scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

TL;DR: In this paper, Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality and explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time.
Abstract: What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality - the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to the nation - has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality. Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialisation of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa. This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the development of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.
Citations
More filters
Book
28 Mar 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the concept of "orientations" as a way to study everyday life and analyze six main orientations - anticipation, expectation, speculation, potentiality, hope, and destiny - which represent different ways in which the future may affect our present.
Abstract: Study of the future is an important new field in anthropology. Building on a philosophical tradition running from Aristotle through Heidegger to Schatzki, this book presents the concept of 'orientations' as a way to study everyday life. It analyses six main orientations - anticipation, expectation, speculation, potentiality, hope, and destiny - which represent different ways in which the future may affect our present. While orientations entail planning towards and imagining the future, they also often involve the collapse or exhaustion of those efforts: moments where hope may turn to apathy, frustrated planning to disillusion, and imagination to fatigue. By examining these orientations at different points, the authors argue for an anthropology that takes fuller account of the teleologies of action.

129 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the consequences of exposure to the American flag on Americans' sense of national attachment and found that the flag would increase love and commitment to one's country and nationalism, defined as a sense of superiority over others.
Abstract: The American flag is a frequently displayed national symbol in the United States. Given its high visibility and importance, the present research examines the consequences of exposure to the flag on Americans' sense of national attachment. We hypothesized that the flag would increase patriotism, defined as love and commitment to one's country, and nationalism, defined as a sense of superiority over others. Two experimental studies supported the idea that the American flag increased nationalism, but not necessarily patriotism. The discussion focuses on the practices surrounding the American flag and its implications for the repro duction of American national identity.

129 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two previously neglected indicators of racial prejudice from the British Social Attitudes surveys are employed to examine the social distribution of prejudices against black and Asian Britons, suggesting racial differences may still be the main factor prompting white hostility to British minorities.
Abstract: This article employs two previously neglected indicators of racial prejudice from the British Social Attitudes surveys to examine the social distribution of prejudices against black and Asian Britons. Three hypotheses are proposed and tested: that racial prejudice is declining in Britain; that this decline is principally generational in nature; and that greater prejudice is shown towards more culturally distinct Asian minorities than black minorities. Strong evidence is found for the first two hypotheses, with evidence of an overall decline in prejudice and of a sharp decline in prejudices among generations who have grown up since mass black and Asian immigration began in the 1950s. Little evidence is found for the third hypothesis: British reactions towards black and Asian minorities are broadly similar suggesting racial differences may still be the main factor prompting white hostility to British minorities.

129 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues for a more nuanced exploration of the complicated relationship between what people do with literacy, the amount of power and prestige afforded by different literacy practices across contexts, and the social, material and ideological consequences of those practices in specific situations.

129 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The field of communication failed to define itself, its intellectual focus, and its mission in a coherent way as mentioned in this paper, focusing especially on the institutional use of the field's central terms and concepts.
Abstract: Why has the field of communication failed to define itself, its intellectual focus, and its mission in a coherent way? This essay explores reasons for this failure, focusing especially on the institutional use of the field's central terms and concepts. Incoherence has been the price of institutional success. What defines communication's unique identity as a field is also what maintains its conceptual confusions. The field is compared to a nation-state. The essay places the field's emergence in the context of the history of the social sciences in order to help illuminate its current crises and to explore how we might find new ways of conceiving the field's intellectual task.

129 citations