Hans Kohn: the idea of secularized nationalism

More than seventy years after its publication, Hans Kohn's 1944 The Idea of Nationalism is still regarded as a ground‐breaking contribution to the study of nationalism. This essay is aimed to highlight a significant theme in this work which has largely gone unnoticed, namely, the pivotal role of religion and secularism in Kohn's account of nationalism, and especially, in his persistent struggle for a ‘perfect’ nationalism. Kohn's conception – and personal experience – of the relationship of nationalism and religion will be examined through several stages of his turbulent life. First, as a young Zionist in Prague, when he parlayed Martin Buber's Zionist creed into an ethnic concept of nationalism. Then, in Kohn's journalistic writing in the 1920s and in his first theoretical works on nationalism in the years 1929–1942. Finally, Kohn's more mature and crystallized account of nationalism in his 1944 book will be revisited from the perspective of the nationalism–religion relationship.     

Cultural nationalism and everyday resistance in an illiberal nationalising state: ethnic minority nationalism in Russia

Ethnic minority nationalism has always been one of the most important subfields of nationalism studies, yet it lacks the consideration in illiberal settings. Limitations of civil liberties and restrictive legislation have undoubtedly affected the existence and the ways to express minority nationalism when it is considered a threat to authoritarian government, which is the case of the contemporary Russian Federation. The paper provides a methodological framework that helps to investigate ethnic minority nationalism when its direct articulation is restricted. It argues that the combination of a cultural nationalism approach and complexity theory can be a fruitful way to explore minority nationalism in an illiberal nationalising state using the case of Russian ethnic minorities. It also argues that the complex context of authoritarianism and market economy creates tipping points towards the growing importance of ethnic minority identification as a basis for social solidarity.     

Reconsidering nationalism and feminism: the Kurdish political movement in Turkey

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side‐lined, constructed as ‘inauthentic’ and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender‐based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender‐based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women's movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women's rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.     

Affective nationalism: Banalities of belonging in Azerbaijan

While Michael Billig’s ‘banal nationalism’ points to the significance of the trivial reproduction of national representations in everyday routines, feminist political geographers have highlighted how the nation is brought into being through embodied and emotional practices. Building upon and extending these notions of the nation as represented and embodied, the paper argues that the nation also takes shape through bodily encounters and joyful as well as painful affections. In what we call ‘affective nationalism’, the nation emerges in moments of encounter between different bodies and objects through embodying, sharing, enjoying or disliking what feels national. We combine a Deleuzian reading of affect that discloses the mechanisms of material becomings with feminist scholarship sensitive to how bodies affect and are affected differently by materially produced nationalisms. Based on ethnographic field research in Azerbaijan, which we present in three vignettes, we untangle the affective becoming of national bodies, objects and places during a publicly staged ceremony of the collective remembrance of martyr and the celebration of a national holiday within the realm of a family. The paper makes two contributions to researching affective nationalism. First, it enquires into how people identify with Azerbaijan through their capacities to affect and to be affected by what feels national and, second, it explores how affective nationalism can be captured through vignettes of affective writing.     

Warm nationalism: Mapping and imagining the Jordanian nation

In 2002, fourteen years after their withdrawal from the West Bank, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan revealed its new national program known as “Jordan First.” The Palace initiated this campaign as part of its shifting national discourse which now sought to actively unite Palestinian-Jordanians and East Jordanians living to the east of the Jordan River. This campaign, and particularly its common map-logo symbol, has evolved over the last fourteen years into a rather “banal” national discourse and symbol. However, Jordanian nationalism and the everyday symbols of the Jordan First campaign are not forgotten. Instead, for many Jordanians, the campaign is a reminder of “hot” geopolitics and palpable identity politics. Drawing from Michael Billig's theorizations of banal nationalism, I examine the relationship between banal and hot forms of nationalism in Jordan and argue that scholarly work on banality needs to focus attention on the connections between these categories. As such, I suggest that framing nationalism as something quite “warm” can in many instances more aptly capture the complexity of nationalism. Using a multi-method approach that includes analyses of national maps and map-logos of Jordan and in-depth interviews with Jordanians about their national identities, I highlight the connections of hot and banal nationalism. Through my analysis, I also show that a Jordanian national identity is multi-scalar, merging Arab supranationalism with Jordanian and Palestinian identities; and thus I also extend Billig's work to examine the multiple scales of nationalism.     

Remaking Sarajevo: Bosnian nationalism after the Dayton Accord

The task of rebuilding a city after war-time destruction can take many forms. In addition to the obvious signs of refurbishment and new buildings, there are more subtle forms of renewal involving a re-creation of the city’s identity and changes to its inhabitants’ views of the world. For Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina, the cessation of the struggle for control of the city, involving various ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia, has brought about several forms of renewal, many of which have been closely related to the altered political status of Bosnia. This paper investigates ways in which the changing face of Sarajevo is associated with attempts to establish the state of Bosnia and Hercegovina subsequent to the signing of the Dayton Accord that guaranteed some measure of security to Sarajevo and to Bosnia itself. In particular, manifestations of a growing Bosnian nationalism are analysed in the context of the new state’s attempts to establish a clear identity within the deeply disturbed geopolitical setting of the former Yugoslavia. Special attention is given to the renaming of many streets within Sarajevo and to the symbolism on the newly-issued banknotes. Consideration is given to theories of nationalism and to the manifestations of nationalism in the specific context of the former Yugoslavia. There is particular focus upon the position of the Bosnian Muslims in the newly-established state and the emergence of a Bosnian nationalist agenda.     

Religion and nationalism: four approaches*

ABSTRACT. Building on recent literature, this article discusses four ways of studying the relationship between religion and nationalism. The first is to treat religion and nationalism, along with ethnicity and race, as analogous phenomena. The second is to specify ways in which religion helps explain things about nationalism – its origin, its power or its distinctive character in particular cases. The third is to treat religion as part of nationalism, and to specify modes of interpenetration and intertwining. The fourth is to posit a distinctively religious form of nationalism. The article concludes by reconsidering the much‐criticised understanding of nationalism as a distinctively secular phenomenon.