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Introduction: Political Ideologies and Social Imaginaries

Manfred B. Steger

in The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror

Ideology is a loaded word with a checkered past and most people today regard it as a form of dogmatic thinking or political manipulation. Virtually no one associates it with analytic clarity or ... More

Ideology is a loaded word with a checkered past and most people today regard it as a form of dogmatic thinking or political manipulation. Virtually no one associates it with analytic clarity or scientific rigor. Moving beyond the invective, this book considers ideology as evolving and malleable political belief systems that emerged during the American and French Revolutions and competed with religious doctrines over what ideas and values should guide human communities. Surprisingly, however, new treatments of nationality and nationalism appearing on the academic scene since the early 1980s have advanced convincing arguments in favor of a tight connection between the forces of modernity, the spread of industrial capitalism, and the elite-engineered construction of national community as a cultural artifact.Less

“The Beauty of America Is It’s a Salad Bowl”: Everyday Nationalism at Regional High

Thea Renda Abu El-Haj

in Unsettled Belonging: Educating Palestinian American Youth after 9/11

Chapter 4 examines the stories educators told about America and American education that were expressions of everyday nationalism--the ways in which broader discourses of nationalism circulate in ... More

Chapter 4 examines the stories educators told about America and American education that were expressions of everyday nationalism--the ways in which broader discourses of nationalism circulate in everyday life through talk and action. Teachers implicitly drew upon the discourses of liberal, multicultural nationalism, fashioning Regional High as a space ruled by the fundamental and interwoven ‘American’ values of individual freedom, diversity, and tolerance. Educators viewed public education as the forum for inculcating those values in the nation’s newest subjects, assimilating immigrant youth to the norms of American society. These stories educators narrated also structured their assumptions about, and interactions with, the Palestinian American youth. They often positioned Palestinians and Muslims as illiberal subjects of Other places in need of liberation from or discipline for these illiberal tendencies. The invocation of national boundaries that excluded Palestinian American Muslim youth was not only manifest in moments of conflict and tension. In fact, exclusion from the national imaginary was often signaled through more benign interactions. Both banal and hostile interactions emerge from and reproduce liberal multicultural nationalism in ways that make certain kinds of Palestinian and Muslim identifications impossible to include in the American national imaginary.Less

“Are You or Are You Not an American?”: The Politics of Belonging in Everyday Life

Thea Renda Abu El-Haj

in Unsettled Belonging: Educating Palestinian American Youth after 9/11

Chapter 5 focuses on the politics of belonging as they unfolded on the ground in everyday life at Regional High--political projects that through which the boundaries of national communities are ... More

Chapter 5 focuses on the politics of belonging as they unfolded on the ground in everyday life at Regional High--political projects that through which the boundaries of national communities are established and contested. Looking at particular sites of conflict that emerged between Palestinian American youth on the one hand, and their teachers and peers on the other, the chapter examines the Palestinian American youths’ everyday bids for citizenship: the ways in which these young people made claims for belonging, and work for equality, justice, and inclusion. Unfortunately, these bids for citizenship gained little traction and were often met with practices of silencing and discipline at Regional High. This chapter illustrates how Palestinian American youths’ bids for citizenship—demands for full participation, membership, and equality in school and society—were constrained by the practices of everyday nationalism that constructed them as outsiders to this national imaginary.Less

Native America, Thunderheart, and the National Imaginary

Robert Burgoyne

in Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at U.S. History, Revised Edition

This chapter focuses on the film Thunderheart as an example of the changing image of Native Americans in the “national imaginary” of the nation-state. Native Americans have emerged in contemporary ... More

This chapter focuses on the film Thunderheart as an example of the changing image of Native Americans in the “national imaginary” of the nation-state. Native Americans have emerged in contemporary films as agents of a powerful counternarrative of nation, and bearers of an alternative historical and national consciousness molded and shaped by centuries of relentless war. Thunderheart’s opening sequence visually expresses the theme of the continuous struggle against the nation-state, which creates a reversal of the territorial imaginary of the state. The chapter then observes how the film draws on what Mikhail Bakhtin calls the genre memory of the western, historically one of the nation-state’s most important vehicles of nationalist ideology.Less

Editing the Nation: How Radio Engineers Encode Israeli National Imaginaries

Danny Kaplan

in Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century

This chapter explores music-editing practices in Israeli radio, with particular emphasis on how radio engineers encode national imaginaries. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Israeli public and ... More

This chapter explores music-editing practices in Israeli radio, with particular emphasis on how radio engineers encode national imaginaries. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Israeli public and commercial–regional radio during a decade of privatization reforms, it considers how radio sound is self-consciously “crossed” in editing practices with shared public events. Such crosses are used by radio stations across Israel within their broadcasts to intentionally shift “the national mood” by evoking well-rehearsed narratives of nation and self. By deciding not only which songs to play but also how to link them with concurrent public events, music editors transform into engineers of the collective mood. This chapter underscores the role of radio engineering as “a bottom-up practice of nation-making” in Israel.Less

Introduction: Nuevas Fronteras / New Frontiers

Marissa K. López

in Chicano Nations: The Hemispheric Origins of Mexican American Literature

This introductory chapter presents the book's rationale: to explore the convergence of race, space, and nation, as well as how the geopolitical divisions of the early nineteenth century—the period ... More

This introductory chapter presents the book's rationale: to explore the convergence of race, space, and nation, as well as how the geopolitical divisions of the early nineteenth century—the period after the disintegration of the Spanish empire—helped organize racial thinking in the Americas and create a de facto Latino collectivity in the United States. It is not nostalgia for the lost land of Aztlán, the imaginary homeland of the Aztecs, that grounds Chicana/o imaginings of the nation but a deeper, older, transamerican vision. The book aims to reinsert this vision into discussions of the Chicana/o cultural imaginary. Other than documenting a Chicana/o national imaginary, the book also intends to construct its genealogy, investigate its etymology, and examine its meaning and contradictions. The latter part of the chapter provides a brief overview of the book's subsequent chapters.Less

Race, Language, and National Identity in Afro-Panamanian Literary Discourse

Sonja Stephenson Watson

in The Politics of Race in Panama: Afro-Hispanic and West Indian Literary Discourses of Contention

The introduction illustrates how the articulation of race, language, and nation is problematic within Panamanian literary discourse because it is tied to a national imaginary that emphasizes ... More

The introduction illustrates how the articulation of race, language, and nation is problematic within Panamanian literary discourse because it is tied to a national imaginary that emphasizes Panamanian nationality and Spanish heritage. National rhetoric coupled with mestizaje discourse stymied black consciousness and further marginalized West Indian immigrants to Panama. Not only did the national ideology exclude blackness, but it also spurred intra-ethnic tensions between Afro-Hispanics and West Indians, a racial dynamic that is unique to Panama. Inevitably, national ideological tensions arose between “Spanish” Afro-Hispanics and “black” West Indians. These ideological tensions are manifest in the literary discourse of blacks in Panama from the nineteenth century to the present.Less

Postcolonial Paradox

Claire Laurier Decoteau

in Ancestors and Antiretrovirals: The Bio-Politics of HIV/AIDS in Post-Apartheid South Africa

The book begins by illustrating the profound crisis of liberation felt by the poor of South Africa, who won the struggle against the apartheid system, only to find themselves in worse living ... More

The book begins by illustrating the profound crisis of liberation felt by the poor of South Africa, who won the struggle against the apartheid system, only to find themselves in worse living conditions and confronting an epidemic of unparalleled proportions in the post-apartheid era. Rather than attributing this crisis to the cronyism or corruption of a postcolonial state, the chapter argues that the post-apartheid state confronted a “postcolonial paradox” – which entails a simultaneous need to respect the demands of neoliberal capital in order to compete successfully on the world market and a responsibility to redress entrenched inequality, secure legitimacy from the poor, and forge a national imaginary. The chapter explains how HIV/AIDS became the primary venue through which the post-apartheid state has attempted to resolve these contradictions. As such, this chapter provides a theoretical frame for the more detailed analyses made throughout the book.Less

Race, Civilization, Empire

in Frederick Douglass and the Atlantic World

This chapter explores the later writing of Frederick Douglass and the extent to which it can be considered an indicator of a late alignment with the United States as empire. Even as Douglass took ... More

This chapter explores the later writing of Frederick Douglass and the extent to which it can be considered an indicator of a late alignment with the United States as empire. Even as Douglass took internal ethno-racial hierarchies, he was entailed in the prolongation of equally destructive, extra-national tropes in the US and African American imaginary. His trip to Egypt highlighted his determination to tackle a significant political facet of the cultural tourism of the late nineteenth century. Douglass's discourse on Egypt showed the vying trends in the anti-racialist rhetoric of Afro-America, and the extent to which it too is implicated in the discourse and practice of empire. Moreover, his late image as American Renaissance man caught the strengths and shortcomings of the national cultural imaginary.Less

Māori Television, Anzac Day, and Constructing “Nationhood”

Sue Abel

in The Fourth Eye: M ori Media in Aotearoa New Zealand

This chapter examines the role played by Māori Television Service’s (MTS) annual coverage of Anzac Day both in the establishment of MTS as an integral part of the New Zealand mediascape and in the ... More

This chapter examines the role played by Māori Television Service’s (MTS) annual coverage of Anzac Day both in the establishment of MTS as an integral part of the New Zealand mediascape and in the ongoing construction of what it means to be a “New Zealander.” Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance held on April 25 every year in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate the anniversary of the ill-fated landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire on April 25, 1915. This chapter analyzes the Anzac Day coverage in 2007 as well as 312 responses that were posted to the MTS channel’s website or emailed to the channel on Anzac Day or immediately following. It argues that Indigenous media offers Indigenous peoples the opportunity to reconfigure nationhood and the national imaginary, but that the national imaginary is not yet mature enough to truly interrogate its colonial history.Less

Conclusion

Karma R. Chávez

in Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities

This concluding chapter returns to the question of coalition as an alternative to normative and utopian approaches, and it offers some final thoughts about the importance of queer migration politics ... More

This concluding chapter returns to the question of coalition as an alternative to normative and utopian approaches, and it offers some final thoughts about the importance of queer migration politics as a lens for thinking about politics. This activist rhetoric has provided an opportunity to view and understand the complexity and variety of coalitional moments. It has also supplied a way to witness the possibilities that coalitional moments engender for practicing and envisioning politics and making lives more livable. The chapter further remarks on the status of a rhetorical perspective for intervening in constructions of national rhetorical imaginaries that can both open and limit the possibilities for political orientations, modes of belonging, and tactical strategies.Less

The Gendered Face of Latinidad: Global Circulation of Hybridity

Angharad N. Valdivia

in Circuits of Visibility: Gender and Transnational Media Cultures

This chapter examines the gendered face of Latinidad as it is transported, manipulated, and articulated by popular media networks under the contemporary conditions of globality. Latinidad, the ... More

This chapter examines the gendered face of Latinidad as it is transported, manipulated, and articulated by popular media networks under the contemporary conditions of globality. Latinidad, the process of being, becoming, and/or performing belonging within a Latina/o diaspora, challenges many popular and academic categories of ethnicity, location, and culture. As a cultural and conceptual framework, Latinidad enables a more nuanced reading of the disjuncture between the lived realities and commodified constructions of hybridity. The global presence and mobility of the Latina/o population has led to significant reconfiguration of the U.S. national imaginary with regard to race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. In particular, the heterogeneity of the Latina/o population has unsettled a deeply entrenched black and white racial system which is embedded in various types of institutional and social discourses. Indeed, the transnational lives and cultural hybridity of Latina/os and Latinidad exceed national boundaries and disrupt conventional categorizations of race.Less

Portuguese Migrants and Portugal: Elite Discourse and Transnational Practices

Victor Pereira

in A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and Their Homeland Connections

This chapter first examines the discourse produced about the transnational practices and policies by the Portuguese state, used to maintain its ties with its citizens living abroad. It then turns to ... More

This chapter first examines the discourse produced about the transnational practices and policies by the Portuguese state, used to maintain its ties with its citizens living abroad. It then turns to the transnational practices “from below.” In this case, it is a matter of seizing the discourse and practices over the long term, from the independence of Brazil, in 1822, to the present, and of teasing out continuities without papering over the breaks. The chapter begins by characterizing the key Portuguese migratory flows throughout the course of this period before going on to discuss three topics: the continuity of a discourse on the protection of migrants, the place of emigration in the national imaginary, and the close ties between emigration and empire.Less

A State in Denial

Claire Laurier Decoteau

in Ancestors and Antiretrovirals: The Bio-Politics of HIV/AIDS in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This chapter deconstructs former President Thabo Mbeki’s ‘AIDS denialism,’ and argues it can be understood as both a means of resolving the postcolonial paradox, and as a new construction of ... More

This chapter deconstructs former President Thabo Mbeki’s ‘AIDS denialism,’ and argues it can be understood as both a means of resolving the postcolonial paradox, and as a new construction of postcoloniality – one which defies African dependency on Western finance and culture and promotes a form of African renaissance. In the end, the chapter contends that Mbeki’s denialism amounted to a form of ‘necropolitics’ – the political decision to let a portion of the population die in the perceived interest of the nation. The chapter ends with a consideration of the effects of political abandonment on the subjectivities of those forced to haunt the margins of the postcolony.Less

Aliens Dancing at the Crossroads: Science Fiction Interventions in Irish Cinema1

Katie Moylan

in The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film

This chapter identifies and explores how Irish film, itself a complex and multifaceted form which often resists Hollywood narrative strategies, has consistently appropriated and invoked science ... More

This chapter identifies and explores how Irish film, itself a complex and multifaceted form which often resists Hollywood narrative strategies, has consistently appropriated and invoked science fiction iconography as well as established science fiction tropes. Science fiction iconography is mobilized in selected Irish films to signify modernity and progress as symbolized through seemingly futuristic technology, while narrative tropes centered around notions of otherness are recurrently framed in stories of an alien arrival to a small, isolated rural Irish community. Irish cinema’s on-going invocation of both science fiction iconography and narrative tropes in turn marks how the Irish national imaginary negotiates its own otherness, a cinematic tendency which persists through arguably seismic changes to the country and its forms of cultural production.Less