State or Diaspora: Jewish History as a Form of National Belonging

By Yitzhak Conforti

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 230-250

Abstract

This study addresses the writing of Jewish history as a form of national belonging in Israel and in the Diaspora. Simon Dubnow laid the foundation for Jewish national historiography in the beginning of the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1920s, Zionist historians in Palestine emphasized the centrality of the Land of Israel in Jewish history, while Jewish historians in the Diaspora preferred an elliptical model, which recognized two national centres – ‘Babylon and Jerusalem’. In the 1930s, a debate broke out between two principal Jewish historians, Salo Baron and Yitzhak Baer. While Baer stressed the Zionist conception of Jewish history, Baron emphasized the world dimensions of Jewish history. Similarly, during the 1950s a dispute arose between Jewish scholar Simon Rawidowicz and David Ben-Gurion. For Rawidowicz, a Jewish centre in the Diaspora was parallel in significance to the State of Israel. By contrast, for Ben-Gurion only a Jewish nation-state could provide true Jewish national belonging. In this article, I analyse both arguments and draw conclusions for the current relationship between Israeli historical awareness and the use of Jewish history in the Diaspora.

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A Sacred Bastion? A Nation in Itself? An Economic Partner of Rising China? Three Waves of Nation-Building in Taiwan after 1949

By Hsin-Yi Yeh

Volume 14, Issue 1, pages 207-228

Abstract

Agreeing with the constructivist approach to nationalism, this article argues that the prevailing ambiguous attitude towards nationality among people in Taiwan is a reflection of different waves of nation-building − each led people to imagine a distinct nation − and the mixture of these waves during past decades. Whereas all nations are artificially imagined, ‘the style in which they are imagined’ should be examined. This article aims to distinguish three waves of nation-building in Taiwan after 1949 and address the issue of superimposition of contradictory elements in producing nation-ness to highlight that nation-building is a path-dependent process. Three suppositions can be derived from the investigation of Taiwan’s case. First, people are not empty vessels and the new national imagination has to compete and coexist with vestiges and crystallizations of former imaginations. Second, the content of a single nation-building programme may be reinvented according to the external and/or internal environment. Third, depending on the social atmosphere, official nationalism may adopt a different method to instil the national imagination.

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From Multiculturalism to Multifaithism?

A Panel Debate

Tope Omoniyi, Joshua A. Fishman

Volume 10, Issue 2, pages 315-318

Opening paragraph

Omoniyi has defined ‘multifaithism’ as ‘providing access to the data of intra-network and inter-network variation in religious practice and in behaviour directed towards religion’ (2006:124). It is the institutional recognition of multiple faiths by the state and the granting of equal rights and protection to devotees by law. From another perspective, it is the accommodation of and participation in the practices of more than one faith, including even only the observance of religious holidays and festivals such as Christmas, Eid, Divali, and so on by individuals and communities…

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Multi-Ethnic Parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Naša Stranka and the Paradoxes of Postethnic Politics

By Heleen Touquet

Volume 11, Issue 3, pages 451-467

Abstract

To what extent is political mobilisation across ethnic boundaries possible in states with highly ethnicised state structures? This article explores the opportunities and obstacles that activists in Bosnia-Herzegovina meet when they seek to develop integrative discourses as a basis for political action. The first part of the article focuses on the role of multi-ethnic parties in deeply divided societies. The second part develops alternative ideas on the obstacles facing multi-ethnic parties in Bosnia, focusing on the case of Naša Stranka, a political party that was established by civil society actors. There are two conclusions to be drawn. First, despite the centrifugal nationalisms that seem to dominate the top political level, there are civil society actors in Bosnia who engage in integrative political mobilisation. Second, these actors face difficulties that go beyond the often-cited problem of the tendency of the constitutional state structure to reify ethnic identities.

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The Emergence of a New Form of Mexican Nationalism in San Antonio, Texas

By Luis Xavier Rangel-Ortiz

Volume 11, Issue 3, pages 384-403

Abstract

This article explores the role played by a growing community of Mexican national entrepreneurs who are crafting a new form of Mexican nationalism in San Antonio, Texas. This population of Mexican business people is growing in size and influence in the city. The experiences of Mexican entrepreneurs differ from understood forms of Mexican immigration and acculturation to the United States. They differ from previous waves of affluent groups of political and religious Mexican refugees that flourished in San Antonio from 1908 through the 1940s. The integration and cultural adaptation experiences of Mexican entrepreneurs represent a new form of Mexican nationalism that engages both Mexican and American nationalisms in a bidirectional acculturation process. Blending attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours of both countries represent a new form of Mexican and American culture emerging in San Antonio at the beginning of the twenty-first century. To better understand the experiences and dynamics of these business people, this study builds on Pierre Bourdieu’s principles of capital and power.

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