Against Banal Inter-nationalism

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 437-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koichi Iwabuchi
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
A Site ◽  
Container Model

AbstractThis article discusses, with an emphasis on Japanese and East Asian contexts, the ways in which the increasing pervasiveness of the inter-nationalised modes — “inter-national” with a hyphen in the sense of highlighting the nation as the unit of global cultural encounters — of production, circulation and consumption of media cultures makes exclusive national boundaries even stronger and more solid. The underlying tenet of “methodological nationalism” has been promoted and instituted by the synergism of the process of cultural glocalisation and state’s policy of national branding that endorses it. What has been engendered in this process is “banal inter-nationalism”; a container model of the nation is further instituted as the inter-nationalised circulation and encounter of media culture has become a site in which national identity is mundanely invoked, performed and experienced. Banal inter-nationalism suppresses and marginalises multicultural questions within the nation, as national boundaries are mutually re-constituted through the process in which cross-border cultural flows and encounters are promoted in a way to accentuate an inter-nationalised form of cultural diversity.

Globalization, Culture, and Communication: Renationalization in a Globalized World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koichi Iwabuchi
Keyword(s):  
Soft Power ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
Container Model ◽  
National Borders ◽  
Culture And Communication

Cultural globalization has promoted seemingly opposing forces simultaneously, such as recentering and decentering, standardization and diversification, and renationalization and transnationalization. The intensification of transnational flows of media culture and the associated cross-border connection and communication has been destabilizing national cultural borders and engendering the formation of diverse mediated communities among hitherto marginalized people and groups within and across national borders. At the same time, we have observed the increasing pervasiveness of the inter-nationalized modes of media culture flows and communication—“inter-nationalized” with a hyphen is intentional—in the sense of highlighting the nation as the unit of global cultural encounters that resolidify exclusive national boundaries. The synergism of the process of market-driven glocalization and the state’s policy of soft power and nation branding has further instituted a container model of the nation, as the inter-nationalized circulation and encounter of media culture have become sites in which national identity is mundanely invoked, performed, and experienced. In this process, national cultural borders are mutually reconstituted as transnational cultural flows and encounters are promoted in a way to accentuate a nation-based form of global cultural encounter and exchange. While lacking in a historically embedded, coherent narrative of the nation, it works to institute a new, container form of the nation in which cultural diversity within national borders is not given its due attention and thus sidelined. Facilitation of border crossing of culture and communication does not necessarily accompany the transgression of clearly demarcated national cultural borders.

Flemish versus Netherlandish: A Discourse of Nationalism

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Deam
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Panel Painting ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
National Programs ◽  
A Site ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe ◽  
Artistic Tradition

AbstractThis essay shows how scholarship on fifteenth-century Flemish panel painting became intertwined with efforts at national identity-building in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Europe. Paintings such as Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece were not only dispersed across regional and national boundaries, but were intellectually appropriated for competing national programs. The paintings consequently became a site of conflict between the Latin and Germanic traditions. These conflicts are clearly visible through the shifting terminology of this art, variously claimed as “Flemish” and “Netherlandish.” Such nationalist discourses shaped future scholarship on Flemish painting and contributed to its perceived inferiority vis-à-vis the Southern artistic tradition.

Construction of national identity and origins in East Asia: a comparative perspective

Antiquity ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 73 (281) ◽  
pp. 626-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiko Ikawa-Smith
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
East Asia ◽  
North American ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
National History ◽  
American Archaeology ◽  
National Boundaries

Many authors have remarked that archaeology in East Asia is part of the discipline of history (Chang 1981: 148; Ikawa-Smith 1975: 15; Nelson 1995: 218; Olsen 1987: 282–3; Von Falkenhausen 1993). Furthermore, it is more ‘locally focussed’ (Barnes 1993: 40), with most of the practising archaeologists investigating archaeological remains within their own national boundaries. To paraphrase the famous statement by North American archaeologists, ‘American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing’ (Willey & Phillips 1957: 2), into ‘East Asian archaeology is national history or it is nothing’ would be an overstatement, but it is not too far from the reality. The major goal of archaeology in East Asia is to enhance understanding of a nation's past, by increasing its temporal depth. In other words, construction of national identity is the prime business of archaeology in East Asia.

The Return of Alsace to France, 1918-1939

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Carrol
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
French Society ◽  
German Empire ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The First World War ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
A Site ◽  
First World

In 1918 the end of the First World War triggered the return of Alsace to France after almost fifty years of annexation into the German Empire. Enthusiastic crowds in Paris and Alsace celebrated the homecoming of the so-called lost province, but return proved far less straightforward than anticipated. The region’s German-speaking population demonstrated strong commitment to local cultures and institutions, as well as their own visions of return to France. As a result, the following two decades saw politicians, administrators, industrialists, cultural elites, and others grapple with the question of how to make Alsace French again. The answer did not prove straightforward; differences of opinion emerged both inside and outside the region, and reintegration became a fiercely contested process that remained incomplete when war broke out in 1939. The Return of Alsace to France examines this story. Drawing upon national, regional, and local archives, it follows the difficult process of Alsace’s reintegration into French society, culture, political and economic systems, and legislative and administrative institutions. It connects the microhistory of the region with the macro levels of national policy, international relations, and transnational networks, and with the cross-border flows of ideas, goods, people, and cultural products that shaped daily life in Alsace. Revealing Alsace to be a site of exchange between a range of interest groups with different visions of the region’s future, this book underlines the role of regional populations and cross-border interactions in forging the French Third Republic.

Borders, Ideology, Geography and Maps – The Case of Israel

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Perlman
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Geographic Education ◽  
The Past ◽  
Israeli Government ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
Mental Mapping ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Education Support

Although there are dozens of countries with present day border disputes, few have received such unrelenting international focus as Israel. Maps, cartography and geographic education support the developing doctrine of national boundaries that form collective national identity and ideology. Geographically, throughout the past century, the borders of Israel have become a melding of the phenomena of national identity with physical territory – also referred to as territorial socialization. My paper argues that Israel’s use of geographic description of borders specifically through cartography over time is an example of how boundaries are a powerful tool in the naturalization of ideology of Jewish Israelis. This argument is analyzed by examining historical and biblical cartography, territorial evolution, geography curriculum and textbooks, the Atlas of Israel and mental mapping by citizens. Varying portrayals of Israel’s historical, biblical, natural and political boundaries creates an ambiguous definition of Israel’s borders for citizens. In turn, this importantly shapes the present day religious and seculargeographies of the population of Israel as well as the political behaviours by the democratically representative Israeli government.

scholarly journals Urban Developmentalism in East Asia: Geopolitical Economies, Spaces of Exception, and Networks of Expertise

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Doucette ◽  
Bae-Gyoon Park
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Urban Research ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
Asian Urbanization ◽  
A Site ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Planning Policies

This special issue highlights an exciting range of contemporary, interdisciplinary research into spatial forms, political economic processes, and planning policies that have animated East Asian urbanization. To help situate this research, this introductory article argues that the urban as form, process, and imaginary has often been absent from research on East Asian developmentalism; likewise, the influence of developmentalism on East Asian urbanization has remained under-examined in urban research. To rectify this issue, we propose a concept of urban developmentalism that is useful for highlighting the nature of the urban as a site of and for developmentalist intervention in East Asia. We then outline the contribution made by the articles in this special issue to three key themes that we feel are germane for the study of urban developmentalism across varied contexts: geopolitical economies, spaces of exception, and networks of expertise.

Museum Practices and Migrating Modernity: A Perspective from the South

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celeste Ianniciello ◽  
Michaela Quadraro
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
European Society ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
The South ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Migratory Movements ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fundamental Consideration

The research presented in this paper has been developed within the European project MeLa* (“European Museums in an age of migrations”), which focuses on how contemporary migratory movements come to reshape the role of museums and archives as the privileged places of national identity and cultural memory.[1] The fundamental consideration on which the research is built is that today, under the impact of globalization and an increasing awareness of the positive role played by cultural diversity, museums can no longer pretend to represent culture in exclusively national or local terms, because they are facing the challenge of an increasingly diverse, transcultural and multilingual European society.

Listening in on the Neighbors: The Reception of German and Austrian Radio in Cold War Czechoslovakia

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-620
Author(s):  
Rosamund Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
German Language ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Listening Habits ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Radio Free Europe

AbstractIn 1966, a Radio Free Europe (RFE) report estimated that seven in ten Czechs and Slovaks listened to Radio Vienna, making it the most popular foreign station in Czechoslovakia. Yet conventional narratives of Western radio in socialist central Europe highlight the role played by runner-up RFE. By focusing on the practice of listening to German-language radio in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1969, this article shows that cross-border, German-language listening mattered not only between the Germanies, but also in central Europe, where listening habits were shaped by the region's multilingual heritage. In addition to highlighting German's significance as a language of regional communication, the article reveals the importance of cross-border contacts and the significance of light entertainment in Cold War central Europe. Rather than separating listeners out by citizenship, foreign radio listening fostered solidarities that cut across national boundaries and divided people by generation, geography, class, and technical dexterity instead.

Mexico

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-96
Author(s):  
Yossi Harpaz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
The United States ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Insurance Policy ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Dual Nationality ◽  
Strategic Acquisition ◽  
A Site

This chapter studies the growth in U.S. dual nationality in Mexico, and specifically the phenomenon of strategic cross-border births. This involves middle- and upper-class Mexican parents who travel to the United States to give birth, aiming to secure U.S. citizenship for their children. The families who engage in this practice typically have little interest in emigrating. Instead, they mainly view the United States as a site of high-prestige consumption and wish to provide their children with easy access to tourism, shopping, and education across the border. The American passport is also an insurance policy that allows easy exit at times of insecurity in Mexico. This strategic acquisition of U.S. dual nationality by upper-class Mexicans can be juxtaposed with another recent trend: the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mexican undocumented immigrants, who take their U.S.-born children with them to Mexico. For the former group, dual nationality is voluntary and practical; for the latter, it is an imposed disadvantage.

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