scholarly journals Another Sea, Another Shore

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-130
Author(s):  
Alireza Asgharzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Persian Literature ◽  
Diaspora Literature ◽  
Ruptured Identities ◽  
Representative Samples

Most critics of modern Persian literature would agree that the emergentIranian diaspora literature is both rearticulating and challenging traditionalPersian narratives of identity, nationality, nation-state, and homeland.Another Sea, Another Shore is an admirable attempt to bring together in asingle volume representative samples of this diaspora literature, rooted in atleast 25 years of exilic experiences.The editors, Shouleh Vatanabadi and Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami,have done a superb job in selecting the stories as well as in translating themin a fluid, straightforward language. The book contains 21 stories groupedunder three headings that roughly divide narratives into initial experiencesof migrating/travelling, exilic experience, and more settled diasporic articulations.Represented in the volume are narratives of such well-establishedwriters as Reza Baraheni, Hushang Golshiri, Nasim Khaksar, and DariushKargar, as well as those of such new writers as Kader Abdolah, TaherehAlavi, and Marjan Riahi, among others.The constant themes of shattered dreams, unfulfilled hopes, disconnectedborders, ruptured identities, unfamiliar and defamiliarized spacesrunning through each story testify to the fact that this migration of a generationof exiled Iranians was no ordinary migration. It was not just aboutleaving one’s home behind; it was, more importantly, about not being ableto return. And this inability was powerful enough to drive some exiles andtheir loved ones back home to the shores of insanity – and even death. In“Anxieties from Across the Water,” Pari Mansouri masterfully depicts thispainful saga when a mother concludes that “the pain of separation will killme in the end” (p. 7). And it does.Among the collected stories, Mehri Yalfani’s “Without Roots” perhapsbest captures the essence of what one may call an Iranian diasporic experience.In this powerful piece, Yalfani demonstrates a complex web of relationships,conflicts, and interactions that migration creates, such as the onesbetween home and host cultures, old and young generations, males andfemales, as well as those emerging from class issues, racism, and processesof resocialization and identity formation. The old generation of Iranian ...

scholarly journals Learning National Identity Outside the Nation-State: the Story Of Latvian Primers (Mid-1940s – Mid-1970s)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iveta Ķestere ◽  
◽  
Baiba Kaļķe ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
National Language ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
National Identity Formation

In order to understand how the concept of national identity, currently included in national legislation and curricula, has been formed, our research focuses on the recent history of national identity formation in the absence of the nation-state “frame”, i.e. in Latvian diaspora on both sides of the Iron Curtain – in Western exile and in Soviet Latvia. The question of our study is: how was national identity represented and taught to next generations in the national community that had lost the protection of its state? As primers reveal a pattern of national identity practice, eight primers published in Western exile and six primers used in Soviet Latvian schools between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s were taken as research sources. In primers, national identity is represented through the following components: land and nation state iconography, traditions, common history, national language and literature. The past reverberating with cultural heritage became the cornerstone of learning national identity by the Latvian diaspora. The shared, idealised past contrasted the Soviet present and, thus, turned into an instrument of hidden resistance. The model of national identity presented moral codes too, and, teaching them, national communities did not only fulfill their supporting function, but also took on the functions of “normalization” and control. Furthermore, national identity united generations and people’s lives in the present, creating memory-based relationships and memory-based communities.

Citizenship and Diasporic Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Nation State ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Diaspora Literature ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
American Policy ◽  
Diaspora Politics ◽  
Diasporic Communities

This chapter introduces readers to classical and contemporary definitions of citizenship, the development of the nation-state, and the concept of national identity as well as other forms of identity construction. The chapter also focuses on diaspora literature and introducing the classical and contemporary characterizations of diaspora and theories on diaspora politics. Concepts such as hybridity and transnationalism are briefly presented as these concepts feed into the contemporary definitions of diaspora, which are less focused on a place of origin or homeland attachment. The chapter also delves into the Othering of national politics toward diasporic communities, providing examples from recent American policy.

Sunni–Shi’a Relations

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-216
Author(s):  
Fanar Haddad
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Arab World ◽  
National Minority ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sunni Islam ◽  
Sectarian Identity

This chapter examines the overlooked role of demographics in sectarian identity formation and sectarian relations in the modern Arab world up to 2003. It will be argued that the demographic imbalance has created minoritarian and majoritarian outlooks. These can sometimes operate in contradictory ways between the various dimensions of sectarian identity – a national minority that is nevertheless part of a transnational majority for example. Demographics have helped shape power relations between sect-centric actors particularly at the transnational and doctrinal dimensions where mainstream conceptions of global Islam tend to be Sunni-inflected. The chapter will demonstrate the profound implications this has had for how sectarian identities are imagined and instrumentalized. In doing so, this chapter will concentrate on the extremes of sectarian polemics and sectarian ecumenism (as opposed to the more common norm of mundane coexistence and sectarian irrelevance). Finally, the role of demographics in state–sect relations and the role that the nation-state has played in minoritization, majoritization and securitization of sectarian identities will be examined. Specifically, it will look at the normativity of Sunni Islam; the often-counterproductive side-effects of state-sanctioned sect-blindness; the securitization of sectarian plurality and of sectarian outgroups; and the intersection of Arab-Iranian rivalry with state-sect relations.

Contested Foreignness: Indian Migrants and the Politics of Exclusion in Early Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890 to 1923

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 312-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Musoni
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
State Formation ◽  
State Building ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Indian Immigrants ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Nation State Formation

AbstractThe British South Africa Company’s conquest of Zimbabwe in the 1890s opened the country to settlement by immigrants from Europe, South Africa, India and other regions. Using their position as benefactors of the emerging colony, the British-born settlers deployed various notions of foreignness to marginalize the indigenous populations and other groups. Focusing on thirty-three years of company rule in Zimbabwe, this article examines how Indian immigrants contested the British attempts toforeignizethem in the emerging colony. Rather than presenting Indian migrants as passive victims of discrimination and marginalization, the study emphasizes their creativity and determination to establish their own destiny, against all odds. It also shows that foreignness in colonial Zimbabwe was a key factor in the politics of power, identity formation and nation-state building. In that respect, the article explores the constructed-ness as well as the malleability of foreignness in processes of nation-state formation in Africa.

scholarly journals Critique of ethnic nationalism in the teachings of Said Nursi: A study of nationalism and the question of Islam in Bangladeshi identity

IIUC Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Sumaiya Rabeya ◽  
Mohammad Hossain
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Said Nursi

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, a strong proponent of Muslim unity, was always against what he called negative nationalism in Muslim societies. While he believed that nationalism could play a positive role in arousing compassion of Muslims, he also warned of its potential drawbacks and adverse consequences as a tool for domination and causing harm. Ethnic nationalism is primarily seen in highly homogenous societies throughout the world today. Bangladeshi nationalism, as developed by its proponents, has however, failed to be inclusive, and instead works within a framework which tends towards exclusion. This paper, through a discursive discussion of historical narratives and aspects of identity formation, argues that recent manifestations of the ills of Bangladeshi nationalism, stems from deeper issues related to failure of resolving the place of religious identity, mainly Islamic identity, within the Bangladeshi identity. This has led to aspects of negative nationalism, such as deeply polarized society, and aided in maintaining the divisive dichotomy of the secular and religious within the nation state in Bangladesh. IIUC Studies Vol.14(2) December 2017: 71-84

Culture, Social Science & the Philippine Nation-State

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raul Pertierra
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Functional Representation ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe self-understanding of a national community as a culturally homogeneous and spatiotemporally delimited entity provided the model for a distinct sphere of the social. It was this new understanding of the social as a theoretical category that made sociology possible. The modern nation-state and sociology are intimately linked. But even as social science requires the resources of the nation-state, it is equally dependent on a vigorous civil culture distinct from the state. Society is the ultimate source for the state's legitimacy. Society arises out of an association of which the nation-state, however important, is but one expression.Technological and economic development is now often used as justifications for the nation-state. But in the present global context, the nation-state is no longer the primary source for knowledge or investment, at least for countries such as the Philippines. The boundaries between nation-states have become porous as center and periphery are increasingly intertwined. Under these conditions, identities no longer represent cores but rather intersections of experience.No longer grounded in a local routine of everyday life with its corresponding set of collective images, culture increasingly becomes merely representation or the domain of signifying practices rather than the arena of practical significations. Under these conditions, where culture is not necessarily collectively shared but only synchronically networked, it becomes almost a personal quest rather than a communal affair. The expression of such a diasporal and subjective identity is manifested in the rise of new forms of ethnicities. In these contexts, culture can be visualized as landscapes and experienced as representations.Cartesian space-time assumes the homogeneous nature of extension/duration, such that any point in the system of coordinates can be expressed as a value of a given function. For modernity, the social can be plotted or imagined as one such function, all of whose members are linked to one another spatio-temporally. A nation-state is a collectivity whose functional representation assumes that all its members share a simultaneous present, and hence, a commonly anticipated future. Any point on this set of spatio-temporal coordinates is functionally linked to other points through membership in a common order called the nation-state.Nation-states see themselves as culturally homogeneous to facilitate the rational negotiation of difference. This view of culture is possible (but not necessary) because modernity is based on a sense of simultaneous presentness generating a commonly anticipated future. Modern society is an association of individuals functionally coordinating their actions to this simultaneous present. However, globality is making other presents possible, resulting in a world with an excess of meaning but a lack of sense.A feature of modernity is the crucial role of knowledge for the expression, maintenance and reproduction of power. While knowledge represents a form of power in all societies, certain modes of power can only be expressed through their relationship with knowledge. Hence, the functionalization of society is a pre-condition for power to be exercised through its control of knowledge. Power requires new forms of knowledge, such as social science, for its effectiveness in modern society. A critical social science is necessary to counterbalance modern society's functional goals if social science is also to play an emancipatory role.he indigenization of social science is an attempt to formalize this distinct perspective but its insistence on unproblematically using the nation as its referent limits its usefulness. In the present condition, the nation-state is no longer the primary site for knowledge-production or identity-formation. These practices now involve personal, local, global and other choices, following their increasingly polyvalent nature. In its attempts to imagine the nation through indigenous concepts, a Philippine social science risks essentializing Filipinohood by reducing its differences. Instead, a Philippine social science should explore the rich sources of difference within civil and global society, as well as point out the contingent and narrow interests of nation-states, thereby helping to establish a universal basis for understanding. This understanding sees social science as part of the human quest for emancipation.

scholarly journals Nomads, warriors and bureaucrats: nation-building and film in post-Soviet Kazakhstan

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rico Isaacs
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
Building Process ◽  
A Site ◽  
Modern Perspective

Nation-building is a process which is often contested, not just among different ethnicities within a nation-state, but also among the titular ethnic majority. This article explores the contested nature of the nation-building process in post-Soviet Kazakhstan through examining cinematic works. Utilizing a post-modern perspective which views nations and national identity as invented, imagined and ambivalent it identifies four discursive strands within recent post-Soviet Kazakh cinema pertaining to nationhood and national identity (ethno-centric, civic, religious and socioeconomic). Rather than viewing government-sponsored efforts of identity formation in cinema as a top-down process in which the regime transmits its version of nationhood and identity, the discursive strands revealed in this article illustrate there are varying understandings of what constitutes the nation and national identity in Kazakh cinematic works. Furthermore, the strand which focuses on the socioeconomic tensions of modern nation-building in Kazakhstan uncovers how film is used as a site for dissent and social critique of Kazakhstan's modern political condition. What the article illuminates is how discourses related to nation-building can be both competing and complementary and that nation-building is a fluid and transgressive process in which among the titular majority there is no fixed unambiguous understanding of nationhood and national identity.

scholarly journals "I feel Danish but...": a case study on national identity formation and ambivalence

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-218
Author(s):  
L. Koefoed ◽  
K. Simonsen
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Stranger ◽  
National Identity Formation ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Spatial Identity

Abstract. Non-western minorities in Europe, one can argue, are experiencing particularly vulnerable processes of subjectification and identification. They are often caught between double processes of inclusion/exclusion, integration/segregation or identification/estrangement. This article explores some of the complex and ambiguous processes of identification within this group, in connection with development of the spatial identity of Danishness. It starts with a short theoretical pinning down of the figure of "the stranger'' working as a basis for the empirical analysis. Organised in three sections, each interpreting a specific narrative of identification, the analysis subsequently explores processes and problems of identity formation within a minority group increasingly designated as "strangers'' within the Danish nation state. The article concludes on the different ways in which uncertainty and ambivalence infiltrate the identity formation.

scholarly journals From Native Pines to Diasporic Geese: Placing Culture, Setting Our Sites, Locating Identity in a Transnational Canada

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian S. Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Arts ◽  
De Se ◽  
Liberal Multiculturalism ◽  
The Impact

Abstract: In Canada, as elsewhere, introspective and nostalgic views of community and nation-state are being challenged by the impacts of globalism and cosmopolitanism. The impact of these transformations is acute in the context of Canada, where a liberal multiculturalism is transmuting into a hybrid pluralism. Current strategies of identity formation have to accommodate a hybridity that is being fostered by an ever-increasing diasporic population for whom “lived-in places” exhibit transnationalist connections. Too often, established mnemonic tropes relate to past iconic values and norms of the nation-state, even though they are no longer connected with emerging new values that search for new modes of expression. This paper discusses the crucial role of the arts and heritage in this local anchoring of the transnational polity, arguing that symbolic landscapes become sites where new values are contested and traditional iconic values are challenged. Résumé : Içi, comme ailleurs, des représentations introspectives et nostalgiques de communauté et d’État sont remises en question suite à l’impacte des effets de la mondialisation et du cosmopolitisme. La conséquence de ces transformations est fortement marquée dans un contexte canadien où un certain multiculturalisme libéral est en voie de se transformer en pluralisme hybride. Les stratégies courantes de création d’identité doivent accommoder une hybridité stimulée par une population diasporique grandissante chez qui le lieu d’habitation présente un contenu trans-nationaliste. Il se trouve trop souvent que des tropes mnémoniques préétablis s‘apparentent à des valeurs iconiques traditionnelles et à des normes de l’État, même quand ils ne sont plus rattachés aux valeurs émergentes qui cherchent à élaborer de nouveaux modes d’expression. Cette communication examine le rôle critique des arts et du patrimoine vis-à-vis l’insertion au niveau local de l’entité transnationale. Il propose que les paysages symboliques deviennent des sites où de nouvelles valeurs sont contestées et où les valeurs ioniques traditionnelles sont remises au défi.

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