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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.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of capital to suggest that citizenship constitutes a key mechanism of distinction between migrant and non-migrant workers, which manifests itself in formal (legal and institutional) as well as informal (practiced and cultural) aspects.
Abstract: As subordinate workers, migrants and foreigners are an essential labor force for industrialized economies. The author extends Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of capital to suggest that citizenship constitutes a key mechanism of distinction between migrant and nonmigrant workers. From this perspective, citizenship is a strategically produced form of capital, which manifests itself in formal (legal and institutional) as well as informal (practiced and cultural) aspects. Both aspects of citizenship can render migrant labor more vulnerable than nonmigrant labor and often channel migrants into the secondary labor market or the informal economy. The author presents examples from Germany and Canada to illustrate how legal and cultural processes associated with citizenship facilitate economic subordination and exploitation of migrant labor. The value of conceptualizing citizenship as a form of capital lies in integrating processes of inclusion and exclusion into a framework of distinction and in locating the strategic na...

100 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the discourse styles, including the linguistic practices, of a group of African American high school students and offers a twofold conclusion: (1) Ebonics or Black English is the norm against which all other speech practices are evaluated by the students at the research site and (2) "the standard" is constructed as a vernacular.
Abstract: This article analyzes the discourse styles, including the linguistic practices, of a group of African American high school students and offers a twofold conclusion: (1) Ebonics or Black English is the norm against which all other speech practices are evaluated by the students at the research site and (2) “the standard”—that is, the standard English dialect—is constructed as a vernacular. As a vernacular, this discourse is not privileged; indeed, it is “dissed” (disrespected) and is only “leased” by the students on a daily basis from nine to three. This linguistic practice is centrally implicated in the postulated guerrilla warfare at the school. With data from a predominantly African American high school in Washington, D.C., the effects of this practice on African American academic achievement are documented. Several policy implications are also noted.

100 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the divergent institutional logic of national and local integration policies in the Netherlands is the cause of the difficulty of integrating migrants into Dutch society and argue that this discrepancy originates from the divergence institutional logic.
Abstract: Immigrant integration has become an intractable policy controversy in the Netherlands. One facet of this controversy involves the different ways in which immigrant integration has been framed by national and local governments. National government has formulated a "citizenship approach" to immigrant integration, whereas local governments often chose a more accommodative approach to migrant groups. In this article, the authors argue that this discrepancy originates from the divergent institutional logic of national and local integration policies. National integration policies have resulted from belief in strong central policy coordination, a sharp turn from depoliticization to politicization, responsiveness to a series of focus events, and mood swings during the past decades. Local integration policies, in contrast, are characterized by a considerable degree of pragmatic problem coping, in particular, the instrumental use of migrant organizations. As such, the divergent logics of national and local integration policies seem to represent two different worlds of problem framing

100 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the degree of popular consensus about a nation's identity, core values, and mission as a source of social integration and a broad constraint on foreign policy making, and identifies cosmopolitan liberalism, nativism, and multiculturalism as three rival ideologies of American nationalism, comparing their main principles and competing approaches toward integrating a diverse society.
Abstract: This article analyzes the degree of popular consensus about a nation's identity, core values, and mission as a source of social integration and a broad constraint on foreign policy-making. It identifies cosmopolitan liberalism, nativism, and multiculturalism as three rival ideologies of American nationalism, comparing their main principles and competing approaches toward integrating a diverse society. The paper presents a synthesis of recent survey evidence to assess the relative degree of support for these competing conceptions of American identity. The relationship of these conceptions to the foreign policy orientations delineated in the Wittkopf-Holsti-Rosenau typology is examined to speculate about how shifts in American nationalism may shape the general direction of foreign policy in the future.

99 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors surveyed and synthesized the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media (blogs, wikis, and social networking) for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Abstract: This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily since 2009 and mid 2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.

99 citations