CONSUMING NATIONAL TERRITORY. IDENTITY, TERRITORY AND POPULAR CULTURE

• Authors: Jaskulowski K.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the article is to analyze the role of images of territory in popular culture in reproducing national identity. The author point of departure is a critique of conviction that nations exists is a real and solid social beings which have a similar ontological status as physical objects. In other words, he criticises acceptance of a nationalistic conviction that nations are durable social groups, which have clear borders and are capable of collective activity. It concerns so-called objectivist definitions of a nation, mentioning common elements in the form of language, customs, territory, and culture - as well as so-called subjectivist definitions emphasising the role of consciousness. The latter often treat consciousness as a derivative phenomenon in the face of objective factors in the form of language, customs, culture or territory. From constructivist perspective territory is not one of the attributes of nations or a factor which enables crystallising of national awareness. It is not a common territory which creates nationalism, but nationalism fabricates territory and subsequently maintains the conviction of its existence and weight. A national territory is an abstraction and the possibility of its imagining was brought by modernity. The capability to think in these kinds of abstract categories is not something natural, but the effect of social enginery and deep social transformations: a common education, military service, mass communication, the democratisation of political life and also the formation of mass culture, or speaking a more modern language and popular culture. The existence of a 'nation' as an imagined territorial community depends on the number of cultural symbols. They are very simple, easily comprehensible, ubiquitous, emotionally charged and present in everyday life. Thanks to them abstraction of national territory appears as a natural environment of a common citizen.

Keywords

EN

IDENTITY; NATIONAL TERRITORY; POPULAR CULTURE

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Slawistyki PAN
• Journal: Sprawy Narodowościowe
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 31
• Pages: 287-294
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Jaskulowski K.

• K. Jaskulowski, Szkola Wyzsza Psychologii Spolecznej, ul. Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

08PLAAAA03707469