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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Boundaries in Shaping the Rohingya Identity and the Shifting Context of Borderland Politics

By Kazi Fahmida Farzana

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 292-314

Abstract

In recent years, new waves of ethnic violence in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Burma (Myanmar) have resulted in increased internal displacement and the continued exodus of the Rohingya people to neighbouring countries. At the heart of this problem is the fact that Burma (which the Rohingyas claim as their ancestral land) and Bangladesh (where many Rohingyas are unwelcome and/or undocumented refugees) continue to deny the Rohingyas their political identity, each insisting that the displaced Rohingyas are the responsibility of the other. This study examines the history of the region to explore how political identities are shaped (generally) and how Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, living along the borders, identify themselves in the midst of political sovereignty claims and a social space that exists across artificially drawn borders (specifically). This article argues that the true political identity of the displaced Rohingya refugees can be located in their social memory and their life-politics in the borderlands. In this social memory, the Rohingyas’ beliefs in ethnicity, identity, and belongingness play an important role in shaping their current identity. Their production of cultural artefacts while in exile suggests a non-conventional resistance, and the close proximity of the refugees to their homeland creates a completely different psychology of attachment and alienation, which needs further attention in refugee studies. Such an understanding of life-politics along the border may challenge our current understanding of borderland conflicts within the framework of state-imposed boundaries. The boundaries of identity may go beyond traditional notions of national borders and the identity of the state.

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Intensive Transnationalism amongst Japanese Migrants after the Great East Japan Earthquake: Voices from Diasporic Blogs

By Atsushi Takeda

Volume 15, Issue 3, pages 492-507

Abstract

This article explores how Japanese migrants responded to the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 by analysing personal weblogs published by Japanese migrants across the globe. The analysis of their blog posts demonstrates the collective response of Japanese overseas citizens to a crisis in their homeland. Their narratives reveal their emotional reactions, such as frustration, heartache, and guilt, and delineate how this catastrophe affected their sense of national identity and solidarity. As well as shedding light on these responses, the data further serve to crystallize the way in which Japanese migrants’ transnationalism intensifies following homeland disasters.

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