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Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
01 Jan 1983-
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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01 Sep 2003TL;DR: The tax state in Brazil and South Africa in the early twenty-first century as discussed by the authors was based on the tax definition of citizenship and the tax system of South Africa's institutionalized white supremacy.
Abstract: Nationally-specific definitions of citizenship proved decisive for the development of the Tax State in Brazil and South Africa in the twentieth century. Although both countries had been divided along racial and regional lines in the late nineteenth century, watershed constitutions addressed these political problems in very different ways. South Africa's institutionalized white supremacy created a level of political solidarity that contributed to the development of a highly progressive and efficient tax system. In Brazil, federalism and official non-racialism proved more divisive, making the enactment and collection of progressive taxes much more difficult. The legacy of these divergent state-building processes remains evident at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Lieberman extends this analysis to a wider group of country cases and finds similar patterns and causal relationships between the politics of race, region, and taxation. The findings are based on field research, large-scale national surveys, macroeconomic data, and various archival sources.
223 citations
TL;DR: In this article, comic books are used as a medium through which national identity and geopolitical scripts are narrated, using the example of post-9/11 9/11 Captain America comic books to integrate various strands of theory from political geography and the study of nationalism.
Abstract: This article introduces comic books as a medium through which national identity and geopolitical scripts are narrated. This extension of the popular geopolitics literature uses the example of post-11 September 2001 (“9/11”) Captain America comic books to integrate various strands of theory from political geography and the study of nationalism to break new ground in the study of popular culture, identity, and geopolitics. The article begins with an introduction to the character of Captain America and a discussion of the role he plays in the rescaling of American identity and the institutionalization of the nation's symbolic space. The article continues by showing how visual representations of American landscapes in Captain America were critical to constructing geopolitical “realities.” A reading of post-9/11 issues of the Captain America comic book reveals a nuanced and ultimately ambiguous geopolitical script that interrogates America's post-9/11 territorialization.
222 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a set of lessons is proposed for improving the prospects of integrated conservation and development projects by giving consideration to each of the five capitals: natural, social, human, built, and financial.
Abstract: There are numerous case studies around the world describing integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs). Recently some localized syntheses have been published that use sophisticated statistics to identify patterns and causal linkages, but no attempt has yet been made to draw together lessons from across the globe. This paper is an attempt to provide a framework for such an analysis. A set of lessons is proposed for improving the prospects of ICDPs by giving consideration to each of the five capitals: natural, social, human, built, and financial. The language of ICDPs has been adopted by development agencies of all persuasions. There is now some urgency to identify the characteristics of the environment and the community in which success is most likely. This paper is intended as a step in that direction.
221 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop the concept of "roots migration" to describe the migration of the second generation to their parents' homeland, and examine the transformation of highly translocal everyday lives to one of settlement in the parents' country of origin.
Abstract: It is common for members of the second generation to have nostalgic relations with their parents’ place of origin, particularly if they have grown up in strong transnational social fields. This leads some to actually migrate to the place where their parents are from. They expect to find the ideal homeland which had provided them with a strong sense of belonging during their transnational childhood and adolescence. In this article I develop the concept of ‘roots migration’ to describe the migration of the second generation to their parents’ homeland. Drawing on second-generation Italians in Switzerland, and expanding upon theories of transnationalism, I examine the transformation of highly translocal everyday lives to one of settlement in the parents’ country of origin. I describe how the second generation deals with the discrepancies between their images of the homeland prior to migration and the actual realities they meet once they settle there. Furthermore, I explore how notions of belonging and ‘roots’...
221 citations
TL;DR: The most serious environmental problem of our time and a major issue of environmental justice as discussed by the authors, yet meager public response in the form of social movement activity, behavioral change, and environmental justice has been reported.
Abstract: Global warming is the most serious environmental problem of our time and a major issue of environmental justice. Yet meager public response in the form of social movement activity, behavioral chang...
220 citations