scholarly journals Manufacturing Authenticity: The Cultural Production of National Identities in Singapore

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
TERENCE CHONG
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Confucian Ethics ◽  
Literary Movement ◽  
The Difference

AbstractAccording to Prasenjit Duara, the sacredness of the nation hinges on its ‘regimes of authenticity’ where timelessness and the politics of embodiment are key to an authentic national identity. This paper looks at three different cultural impulses that have attempted to manufacture authenticity in Singapore. They are: the Malay literary movementAngkatan Sasterawan 50prior to independence; the state-sponsored Confucian ethics discourse during the 1980s; and the romanticization of the working-class ‘heartlander’ through contemporary popular culture in confrontation with the politics of global capitalism and globalization. In doing so, this paper articulates the difference between the regimes of authenticity of state elites and non-state cultural producers, as well as their ‘national imaginaries’. It concludes that the regime of authenticity, that operationalizes the representations of the working class as a diametric opposite to the logic and force of globalization, offers the most popular symbols of national identity in Singapore.

Rag Doll Nations and the Politics of Differentiation on Arbitrary Borders: Karelia and Moldova*

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lawrence Schrad
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnic Community ◽  
National Identities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interesting Aspect ◽  
Territorial Boundaries ◽  
Shed Light

“Tell a man today to go and build a state,” Samuel Finer once stated, “and he will try to establish a definite and defensible boundary and compel those who live inside it to obey him.” While at best an oversimplification, Finer's insight illuminates an interesting aspect of state-society relations. Who is it that builds the state? How and where do they establish territorial boundaries, and how are those who live within that territory compelled to obey? Generally speaking, these are the questions that will be addressed here. Of more immediate concern is the fate of peoples located in regions where arbitrary land boundaries fall. Are they made loyal to the state through coercion or by their own compulsions? More importantly, how are their identities shaped by the efforts of the state to differentiate them from their compatriots on the other side of the borders? How is the shift from ethnic to national identities undertaken? A parallel elaboration of the national histories of the populations of Karelia and Moldova will shed light on these questions. The histories of each group are marked by a myriad of attempts to differentiate the identity of each ethnic community from their compatriots beyond the state's borders. The results of such overt, state-initiated efforts to differentiate borderland populations by encouraging a national identity at the expense of the ethnic, has ranged from the mundane to the tragic—from uneventful assimilation to persecution and even genocide. As an illustration of the range of possibilities and processes, I maintain that the tragedies of Karelia and Moldova are not exceptional, but rather are a consequence of their geographical straddling of arbitrary borders, and the need for the state to promote a distinctive national identity for these populations to differentiate them socially from their compatriots beyond the frontier.

scholarly journals Negotiating Conflict: Regional and National Identities in Contemporary Pakistani Fiction in English

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (I) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Present Article ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Marginal Groups ◽  
Bapsi Sidhwa ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Politics Of Religion ◽  
Language And Ethnicity

Pakistan has frequently been viewed as a stronghold of Islamic radicals, often overlooking the fact that various trends of both dormant and obvious conflicts exist between the politics of religion and region. Whereas the former is mainly controlled by the state, the latter is generally influenced by language and ethnicity. The state’s monolithic notion of national identity, from the country’s birth in 1947 to the present, has overshadowed the regional identities mainly the Pashtuns, Baluchis, and Sindhis, and disregarded the minority credos such as Shias, Parsis, Ahmadis, Hindus, and Christians. The present article aims to explore how contemporary Pakistani fiction in English spotlights images of a fragmented national self, underlining plights of the aforementioned marginal groups and exhibiting strong resistance to hidebound national identity. Reviewing contemporary Pakistani fiction in English with a particular focus on the fiction of Bapsi Sidhwa, Sara Suleri, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Bina Shah, and Jamil Ahmad, this paper aims to bring critical attention of the scholars to the socio-cultural and political valuation of the regional identities.

scholarly journals Preservation of national identity as one of UNESCO’s roles

2016 ◽  
pp. 877-888
Author(s):  
Miodrag Cujic
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Social Development ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
International Organization ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
Historical Monuments ◽  
The World

The cultural heritage and historical monuments are silent witnesses of social development and they deserve a special place in the world?s annals, both in material and in spiritual sense. In this regard, UNESCO has undertaken a number of measures which recognize such values. However, the current international events directly usurp cultural and historical features using international politics which in the process of globalization puts in an uncertain position the characteristics of certain national identities. The jurisdiction of this international organization is compromised by pressures of leading international subjects. By defining its strategic objectives, the position of the state sovereignty of its member states is determined. Consequently, it is necessary to induce the criteria and proposals to prevent such tendencies in order to preserve not only the cultural heritage of a nation, territory, religious population, but also its identity and its statehood.

Son of the Forgotten Man

2019 ◽  
pp. 516-546
Author(s):  
Vincent DiGirolamo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
New Deal ◽  
The State ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Independent Contractors ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act

The Great Depression exposed newsboys to the vicissitudes of the market and the power of the state in new ways. They formed unions, joined strikes, and, for a time, came under federal protection. Publishers argued that newsboys were not employees but independent contractors who should be exempt the Fair Labor Standards Act and other New Deal measures. Caught up in this tug-of-war between a paternalistic capitalist press and an expansive welfare state, the American newsboy became a contested figure in popular culture, appearing in WPA murals, proletarian novels, and other works as a symbol of working-class resentment more than as an icon of bourgeois virtue. The shrill, restless son of the Forgotten Man, he helped America reassess the merits of laissez faire capitalism and recalibrate government’s responsibility to citizens young and old.

Home, Belonging and Africanity in the Film Black Panther

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ragi Bashonga
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
National Identity ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Black Identity ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Cultural Connectedness ◽  
Positive Representation ◽  
Real Forms ◽  
Black Panther

This essay uses the film Black Panther to explore notions of home, identity, and belonging as these relate to race and being African. Black Panther added a more positive representation of Black identity and culture which is generally lacking in popular culture. Building on this achievement, the essay engages with the tensions between racial and national identities for the African diaspora, as Africanity and notions of belonging are disrupted by migration. While race is the identity of primary importance for Black Americans due to its role in marking difference, subordination, and oppression, for Wakandans in Black Panther national identity is more significant and a source of pride. When considered in relation to the diaspora, history, and cultural connectedness, ideas about Africanity need to hold real forms of oppression alongside change and difference, acknowledging that certain bodies have been repeatedly oppressed, without assuming that local histories are universal.

Whose Nation, Whose State? Working-Class Nationalism and Antisemitism in Poland, 1945‒1947

2000 ◽  
pp. 224-235
Author(s):  
Padraic Kenney
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The State ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Post War ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Class Nature

This chapter studies working-class nationalism and antisemitism in post-war Poland. It argues that in early post-war Poland, citizen–state relations expressed themselves in part through national identity. In this context, antisemitism took on new meaning in Poland because it became not only an expression of fears about national identity and cultural vulnerability, but also a means of defining the state and citizenship. Thus, national identity paradoxically sharpened as Poland approached homo-ethnicity. Before and during the war, Polish workers had expressed a strong national consciousness, and post-war reconstruction invoked national themes. The professed class nature of the new state, however, and the practical concerns of the workers eventually made allegiance to the state a central issue. That allegiance was potentially based not just upon prosperity or nationalism, but upon agreement with certain programmes and policies of the communist regime.

National Identities in Turkey

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisel Hintz
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
National Identity ◽  
News Media ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Constitutive Norms ◽  
Vernacular Discourse

This chapter presents the empirical data collected and analyzed through intertextual analysis to extract competing proposals for Turkish national identity among the country’s population. The analysis includes examination of social and news media sources, interviews, surveys, and archives. The empirical data are also collected from popular culture sources such as novels, television shows, and films to capture vernacular discourse otherwise inaccessible to the researcher. The chapter employs a framework of identity content to parse out the constitutive norms, social purposes, relational meanings, and cognitive worldviews of citizens of Turkey. The four composite proposals that emerge are Republican Nationalism, Pan-Turkic Nationalism, Ottoman Islamism, and Western Liberalism. This process of identity extraction through intertextual analysis lays the groundwork for examining the red lines, or points of intolerability, across competing proposals for Turkey’s national identity.

scholarly journals Ethnicity, National Identity and the State: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 757-779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Green
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Politics ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Identification ◽  
Sub Saharan

The process by which people transfer their allegiance from ethnic to national identities is highly topical yet somewhat opaque. This article argues that one of the key determinants of national identification is membership in a ‘core’ ethnic group, or Staatsvolk, and whether or not that group is in power. It uses the example of Uganda as well as Afrobarometer data to show that, when the core ethnic group is in power (as measured by the ethnic identity of the president), members of this group identify more with the nation, but when this group is out of power members identify more with their ethnic group. This finding has important implications for the study of nationalism, ethnicity and African politics.

Huguenot Immigrants and the Formation of National IDENTITIES, 1548–1787

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSANNE LACHENICHT
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
North America ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
State Culture ◽  
Nation States

This article addresses the extent to which Protestant states in Europe and North America depicted the French Protestants who had found refuge in these states, as having contributed to the process of nation building and the formation of national identity. It is shown that the arrival of Huguenots was portrayed positively as the historians of these nations could contend that Huguenots had been absorbed readily into the host society because their virtues of frugality and industry corresponded admirably with the ethic of their hosts. The article demonstrates that, in no case, did this depiction correspond with reality. It shows that within those countries of refuge, Huguenots fostered a distinctive French Protestant identity that enabled them to remain aloof from the culture of their host society. In all cases Huguenots asserted themselves as a self-confident minority, convinced of the superiority of their language and culture who believed themselves to be privileged in this world as in the next. When national histories came to be composed, this dimension to the Huguenot minorities came to be expunged from historical memory as was also the fact that the Huguenots were but one of several minorities whose distinctiveness had contributed largely to the shaping of the state, culture, and society of the emerging nation-states.

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