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TAMIL NATION LIBRARY: Nations & Nationalism
- Ethnicity and Nationalism edited by Anthony D. Smith
- International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, Volume LX
published by E.J.Brill, Leiden, New York, Koln, 1992 [ISBN 90 04 09609 4]
From the Introduction by Anthony D.Smith:
"... What, I think, distinguishes the last twenty years from earlier periods in the
study of nationalism is the growing convergence of two fields, which had been formerly
treated as separate: the study of ethnicity and ethnic community, and the analysis of
national identity and nationalism. The former had been largely the preserve of
anthropologists and social psychologists, and had focused on small-scale communities,
often in Third World areas. The latter had been the province of historians, for whom the
ideology (and ethics) of nationalism was paramount. Nationalism was seen as a 'force',
non-logical if not irrational, one which swept away traditional barriers and ushered in a
new era of national conflicts and mass terror, a view reinforced by nationalism's alleged
role in two World Wars.
The ethnic revival in the West, starting in the early 1960s, led to a reassessment of both
'ethnicity' and 'nationalism', and to the realisation that they were, both as empirical
realities and fields of study, intimately related. The growth of support for Basque,
Catalan, Breton, Flemish, Scots and Welsh ethnic autonomy, as well as that of a host of
smaller ethnic communities, widened the concept of 'neo-nationalism' to include dimensions
that had previously been taken for granted or treated as nationalist rhetoric.
| It became clear that so-called 'nation-building' which centred on the
construction of national institutions by state elites, favoured the integration and
ultimate assimilation of ethnic minorities by the culture of the dominant ethnic majority
in each Western state. But, with the reaction against bureaucracy and its mechanical
rationalism, and the rising tide of popular activism fuelled by a belief in authenticity
and subjective participation, scholars soon came to realise that, in the words of Walker
Connor, nation-building is also nation-destroying.. |
.... There is no way now to hold apart the earlier study of ethnic identities and
intermarriage patterns which prevailed in several parts of the world, from an
understanding of their political repercussions. Conversely, it is increasingly difficult
to investigate the patterns of nationalist activities and secession movements without
invoking underlying ethnic configurations....
A second trend which distinguishes the study of ethnicity and nationalism in the last
twenty years is the much closer attention given to its social background and to the
contribution of social groups and Classes...Of the social groups which were more
consistently involved in nationalist movements, the intelligentsia have received
particular attention.... Their key role is related to the continuing importance of
cultural concerns and cultural nationalism in recent movements for ethnic autonomy and
separatism....
A third development stems from some of the recent work in political science.... on the
consociational systems found in the democracies of certain plural societies, such as
Belgium, Holland and Canada.... Clearly, the question of how polyethnic states can survive
the centrifugal pressures released by democratisation, while preserving their democratic
gains, is one that raises pertinent questions about the relationships between ethnicity,
democracy and nationalism....
....This raises the whole question of' the place of minorities (who may in fact constitute
numerical majorities) in plural states which are striving to create or maintain a
particular vision of' national identity...
....Finally, there is the recent trend in much of the scholarly work on nations and
nationalism to emphasise, not just their wholly modern bases, but their peculiarly
constructed and imagined quality... the nation itself has been deconstructed and
revealed as part of a nationalist discourse about 'imagined community', and as a series
of' 'invented traditions' in an era of' rapid change and political mobilisation...
....The views expressed in this special issue represent several of the main lines of
enquiry and positions adopted in the current study of ethnicity and nationalism...." |
