The Shifting Landscapes of ‘Nationalism’

By Anthony D. Smith

Volume 8, Issue 2, pages 317-330

Abstract

The field of study that comprises nations and nationalism is often seen as riven by a conflict between ‘modernists’ and their opponents. In fact, the field is far more fragmented than such a characterisation suggests. From the very first normative critical essays 150 years ago, it has been composed of shifting landscapes in which different approaches and perspectives overlap and cross‐cut each other like intersecting monologues. While there was a short period of engagement in the 1980s, a ‘classic debate’ between modernists, perennialists and ethno‐symbolists who embraced a macro‐analytic framework and a causal‐historical methodology, the familiar landscape has radically shifted to reveal a series of deconstructionist strategies and techniques; and while rational choice theories, among others, continue to embrace causal‐historical analysis, there has been a rejection in many quarters of both macro‐analytic narratives and causal‐historical analysis. The new anti‐essentialist strategies include feminist critiques, the study of everyday nationhood, the hybridisation of national identities, and debates about the ‘ethics of nationalism’ which echo earlier critiques. Above all, there is a new concern with the application of globalising trends to nations and nationalism, and especially with the role of nations without states, and the impact of supranationalism, large‐scale migration and ‘religious nationalisms’.

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