Performing the national territory: The geography of national‐day celebrations

The nation is a relatively abstract imagined community that is visualised through a variety of symbols as well as communicative and performative practices. In this paper, we explore how the national territory, one of the foundations of the nation‐state, is performed on national‐day celebrations and brings the nation into being. Drawing on ethnographic research on national days in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, we show how the state's internal administrative divisions and ethnic differences are at once made explicit but also subordinated to the nation. Moreover, we show how in such celebrations, potentially disruptive or competing affiliations such as ethnicity and regional loyalties are re‐imagined. Both the rotation of the central celebration and its replication all over the national territory carry the nation into the regions and integrate the regions into the nation‐state. The ‘co‐memoration’ turns participants and spectators from locals into national compatriots and thus not only performs nationality but also performs the relationship among nation, state and citizen, set within a particular territory.     

Changing the national past: re‐creating the democratic Polish nation after 1989

ABSTRACT. Poland provides a critical example for studying how national identity is transformed to fit new domestic and global circumstances. While Poles must re‐identify themselves as a democratic nation, they have a choice of whether to incorporate aspects of the communist experience or to ignore it and draw solely from other historical sources. A comparison of holiday newspaper articles from before and after 1989 provides an opportunity to observe this process through the lens of national commemoration. This review shows that themes of national identity are influenced by political context and their potential to unify without contestation. In addition, while the communist period remained a salient unifying historical experience for Poles, democratic values did not act as a unifying theme during the first ten years of Polish democracy.     

The politics of memory: Commemorating the centenary of the First World War

This symposium examines how the centenary of the First World War has been marked in five countries: Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Given their distinctive national historical experiences and political cultures, the metanarratives of the war in these countries differ; as does the relationship between the state and sub-state actors in memory making. However, in each case the commemorations of the war have been shaped by a negotiation between the state and other agents of memory at the sub-state level. National memory has also been consciously projected into international relations, through carefully orchestrated anniversary ceremonies and performative memorial diplomacy. But, despite these transnational commemorative practices, the centenary of the war remains predominantly framed within local and national imaginings.

这次研讨会议论了一战百年在奥地利、法国、德国、英国、美国这五个国家是如何庆祝的。考虑到各国不同的历史经验以及政治文化,这些国家关于一战的元叙事各不相同,国家与次国家主体关系的记忆也是如此。不过,每个国家的战争纪念,都是国家与其他次国家层面主体协商的结果。通过精心策划的纪念仪式日以及表演性纪念外交,国家记忆被有意识地投射到了国际关系之中。除了这些跨国纪念活动,一战的记忆主要是在地方以及国家的想象框架内形成的。     

National identity during periods of controversy: celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Phoenix,Arizona

Cinco de Mayo, celebrated by Mexican Americans as well as Americans of other ethnicities, provides an opportunity to examine the influence of ethnic festivals on broader US identity. Given the recent controversy over the immigration bill, State Bill 1070, passed in Arizona in 2010, the themes presented in newspaper articles concerning the celebration of the holiday in Phoenix, Arizona (2006–11) and the public response to these articles are examined. This examination reveals the intense contestation associated with the presentation of symbols and themes of national identity during periods of political controversy. It also illustrates that ordinary people have strong, long‐standing opinions about the future of the nation and national identity and will express their opinions when an outlet is provided to them     

Protocol,politics and popular culture: the independence jubilee in Gabon

National days are powerful moments of commemoration that aim at renewing the citizens' bonds to the nation and the state. In order to be successful, public rituals need to draw large audiences, and their ceremonial design therefore has to be adapted to suit the masses, employing elements of popular culture and everyday forms of nationhood. Despite drawing its significance from the declaration of independence in 1960, however, Gabon's independence jubilee was less concerned with history and commemoration than with celebrating the state and the nation in the present. The ceremonial design of Gabon's jubilee featured intensive preparations, official ceremonies, popular festivities and symbolic politics. In this article, I look at why history and commemoration played such an unimportant role during the celebrations and how Gabon's jubilee organisers included official as well as popular forms of nationhood to assure the population's participation.     

The politics of recognition: symbols,nation building and rival nationalisms

ABSTRACT. Ceremonial initiatives linked to nation‐building projects are highly visible in multiethnic states, where governments seem to have adopted a Durkheimian approach in which ceremonies contribute to the strengthening of communities. However, national ceremonies are not invented or exported to other nations easily, as seen when outlining the pattern of a successful national day. A unifying narrative (sometimes the historical genesis) is significant in the establishment of successful national days, as is the nature of the national day design. The celebrations of the constitution in Norway – and the 77 year struggle to get the Norwegian flag officially recognised – became part of resisting the enforced union with Sweden (1814–1905). Therefore, the growth of Norwegian nationalism must be understood in the context of rival nationalisms in Scandinavia. However, Constitution Day (17 May) has remained a powerful component of Norwegian nationalism long since the constitution ceased to be threatened because of its incorporation in primary and secondary school curricula and, more recently, within the debate on multiculturalism.     

The mobilisation of identities: a study on the relationship between elite rhetoric and public opinion on national identity in developed democracies

Over the last decade, the topic of national‐identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national‐identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national‐identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national‐identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national‐identity, than inclusionary ones.     

Demography,diversity and nativism in contemporary Africa: evidence from Uganda

ABSTRACT. The relationship between population growth, ethnic diversity and conflict in the developing world is little understood but highly relevant to a large number of countries. In order to understand this relationship, I focus on a case study of local conflict in the district of Kibaale in western Uganda. Uganda's unusually high population growth rate and high level of ethnic diversity are often seen to have led to communal violence in Kibaale. Yet I claim that while this conflict was indeed sparked by population growth and resultant internal migration, it has nothing to do with ethnic diversity per se. Rather, the conflict in Kibaale has much more to do with nativism and the salience of claims to indigeneity at the local level. Kibaale may thus prove something of a warning sign for other parts of Uganda and other developing countries with similar high population growth and little success in nation‐building.     

Heroes and the renegotiation of national identity in American history textbooks: representations of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1982–2003

ABSTRACT. American history textbooks for the USA's public schools act as quasi‐official loci for the renegotiation of national identity and are, as such, subject to much controversy. The choice of heroes and the way in which textbooks depict them display the interplay between competing visions of popular ethno‐history and scholarly historiography. This article examines contemporary renegotiation of the national narrative through an analysis of the evolving representation of the USA's two most prominent traditional national heroes – George Washington and Abraham Lincoln – in history textbooks for elementary‐school students published from the early 1980s to 2003. This period marks the development of the multiculturalist movement and its subsequent conservative backlash, with debates intensifying in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001.     

Madagascar's independence jubilee: a nation's holiday in times of crisis

The fiftieth anniversary of Madagascar's independence in 2010 took place in the midst of political crisis. The transitory government staged large public parties to mark the Jubilee. Despite a public discussion about legitimacy and justification of this fact, the national holiday was lavishly celebrated. In Madagascar, Independence Day is also an important family event and emphasis was put on private celebrations including family feasts and reunions. As a result, it enhanced the participants' emotional attachment to their personal and local face‐to‐face milieu. This article asks how the golden jubilee was celebrated against a backdrop of political illegitimacy. I contrast official state‐led initiatives and individual agency in the private sphere and discuss how the national holiday has been appropriated and reinterpreted by the population as a family and community holiday. This article is based on qualitative ethnographical fieldwork in Antananarivo before, during and after the peak of the independence jubilee.     

南京国民政府国庆纪念中的辛亥记忆

国庆纪念是传承辛亥革命记忆的重要形式。南京国民政府时期,国民党通过国庆纪念仪式,不断打造并唤起人们的辛亥记忆;并通过自己所掌握的话语权与纪念宣传,完成对辛亥革命史事及意义的再建构。借助于辛亥记忆,国民党不断把自己的建国理念贯穿于国庆纪念之中,为国民党统治的合法性确立基础。     

Spatial processes and politics of renewable energy transition: Land,zones and frictions in South Africa

This paper seeks to make a contribution to on-going debates about how to conceptualise the spatial processes of renewable energy transition. It makes a case for understanding renewable energy transitions as simultaneously spatial and political processes, constitutive of new territories and configuring development pathways. Drawing on a case study of South Africa's Renewable Energy Independent Power Procurement Programme (REI4P), the paper explores the ways in which energy transitions are intrinsically bound up with both the materiality and the historical and contemporary politics of land. It then examines the relationship between energy transitions and territory to conceptualise the ways in which transitions take on an experimental shape in the form of 'zones'. The paper argues that these zones are new territories deploying forms of spatial and political-administrative exceptionality, which allow political and economic actors to exercise authority and commercial power. Two types of zone emerging from South Africa's energy transition exemplify these processes: legally-defined zones for the development of solar and wind energy and zones of socioeconomic development required by REI4P. The paper explores the spatial and political consequences of these strategies and suggests that these may not necessarily translate into conflict and confrontation, but instead produce uneasy co-existences of different political, social and spatial projects and interests, with potential to create new polities.     

A synopsis of the international symposium in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the 1911 Revolution

The International Symposium in Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the 1911 Revolution was held in Wuhan from 12 to 15 October 2011. Participants engaged in lively discussions around the following significant academic issues: the dilemma of the New Policy Reform of the Qing, the background of the 1911 Revolution, its historical process, the intellectual circles during the 1911 Revolution, politics and society, the main players, finance and economics during the revolutionary period, centennial memory and reinterpretations, and the historical meaning and legacy of the 1911 Revolution. The current article is a synopsis of the symposium.     

Identity of non‐self‐evident nation: Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union*

ABSTRACT. In this study the authors analyse Czech national identity after the break‐up of Czechoslovakia and before accession to the European Union. National identity is understood here as a construct consisting of several elements, four of which the authors analyse: territorial identity (localism, regionalism, patriotism, and Europeanism), the image of the nation – the cultural nation (ethno‐nation) and the political nation (state‐nation), national pride (in general, and in cultural performance and in the performance of the state), and love for the nation – nationalism (or more precisely, chauvinism) and patriotism. To create a more complex picture of Czech national identity the authors compare it with national identities in eleven other European countries. To conclude, the authors analyse the attitudes of Czechs toward the European Union, and national identity is used as an important explanatory element of the support for EU governance.     

东南亚华人的人类学研究：以区域及主题为分析焦点

本文的重点在于概述启始于上个世纪中期的人类学东南亚华人研究以及学者在不同时期偏重的各个方向。笔者并不企图在本文中完整、详细地讨论人类学者的东南亚华人研究成果 ,而是希望从不同地区及研究主题两个方面 ,概述半个世纪以来人类学者的东南亚华人研究重心、重要的转折以及新近的研究方向。     

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging,ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

ABSTRACT. The significance of national forms of imagination and organisation has been increasingly questioned in an era of rapid globalisation. While theoretically stimulating, those who stress the importance of global mobility and sociability sometimes overlook what well‐established, “thick” attachments to the nation offer to disparate individuals, notably in terms of anchoring subjectivity. This first part of this paper explores how debates around belonging in England continue to define certain “ethnic” groups as more or less national, because they embody certain traits, practices or norms. It is then suggested that those who claim, and are treated as if, they belong “without question” may be offered a key sense of material and ontological security that is underpinned through routine practices, symbolic forms and institutional arrangements. The second section looks to evidence this argument by exploring how challenges to this ontological order, which focus on the agency of “perceived” others in relation to everyday spaces, practices and material objects, are debated and resisted.     

中西传记史学的产生及其趋向之比较

中西传记的史学观念与中西所共有的原始宗教文化形式紧密相关,并在叙事史学的基础上得以产生。在古希腊罗马,由于自然崇拜、英雄崇拜和祖先崇拜在其文化结构中的矛盾运动,传记史学兴起后自成一体,与叙事史学并行不障;而中国则由于祖先崇拜长期占据优势,传记史学在叙事史学的基础上产生后,遂将叙事史学同传记史学结合起来,定为一尊,形成正统的史学体裁。比较研究中西传记史学的产生及其趋向具有重要的现实意义。     

Repertoires of national boundaries in France and Germany—within‐country cleavages and their political consequences

This article analyses how members of the majority population in France and Germany define membership in the nation and how they relate to the various civic, cultural, or ethnic visions of national belonging available in the cultural repertoires of historical models, institutional arrangements, and elite discourses. To scrutinize within‐country differences in the configurations of the symbolic boundaries of national belonging, this article applies cluster analysis techniques for each country separately using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). Overall, the results suggest that people choose and arrange different criteria from cultural repertoires, resulting in various configurations of national boundaries. Furthermore, the number and types of symbolic boundaries used are decisive for explaining restrictive and hostile attitudes towards immigrants. Contrary to the civic and ethnic historical models, the national boundary configurations display very similar patterns across the two countries, especially attesting to the considerable process of liberalization of citizenship regulations in Germany.