Methodological Nationalism,the Social Sciences,and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology1

The article examines methodological nationalism, a conceptual tendency that was central to the development of the social sciences and undermined more than a century of migration studies. Methodological nationalism is the naturalization of the global regime of nation‐states by the social sciences. Transnational studies, we argue, including the study of transnational migration, is linked to periods of intense globalization such as the turn of the twenty‐first century. Yet transnational studies have their own contradictions that may reintroduce methodological nationalism in other guises. In studying migration, the challenge is to avoid both extreme fluidism and the bounds of nationalist thought.     

"More Basque than You!": Class,Youth, and Identity in an Industrial Basque Town

In this article, I argue that those of us who study nationalism need to "think class as we think the nation," and I suggest a framework for exploring the relationship between class and national identities and projects. I present the case of Basque nationalism and examine how different visions of the nation either include or exclude non-Basque, working-class immigrants. I show how during the economic crisis of the 1980s to early 1990s, young people created a novel Basque identity in the bars associated with the radical-Basque-nationalist movement. This identity combines leftist and nationalist politics with the styles of punk rock, a genre that flourished in the declining centers of industrial capitalism throughout Europe and the United States. Unlike competing versions of Basqueness, radical Basque identity is not ethnically exclusive. Thus it invites youths who are not ethnically Basque to become Basque by drawing on their oppositional politics and working-class backgrounds as alternative sources of "authenticity."     

The Rohingya of Myanmar: theoretical significance of the minority status

The Rohingya of Myanmar have been experiencing a range of human rights violations including state-sponsored genocide and ethnic cleansing. Many argue that the genesis of the crisis lies in the denial of their legal status and granting citizenship would offer a solution. This article argues that apart from such legal dynamics, significant theoretical aspects of this crisis require analysis. From a theoretical perspective, the Rohingya’s identity as a minority is important as it leads to their persecution. This article demonstrates that their minority identity has been (re)constructed over time. Four factors such as (i) development of Burmese nationalism; (ii) politicisation of identity for Burmese majority; (iii) taking away of the citizenship of Rohingya; and (iv) ethnic divisions in Myanmar society have played significant roles in (re)constructing their identity as a minority. They give rise to a type of citizenship in Myanmar, which fails to include the religious minority within its ambit.     

(Social) Democracy in the Blood? Civic and Ethnic Idioms of Nation and the Consolidation of Swedish Social Democratic Power, 1928–1932

This paper attempts to explain Swedish Social Democrats' consolidation of power between 1928 and 1932 through an examination of idioms of nation. Qualitative analysis of articles and editorials from a Social Democratic and a liberal newspaper is carried out. The analysis focuses on how civic, ethnic and, a mixed civic‐ethnic idiom of nation were deployed in order to expand the Social Democrats' electoral base. The Social Democrats could combine egalitarianism/democracy with ethnic nationalism because ethnic bases for the nation were more inclusive than other, especially class, bases available to them. Two challenges for the literature on nationalism and the welfare state are raised: (1) the civic‐ethnic distinction must be rethought to accommodate the Swedish case, wherein ethnic nationalism was used for “civic” ends; and (2) the focus on the Social Democrats as promoting working class interests may be misplaced given the party's mobilization on the basis of nation.     

Of Oil and Agency: Scotland and the Material Conditions of National Imagining

North Sea oil discoveries introduced a qualitative divide that gave rise to at least the prospect of an economically viable Scottish independence, insofar as it made the “Scottish economy” a legitimate point of contestation on constitutional lines. In turn, this problematised the nature of minority nationalism in advanced, developed, post-imperial capitalist regional economies. The research assesses how economic factors – most notably oil – materially affected the prospects of asserting power, and thus the possibilities for imagining collective agency as a national (i.e. Scottish) project. Oil helped shift “New Left” thinking away from assimilationist and modernising projects of assimilating regional consciousness into “national” projects, while also inspiring outright nationalists to define their own project in relation to the earlier phases of nationalism. The study thus contributes to recentring the study of Scotland, with a smaller emphasis on the local dimension and identities, as against the role of national actors in untangling relationships with wider geopolitical and geo-economic forces. The claim is not simply that global forces formed the qualitative divide that made nationalist action possible; but also that these were conscious considerations of actors in the aftermath of North Sea discoveries.     

Soil, blood and identity

Modern nations are products of nationalism, and can be defined only as such, rather than by their own distinctive traits - which anyway vary over an extremely wide range. Nationalism was, sociologically, an attempt made by the modern elites to recapture the allegiance (in the form of cultural hegemony) of the ‘masses’ produced by the early modern transformations and particularly by the cultural rupture between the elites and the rest of the population by the ‘civilizing process’, whose substance was the self-constitution and the self-separation of new elites legitimizing their status by reference to superior culture and knowledge. In the same way in which the modern state needed nationalism for the ‘primitive accumulation’ of authority, nationalism needed coercive powers of the state to promote the postulated dissolution of communal identities in the uniform identity of the nation. In the practice of both, there was an unallayed tension between the ‘inclusivist’ and ‘exclusivists’ prongs of the nation-state project; hence the never fully effaced link between nationalism and racism, nationalism being the racism of the intellectuals, and racism - the nationalism of the masses. Currently our part of the world undergoes the process of the separation between state and nation, effected by lesser reliance of state power on culturalist legitimation and a degree of de-territorialization of communal affiliations, which fills the efforts of nation-building, invention of heritage, tribal integration etc. with a new urgency and may lead to the sharpening of either of the two prongs of the nationalist project.     

Making Hakka Spaces: Resisting Multicultural Nationalism in Taiwan

Projects of official nationalism have long been understood as state-sponsored attempts at enforcing cultural uniformity within the borders of the national territory. Contemporary nationalisms tend to compartmentalize minority cultural groups in a way that marginalizes those who are not seen as belonging to the core of the “modern” nation. Contemporary official Taiwanese nationalism promotes the “ethnic Taiwanese” (Hokkien) majority as the modern center of an otherwise diverse nation, primarily through the funding and ‘preservation’ of non-Hokkien cultural traditions. Though these programs that celebrate local cultures are more inclusive than earlier nationalisms in Taiwan, the terms of inclusion nonetheless function as a form of neoliberal state control of minorities, such as the Hakka (kejia ren). This article examines how Hakka “culture workers” (wenhua gongzuozhe) resist state attempts at spatial and symbolic marginalization. From producing ethnographies that create a Hakka neighborhood to organizing a parade route that symbolically links that neighborhood to Taipei's government and financial centers, Hakka culture workers resist multicultural nationalism by making Hakka spaces that are resistant to state attempts to marginalize them. I argue that their work is a prime example of how communities and individuals can successfully negotiate the cultural and spatial politics of the neoliberal state.     

Brazilians in Portugal,Portuguese in Brazil: Constructions of sameness and Difference 1

In this essay, I seek to understand the contradictions, ambiguities, and accommodations underlying the remodeling of Portugal from an imperial metropolis to an European postcolonial nation. From this perspective, I examine the reconfigurations of sameness and difference between Portugal and Brazil, in the present conjuncture of global capitalism, in two acts. The first discloses a historical conjuncture of intense ideological disputes on “what the Portuguese nation should be” and, the second indicates that the present configuration of Portuguese nationalism increasingly intersects with the politics of investments and the marketing of Portuguese high culture. Both acts bring to the fore the reconfigurations of the Portuguese empire and of the Portuguese “imperial mentality” in this present juncture of global capitalism.     

Synthesising Gellner,Smith, and Barth: building a preliminary analytical framework for exploring the relationships between ethnic groups,nations, and nationalism

This review article synthesises Gellner's, Smith's, and Barth's ideas about ethnic groups and nations. It redefines the concepts of the ethnic group, nation, and nationalism. An ethnic group can be defined as a group of people who are self-differentiated from other groups. A nation can be defined as an ethnic group or groups politically mobilised by elite-made nationalism. Furthermore, nationalism can be defined as an ideology which demands that an ethnic group or groups should have their own state. In effect, a conceptual framework is formulated, although how useful the framework can be is subject to further empirical research.     

北京市行政区划调整对城市发展的影响及启示

行政区划调整是在城镇化快速推进背景下，为实现区域或城市经济协调发展而采取的一种手段。2010年北京市行政区划调整在资源整合、城市空间拓展和城市效率提高方面具有重要意义，对城市各主体和制度创新带来重大影响，同时也启示未来各地区的行政区划调整，要以区域经济发展作为最根本目标，把握调整的着眼点放到区域资源的整合上，努力实现区域管治的目标。     

What it means to be a ‘model minority’: voices of ethnic Koreans in Northeast China

Ethnic Koreans in China have been widely recognized as a ‘model minority’ primarily for academic success. Using the data collected as part of a larger ethnographic research on Korean elementary school students, this paper examines how 27 Korean families construct meaning out of the model minority stereotype in the context of their lived experience in Northeast China. Research results indicate that Koreans constructed the multi-faceted nature of ‘model minority’ as a matter of cultural superiority and dual economic marginalization in the Chinese and South Korean mainstream societies, and valued education as a practical means to achieve economic upward mobility into the Chinese mainstream. This paper argues that the model minority stereotype with the cultural explanations for Korean success may reinforce the cultural deficiency argument about the academic failure of ‘backward’ minorities, silence the disadvantages suffered by Koreans in China's reform period and lead to no active intervention to remedy them.     

Intercultural policies and the contradictory views of teachers: the Roma in Catalonian schools

In this article, we examine the contradictions and lack of consistency between various levels of discourse relating to Roma educational policies. Policy-makers have claimed that political interventions would positively impact the progress of Roma. However, the results have been mixed. We argue here that teachers need to re-evaluate their roles as politically aware and culturally informed agents in order to guarantee social justice to a historically disadvantaged ethnic minority. Based on ethnographical fieldwork carried out over a two-year period with Spanish Roma children, both in schools and in their families, this study shows how intercultural policies have failed to impact the educational realities of Roma children.     

The Double Meaning of Nationalism

Abstract  Although nationalism appears to be a kind of particularism, in fact we often find nationalist movements emerging within the trend toward universalism. For example, contemporary storms of nationalism are taking place in an era of unprecedented universalization in politics, economics and technology. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the mechanism which generates nationalism by explaining the contradictory intersection between particularism and universalism. First, the paper looks at the difficulty in defining the nation, and shows that there are two historical stages in the establishment of nation. Second. the difference between social experiences in a nation and those in pre-nation society are discovered through consideration of the fact that the novel and the nation developed contemporaneously. Thus it is established that social experiences in nation are characterized by the acquisition of special transcendent viewpoint. Third, the paper searches for the origin of nationalism in the traditional European political theory according to which the king has two bodies. Fourth, the paper attempts to integrate two excellent theories of nationalism: those of Gellner and Anderson. Fifth, the paper analyses types of nationalism so as to clarify the inner structure of the transcendence proper to nationalism. Finally, this paper explains the mechanism of nationalism by relating it to the dynamics of capitalism. The explanation will enable us to understand why the nationalism chauvinism suddenly reemerges in today's Eastern European societies when they are exposed to capitalism.     

Shaimiev's 'Khanate' on the Volga and its Russian Subjects

This paper examines some aspects of post-Soviet transition in Tatarstan, one of 21 ethnic autonomous republics of the Russian Federation, the population of which is almost equally divided between Tatars, Russia's largest ethnic and religious minority, and Russians. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Tatarstan together with Chechnya championed a fundamental reform of the rigid 'centre—periphery' relations with Russia. The Tatarstan leader Mintimir Shaimiev has exploited the post-Soviet weakening of the federal centre, as well as the incompetence of successive Yeltsin governments in national and regional policies, to secure a special relationship between Kazan and Moscow. In 1994, Tatarstan's special status was legitimised by a power-sharing Treaty which, both within post-Communist Russia and internationally, has been termed the 'Tatarstan model'. The Treaty secured for the Tatarstan leadership considerable independence from the Kremlin and allowed Kazan to establish direct economic and political links with the outside world. Domestically, the 'Tatarstan model' has been presented as a more viable and less painful form of transition to a post-Communist society. In the inter-ethnic sphere also, it has claimed to represent a model of transformation into a modern, democratic, civic nation of Tatarstanis. The widely accepted image of Tatarstan as a society successfully negotiating the transition from Communism conceals, however, far less attractive political, economic and cultural realities. This analysis, which is based on 2 years of field research, offers evidence that President Shaimiev has used Tatarstan's unique status to create an authoritarian regime, to manipulate and neutralise the forces of Tatar radical nationalism and to discriminate at all levels against the Russians of Tatarstan.     

The Making of the Urban Middle Class in South Korea (1961–1979): Nation‐Building,Discipline, and the Birth of the Ideal National Subjects*

This article examines the process through which the state nurtured urban middle‐class formation during the Park Chung Hee regime in South Korea. While existing studies have focused on the size and characteristics of the middle class, few studies explore the political process or mechanisms through which the middle class was on the rise as a mainstream force. This article argues that urban middle‐class formation was a political–ideological project of the authoritarian state to reconstruct the nation and strengthen the regime’s political legitimacy. In particular, this article explores the two concurrent processes of urban middle‐class formation in Korea: one is the growth of the middle class in an objective sense, as a result of state‐directed economic development; and the other is the production of urban middle‐class norms. Drawing on the discourses of the Korean government and the media disseminated during from 1961 to 1979, I trace how the formation of the middle class in Korea was intertwined with modernity and nationalism in order to consolidate state power.     

The barriers to the effectiveness of culturally sensitive practices in health and social care services for Chinese people in Britain

This paper studies the problem that health and social care practitioners, intending to satisfy their ethnic minority users’ cultural preferences, end up providing services against their wishes. In particular it points out that this problem is caused by over-emphasising two key assumptions of ethnic minority groups. The first assumption is that all members of the same ethnic minority group organise their health and social care according to their cultural principles. The second assumption is that their cultural principles are monolithic. Demonstrating that these two assumptions may not necessarily be applicable to all ethnic minority groups, this paper discusses the diverse strategies used by Chinese people in Britain to organise their health and social care, and the differences between their two important cultural principles, Taoism and Confucianism. In order to demonstrate to professionals and the Government that they should not over-emphasise these two assumptions and that they need to pay attention to ethnic minority groups’ diverse needs, the paper suggests that different ethnic minority groups may need to unite to increase their influence in the service provision process. However it also warns that this tactic may lead to the subordination of minority group interests in the articulation of those large groups.

     

Making foreign women the mother of our nation: the exclusion and assimilation of immigrant women in Taiwan

Citizenship awarding is politicised. Conceiving female marriage migration as a national threat, Taiwan's citizenship legislation is consciously designed and purposefully utilised to achieve exclusion and assimilation. Driven by a nationalistic impetus, it shows how Taiwan imagines itself as a modern, prosperous and homogenous nation and projects upon the immigrant outsiders as a threat to its self-identity. Examined through immigrant women's lived experiences, this citizenship legislation is biased by gender, class and ethnicity. The implementation of the legislation is not only an example of symbolic politics but also banal nationalism realised at grassroots level in the private domain. Immigrant women's lived experiences show that exclusion and assimilation stemmed from banal nationalism is not just an operation of symbolic politics but is also enmeshed with their everyday life.     

Toward a Synthesis of the Theories of Peripheral Nationalism: A Comparative Study of China's Xinjiang and Guangdong

The central question of this article is: why is peripheral nationalism virtually non-existent in Guangdong but has long been a problem in Xinjiang? Existing theories are inadequate for answering this question. They are tailored to either wealthy or poor regions, but not both. They also fail to explain the absence of nationalism in Guangdong and its presence in Xinjiang. In this article, I propose a model that can explain peripheral nationalism in both wealthy and poor regions. The model incorporates two key variables, elite status and national identity. Specifically, I argue that if the elites from the peripheral region can hold important positions in the central government and if the peripheral residents identify themselves with the core nation, the probability of nationalist movements will be low. On the other hand, if their elites are excluded from high office in the central government and if their people do not identity themselves with the core nation, the probability of nationalist movements will be high. The model succeeds in explaining the cases of Xinjiang and Guangdong.     

Allodial Land Rights (The Odelsrett) and Early Nineteenth Century Norwegian Nationalism: Propertied Sovereignty as National Sovereignty

The early nineteenth century was a transitional time in western Europe; from the old feudal and imperial order, modern nation states and capitalism emerged. The Norwegian nation state emerged out of the flames of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. But changes in landed property structures in the eighteenth century lay the ground for Norwegian nationalism in the early nineteenth century. This article explores early nineteenth century nationalism through a focus on property rights and the positive view on the odesrett – an allodial right to land – arguing that an examination of the positive view on the odelsrett can shed new light on Norwegian nationalism in the early nineteenth century. Such an examination suggests that the Norwegian property structure contributed to reinforcing certain property rights element in the Norwegian nationalism where ownership of landed property and national, popular sovereignty were closely interconnected.     

Despite the crisis: The resilience of intercultural nationalism in Catalonia

Interculturalism provides the core framework for immigration‐related policies in Catalonia, while remaining deeply intertwined with Catalan nationalism. We first identify ‘intercultural nationalism’ as the core doctrine through which Catalan nationalist discourse has been articulated in relation to immigration. We trace interculturalism's origins to nationalism in Quebec and argue that, in Catalonia also, regional immigration policies have been constructed in opposition to those of the central state, while attempting to involve immigrants closely in subnational belonging and social cohesion. Second, we investigate whether interculturalism is durable during economic and political crises, arguing that intercultural policies did not change following the economic recession of the 2010s. This harmonises with broader interpretations that de‐emphasise the role of economic factors in ethnic conflicts. In conclusion we note how the continuing resilience of interculturalism in Catalan policies on immigration contrasts sharply with the rise of xenophobia elsewhere.