Archaeology and Nationalism: Excavating the Foundations of Identity

Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Timothy C. Champion Nationalism and Archeology in Europe. P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones, C. Gamble (eds.) Cultural Identity and Archaeology: the Construction of European Communities. P. Kohl, C. Fawcett (eds.) Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology.     

Imagining an Archaeology of the Future: Capitalism and Colonialism Past and Present

This paper explores how doing history backward may allow archaeologists to begin imagining an archaeology of the future. The purpose of such an archaeology would be two-fold: first, to examine the past from the vantage point of the present as a way of better understanding the past as precondition, and second, to critically examine the present with an eye toward imagining how archaeology might be able to influence the future. Drawing on case studies that offer windows on the growth of capitalist production and the continuing impacts of colonialism, this paper seeks to demonstrate the power of using archaeology to link past and present. By focusing on the ideological dimensions of processes such as commoditization and the erasure of indigenous histories I hope to highlight the value of doing history backward and its potential for constructing an archaeology of the future.     

Normative Justifications for Liberal Nationalism: Justice,Democracy and National Identity

The essay examines a prominent normative defence of nationalism, which links shared nationality with the attainment of the goods of liberal justice and democratic governance. The essay first considers the argument that liberal values, and especially the value of social justice, will best be promoted in states whose members share a common nationality. In its strong form, this argument is vulnerable to counter‐instances. A weaker version, which claims that in states divided in terms of national identities, social justice may be precarious over the long term, is more plausible. The second part of the essay argues that there is a close relationship between democracy and shared national identity. This section spells out precisely how a common national identity is helpful both for representative institutions to function properly and for widespread participation on the part of ordinary citizens.     

Nationalism,Ethnicity and Religion: Fundamental Conflicts and the Politics of Identity in Tanzania

Abstract. This article explores the competing relations between ethnic, religious and racial identities in contemporary Tanzania at a time of rapid socioeconomic change and in the face of the declining authority and legitimacy of the state. During nearly four decades of one-party rule the state has pursued policies - educational, linguistic, developmental, etc. - aimed at constructing a secular national identity capable of uniting diverse social groups under the banner of African socialism. However, economic retrenchment in the 1980s and political liberalisation in the 1990s has contributed directly to a series of upheavals leading many Tanzanians to redefine the structures of common difference and to a fracturing of national identity. This article seeks to understand the reasons for the upsurge of conflict and cultural fragmentation in the 1990s.     

Resisting Traditions: Ceramics, Identity, and Consumer Choice in the Outer Hebrides from 1800 to the Present

On a number of levels, peripheral status has been imposed on the Outer Hebrides (Scotland) since the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745. Drawing on a series of interviews with Hebridean families, this paper explores the changing meanings of ceramics imported into the islands from the early nineteenth century and displayed on wooden dressers. It is argued that in renegotiating their identity in the face of a series of externally generated economic changes, rural communities in the Hebrides have acted as thoughtful consumers, appropriating mainland material culture to their own ends. Throughout this process, imports have behaved ambiguously. This ambiguity is crucial to our understanding of the relationship—here characterized not as resistance but as resistant adaptation—between the Hebrides and the mainland.     

Imagining Ukraine: Regional Differences and the Emergence of an Integrated State Identity, 1926–1994

Abstract. When Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, it did not possess an integrated Ukrainian state identity. Serious differences between those regions which entered the Russian empire and the Soviet Union before 1939 and those annexed since 1939 hampered the creation of a post-Soviet state identity. Just as the Ukrainian and Russian languages dominate in different regions in Ukraine, attitudes towards economic reform also vary by region. Russian-speaking areas are more conservative in regard to economic reforms than Ukrainian-speaking ones. But despite these regional differences, Ukraine is not on the verge of civil war. Two public opinion polls taken in 1991 and 1994 in Lviv (in Western Ukraine) and in Donetsk (in Eastern Ukraine) document that the citizens of Ukraine possess a common desire for peace and stability. This desire overshadows Ukraine's regional differences and will help create the new post-Soviet Ukrainian state identity.     

民族主义与国际认同之间--以刘师培的中国人种、文明西来说为例

清朝末年,中国人种、文明自西而来的说法颇为流行,博得章太炎、刘师培、梁启超等知名学者与思想家的推崇。作为国粹派的主将,刘师培能够接受法国汉学家拉克伯里的影响,承认以华夏族为代表的中国人种、文明自西方巴比伦而来,显然基于多方面因素。政治上,此说有助于作为激进民族主义者的刘师培以及国粹派中人实现他们排满复汉的奋斗目标。学术上,此说与他们“借西学证明中学”,从而使国粹获得一种相对普遍的价值的主张相吻合。究其实,这反映出他们的一种两全心态——保持民族特性的同时获得国际认同。不过,两全心态同时也带来了两难困境。因为在民族主义与国际认同之间,存在着显而易见的紧张关系,不易两全。刘师培等人1907年后放弃此说,就在于他们无力从这种困境中解脱出来。