North Africa's Spain: peripheral national identities and the nation‐state as neo‐empire

When ethno‐cultural heterogeneity exists and thrives within a nation‐state, social tension and ethno‐nationalist sentiments are not considered surprising. Yet in many nation‐states, various native‐born communities have diverse and potentially contradictory national identities without the desire for self‐determination. In this paper, I explore the circumstances in which ethno‐culturally distinct, peripheral communities may develop variants of the dominant national identity – ensuring that they remain excluded from the national narrative – yet remain part of the nation‐state. To do so, I conduct a comparative analysis of the native‐born Muslim communities in Spain's two North African exclaves. I find that most Muslims are Spanish citizens yet understandings of ‘Spanish‐ness’ appear to vary between the exclaves. I use these findings to propose further steps for refining current conceptualisations of the nation‐state, in an effort to better understand cases in which variations in the dominant national identity exist, but without ethno‐nationalist sentiments.     

Old wine in new bottles: civic nation‐building and ethnic nationalism in schooling in Piedmont,ca. 1700–1861

ABSTRACT. Gellner (1983 : 35) equates nationalism with ‘the organisation of human groups into large, centrally educated, culturally homogeneous units’. As the theorist of nationalism argues, and as recent and not so recent historical research shows, the modernisation of schooling is a defining moment in this process. The objective of this article is twofold: first, to show that during the Risorgimento schooling in Piedmont became nationalist; and second, to explain why that was the case. In doing so, it is argued that: (a) the modernisation of schooling reflected the rise of laissez faire liberalism, industrialisation and the enfranchisement of the middle class; and (b) the leadership of the Risorgimento revived pre‐modern ethnic symbols of patriotism to legitimate inequality and state formation under conditions of individualism.     

The trajectory of nation‐building through language policies: the case of Turkey during the early Republic (1920–38)†

ABSTRACT. This article explores the link between language policies and nation‐building by focusing on the Turkish case during the early Republican period (1920–38). As opposed to conceptualising nation builders as seamlessly and strategically forming a nation out of the remnants of an empire, this article emphasises the complex and, at times, ambiguous nature of the nation‐building process using Turkey as a case study. The article is also critical of ethno‐symbolic accounts of nations and nation formation that tend to emphasise the cultural at the expense of the political sphere. Instead, by looking at the process and content of the formulation of language policies, this study demonstrates how culture was highly politicised during the formative period of the Turkish nation.     

The rediscovery of ‘the national’ in the 1990s – contexts,new cultural forms and practices in reunified Germany

This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right‐wing or left‐wing.     

Identifying with the old or the new state: nation‐building vs. Yugonostalgia in the Yugoslav successor states

The article examines to what degree attachment to a former multinational state which breaks up may complicate national consolidation in new states, as was the case in the Soviet Union and Titoist Yugoslavia. In the former Yugoslavia such attachment is usually referred to as ‘Yugonostalgia’, and various opinions have been expressed about its strength and possible political consequences today. Only in 2011, however, was an attempt made to measure Yugonostalgia quantitatively and analyse this phenomenon comparatively in the various successor states. A large‐scale survey showed that while Yugonostalgics in some countries were less loyal than other citizens towards the new state this was not the case in Serbia. In Croatia, the number of respondents who felt Yugoslav has gone down since independence far more than in any other state; probably a result of a massive public campaign to discredit continued identification with the former state.     

Turkish nationalism and the evolutionary idea (1923–1938)

This paper sheds light on the role of evolutionary ideas in the making of Turkish nationalism during the Kemalist era (1923–1938). By so doing, it aims to challenge some of the dominant historiographical viewpoints as to the nature of Turkish nationalism. One is related to the Kemalist elites' predisposition towards the so‐called “scientism” seen as one of the bases for nationalism. We intend to turn upside–down the relation between the Kemalists' use of science and Turkish nationalism. Second, we problematize the “culturalist” origins of Turkish nationalism arguing that the seemingly “culturalist” reflections of the time were, indeed, materialist formulations based on the science of the times. We discuss in this respect the Kemalist elites' use of evolutionary ideas. By synthesizing the ways in which these elites employed evolutionary ideas in the fields of history, language, geography, anthropology, biology, eugenics, and pedagogy, we aim to understand the specific nature of Turkish nationalism before 1945. This secular nationalism conceived culture as having materialist bases and differed fundamentally from the culturalist varieties of Turkish nationalism coloured by Islam in the post‐1945 era. Furthermore, the paper empirically enriches the complex and entangled story of evolutionary ideas in the early Turkish Republic.     

Museums,memory and meaning‐creation: (re)constructing the Tajik nation

To overcome the traumas of the 1992–1997 civil war, the Tajik authorities have turned to history to anchor their post‐independence nation‐building project. This article explores the role of the National Museum of Tajikistan, examining how the museum discursively contributes to ‘nationalising’ history and cultural heritage for the benefit of the current Tajik nation‐building project. Three main discursive strategies for such (re)construction of Tajik national identity are identified: (1) the representation of the Tajiks as a transhistorical community; (2) implicit claims of the site‐specificity of the historical events depicted in the museum, by representing these as having taken place within the territory of present‐day Tajikistan, thereby linking the nation to this territory; and (3) meaning‐creation, endowing museum objects with meanings that fit into and reinforce the grand narrative promulgated by the museum. We conclude that the National Museum of Tajikistan demonstrates a rich and promising, although so far largely unexplored, repertoire of representing Tajik nationness as reflected in historical artefacts and objects of culture: the museum is indeed an active participant in shaping discursive strategies for (re)constructing the nation.     

Early pan‐Arabism in Egypt's July revolution: the Free Officers' political formation and policy‐making, 1946–54

Between 1952 and 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt's Free Officers Movement established the paradigmatic pan‐Arabist revolution from above. Yet it has become something of a cliché to maintain that the Free Officers had no blueprint of action before seizing power and that they later instrumentalised pan‐Arabism in their foreign policy, thinly veiling their actual commitments to Egyptian nationalism and imperialism. By contrast, this contribution underlines the impact of the British colonial context on the Free Officers' political formation and their early identification with pan‐Arabism in turn. Drawing on pamphlets, speeches, media output and memoirs, it shows that the Free Officers developed a distinctive form of anticolonial nationalism that emphasised social justice and invoked overlapping Egyptian and Arab identities. Their aspirations for liberation thus entailed a connected foreign policy and nation building programme in which pan‐Arabism was a prime – and early – component.     

Effective gas permeability of Tight Gas Sandstones as a function of capillary pressure – a non‐steady‐state approach

Single‐ and two‐phase (gas/water) fluid transport in tight sandstones has been studied in a series of permeability tests on core plugs of nine tight sandstones of the southern North Sea. Absolute (Klinkenberg‐corrected) gas permeability coefficients (k_gas__inf) ranged between 3.8 × 10^?16 and 6.2 × 10^?19 m² and decreased with increasing confining pressure (10–30 MPa) by a factor 3–5. Klinkenberg‐corrected (intrinsic) gas permeability coefficients were consistently higher by factors from 1.4 to 10 than permeability coefficients determined with water. Non‐steady‐state two‐phase (He/water) flow experiments conducted up to differential pressures of 10 MPa document the dynamically changing conductivity for the gas phase, which is primarily capillary‐controlled (drainage and imbibition). Effective gas permeability coefficients in the two‐phase flow tests ranged between 1.1 × 10^?17 and 2.5 × 10^?22 m², corresponding to relative gas permeabilities of 0.03% and 10%. In the early phase of the nonstationary flow regime (before establishment of steady‐state conditions), they may be substantially (>50%) lower. Effective gas permeability measurements are affected by the following factors: (i) Capillary‐controlled drainage/imbibition, (ii) viscous–dynamic effects (iii) and slip flow.     

Place-based corporate hegemony: General Electric in Tell City, Indiana, 1943–1947

This paper examines the dynamics behind the selling of a federally owned World War II factory in Tell City, Indiana in 1946 and 1947. The federal agency charged with disposing of wartime plant, the War Assets Administration, reversed its decision to sell the factory to a small innovative company, Electra-Voice, selling it instead to the giant electrical equipment manufacturer, General Electric. What would make federal administrators who were part of a powerful liberal state apparatus committed to economic competition and anti-monopoly change their mind? The answer lies in what I call place-based corporate hegemony. Probing the material consequences of everyday action, place-based corporate hegemony revolves around the formation of alliances based on axiomatic values, the continued appeal of these values, the redistribution of symbolic and material resources, and the incorporation of threatening elements. Deploying a range of archival materials I show how the concerted efforts of the community, business organizations, politicians and unions as well as General Electric to question the initial decision forced the state to rethink and change its decision.     

Contextualising ‘Turkification’: nation‐building in the late Ottoman Empire, 1908–18*

Abstract. This article offers an analytical framework for understanding the peculiarities of the Ottoman Empire's nationality policies in the second constitutional period (1908–18). It will examine the extent to which the nationality policies of the Young Turks can be perceived as a nation‐building project, and question whether it is reasonable to apply the term ‘Turkification’ to these policies. The primary goal of the paper in this context is to identify how and to what degree a nationalist outlook shaped imperial polices of the late Ottoman Empire. Engaging in a critical dialogue with the existing historiography, the article argues that ‘Turkification’ should be conceptualised solely as a project of nation‐building in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. It was only one of the policies employed by the imperial elite and it coexisted with other imperial policies ranging from centralisation to decentralisation, assimilation to dissimilation and integration to homogenisation. The paper concludes by contending that only by contextualising and understanding this complexity and only by taking geographical variations into account can the peculiarity of ‘Turkification’ be grasped.     

The Threefold Logic of Papua‐Melanesia: Constitution‐writing in the Margins of the Indonesian Nation‐State

Clashes over the status of West Papua and the political future of the territory proliferated markedly following the end of Indonesia's New Order regime in 1998. Amid a wide variety of demands for justice and independence, and a series of demonstrations, mass gatherings and prayers, only a few Papuans mused on how Papua could become a state and what would constitute its nature as being distinctly Papuan and/or Melanesian. One exception is the work put into the Constitution for West Papua entitled Basic Guidelines, State of West Papua, a document edited by Don A.L. Flassy, a bureaucrat, writer and thinker, with a preface by late Theys H. Eluay, then chairman of the Papuan Council. In this article I analyse this Constitution to show how a combination of Christianity and local customs, and a mimicry of elements of Indonesian nation building and symbols of the Indonesian nation‐state are reshaped to oppose Indonesian nation‐building agendas. The Constitution shows that when Papuans imagine an independent state, forms of vernacular legality play a central role. ‘The state’ has journeyed to Papua and encouraged faith in ‘the law,’ and Basic Guidelines is partly the effect of this growing vernacular legality. My analysis shows that it is essential to see how legal mobilisations and imaginations of the state articulate with other normative systems and practices – in particular Christianity and custom (adat) – and how they mutually allow for and invite strategies.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.     

The Journals,the Clerks of the Parliaments and the Under‐Clerks 1485–1601

The journals for both the house of lords and the house of commons for the Tudor period are not, in our sense of the word, journals. Political historians coming to them with unwarranted expectations based on the modern concept of journal have been disappointed by what they have found. The men who compiled both sets of records never saw them as more than notes on the business of both Houses which they kept for their own use.     

Kinship,Organisations and ‘wannabes’: Aboriginal Identity Negotiation in South‐western Sydney

ABSTRACT This paper explores the ambiguous and dynamic nature of Aboriginal identity in south‐western Sydney. While for most of the Aboriginal people in rural and remote areas, identity has been primarily a matter of kinship ties associated with their perceived place of origin, Aboriginal people often recognize each other as Aboriginal by sharing and recognizing certain ‘Aboriginal’ cultural mores and traits. These two principles of identity are flexible enough to be extended to those who are not raised in an Aboriginal family environment; one meeting with their Aboriginal family is a minimum requirement. In south‐western Sydney, where organizations dealing with Aboriginal issues provide ways of connecting Aboriginal people from various backgrounds, in line with the government's homogenized notion of Aboriginality, Aboriginal people from Aboriginal family environments encounter those who cannot even meet this compromised criterion. Their presence gives rise to tension and conflict revolving around the concept of Aboriginality. Aboriginal cultural values that emphasize actual engagement provide ways of overcoming such dilemmas. Through common participation in the activities of the aforesaid organisations, Aboriginal people in south‐western Sydney develop a new sense of ‘Aboriginality’, which embraces those who cannot claim kinship ties.