Identity,Gender, and the History of European Nations and Nationalisms

Abstract. The distinction between cultural and political nationalisms has become a commonplace in writings on nations and nationalism. In this article I analyse the relation of culture to politics in the history of modem European nationalist thought from a gender perspective. I argue that gendered forms of national identification and masculinist definitions of the body politic and the national citizen were mutually reinforcing. The article has three main sections. First, I draw on feminist historio–graphy to show that the central event of modem European nationalism, the French Revolution, involved a differentiation of masculine from feminine forms of national citizenship. Second, I use nineteenth-century sources to argue that the ‘separation of spheres’ and an image of the bourgeois family effectively diminished the role of women in relation to the nation. In the final section I show that the history of changing perceptions of the sexed human body is implicit in the imagining of national communities and in the political legitimation of national boundaries and national identities.     

Ideology and the ‘Liberation of Theology’: The Role of Critique in Juan Luis Segundo and Slavoj Žižek

The turn to religion within critical theory has brought the critique of ideology back into theological view. This essay examines the relation of theology to ideology in the liberation theology of Juan Luis Segundo. Segundo's key contribution is his use of the concept of ideology as an efficacious force in theological work in service to poor communities. I argue that the critical and political force of Segundo's theology is dulled by this neutral use of ideology critique. This may be ameliorated by consulting Slavoj ?i?ek's negative use of Christianity as ideology critique. Without endorsing ?i?ek over Segundo, I propose that ?i?ek's critical use of political theology can help liberation theology reengage the role of negativity and critique in the immanent relation of theory and praxis.     

Networks, narratives and territory in anthropological race classification: towards a more comprehensive historical geography of Europe's culture

This article aims to integrate discourse analysis of politically instrumental imagined identity geographies with the relational and territorial geography of the communities of praxis and interpretation that produce them. My case study is the international community of nationalist scientists who classified Europe's biological races in the 1820s-1940s. I draw on network analysis, relational geography, historical sociology and the historical turn to problematize empirically how spatial patterns of this community's shifting disciplinary and political coalitions, communication networks and power relations emerged, were structured, persisted, changed, interacted and disappeared. I focus especially on core-periphery relations. I argue that if local historical spatial patterns affect those of later phenomena, geographies like that of European integration should be understood in the context of Europe's complex historical cultural geography. Unlike discourse deconstruction alone, this complementary relational de-essentialization of geography can identify large-scale, enduring associations of cultural patterns as well as cultural flux and ambiguity.     

Capitalism, cities, and the production of symbolic forms

A striking characteristic of contemporary capitalism is the increasing importance (in terms of growth, employment, revenue, etc.) of sectors whose outputs are imbued with significant cultural or symbolic content. Sectors of these sorts are predominantly, though not exclusively, located in large cities. I describe how these cities function as creative fields generating streams of both cultural and technological innovations. Post-Fordist cities are shown to be especially fertile terrains of commodified cultural production. A number of these cities have become major centres of image-producing industries such as film, music recording, or fashion clothing, and this phenomenon is also often associated with profound transformations of their physical landscapes. I argue that the economic foundations of these trends reside, in part, in the structural characteristics of image-producing industries, marked as they frequently are by modularized, network structures of production and a strong proclivity to geographic agglomeration. At the same time, the main centres of the contemporary cultural economy are caught up in insistent processes of globalization. I suggest that after an initial phase of product standardization and concentrated development in only a few major centres, the cultural economy of capitalism now appears to be entering a new phase marked by increasingly high levels of product differentiation and polycentric production sites. I also submit that the contemporary cultural economy of capitalism constitutes a historical shift beyond consumer society as such.     

The new minority rights regime in Poland: the experience of the German,Belarussian and Jewish minorities since 1989

In the post–communist period national minorities have returned to the international agenda. For Poland, as for other applicants to the European Union, the treatment of national minorities is proving to be a litmus test for accession. In this article I argue that national minorities have benefited from the new minority rights regime, but I show that each minority’s ability to voice its concerns and develop its community is predicated upon the accumulation of political and financial capital. Drawing upon the experience of the German, Belarussian and Jewish minorities in post–communist Poland, I argue that political capital has been accrued through the ballot box and through scalar strategies of empowerment. Those minorities that have been unable to raise their stock of capital (namely the Belarussians) have seen themselves marginalised socially, culturally and economically despite the guarantees of the new minority rights regime to promote and protect them.     

Language,religion and the politics of difference

Language and religion are arguably the two most socially and politically consequential domains of cultural difference in the modern world. Yet there have been very few efforts to compare the two in any sustained way. I begin by aligning language and religion, provisionally, with ethnicity and nationhood, and by sketching five ways in which language and religion are both similar to and similarly intertwined with ethnicity and nationhood. I then identify a series of key differences between language and religion and draw out their implications for the political accommodation of cultural heterogeneity. I show that religious pluralism tends to be more intergenerationally robust and more deeply institutionalised than linguistic pluralism in western liberal democracies, and I argue that religious pluralism entails deeper and more divisive forms of diversity. The upshot is that religion has tended to displace language as the cutting edge of contestation over the political accommodation of cultural difference – a striking reversal of the longer‐term historical process through which language had previously displaced religion as the primary focus of contention.     

Localism and radicalization in North Africa: local factors and the development of political Islam in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya

Over the past three decades North Africa has experienced a wave of Islamic activism. From the emergence of groups such as Shabiba Islamiya in Morocco in the 1970s to the recent appearance of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the region has been home to a plethora of different Islamist movements, each with its own national characteristics. As such the region has displayed a general propensity to Islamist activism. However, certain areas within each North African state have proven particularly receptive to the ideology of political Islam. Although this trend is by no means universal, given the strong appeal of the Islamist ideology that has been able to transcend geographical boundaries, these areas have nonetheless been a key source of recruitment not only for the more moderate strands of the Islamist opposition, but also to the militant movements and networks that espouse violence. As such there would appear to be a correlation between localism and Islamist activism in North Africa. Focusing on Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, this article will examine some of these local issues and will argue that in order to understand better the causes of radicalization in the region, the rise of Islamism in North Africa should be considered within the broader historical context of political and cultural resistance by certain peripheral regional elements to a dele-gitimized and stagnated central authority.     

La rivière Romaine en chantier : Transformations contemporaines des territorialités des Innus d'Ekuanitshit

Since 2009, Innu members of the community of Ekuanitshit have faced a major hydroelectric project on the Romaine River, an integral part of the Nitassinan, their ancestral territory. In this paper, we study the project's impacts on the material and ideational relationship the Innu have with the river. We explore the idea that the project transforms the traditional relationship to territory into a more pragmatic one, marked by economic and political interests. Our analysis reveals that the Innu's territorialities, though partly transformed by increased contact—and sometimes conflict—with hegemonic non‐indigenous society, remain anchored in a strong cultural heritage and a deep identification with territory. We argue that these seemingly differentiated conceptualizations, of traditions on the one hand and development on the other, are not incompatible. These conceptualizations comprise dynamic cultural, social, and political territorialities which are thus internal and external, ancestral and contemporary.     

Understanding the Bahujan Samaj Prerna Kendra: Space,Place and Political Mobilisation

On the tenth anniversary of its first term in state government, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) opened the Bahujan Samaj Prerna Kendra in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The Kendra is a majestic, temple-like building designed to commemorate and celebrate the achievements of the Dalit movement in India. In this article I examine its symbolic and political features, which I argue must be understood against the backdrop of caste prejudice and the ongoing exclusion (social, spatial and economic) of Dalits in India. The Kendra prompts consideration of how the design and use of public space implicitly or explicitly excludes lower classes and castes, and the way in which the BSP has both challenged and used spatial strategy in its political discourse. I further suggest that the Kendra signals a new phase in the cultural politics of Dalits, articulating a new vision of moral, political and spatial order.     

Race, Class, and Political Activism: Black, Chicana/o, and Japanese-American Leftists in Southern California, 1968–1978

This paper explores the third-world left in Los Angeles, from 1968–1978. In it I examine the political ideology and foci of one organization for each of the major racial/ethnic groups of the time: African Americans (Black Panther Party), Chicanas/os (El Centro de Accion Social y Autonomo [CASA]), and Japanese Americans (East Wind). In addition to reclaiming this relatively unknown history, I seek to explain the differences in the various organizations by analyzing them within the context of differential racialization. I argue that the distinct nature of each organization is at least partly due to the particular racial position of each racial/ethnic group within the local racial order.     

The political geography of macro-level turnout in American political development

Aggregate turnout rates are among the central indicators of democratic performance in the American polity. Despite the considerable implications of macro turnout, however, most studies of turnout focus instead on the micro level. As a consequence, we know little about how local, political, and historical influences have impacted turnout over the course of American political development. The result is a somewhat impoverished conception of turnout that often removes the political from political participation. In this article, I argue for a new, macro-level perspective that highlights the political dimension of turnout by placing turnout in the local political settings in which it has taken place. I contrast two competing explanations of macro turnout variation across local electorates, a political account and Elazar's cultural thesis, and discuss their implications for the political geography of macro turnout in American electoral history. I then examine this political geography by employing a local indicator of spatial association (a LISA statistic) to identify the spatial structuring of macro turnout in the United States from 1828 through 2000. I demonstrate that a political perspective provides greater leverage than Elazar's cultural perspective in explaining the political geography of macro turnout in the United States.     

Insurgency,heritage and the working class: the case of the Theatre of Union Nº6 of the Coal Miners of Lota,Chile

This paper examines the construction and preservation history of the Theatre of Union Nº6 of the Coal Miners in Lota, Chile, a city whose identity has been redefined due to changes in the capitalist economy, becoming known as an ‘ex-coal mining community’. Drawing on insurgent planning theory and through a political, economic and social analysis of the history of this national monument, the paper explores how grassroots heritage movements, grounded on their historical memory of social struggle, question authorised voices in the field, influencing the production and definition of their urban heritage. The strategies used by these groups are discussed in the context of the emergence of social movements at the beginning of the twentieth century, the influence of the Modern Movement in Chile as a symbol of social justice, and the communities’ current preservation efforts. Through interviews, participant observations, archival research and analysis of the physical built environment, I argue that moving across ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces of participation, Lotinos are capable of disrupting hegemonic conceptions of heritage, using it for their own social, cultural and economic purposes and creating opportunities for a more inclusive and democratic cultural process.     

Ocean and grove: holiness,leisure, and contested landscapes at Ocean Grove,New Jersey

In 1869, leading members of the Wesleyan holiness movement established Ocean Grove, an oceanfront camp meeting resort in Monmouth County, New Jersey that would become one of the most popular religious resorts in the United States. Scholarship on Ocean Grove treats the resort as a significant example of the spatial preferences and town planning efforts of the holiness movement. Tracing conflicts between leisure and worship, and between the romanticization of nature versus the sacralization of city life, suggests the landscape of the resort emerged as a mediation of these conflicts and provides further evidence for the sacralization of nature as a necessary component in the planning of Methodist and holiness communities in the late nineteenth century.     

Green,red, yellow and purple: gendering the Kurdish Question in south-east Turkey

This article discusses the role of women in the contemporary ethno-territorial struggle of Kurdish Question in Turkey. I argue that gendered development has become the primary terrain where Turkish and pro-Kurdish political groups articulate their nationalist interests. The Kürt Sorunu (Kurdish Question) – the enduring debate over the political status and rights of Turkey's Kurdish population – is Turkey's largest geopolitical challenge to date. In the last decade, Turkish government policy towards the predominantly Kurdish south-east region has shifted from military intervention to gendered and socio-economic development. Simultaneously, the popularity and growth of a formal pro-Kurdish political movement has given the campaign for Kurdish rights an institutionalized voice and stronger role in regional affairs. The primary work of both the Turkish national government and local pro-Kurdish municipality of late has focused on women. Drawing on historical analysis and participant observation of development activities, I describe the symbolic and physical role women play in the contemporary Kurdish Question. Geographically, this pointed focus on women marks a territorialization of political power upon gendered spaces of the home and neighbourhood. I describe this process of territorialization through an examination of education curriculum, neighbourhood mapping and nationalist landscapes.     

Mothers,communities and the scale of difference

Only recently did geographic concern turn to why and how, and when and where political identities are reproduced but, as yet, our understanding of the political relations between families and communities remains understudied. This lack of attention is attributable, in part, to the complexities of families and communities but, this aside, all societies regulate reproduction and there are always claims for legitimization of particular views of family values and community relations. With this paper, I argue that highlighting the social construction of scale suggests ways that the social imaginary of a domestic myth is spatially embedded within a nurturing local community. I outline some recent feminist discussion of local childcare cultures and critique of 'the public sphere' prior to raising scale as a way to open up static versions of justice and difference. Arguments in the paper that relate to the social construction of scale are illustrated by examples from a study of the impact of a new child and a residential move on mothers in San Diego. I argue that although the birth of a child highlights important questions that relate to responsibility, self-identity and notions of family, community and society, it is from within a politically structured notion of scale that many of the constraints and contexts of childcare arise. This paper focuses specifically on negotiating childcare as a basis of resistance through day-to-day contestations at multiple scales.     

A Space and Time for a Generation to React: The Gattjirrk Cultural Festival in Milingimbi

This article deals with the annually held Gattjirrk Cultural Festival organised in Milingimbi, a Yolngu community in Northeast Arnhem Land, and has the objective of analysing its socio‐cultural and political meaning. Although this event is considered an amusement (wakal), it nevertheless constitutes an arena to negotiate postcolonial realities in which Yolngu people are forced to live. Focusing on the organisers' overall frame of ‘sharing culture’ and youths' interpretations of hip‐hop dances as ‘performative tactics’, I suggest that the Milingimbi Festival creates a space in which generational perspectives within the community as well as the tension between Yolngu people and the non‐indigenous (balanda) world may be displayed and mediated. While the Festival has been mainly conceived as a space for encountering and ‘sharing culture’ with other groups and people both within the community and with the balanda world, it is also seized as an opportunity by young people to generate new ways to engage with and challenge others. By weaving together elements of Yolngu heritage and pop culture, I argue that fun or burlesque dances (wakal bunngul) are ‘tactics of cultural remix’ that through laughter and irony demand a witnessing: a mutual recognition, engagement, and responsibility to participate and to respond. It is thus in their own ways that these performances produce new connections and relationships bringing together old and young, Yolngu and balanda in an effective although fleeting encounter.     

The moral ecology of colonial infrastructure and the vicissitudes of land rights in rural Pakistan

For the last 10 years, the Pakistan army has not been able to collect rent from tenant farmers on its military farms in central Punjab. In this article, I analyse the historical and cultural significance of this contested land by using insights from recent literature on the politics of infrastructure to examine the contingency of rule in Pakistan, a postcolonial state, which is dominated by its army. I illustrate these dynamics by exploring the challenge brought up by a peasant movement to tacit cultural understandings about land and political subjectivity in central Punjab, the folkloric heartland of Pakistani nationalism. I argue that place-based movements, like the Punjab Tenants Association, can radically challenge our sense of place by giving a relational account of land as both a material substance and a crucial link in the set of relations that define moral, economic and political life. This approach broadens the emerging study of infrastructures by engaging insights from science/technology studies and subaltern studies to examine how cultural legacies of colonial infrastructure projects shape state–society relations in Pakistan.     

Who Shapes the Politics of Expertise? Co-Production and Authoritative Knowledge in Thailand's Political Forests

Expert environmental knowledge has often been described as a governmental rationality that reduces political debate and facilitates state control. In this paper, I argue instead that this line of reasoning simplifies how knowledge gains political authority, especially when expertise is shared and left unchallenged by diverse actors, including those in conflict with each other. Using the framework of co-production from Science and Technology Studies (STS), I apply this argument to conflicts over the supposed watershed functions of forests in Thailand, where simplified narratives about the impacts of land use on water supply are used as justifications for territorialisation and restrictions on forest land. In particular, I focus on local resistance to the proposed Kaeng Sua Ten dam in northern Thailand in order to demonstrate how protestors have deliberately reproduced formal expertise to empower themselves, but by so doing also reinforcing simplified visions of watershed science and community culture. I argue that exposing the co-production of authoritative knowledge and visions of social order offer greater opportunities for understanding the role of expertise as a political force than analysing competing assemblages based on oppositions of state-led expert knowledge and traditional local practices.     

Wrestling with the Revolution: The Iron Sheik and the American Cultural Response to the 1979 Iranian Revolution

This paper maps how American popular culture came to terms with the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran through a study of Hussein Khosrow Vaziri. Vaziri, better known by his moniker, “The Iron Sheik,” was active in professional wrestling in the 1980s and remains to this day one of the most well-known Iranians in American cultural memory. Through an analysis of his character and how he has been represented in the popular media, I argue that he was chiefly utilized as a figure through whom Americans could cope with the devastating blow that the Revolution caused to American power. I argue that this reaction continues to this day, albeit focusing not on Iran but on the current political tensions involving the attacks of September 11, 2001.