“Happy at Last”

2019 ◽  
pp. 124-136
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Q. McCune
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Nation State ◽  
National Image ◽  
Nation States ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Sexual Economies

“Branded Beautiful” examines the relationship between individual pop celebrity, the promotion of a national identity, and the use of sexuality while branding each. Barbados promotes itself as a site of controlled abandon straddling performances of modernity while cashing in on imaginaries of “primitive” exoticism. Robyn “Rihanna” Fenty’s pop stardom is built on an ever-changing boldness that often includes in your face sexuality. The relationship between Rihanna and representations of Barbados is fraught with ambiguity. Using Rihanna’s August 2011 LOUD tour concert in Barbados, “Branded Beautiful” argues that the events surrounding the show shed light on the differing sexual economies of pop stardom and national tourism; that such divergences highlight the insecurities of nation-states seeking to make a name for themselves within a global market; and that despite the distinctions it is quite hard for a nation-state to divorce celebrity focused attention from an ideal national image.

Complicating the Relationship Between Sport and National Identity: The Case of Post-Socialist Slovenia

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mojca Doupona Topič ◽  
Jay Coakley
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global Identity ◽  
Sociology Of Sport ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Relationship

Sociology of sport knowledge on national identity is grounded in research that focuses primarily on long established nation-states with widely known histories. The relationship between sport and national identity in postsocialist/Soviet/colonial nations that have gained independence or sovereignty since 1990 has seldom been studied. This paper examines the role of sports in the formation of national identity in postsocialist Slovenia, a nation-state that gained independence in 1990. Our analysis focuses on the recent context in which the current but fluid relationship between sport and Slovenian national identity exists. Using Slovenia as a case study we identify seven factors that may moderate the effectiveness of sports as sites for establishing and maintaining national identity and making successful global identity claims in the twenty-first century. We conclude that these factors should be taken into account to more fully understand the sport-national identity relationship today, especially in new and developing nations.

Nations, Nationalism, National Identity: New Dimensions in Academic Discourse

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (11) ◽  
pp. 91-102
Author(s):  
I. Semenenko
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Interethnic Relations ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Nation States

Analyzing discourses on interethnic relations can contribute to a clearer understanding of the focal points of tensions in contemporary political communities sharing a common territory and common political institutions. These discourses represent the complex of problems related to nation-building and are generated both in the public sphere and in academic discussion. As such, they often develop separately one from the other. Assessing the current academic discourse on nations and nationalism, on nation-building and the nation-state, on citizenship, cultural diversity and interethnic conflict can contribute to the formation of the agenda of a politics of identity aimed at building a civic nation. Memory politics deserve special attention in this context, as the interpretation of historic memory has today become a powerful instrument that political elites can use to consolidate the nation and, in different contexts, to politicize ethnicity and deepen cleavages in existing nation-states. The affirmation of a positive civic (national) identity is a reference framework for modern democratic societies, and it is in meeting the challenges of politicizing ethnicity that political priorities and academic interests meet. However, the current domination of politics over academia in this conflict prone sphere contributes to its radicalization and to the formation of negative and exclusive identities that can be manipulated to pursue elitist group interests. Evaluating models of political organization alternative to the ones known today (such as “the nation-state”) does not aspire to “write off” the nation, but this can help to come up with visions and ideas politics can take up to overcome the conflict potential that contemporary societies generate over ethnic issues. Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with financial support provided by the Russian Science Foundation [research grant № 15-18-00021, “Regulating interethnic relations and managing ethnic and social conflicts in the contemporary world: the resource potential of civic identity (a comparative political analysis)”]. The research was conducted at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), RAS.

The Old Story: Sovereign Nation-States and Myths of National Identity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Nadeau
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Catholic Churches

When members of a society coordinate their activities based on a broadly disseminated and reinforced set of dogmatic beliefs in their mythological or religious traditions, anthropologists refer to these beliefs as useful myths. The aim of this chapter is to reveal that the dogmatic beliefs associated with the construct of the sovereign nation-state are useful myths that can no longer be viewed as useful because they are effectively undermining efforts to resolve the environmental crisis. This situation is greatly complicated by the fact that the sovereign nation-state is a normative construct, or a construct that is assumed to be a taken-for-granted and indelible aspect of geopolitical reality. The large problem here is that this normative construct constitutes one of the greatest conceptual barriers to resolving the environment crisis. This brief account of the origins and transformations of the construct of the sovereign nation-state is intended to accomplish four objectives. The first is to demonstrate that the construct of the sovereign nation-state emerged in Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries in a series of narratives that transferred the God-given power and authority of sovereign monarchs to the states governed by these monarchs. The second is to reveal that the narratives about nationalism and national identity that emerged during and after the Protestant Reformation abused the truths of religion in an effort to convince core populations living within the borders of particular nation-states that they were a chosen people possessing superior cultural values and personal qualities. The third is to show that the dogmatic beliefs legitimated and perpetuated by these narratives eventually resulted in the creation of churches of state with sacred symbols, rites, and rituals similar to those in Protestant and Catholic churches. And the fourth objective is to provide a basis for understanding how these dogmatic beliefs eventually became foundational to a system of international government, the United Nations, predicated on the construct of the sovereign nation-state. The history of this construct is much more complex and far more detailed than the brief account in this chapter suggests.

scholarly journals The Returned Yank as Site of Memory in Irish Popular Culture

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1175-1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANN SCHOFIELD
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Native Land ◽  
Population Loss ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the figure of the Returned Yank in Irish popular culture to explain the contradiction between the Irish preoccupation with the figure of the emigrant who returns and the low number of emigrants who actually do return to their native land. The article argues that the Returned Yank is a lieu de mémoire or site of memory – a concept defined by French historian Pierre Nora as “any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community” and used by scholars of African American and other cultures with particular concerns about memory and history. As a site of memory, the Irish Returned Yank allows the Irish to explore the meaning of massive population loss, the relationship with a diasporic population of overseas Irish, and tensions between urban and rural life. The article also suggests a relationship between Irish national identity and the Returned Yank.

He’s ours, not yours! Reinterpreting national identity in a post-socialist context

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-506
Author(s):  
Sunčica Bartoluci ◽  
Mojca Doupona
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Team ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Media ◽  
Civic Nationalism ◽  
The Relationship

This paper focuses on the relationship between sport, national identity and the media in the post-socialist nation-states of Croatia and Slovenia. It describes what has changed during the eight years since Jakov Fak, a Croatian-born Slovenian biathlete, changed his citizenship and began competing for the Slovenian national team. It also examines how the perception of Jakov Fak as an athlete and of his success has changed through time in different socio-political circumstances – in 2009 and 2010 when he competed for Croatia, and after 2010 when he began competing for Slovenia. To analyse this case we have used different media interpretations of Jakov Fak case, analysing four sports events: the Biathlon World Championships in South Korea (13–22 Feb 2009) and Germany (1–11 Mar 2012), and the Olympic Games in Canada (11–18 Feb 2010) and South Korea (9–25 Feb 2018). The results of discourse analysis show that in the case of Jakov Fak in the years 2009 and 2010, the public was provoked by and exposed to national symbolism, especially in political discourse. The media discourse did change between 2012 and 2018, and discourse typical of civic nationalism began to dominate. Two types of nationalism are mixed in a post-socialist context.

Virtual Citizenship

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Downes ◽  
Richard Janda
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Third ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Collective Imagination ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper examines the importance of metaphor and media to the ideas of citizenship, nation, and place. In particular, the authors explore the relationship between citizenship and the double metaphor of the “nation-state”. If this double metaphor were to lose its hold on the collective imagination, what metaphor could take its place and be represented through modern media of communication? The authors use the example of deterritorialization, discussing first the emergence of the phenomenon particularly given the role of contemporary media of communication, and noting how it bears upon community, place and citizenship to suggest that such an erosion is taking place. They suggest that the “global market” metaphor is gaining ascendancy, and is represented in simulacrum through contemporary information technologies. The third part of this paper conducts a thought experiment implementing a deterritorialized, global market for citizenship, asking to what degree such a market already characterizes contemporary citizenship and assessing what is attractive and unattractive about it. The paper concludes with a caution against either ignoring or embracing this emerging normative construction.

Basic Income, Labour Automation and Migration – An Approach from a Republican Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yannick Fischer
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Normative Approach ◽  
Nation States ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis research uses a normative approach to examine the relationship between basic income and migration. The decisive variable is the effect of labour automation, which increases economic insecurities globally, leaving some nation states in a position to cope with this and others not. The insecurities will increase migratory pressures on one hand but also justify the introduction of basic income on a nation state level on the other.The normative guideline is the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. This is used to justify a basic income, analyse how labour automation creates dominating structures and how borders dominate migrants seeking to move to countries which introduce a basic income.The result is that nation states that introduce a basic income to counter internal domination through labour automation, also have to look outside of their nation state. The imposition of borders in order to keep a basic income sustainable as well as labour automation itself, establish a form of domination over less developed countries and thus demand international regulation.

scholarly journals MULTICULTURALISM AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION IN MODERN NATION STATES

2017 ◽  
pp. 305
Author(s):  
Milena Manojlović
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This article is an analysis of the complex relations between concept of multiculturalism and modern liberal nation states, which are based on a principle of common citizenship. Consequently, in this article we question the impact of multiculturalism on the process of integration in these societies, which inevitably brings us to a contemplation of the complex relations of modern liberal democracy and nationalism. The author presents the most influential ideas of the political philosopher Brian Barry who, as a liberal egalitarian, criticized multiculturalism from the theoretical position of liberalism that seeks to provide social justice. The structure of this paper reflects his prominent ideas on this matter. In three separate chapters, the author discusses the impact of public policies with a multicultural agenda on the equal treatment of citizens, the relationship between liberalism and assimilation and liberalism, and national identity perceived as a necessary precondition for achieving integration. The last chapter of article considers the positions of other theorists on the subject of relations between a liberal state and national identity, which leads to concluding reflections of the conception of politics as a space for self-expression.

scholarly journals Queering Justice: States as Machines of Oppression

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (Summer) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Nour Abu-Assab ◽  
Nof Eddin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Arab State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Recent Attention ◽  
Shed Light

In light of the recent attention to the incarceration, surveillance, and policing of non-normative people in the Middle East and North Africa, this article does not seek to offer alternatives to systems of justice. Instead, our argument revolves around the need to turn the concept of justice on its head, by demonstrating that justice within the context of the nation-state is in its essence a de facto and de jure mechanism of policing and surveillance. To do so, this article draws on Michael Foucault’s notion of state-phobia from a de-colonial perspective, intersectional feminist theory, and Hisham Sharabi’s conceptualisation of the Arab-state as neo-patriarchal. This article highlights the need to move away from the post-colonial benevolent imaginary of the state, as a result of people’s desire for self-determination, to a more realistic de-colonial conceptualisation of nation-states that emerged post-colonisation, as sites of oppression. This article will also shed light on the role of civil society in reinforcing the unjust justice sought within nation-state frameworks by drawing on the examples of the recent crackdown on non-normative people in Egypt, and the example of non-normative Palestinians living under occupation. The Egyptian and Palestinian cases are, respectively, one of an allegedly sovereign state that overtly restricts gender and sexual freedom, and another of an occupying state that nominally guarantees gender and sexual rights. These examples are used to demonstrate the theoretical underpinnings of this article, through which we seek to problematise and break binaries of justice versus injustice, and the state versus civil society, in an attempt to queer the concept of justice.

Sport and National Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilwyn Porter
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Imagined Communities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the role of sport in the construction of national identity. It focuses initially on sport as a cultural practice possessing the demonstrable capacity to generate events and experiences through which imagined communities are made real. The governments of nation-states or other political agencies might intervene directly in this process, using sport as a form of propaganda to achieve this effect. More often, however, the relationship between sport and national identity is reproduced in everyday life, flagged daily by the mass media as an expression of banal nationalism. Particular attention is given to the role of sports that are indigenous to particular nations and also to sports engaged in competitively between nations. These have contributed in different ways to the making of national identities.

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