex, consulting with the ‘enemy’)

Population Agendas • Women may be required to populate the nation – Bans on contraceptives, abortion – Incentives to bear more children • Examples include – Awards for ‘heroic mothers’ (Nazi Germany) – Demographic races (Israel/Palestinians) – State demands (‘populate or perish’ Australia)

Eugenicist Agenda • Fixations on the quality rather than quantity of nation’s ‘stock’ – State programmes of sterilisation of ‘unfit’ women – Encouragement of contraception for welfare mothers – Mass rape in war as a strategy of miscegenation

• To what extent do you think that nationalism is gendered?

Inclusion/Exclusion • Nationalist and racist ideologies may be interwoven – Nazi laws –based on how ‘pure blood’ was contaminated by Jewish Ancestry – US was fixated by measuring extent of Blackness – Bans on interrelated marriage in Apartheid South Africa

Summary • Nationalism is a constructed notion of community • It is (re)produced through symbols and ceremonies of nationhood • It is gendered and may have particular consequences for women

Next week • Slavery and unfree labour • Rise of the international slave trade and its ongoing effects • Modern day forms of forced labour