How Do People Identify with Nations? PDF Past Paper

CHAPTEF CHAPTER 12 Does...

CHAPTEF CHAPTER 12 Does Micha How do people come to identify with nations? Elena Barabantseva T The question NATIONAL AFFILIATIONS W G Illustrntive exa mple THE MARGINS OF THE CHINESE NATION Gencral resp01Ses B A NATIONALISM STUDIES Bronder issucs C TRANSNATIONALISM AND HYBRIDITY CONCLUSION THE QU STATES, THE OUESTION Untilrecent NATIONAL AFFILIATIONS Cxlhausted b State formati When wve are asked where we are from, we rarely have second thoughts about our was usually national affiliations. We readily come to identify oursclves as English, Irish, Algerian, historical tra Kurdish, German, or perhaps highlight our mixed background as Turkish-German, With re American-Chinese, and so forth. What is it thar prompts us to associate with a focused on particular national community? What factors drive and influcnce this identification process? a bounded The question of how we come to identify with a nation is central to polising of v fiscal contro politics.Ethnic and national differences and particularly their mobilisation Chapter s discusses for political ends have been and bureauc identity politics and at the core of many violent conflicts and mentions vio'ent confict centralising poliical campaigns in distant and recent history. We recurrently see the in the forner Yugoslavia; become a se destructive power of ethnic tensios in the world, be it on the streets of Chapter 13 discusses instances when markers Sarajevo during the Bosnian war's deliberate bombings of the central of national identiry do market in 1994, of Bradford during the ethnic riots between Asian and not work. white residents in July 2001, or of Lhasa during the Tibetan unrests in  HOW DO PECOPLE COME TO IDENTIFY WITH NATIONS? 235 2008. The markers of distinction, such as language, religion, or descent lie at the crux of identity politics and ethnic conflicts, yer it is not obvious why in certain situations these markers create boundaries of separation and spark conflicts and in other cases they do not. The nation is, to say the least, a oncept fraught with tensions. For some it is the produet natural and objective allegiances, and for others it is a modern construct of attributed to the growth of modern technology and ideologies. Although it is common in political discourse to refer to a nation-state as a basic unit of analysis, it is useful for the purposes of analysis to kcep the nation distinct from the state, as the majority of states present themsclves as multiethnic or multinational. The discursive practices of nationalism serve to maintain, sustain, normalise, and trivialise the socio-cultural boundaries of the society. Politicians often resort to national sentiments to achicve Chapter 11 discusses political ends, independence,greater autonomy, or anti-immigration suclh as legislation. territorial boundaries Even if most of us have not witnessed violent forms of nationalism, we certainly have and why they arose. come across or even taken part in its everyday cxpressions. Hoisting a national flag, celebration of national holidays, supporting a national tcam during international sport events, singing the national anthem, and voting in televised competitions like the annual Eurovision Song Contest are all examples of moments when pcople express their national lovalties. Isuggest in this chapter that how we come to identify with nations is most promi nently expressed in marginal spaces, boundaries, fractures, or limits of what is,otherwise often assumed to be a cohecrent national community. At their margins concepts, like a nation, become fraved, revealing the complexity of assumptions that at the centre appear a seamless whole. Examining the relational position of marginal groups in nationalist discourses offers a perspective highlighting the contested and complex nature of the nation. The analysis of how marginal groups figure in the domin ant national narratives sheds light on how the nation takes shape against the backdrop of human diversity found within and outside of its assumed boundaries. The focus on the margins also illuminates where and how the lines of inclusion and exclusion in the Chapter 13 focuses also national project are drawn. on such marginal groups within the nation, and The marginal spaces and voices of the nation could take different expressions also examines stories depending on which of the analytical categories are considered. In this chapter I of exile. consider the role of ethnic factors and territoriality in constructing a nation. Marginality here denotes the position groups on and territorial cultural edges of what is assumed of n, to be the national core or majority. Although the margins of any nation would be n, worth analysing, the chapter takes a closer look at the configurations of the Chinese lar nation. to on ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE nd THE MARGINS OF THE CHINESE NATION he of To have a berter idea of how Chinese rulers have viewed and treated people at China's ral ethnic and territorial margins, we should briefly dwell on the history ofChinese rulers nd interactions with both culturally different people and so-called overseas Chinese Chincse people living outside their place of birth or origin in China.  236 ELENA BARABANTSEVA From empire to nation Since the frst unifed Chinese state (221 BCE), Chinese emperors referred totheir domains as the central state (slhongguo) and distinguished betwcen people whoinhalbited the central state's territories and those who lived outside them. The corc of Chinese civilisation lay within the central state, while the populations outside it were barbaris The Empire signiicantly enlarged when the nomadic Manchus overthrew the Mis dynasty in 1644 and expanded the expanses of the Empire through the conguest Xinjiang, southwest China, Tibet, Mongolia,and Taiwan. The Manchu court had to tackle the dual problem of establishing their legitimate authority in the Empire and guarantecing the unity the growing multiethnic political entity. They populariscd of the idea that the Center and the Outer are one family' to emphasise the universalism and multiethnic character of their cmpire (Leibold 2007: 10-11; Zhao 2006: 6-7). The formulation of ncw national concepts and categorics of distinction were integral to the transformation of Chinese imperial structure into the modern state. Ncw administrative divisions, cthnographic categorisation, and the promotion the idea of of a multiethnic entity were all used to hclp transform imperial subjects into national citizens (Crossley 1999). This suggests that the processes associated with nation Categorisation on the basis of ethnicity crafting were alrcady part of the Chinesc imperial or governing structure. indeed race can be In the late nineteenth century the new seen political ternn had cntered the Chincsc in many parts of the political vocabulary. Competing political groups employed the notion minzu or world. Chapter 5 touches nation on the examples of to propagate new kinds of political allegiances among the Chinese. At the time China the United States, was subjected to the status of a semi-colonial state by European and Japanese powers, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. and the term minzu signalled the emergence of Chapter 4 explains the idea of a new Chinese nation independent of foreign apartheid, a system of influences. For Sun Yatsen, the father of the modern Chinese legal racial segregetion nation, minzu was about 'common blood'. Hefamously referred to the Chinese nation which was enfor:ced as the Ycllow Race, using minzu to ir. South cquate the political unit of Africa from 1948 'nation' with the biological unit of 'race'. to 1994 Minsuzhuyi, or the doctrine of minzn', was one the principles Sun Yatsen's of of Tbre Principles thePeople (Sun 198l), Toprevent of separatist implications as a result of excluding ethnic groups from the racially defined nation, the leaders of the republican Chinese government coincd a new zhonghua mingguo (Chincse Republic) - inclusive term to make the new with the Chinese nation of five Chinese state coterminous nationalities (minzu): Han, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, and Muslims. In doing this, they cquated boundarics of the new Chinese nation-state with the outline of the old Qing Empire. white and black on the The stripes of red, vellow, blue, five-colour national flag symbolised the harmonious of five cthnic tribes' cohabitation (muzugonghe) in one single nation. In a parallel development, Sun Yatsen and his of common descent and followers resorted to the discourse culture to encourage overseas Chinese to contribute cause of the Chinese to the Republic. Although banned for a long time rule, overscas during the dynastic migration was popular among Chinese in the coastal mid-nineteenth century areas, and by the hundreds of thousands of overseas Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia. Late-Qing became wealthy officials and the leaders of rcalised the potential Republican China significance of overseas Chinese for the Chinese project, and they made extensive nation-building cfforts to raise overseas Chinese for contributions and investments from development projects in China. The term buagiao (Chinese  nation-state to PEOPLE COME TO WITH NATIONS? 237 their HOWDO IDENTIFY abited hapiro nese s 110 120 S be ATIONS, AND ALLEGI MONGOLIA MANCHURA exampl ZUNGHARIA Desert FUNEASE WITHIN Gobi (military administration KOREA ). 1757) OHami ral F COHERENT NATI ot EAST TURKESTAN (military administration ATIVE POLITICAL I 1759) n ON TIBET H rs, AND ALLEGIANNC he MING AND MANCHU QING IMPERIAL BORDERS iern political thinking t Qiongrhou (Hainan) Luzon interrelated historica Area under Ming oynasty Recuildingof tne Grear Wa in that of nation-buiáng Adoitiona area under Manchu 140h ceraury 1760 South n the basis of the gcc nasty 1S-16h centures in Manchu vassa state 18th certy NAM China Sea omation. State part of the hyp which states wecre for Is, SC aricty of historical ac d disaming diverse tem to overseas Chinese. This term was intended FIGURE ulation. and establish 2 reter to sojourner) becamnc a popular ImperialChinz: Ming of overscas Chinese in the hope that thev would