Transcript Slide 1

Topic: “…an imagined…community”
• Aim: To what extent have ethnicities
been transformed into nationalities?
• Do Now: Take 2 minutes (I’ll time
you), and write down everyone who
you know at this school (first names
only is fine).
• List as many as you can.
• When you are finished count the
names and record the number.
• You will never know most of the people in this building,
but you think of yourself as sharing something with themthe fact that you are all SHS students
• You think of yourself as SHS students because you share
the same physical space, outside of which is no longer
considered SHS
• You think of yourself as a SHS student because this school
is independent from other schools
• Essentially, your allegiance to SHS mirrors Anderson’s
thesis on the modern nation-state….how???
“…of the nation…it is an imagined political
community- and imagined as both inherently
limited and sovereign.” Benedict Anderson

“It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation
will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even
hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion”

“The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them,
encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if
elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations.”

“It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age
in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the
legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm”
Key Terms:
1. Nation: group of people with same cultural
background- same as a cultural group2. State: distinct area organized into an, sovereign
political unit and ruled by an established
government with control over internal and foreign
affairs, economic activity, and public services
(state=country)
3. Nation-state: a state whose territory corresponds to
that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been
transformed into a nationality
STATES:
•Space or territory which has
internationally recognized
boundaries -people who live there
on an ongoing basis.
•Economic activity and an
organized economy. A country
regulates foreign and domestic
trade and issues money.
•Has a government which provides
public services (transportation) and
police power.
•Has sovereignty. No other State
should have power over the
country's territory.
NATIONS:
•Nations are culturally
homogeneous groups of people,
larger than a single tribe or
community, which share a common
language, institutions, religion, and
historical experience.
•There are some States which have
two nations, such as Canada and
Belgium.
•There are nations without States.
For example, the Kurds,
Palestinians, and gypsies are
stateless people.
The NationState:
• Ethnicities desire for self-determination
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries led to the political boundaries of
Earth becoming a series of nation-states.
• Places like France, Egypt, Germany, and
Japan are excellent examples of nationstates.
• There are some states which have two
nations, such as Canada and Belgium. Even
with its multicultural society, the United
States is also referred to as a nation-state
because of the shared American "culture."
• Most of Western Europe was a collection of
nation-states by 1900
Denmark as a Nation-State:
• Territory occupied by
Danish ethnicity
closely corresponds to
the state of Denmark
• Nearly all the world’s
speakers of Danish live
in Denmark
• Nearly all Danes speak
Danish However,
some German
speakers on the
border of Germany
• However,
Denmark also
controls Faeroe
Islands, where
people speak
Faeroese, as well
as Greenland,
where most
people are Inuit
Napoleon:
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”
Under Napoleon, people in France fought for the principles of the nation
of France for the first time. Before they had fought wars out of loyalty to
the king.
If Czechs, Slovaks, Germans came to U.S. before this (for Germany before 1880 or so)
they wouldn’t feel loyalty to a country because countries didn’t exist; they would identify
with others of the same ethnicity
Rise of Nationalities:
Nationalism
1. Loyalty and devotion to a nationality
2. Mass media helps foster this
3. Promotes symbols of the nation-state
(flags and songs)
4. Acts as a centripetal force because it
unifies people and enhances support
for a state
5. Acts as a centrifugal force because
people often identify more with an
ethnicity than a nationality
Negative Impacts of Nationalism:
• Sense of national unity
sometimes achieved through
negative images of other nations
• Extreme forms include
chauvinism, jingoism, Nazism,
and others
Centripetal or Centrifugal?
Centripetal
Centripetal or Centrifugal?:
Centrifugal
Multi-ethnic & Multinational States:
• Multi-ethnic state: contains
more than one ethnicity, but
has one nationality (e.g.
Belgium)
• Multi-national state: contains
two or more nationalities
with traditions of selfdetermination (e.g. United
Kingdom, Soviet Union)
Relationships between
nationalities vary.
United Kingdom:
England,
Scotland, Wales,
Northern Ireland
Great Britain:
England, Scotland,
Wales
The term “Great Britain”
originated on Oct. 20,
1604 when James I took
throne. Instead of
saying “King of
England and Scotland”
he referred to himself
as “King of Great
Britain.”
The Soviet Union:
• Had been divided into 15
republics (now individual
countries)
• Three Baltic: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania
• Three European: Belarus,
Moldova, Ukraine
• Five Central Asian:
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan
• Three Caucasus:
Azerbaijan, Armenia,
Georgia
• Russia
New Baltic Nation-States:
• Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are
known as Baltic states due to their
location on the Baltic Sea
• Lithuania most closely fits the definition
of a nation-state because ethnic
Lithuanians comprise 83% of
population
• Three countries have clear cultural and
historic differences. Most Estonians are
Protestant, most Lithuanians are Roman
Catholics, and Latvians are
predominantly Lutherans. These 3
groups also speak differing languages.
Russia Today:
• Largest multi-national
state
• 39 nationalities
• Can be problematic
when groups want to
separate (e.g. Chechens,
group of Sunni
Muslims, in Chechnya)
New Central Asian States:
53% Kazakhs
(Muslim, Altaic language)
30% Russian
(Eastern Orthodox
Christian, Indo-European
language)
85% Turkmen
4% Russian
65% Kyrgyz
14% Uzbek
13% Russian
80% Uzbek
6% Russian
79% Tajik
15% Uzbek
Turmoil in Caucasus:
TURKEY
• Azeris are split
between Azerbaijan
and Iran
SYRIA
IRAQ
IRAN