'The Justice of Queen Victoria': Boer Oppression,and the Emergence of a National Identity in Lesotho

The growth of a national identity in Lesotho after 1910 was a direct response to the threat of incorporation into the Union of South Africa. The Basotho feared being governed by what they considered to be an unjust and hostile South Africa. The Basotho appealed to the justice of the British government - for them to continue to honour the protection that they had extended to the nineteenth-century Basotho chief, Moshoeshoe. The protection which Moshoeshoe had secured entrenched his position as the centrepiece of the Basotho's emergent national identity in the twentieth century.     

To see ourselves as others see us: identity and attitudes towards immigration amongst civic nationalists

ABSTRACT

This article examines how different conceptions of national identity can be linked to attitudes towards cultural pluralism. The tensions between more culturally pluralistic societies and sustained support for nationalism represent an important political issue in modern western European politics. Such tensions are of particular relevance for stateless nationalist and regionalist parties (SNRPs) for whom national/regional identity is a major political driver. This article empirically tests the relationship between different conceptions of national identity and attitudes towards cultural pluralism in two SNRPs—the Scottish National Party and the Frisian National Party. The article draws upon evidence from two unique full party membership studies and is supported with evidence from documentary analysis. A key finding is that the manner in which members conceptualise national identity has significant implications for their attitudes towards cultural pluralism, which has the potential of becoming a source of tension within SNRPs. A key implication of the article is that there is evidence that attitudes of general members and officially stated party positions and narratives diverge on issues relating to cultural pluralism and national identity. These tensions could potentially be harmful for the party's overall civic image.     

Japan.com

Contemporary Japan is in the midst of an identity crisis grounded in conditions of economic, political and social confusion and a lost sense of national direction and purpose. This paper explores the bases of Japan's evolving national political identity. It notes the construction of a sense of Japanese homogeneity and the role of official discourses in the formation of Japan's national identity. The paper argues that internationalisation, cybernetic contacts and community insecurities are undermining the received idea of what it means to be Japanese and posing fundamental challenges to the legitimacy of the contemporary Japanese state.     

Physicians,Humour and Therapeutic Laughter in the Ancient World

This paper examines the ways 'mixed race' women in Canada contemplate their relationship to national identity. Through qualitative, open-ended interviews, the research demonstrates how some women of 'mixed race' contest ideas of the nation as constituted through the policy of multiculturalism in Canada. To challenge the tropes of the national narrative, some women of 'mixed race' develop nuanced models of cultural citizenship, illustrating that national identities are formed and transformed in relation to representation. Refusing to be positioned outside the nation, they effectively produce their own meanings of identity by working through their own personally identified 'mixed race' bodies to the national body politic, where some of them see their own bodies as intrinsically 'multicultural'. The paper ends by addressing the paradoxes of multiculturalism, emphasising through narratives that the policy produces hierarchical spaces against which some 'mixed race' women imaginatively negotiate, contest and challenge perceptions of their racialised and gendered selves.     

The unbearable proximity of the Orient: Political religion,multiculturalism and the retrieval of South Asian identities

The phenomenon of religion -- specifically its recent return as 'political religion', and its seeming incompatibility with the demands of multiculturalism -- continues to be a vexed issue in attempts to rethink retrievals of South Asian identity beyond a neo-colonial imaginary. This move 'beyond' has routinely followed a deconstruction of the 'religious effects' of Orientalism whose conceptual matrix, some argue, can be located in Hegel's writings on history and religion. Taking its cue from Derrida's enigmatic remark -- 'what if religio remained untranslatable?' -- this paper re-examines Hegel's writings on India, revealing the workings of an ontotheological matrix which underpins not only the recent resurgences of religious nationalism or political religion in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, but also, paradoxically, the secular frameworks of contemporary multiculturalism and anti-imperialist critique. Despite sharing the same onto-theological matrix, these bastions of secular modernity still refuse to recognise that retrievals of religious identity might constitute a significant reorientation of the political, instead continuing to put into play a series of well rehearsed distancing techniques which serve merely to sanitize the 'religious effects' of the Orient.     

Segments of Self and Other: The Magyar Hungarian Case

Using a case study from the border region of southeast Hungary, this paper makes the argument that national identity is experienced as a segmented structure of Selves and Others of varying social distances, rather than a binary Self and Other. It also posits that only some of these Others, those perceived to be the most familiar and threatening, are useful for members of a nation to use in thinking about themselves, either in alliance or opposition. In this Hungarian case, the most useful Others for defining Hungarian identity in alliance and opposition are, respectively, the Western and Balkan Other .     

Rhetorics of the State: The Public Negotiation of Political Character in Germany,Russia, and Quebec

National identity construction is a fundamentally rhetorical phenomenon maintained and transformed through public discourse. Through the analysis of dramatically rejected state speeches related to national identity and public responses to them, critics can compare competing articulations of national identity against the chronological historical record to identify various instances of strategic memory. By isolating dominant strategies of remembrance, the political character of emergent national identities can be outlined. In this essay, I explicate a critical rhetorical approach to controversial speech called limit work, providing examples of the public negotiation of national identity in 1988 West Germany, 1993 Russia, and 1995 Quebec that illustrate its utility.     

Changing Representations of National Identity and Political Legitimacy: Independence Day Celebrations in Israel, 1952–1998

The construction of meaning and the invention of tradition always take place within a social and political context. Hence, the apolitical purpose of memory and the apolitical utility of national identity, in a broad sense, are linked to power; to the myriad and diverse efforts to maintain, stabilise and perpetuate that power. Focusing on official acts of commemoration, this article explores how political legitimacy—the primary basis for stabilising power—is reflected in and constructed by the constitution of national identity that is linked, in turn, to the definition of collective memory. To this end, the author examines the link between the official articulations of political legitimacy and the official constructions of the nation in Israel, and how these have changed over time. This is accomplished by providing a systematic reading of the texts constituted by the main Independence Day celebration in Israel—in particular, the ceremony known as the ‘Lighting of the Torches’—during the first fifty years of Israeli sovereignty (1952–1998).     

Navigations: Insularity versus Cosmopolitanism in the Bahamas: Formality and Informality in an Arichipelagic Nation

Bahamians have traditionally considered themselves as one people, despite the fragmentation of the territory they inhabit, and the porous nature of the islands' natural boundaries. Paradoxically, the inhabitants of the archipelago are far more cosmopolitan and globally integrated than their apparent isolation would suggest. This article looks at how variation throughout the archipelago makes the imagination of a single identity difficult. Issues of identity, for instance, are rendered fluid by the islands' separation from one another. Thus, the means by which identity is created and maintained, and the various symbols used to cognise, legitimise and incorporate this fragmentation into a consciousness of self, are both fluid. The following examples are used to show how Bahamians make sense of these paradoxes and so knit a common bond from the apparent fragmentation of their land: racial and ethnic identity, the manipulation of symbols such as 'family' and 'home', communication and discourse among the islands, and questions of national versus local politics.     

Discourses of Identity at the Spanish/Portuguese Border: Self-Identification Strategies of Centre and Periphery

This article examines the self-identification strategies that officials of two border towns use to characterise their respective localities. These strategies are considered relative to four theoretical paradigms used to analyse identity: centre-periphery, regionalist, essentialist and non-essentialist. Clear differences are revealed between the two towns, despite their similar geographical location at the periphery, general demographic features and shared history. In one case, the evidence suggests that the identity is centred locally and affirmed through daily behaviour or 'practices', while in the other, that the identity focus is regional and essentialist in nature.     

Political constructions of a cross-community identity in a divided society: how politicians articulate Northern Irishness

ABSTRACT

A shared identity has been shown to reduce prejudice between conflicting social groups. One such common national category is the ‘Northern Irish’ identity which can be inclusive of both Catholics and Protestants. This study analyses the plenary sessions of the Northern Ireland Assembly to show how the national category ‘Northern Irish’ is framed by politicians. Content analysis shows that it is used more often by centrist parties who tend to frame it positively and as part of their political viewpoint. There is also evidence of the instrumental use of this identity by unionists in line with the ingroup projection model.     

In the Name of God and Nation: The Overlapping Influence of Separatism and Religion on Ethnic Conflict

Processes of migration, diaspora and exile offer diverse and complex environments for the renegotiation of social identities. Immigrants and refugees must not only adapt to the material circumstances of uprooting but must also confront, maintain or recreate a sense of self, often in contexts which are vastly different and fraught with constraints, in which they are removed from their familiar social networks and in which their previous identities may be of little meaning or relevance to the new society. In confronting an altered social status and radically different circumstances, individuals may be required to come to terms with a new or reconstructed sense of ethnic or national identity. This process is not only a personal one but involves affiliations with others who engage in similar interpretations and adaptive strategies and enmity toward those who do not' Field, 1994: 432 . Such a process can be seen as part of the phenomenon of transnationalism, the process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement' Basch et al., 1994: 7 . One important aspect of transnationalism is the role that immigrants and refugees play in political activities in both their countries of origin and residence, and their political commitment often has important implications for their sense of self, particularly when those political activities are directed towards the creation of a new homeland for oppressed minorities. This paper examines the role played by diaspora intellectuals in promoting a nationalist discourse which calls for the creation of an independent state for the Oromo, who constitute one of the largest ethnic populations in Africa and the manner in which their participation in such discursive activities allow them to engage in a reconstruction of their own identities and in the shaping of national and personal senses of the self.     

‘The Machine that Creates Slovenians’: The Role of Slovenian Public Broadcasting in Re-affirming and Re-inventing the Slovenian National Identity

This article illustrates how Slovenian national public television came to serve as a central site of contention where fundamental issues of identity, politics and national culture were challenged, negotiated and defined. The Slovenian case offers an interesting laboratory for an analysis of the role of journalism in creating and asserting a particular version of national identity. This article explores how Slovenian television's elites (journalists, editors and officials) articulate the importance of public television as the ‘machine that creates Slovenians’. Based on an analysis of roughly twelve interviews with journalists of Slovenian national television, I argue that one of the most important cultural and political institutions in the creation, maintenance and reinforcement of Slovenian national identity was, and continues to be, national public television.     

Abstruse and Insecure? Irish Immigrant Identity in Modern Scotland

This paper will look at the religious and political identities that for many people have come to characterize Scottish football. Such a characterization is particularly evident in the case of the two major clubs in Scotland; the 'Old Firm ' of Glasgow Rangers and Celtic. Nonetheless, Scotland is not unique in its sport acquiring an extrasporting dimension and football in particular often has broader political resonance. As Hoberman opines (in Sugden and Bairner, 1993, p. 10), sport has no intrinsic value structure, but it is a ready and flexible vehicle through which ideological associations can be reinforced. Put another way, sport can becom e an important pointer to features of the wider society. It can reflect both the positive and negative features of a society as well as feed aspects of those features. For many people, sport, particularly football, has acquired the capacity to become both a source for, and a reflection of, important social, political and cultural identities. This article argues that such identities are intrinsic to Scottish football. Football is also sym ptomatic of the ongoing conflicts of identity that have become important to Scottish life, especially since the influx of Catholic im migrants from Ireland began in the middle of the nineteenth century.     

The identity of memory and the memory of identity in the age of commodification and democratization

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between secularization and commodification of culture on one hand, and national identity always represented as Christian mystery on the other. Focusing on three case studies, Poland, Quebec and Zaire, the author analyses the place of an ordinary object (commodity) as a vehicle of representation of people's affirmation of belonging to a ‘nation’. He stresses the disposable nature of such an affirmation of belonging which allows everyone to alter or cast off the symbols of belonging while changing their social or political contexts.     

Social construction of national identity: Taiwanese versus Chinese consciousness

The struggle to break away from the parent state and claim independence often results in political unrest, terrorist activities and even ethnic cleansing. Understanding the nature of the secessionist movement does not only preserve national unity, but can also avoid conflict and violence, and maintain peace. Irredentist and secessionist advocators generally defend themselves in terms of common blood, race or culture. None of them regards the issue from the human agency theory, namely Weber-Thomas-Berger's social construction theory. This paper uses phenomenological analysis to explain the origin of national identity and hence the emergence of a nation. It argues that social construction of national reality originates from everyday life experience taken for granted during socialization. Individuals make sense of the external world. Experiences taken for granted become the actor's stock of knowledge. A common scheme of knowledge shared by the community serves to differentiate in-group (nationals) and out-group (foreigners). Collective consciousness thus defines national identity and hence a nation. Unless people (both in-group and out-group) interact with and learn from each other, different stocks of knowledge taken for granted will create political conflict. This theory is applied to the Taiwan Strait conflict. People in Taiwan are searching for national identity, manifested in the processes of Sinicization and Taiwanization. The struggle between Chinese and Taiwanese consciousness is the underlying cause of conflict within Taiwan and across the Taiwan Strait. The growing tendency of Taiwanization and diminution of Sinicization in Taiwan render the Cross-Strait relation vulnerable. The paper concludes that Cross-Strait exchanges and communication provide opportunities for people to understand each other and re-define their national identity, hence resulting in a peaceful political resolution between Taiwan and mainland China.     

Forging Ukrainian national identity through remembrance of World War II

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how the collective remembrance of a specific historical event shapes the national identity that underpins a state’s foreign policy objectives. By drawing on multidisciplinary insights, the paper explains how political actors frame past events in order to promote a certain conceptualization of a national community. Taking Ukraine as a case study, the paper demonstrates how Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014–2015 prompted Ukrainian policy-makers to re-define Ukraine’s relations with the EU and Russia by re-evaluating the experience of Ukrainians in WWII.     

National Identity Formation in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire: The Skerst Family in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

The modern history of the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire has essentially been written from an ethnic/national perspective. It is basically the story of the formation of the Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian and German 'communities', of their 'specific' national identities and eventually of nation states. With those who acquired a German identity, the focus has essentially been upon the landed nobility, the so-called 'Baltic Barons', the traditional elite that formed a minority even of the ethnically German population. The existence of other German groups has been recognised, such as the 'literary estate' (Literatenstand), which in the nineteenth century 'brought into Baltic higher culture, rationalist viewpoints and represented a potential threat to noble control of local politics.' However, such groups have received comparatively little attention from historians, especially among those publishing in English. Even then there is limited acknowledgement of their possessing distinctive cultural and other forms of self-identification. A recent study by a Canadian scholar of the Germans of Riga before 1914 tends to impose the values of the landed elite upon them. In works published in post-1945 (West) Germany by emigres from the region, there is an inclination to present a distinctive 'Baltic German' identity that is largely derived from the experience of the landed elite.     

Discursive Strategies around 'Community' in Political Propaganda: The Case of Lega Nord

Michael Billig's book Banal Nationalism (1995) set out to expose the covert ways in which established nation-states reinforce their legitimacy by constantly 'flagging' the national identity to their citizens. He terms this kind of nationalism 'banal', in contrast with more obvious 'hot' nationalist movements. This article applies Billig's theory of 'banal nationalism' not to an established nation-state but to present-day Catalonia, an 'historic nation' which now enjoys a large measure of autonomy. The article argues that in Catalonia, forms of 'banal nationalism' are generated by Catalan institutions, exist in competition with the 'banal nationalism' of the Spanish State, and might be partly responsible for the 'cooling' of Catalanism which is currently worrying some Catalanists.