scholarly journals Recent (Re)Visions of Canlit: Partial Stock-Taking

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (s2) ◽  
pp. 273-289
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Rzepa
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Current State ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Building Project ◽  
Magazine Articles ◽  
Globalising World

Abstract This article approaches recent discussions on the state of contemporary CanLit as a body of literary texts, an academic field, and an institution. The discussion is informed primarily by a number of recent or relatively recent publications, such as Trans.CanLit. Resituating the Study of Canadian Literature (Kamboureli & Miki 2007), Refuse. CanLit in Ruins (McGregor, Rak & Wunker 2018), Luminous Ink: Writers on Writing in Canada (McWatt, Maharaj & Brand 2018), and the discussions and/or controversies some of those generated – expressed through newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly essays, but also through tweets, etc. The texts have been written as a response to the current state and – in some cases – scandals of CanLit. Many constitute attempts at starting or contributing to a discussion aimed at not only taking stock of, but also reinterpreting and re-defining the field and the institution in view of the challenges of the globalising world. Perhaps more importantly, they address also the challenges resulting from the rift between CanLit as implicated in the (post)colonial nation-building project and rigid institutional structures, perpetuating the silencings, erasures, and hierarchies resulting from such entanglements, and actual literary texts produced by an increasingly diversified group of writers working with a widening range of topics and genres, and creating often intimate, autobiographically inspired art with a sense of responsibility to marginalised communities. The article concludes with the example of Indigenous writing and the position some young Indigenous writers take in the current discussions.

“Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 522-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christofer Berglund
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Past ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Rose ◽  
State Language

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n= 792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.

1. Introduction to Africa and its politics

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Ian Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political History ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Core ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Core Questions ◽  
The Impact

Africa is a continent of over a billion people, yet questions of underdevelopment, malgovernance, and a form of political life based upon patronage are characteristic of many African states. ‘Introduction to Africa and its politics’ explains that the core questions underpinning this VSI centre on how politics is typically practised on the continent; the nature of the state in Africa; and what accounts for Africa’s underdevelopment. This VSI aims to appraise sub-Saharan Africa’s recent political history, examining post-colonial political structures, the impact of colonialism, and the form and nature of post-colonial states. The type of politics practised in many African states continues to be hostile to genuine nation building and broad-based, sustainable development.

Rebuilding the Navel of the Earth: Buddhist pilgrimage and transnational religious networks

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 645-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID GEARY
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
North India ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Regional Networks ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Building Project

AbstractCentral to the modern rebirth of Bodh Gaya as the place of Buddha's enlightenment is the growing influence of Buddhist missionaries and transnational religious networks on this pilgrimage landscape in North India. Although this process began in the late nineteenth century, it was not until after India's independence that Buddhism became an integral part of the nation-building project and a key site of post-colonial diplomacy with neighbouring Asian countries. Symbolic of these international and diplomatic ties are the increasing numbers of foreign Buddhist monasteries and temples that have acquired land around Bodh Gaya. This paper seeks to document the historical and transnational religious processes that support the growing globalization of Bodh Gaya and to survey the institutional means through which monasteries have elevated the Buddhist memory of the site. In tracing these different national and regional networks of Buddhism, I argue that there is an underlying tension between Buddhist culture anchored in the national polity and the forces of globalization and religious experience that seek to transcend it.

scholarly journals Multicultural Nations: Issues of Race and National Identity in Britain and Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Bush
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
New Members ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Building Project

Nations remain the primary means of categorising people, despite talk of their demise in the globalised world. Taking as its premise that all nations are “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1991) this paper examines how two particular nation-states, Britain and Canada, have dealt with the challenges posed to their traditional national self-definitions by the increased influx of ethnoracial groups. Through key informant interviews with members of the state government in both countries and examination of the theoretical literature, this paper compares the means by which the state reimagines the nation, managing ethnoracial diversity to include or exclude these new members. This paper takes the position that fundamentally these two nations direct their nation-building project in a similar way, that at heart both nations retain their white cultural hegemony, various policies of multiculturalism existing as a means of controlling ethnoracial groups rather than creating a truly inclusionary framework.

scholarly journals Albanian Nationalism and the State of Kosovo

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Mexhit Shaqiri
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Third ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The 19Th Century

This article deals with the conceptual, ideological and historical relationships that have existed between Albanian nationalism and the state of Kosovo, created in 2008. These relationships are subject to different theoretical and ideological views. A group of views regard the state of Kosovo as a historical and political finalization of the nation-building project initiated by Albanian nationalism in the second half of the 19th century. While another set of views sees this state as a project motivated by contemporary views of multiethnicity and multiculturalism. The contradiction between these two views today constitutes a contradiction within the constitutional and symbolic format of the state of Kosovo. The first part of the article presents the main theories of nationalism. In the second part, these theories are contextualized in the breakdown of the main features of Albanian nationalism, while the third part analyzes the relations between this nationalism and the state of Kosovo, especially from the standpoint of its basic laws

scholarly journals Multicultural Nations: Issues of Race and National Identity in Britain and Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Bush
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
New Members ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Building Project

Nations remain the primary means of categorising people, despite talk of their demise in the globalised world. Taking as its premise that all nations are “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1991) this paper examines how two particular nation-states, Britain and Canada, have dealt with the challenges posed to their traditional national self-definitions by the increased influx of ethnoracial groups. Through key informant interviews with members of the state government in both countries and examination of the theoretical literature, this paper compares the means by which the state reimagines the nation, managing ethnoracial diversity to include or exclude these new members. This paper takes the position that fundamentally these two nations direct their nation-building project in a similar way, that at heart both nations retain their white cultural hegemony, various policies of multiculturalism existing as a means of controlling ethnoracial groups rather than creating a truly inclusionary framework.

scholarly journals The Unmaking of Indigeneity

Poliarchia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Natalia Koper
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Movie Industry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Building Project

This paper contributes to the debate on racialized and deracialized representations of the category of indigeneity in Mexican cinematography during the Golden Age (1935–1959) as a response to the post‑revolutionary nation‑building project. Based on the analysis of representative movies of that period, I argue that the cinematography reflected indigenista public policies, aimed at homogenizing the society by incorporating indigenous people to the society as Mexicans. Insofar as the state narrative displaced the notion of indigeneity towards the “past” – as a foundation of the national cultural heritage – movie industry romanticized and exoticized the indigenous, but at the same time, it portrayed indigenous characters as submissive and even obsolete, thus perpetrating the colonial archetype of oppression. Images situated in the present, however, rejected any ethnic differentiation, and instead replaced it with a class‑based model of social interactions, but in reality the “raceless” ideal of national identity would continue to ascribe indigeneity to lower social strata.

Europeanization and minority policies in post-conflict Kosovo. Genuine inclusion or window dressing?

Südosteuropa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Potter
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Minority Policies ◽  
Building Project

AbstractThis paper examines the position of minorities in Kosovo in the light of Kosovo’s potential candidacy as a member state of the European Union (EU). The paper contends that although the international community has constructed a comprehensive suite of protections and guarantees for minorities, nation-building by internal actors in Kosovo has followed an exclusively ethnocentric dominant narrative, running counter to the state-building project, which promotes a multiethnic Kosovo. The paper considers this dichotomy in the context of Kosovo’s Europeanization. It is concluded that the conditionality principle is not sufficiently defined or measurable in order to set criteria relating to the inclusion or exclusion of minorities in Kosovo to significantly influence decisions on EU membership.

State-Minority Contestations in Post-colonial Sri Lanka

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-165
Author(s):  
Mansoor Mohamed Fazil
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Research Method ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Social Force ◽  
State Structure ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The Military

Abstract This research focuses on the issue of state-minority contestations involving transforming and reconstituting each other in post-independent Sri Lanka. This study uses a qualitative research method that involves critical categories of analysis. Migdal’s theory of state-in-society was applied because it provides an effective conceptual framework to analyse and explain the data. The results indicate that the unitary state structure and discriminatory policies contributed to the formation of a minority militant social force (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – The LTTE) which fought with the state to form a separate state. The several factors that backed to the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 by the military of the state. This defeat has appreciably weakened the Tamil minority. This study also reveals that contestations between different social forces within society, within the state, and between the state and society in Sri Lanka still prevail, hampering the promulgation of inclusive policies. This study concludes that inclusive policies are imperative to end state minority contestations in Sri Lanka.

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