Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) is a fully-refereed journal on ethnicity, identity and nationalism, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN). The sources and nature of ethnic identity, minority rights, migration and identity politics remain central and recurring themes of the modern world. The journal approaches the complexity of these questions from a contemporary perspective and, based on the latest scholarship, draws on a range of disciplines including political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, international relations, history and cultural studies.
Category Archives: 15th Anniversary Blogs
National Identity in a Multi-ethnic Context
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By Elinor George, MA in International Development, University of East Anglia
At this point in Nepal’s development, the issue of national identity is of particular importance. Having become a secular, federal republic in 2007, Nepal’s democratic experience is at a relatively infant stage, and the divisions within its society continue to be reflected in its politics. Since Nepal’s conception in 1768, the Hill Hindu high caste groups have been dominant within the society, and have focused national identity around their fundamental characteristics. As such, one of the most repressed groups, both historically and contemporaneously, are the Madhesis, who mainly live in the lowland area close to the Indian border. They have frequently protested for the recognition of their rights by the state, most notably in their 2015 blockade of the Indian border, which nearly brought the country to an economic and political standstill. Given this major division in society, which threatens the stability, and potentially, unity of the country, this blog asks the question – to what extent is it possible to create a truly inclusive, national identity in a multi-ethnic society like Nepal?
Beyond Nasty Nationalists and Good Patriots: What the World Cup Can Tell Us about the Continuing Significance of Nationalism.
By Michael Skey
That is all folks! France won, Croatia should have won, and Russia managed to bolster its poor international image. However, the recent outbreak of flag-waving, goal cheering and meme-making, otherwise known as the world cup, also offers a partial rebuke to the idea that in an era of rapid globalisation nations are no longer relevant to people’s lives.
In England, the ability of the national team to avoid abject humiliation, and somehow stumble into the latter stages of the competition, generated scenes of wild celebration and led some to ponder on the difference between ‘healthy patriotism’ and nasty nationalism. This is in accord with most people’s understanding of nationalism as something pernicious, extreme or uncivilised that generally involves snarling, shaven-headed brutes or callous right-wing ideologues.
Cultural Constructions of Nation and Nationality
By Dr. Michael Goodrum, Department of History, Canterbury Christ Church University
Nations exist as constructed spaces, both geographically and emotionally. Political projects of defining borders and allocating national identity to the incumbents of those spaces, as in President Woodrow Wilson’s rhetoric of ‘self-determination’ after the First World War, can only do so much. The national spaces carved out by Wilson were homogenous, a move away from the polyglot empires of the long nineteenth century such as the Habsburg and the Ottoman. Nationalist projects have often fallen back on mythic histories to provide a sense of permanence, the notion that rather than a political construct imposed on the landscape, this space is historically ‘ours’, and to foster a sense of community among those who live there. Language plays a key part in this, as do the products of language such as literature, both academic and popular.
What’s Going on under the National Sheets?
By Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor (Maître de conférences), Université Bordeaux Montaigne
Almost all of us do it. In many countries, it permeates popular culture. Some people think it’s delicious. Others find it vulgar or distasteful. It can be a basic part of survival and a source of meaning and pleasure. It happens in almost every home and even on lots of street corners. In short, it’s happening everywhere. And I’m not talking about eating hamburgers. I’m talking about sex.
Despite this utter ubiquity of “doing it,” social scientists have given sex far less attention than other equally universal human behaviours. That is not to say that people from artists and writers to priests and parents haven’t paid attention to it. On the contrary, sex is something of an obsession that is at once taboo and omnipresent. But perhaps because of its simultaneous association with morality and vulgarity, social scientists—the people whose job it is to study human behavior—have often rejected the topic or relegated it the sidelines. That ignorance has led us to think sex isn’t related to the kinds of issues that SEN readers care about, such as national identity and ethnic communities.