National Identity and the Geo-Soul: Spiritually Mapping Siam

By Jacob I. Ricks

Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 120-141

Abstract

This paper investigates the re-centring of religious identity within the geo-body in the developing world through the case study of Thailand, formerly Siam. Although by 1932, monarchic rule and colonial powers had demarcated the ‘geo-body’ of Siam, the national soul was not yet fully cultivated. After the fall of the absolute monarchy, Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram sought to mould the religio-national identity of Thailand until the religious community’s borders coincided with those of the nation-state. One focus of nationalist leaders’ efforts was the adaptation and promotion of Buddhist temples throughout the state. These temples became markers of both geographic and cosmological space, serving to infuse the geographic body with a religio-national soul. Thus, the nationalism that developed embraced the fusion of the religious identity with the national identity.

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Landscapes of ‘Othering’ in Postwar and Contemporary Germany: The Limits of the ‘Culture of Contrition’ and the Poverty of the Mainstream

By Aristotle Kallis

Volume 12, Special Features Section on Creating the ‘Other’ in Germany and Britain, pages 387–407

Abstract

In the 1930s the National Socialist regime embarked on a chillingly ambitious and fanatical project to ‘remake’ German society and ‘race’ by deploying a peerless – in both kind and intensity – repertoire of ‘othering’ strategies and measures directed at the Jews, the Sinti/Roma, and non-conformist groups within the Third Reich. At the heart of this campaign was the notion of a ‘zero-sum’ confrontation between the nation/race and its perceived ‘enemies’: namely, that the existence of these ‘enemies’ within German society threatened the very foundations of the German ‘race’ and posed the gravest threat to its mere survival. To what extent can the experience of the 1930s aggressive, violent, and eventually murderous ‘zero-sum’ mindset provide crucial insights into contemporary discourses of ‘othering’, linked with the European radical-populist right but increasingly ‘infecting’ the social and political mainstream? The contemporary ‘ethno-pluralist’ framing of the discussion divulges the persistence of a similar ‘zero-sum’ mentality that is nurtured by socio-economic and cultural insecurity, on the one hand, and powerful long-standing prejudices against particular groups, on the other. The article explores this ‘zero-sum’ insecurity mindset in the anti-immigration ‘mainstream’ discourses in the Federal Republic of Germany, both before and after re-unification. It demonstrates how – in contrast to the postwar ‘culture of contrition’ with regard to the memory of the Holocaust – this mindset continues to be a powerful political and psychological refuge for societal insecurities that has an enduring appeal to significant audiences well beyond the narrow political constituencies of the radical right.

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Building the Spanish Nation: The Centre-Periphery Dialectic

By Diego Muro and Alejandro Quiroga

Volume 4, Issue 2, pages 18-37

Abstract

This paper provides an historical overview of Spain’s nation-building process from the nineteenth century to the present time. Using Stein Rokkan’s centre-periphery paradigm, the paper argues that a pervasive feature in contemporary Spanish history is the dialectical relationship between the Spanish nation and the peripheral nations of Catalonia and the Basque Country. From this perspective, the Spanish nation-building process is understood as one of the main triggering events for the emergence of peripheral nationalisms at the end of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, tensions between the core and the periphery help to explain why Spain has a quasi-federal institutional structure. Recent interest in ‘constitutional patriotism’ for example, can only be understood in relation to Catalan and Basque initiatives to reform their autonomy status.

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