Constructing National Identities
As you read this module's case studies and work on the available collaborative activities, consider how your ideas about "national identity" have been produced and reproduced by cultural influences and political interests. With what places do people in your nation identify, and why? How are these places and national stories encountered in the landscape? How are these places bound up with how nations and the state construct and re-construct a shared narrative of unity and identity?
Consider also the nature of your political, economic, and cultural interactions and how these affect your identities with places at different scales. How are the dynamics of globalization, including international migration, challenging traditional notions of identity and belonging in your nation?
Overall, ask what are the causes of contention about national identity where you live? Who frames this debate? How are contrasting visions of inclusive or exclusive national identity being played out? Should "national" identity be re-imagined? If so, who is to be included and excluded, and at what scales? And who should, or gets to, decide?
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Date last modified: October 8, 2009.
NSF Project (AAG,Texas State, Northern Colorado)