National Identity

The book shows how national days are best understood in the context of debates about national identity. It argues that national days are contested and manipulated, as well as subject to political, cultural and social pressure. It brings together some of the most recent research on national days and sets it in a comparative context.

Traces changes in Andean artists' vision of indigenous peoples as well as shifts in the critical discourse surrounding their work between 1920 and 1960.

Interest in the study of national identity as a collective phenomenon is a growing concern among the social and political sciences. This book addresses the scholarly interest in examining the origins of ideologies and social practices that give historical meaning, cohesion and uniqueness to modern national communities. It focuses on the various routes taken towards the construction of cultural authenticity as an inspirational purpose of nation-building and reveals the diversity of the themes, practices and symbols used to encourage self-identification and communality. Among the techniques explored are the dramatization of suffering and tragedy, the exaltation of heroes and deeds, the evocation of landscape, nature and the arts and the delimitation of collective values to be pursued during reconstruction in post-war periods.

A comparative study of immigration and ethnicity with an emphasis on the Chinese, Japanese, and Arabs who have contributed to Brazil's diverse mix.

In this groundbreaking book, Katrina Schwartz examines the intersection of environmental politics, globalization, and national identity in a small East European country: modern-day Latvia. Based on extensive ethnographic research and lively discourse analysis, it explores that country's post-Soviet responses to European assistance and political pressure in nature management, biodiversity conservation, and rural development. These responses were shaped by hotly contested notions of national identity articulated as contrasting visions of the “ideal” rural landscape. The players in this story include Latvian farmers and other traditional rural dwellers, environmental advocates, and professionals with divided attitudes toward new European approaches to sustainable development. An entrenched set of forestry and land management practices, with roots in the Soviet and pre-Soviet eras, confront growing international pressures on a small country to conform to current (Western) notions of environmental responsibility—notions often perceived by Latvians to be at odds with local interests. While the case is that of Latvia, the dynamics Schwartz explores have wide applicability and speak powerfully to broader theoretical discussions about sustainable development, social constructions of nature, the sources of nationalism, and the impacts of globalization and regional integration on the traditional nation-state.

Since it emergence in the 19th century in response to feudalism, nationalism has been a mixed blessing. Originally seen as a positive force, often enough it has resulted in warfare and persecution of minorities, so much so that, over time, it has been considered a social evil whose apparent decline has been greeted as a positive development. The author disputes this or rather, he maintains that the picture that emerges is more complex: nationalism is not disappearing but has taken on a different form. What we are experiencing is an increasing autonomy of ethnonations, i.e. nations without a state, in the wake of a weakening of the multinational states and the transfer of their sovereignty upwards, in the case of Europe to the federation of the European Union, and downwards to the "ethnonations." Catalonia is the major case study in this book but it is embedded in a comprehensive theoretical framework as well as the historical and contemporary reality of Europe, opening up a new perspective. The author, one of the foremost scholars in this field, brilliantly succeeds in developing an original, clear and comprehensive vision of nationalism that is accessible to a wide readership.

Casts new light on of the 'official' French nineteenth-century narrative by examining how historians and philosophers conceived of the country's past.

Investigates the concept of 'national identity' based on twenty years of empirical evidence.