Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

In this exploratory article, we ask how states come to be understood as entities with particular spatial characteristics, and how changing relations between practices of government and national territories may be challenging long-established modes of state spatiality. In the first part of this article, we seek to identify two principles that are key to state spatialization: vertically (thestate is "above"society) andencompassm ent (thestate "encompasses" its localities). We use ethnographic evidence from a maternal health project in India to illustrate our argument that perceptions of verticality and encompassment are produced through routine bureaucratic practices. In the second part, we develop a concept of transnational governmentality as a way of grasping how new practices of government and new forms of "grassroots" politics may call into question the principles of vertical ity and encompassment that have long helped to legitimate and naturalize states' authority over "the local." [states, space, governmentality, globalization, neoliberalism, India, Africa] Recent years have seen a new level of anthropological concern with the modern

/pdf/spatializing-states-toward-an-ethnography-of-neoliberal-17uche94wu.pdf

Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Aihwa Ong. Durham, NIC: Duke University Press, 1999. ix. 322 pp., notes, bibliography, index.

Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality

This volume argues that international human rights law has made a positive contribution to the realization of human rights in much of the world. Although governments sometimes ratify human rights treaties, gambling that they will experience little pressure to comply with them, this is not typically the case. Focusing on rights stakeholders rather than the United Nations or state pressure, Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analyses and case studies that the ratification of treaties leads to better rights practices on average. Simmons argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.

/pdf/mobilizing-for-human-rights-international-law-in-domestic-1kn9xhxi9f.pdf

Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics

Abstract There is a growing acknowledgement that micro-credit programs have potential for equitable and sustainable development. However, my anthropological research on the micro-credit program of the Grameen Bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution. To ensure timely repayment in the loan centers bank workers and borrowing peers inflict an intense pressure on women clients. In the study community many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules through a process of loan recycling that considerably increases the debt-liability on the individual households, increases tension and frustration among household members, produces new forms of dominance over women and increases violence in society.

Micro-credit initiatives for equitable and sustainable development : who pays?; a case study of the Grameen Bank Program in rural Bangladesh

In this article I analyse the Eritrean diaspora and its use of cyberspace to theorize the ways transnationalism and new media are associated with the rise of new forms of community, public spheres and sites of cultural production. The struggle for national independence coincided with the rise of the Internet and the Eritrean diaspora has been actively involved in the new state. Eritreans abroad use the Internet as a transnational public sphere where they produce and debate narratives of history, culture, democracy and identity. Through the web the diaspora has mobilized demonstrators, amassed funds for war, debated the formulation of the constitution, and influenced the government of Eritrea. Through their web postings, 'Internet intellectuals' interpret national crises, rearticulate values and construct community. Thus, the Internet is not simply about information but is also an emotion-laden and creative space. More than simply refugees or struggling workers, diasporas online may invent new forms of citizenship, community and political practices. Identity is not a constant and is something that is renegotiated on (a) regular basis, be it at the individual or at the national level. This is especially prob- lematic for those of us living in the diaspora, we deal with so many identities and our existence is literally schizophrenic. We want to remain actively interested in the affairs of the homeland, at the same time we live in countries that (are) careless about our internal struggles and hence our miserable dependence on mediums like Dehai for a sense of belonging and for the illusion of home that it creates. I would even venture to say that the various cyber shoutings and negative exchanges we are accustomed to in Dehai are a necessary and unavoidable aspects of being a part of such a community.

/pdf/diaspora-cyberspace-and-political-imagination-the-eritrean-5azvpbomkk.pdf

Diaspora, cyberspace and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online

Many scholars have seen globalization and transnationalism as ushering in a postnational era. The new nation of Eritrea serves as an example suggesting that transnationalism does not only operate in opposition to nationalism but can also work to reinforce it. Eritreans in diaspora helped to liberate Eritrea from Ethiopia and continue to participate in the economics and politics of Eritrea. Official constructions of Eritrean citizenship and the national community take this into account in surprising ways. Theories of globalization, transnationalism, and the wired world that emphasize their unboundedness and their unifying and universalizing effects overlook the ways in which people reimagine community and nation and reassert local loyalties and identities even as they engage in global processes and inhabit transnational spaces.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3651525.pdf

Eritrea Goes Global: Reflections on Nationalism in a Transnational Era

For Eritreans in diaspora, identities are deterritorialized, one's most pressing communication may be with far-flung strangers in cyberspace, and one's political engagement is centered on a distant homeland. Eritrean experiences, thus, seem to bring together various qualities that scholars have been grappling with in trying to chart the implications of the infotech revolution and life on-line, in seeking to understand processes of transnationalism and globalization, and in charting the elusive construction of community in the postmodern age. Through an analysis of the social history of www.dehai.org, a website developed by Eritreans in diaspora, I explore the ways that new forms of technological and geographical mobility are changing the conditions not just of capitalist production but also of knowledge production and the constitution of publics, public spheres, communities, and nations.

Eritrea on-line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere

How is the Internet transforming the relationships between citizens and states? What happens to politics when international migration is coupled with digital media, making it easy for people to be politically active in a nation from outside its borders? In Nation as Network, Victoria Bernal creatively combines media studies, ethnography, and African studies to explore this new political paradigm through a striking analysis of how Eritreans in diaspora have used the Internet to shape the course of Eritrean history. Bernal argues that Benedict Anderson's famous concept of nations as "imagined communities" must now be rethought because diasporas and information technologies have transformed the ways nations are sustained and challenged. She traces the development of Eritrean diaspora websites over two turbulent decades that saw the Eritrean state grow ever more tyrannical. Through Eritreans' own words in posts and debates, she reveals how new subjectivities are formed and political action is galvanized online. She suggests that "infopolitics"-struggles over the management of information-make politics in the twenty-first century distinct, and she analyzes the innovative ways Eritreans deploy the Internet to support and subvert state power. Nation as Network is a unique and compelling work that advances our understanding of the political significance of digital media.

Nation as Network: Diaspora, Cyberspace, and Citizenship

Acknowledgments vii Introduction The NGO Form: Feminist Struggles, States, and Neoliberalism / Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal 1 Part I NGOs Beyond Success or Failure 19 1 The Movementization of NGOs? Women's Organizing in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina / Elissa Helms 21 2 Failed Development and Rural Revolution in Nepal: Rethinking Subaltern Consciousness and Women's Empowerment / Lauren Leve 50 3 The State and Women's Empowerment in India Paradoxes and Politics / Aradhana Sharma 93 Part II Postcolonial Neoliberalisms and the NGO Form 115 4 Global Civil Society and the Local Costs of Belonging: Defining Violence against Women in Russia / Julie Hemment 119 5 Resolving a Gendered Paradox: Women's Participation and the NGO Boom in North India / Kathleen O'Reilly 143 6 Power and Difference in Thai Women's NGO Activism / LeeRay M Costa 166 7 Demystifying Microcredit: The Grameen Bank, NGOs, and Neoliberalism in Bangladesh / Lamia Karim 193 Part III Feminist Social Movements and NGOs 219 8 Feminist Bastards: Toward a Posthumanist Critique of NGOization / Saida Hodzic 221 9 Lived Feminism(s) in Postcommunist Romania / Laura Grunberg 248 10 Women's Advocacy Networks: The European Union, Women's NGOs, and the Velvet Triangle / Sabine Lange 266 11 Beyond NGOization? Relrections from Latin America / Sonia E Alvarez 285 Conclusion Feminisms and the NGO Form / Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal 301 Bibliography 311 Contributors 353 Index 357

Victoria Bernal

Papers

Diaspora, cyberspace and political imagination: the Eritrean diaspora online

Eritrea Goes Global: Reflections on Nationalism in a Transnational Era

Eritrea on-line: Diaspora, cyberspace, and the public sphere

Nation as Network: Diaspora, Cyberspace, and Citizenship

Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism