L8: Globalisation and identity

1
L8 Globalisation and identity

• The Post-Cold War is seen as marked by
  Globalization as well as fragmentation and a
  crucial part of this fragmentation is seen in
  terms of identity.
• The lecture will introduce students to key terms
  of debate over the relation between globalization
  and fragmentation.

2

• Are questions about Identity important for
  understanding world politics
• Is gender relevant for understanding nationalism?
• Is Globalisation leading to an eclipse of
  nationalism?

3

• IR and identity
• Nationalism as a primary form of identity
• Understanding nationalism
• Gender and Nationalism
• Post-Cold War conflicts
• a resurgence of nationalism/ethnicity/religion?
  Ancient hatred vs modern constructs
• Globalisation, Nationalism and Identity

4
IR and identity

• Read Zalewski and Enloes chapter Questions
  about identity in International Relations
• Identity questions and questions about identity
• Who are we in IR?
• The international politics of identity
  construction
• US and UK invaded and occupied Iraq.
• What is US, UK and Iraq?

5
Nationalism as a primary form of identity

• Why study nationalism?
• Negative notion?
• Banal nationalism (Billig, Michael, Banal
  Nationalism, London Sage, 1995)
• Nation
• Nation as a collection of people who come to
  believe that they have been shaped by a common
  past and are destined to share a common future.
          
• Nationalism
• Nationalism is a commitment to fostering those
  beliefs and promoting policies which permit the
  nation to control its own destiny. (Enloe in
  Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, 2000)
•   State versus nation
• Nation-state
• Non-coincidence of nation and state

6
Theories of nationalism

• Primordialist positions
• Natural
• Essentialist
• Perennialist
• Instrumentalist positions
• Modernisation
• Political, economic, cultural transformation
  (Hobsbawm, Gellner, Nairn)
• Elite role
• Anti-colonialism
• Andersons Imagined political community and
  imagined as both limited and sovereign

7

• Ethno-symbolist position
• in-between
• Ethnie (Anthony Smith)
• Eurocentrism and gender-blindedness of most of
  these positions
• Eg. Partha Chatterjee Nira Yuval-Davis

8
Gender and nationalismWomen and nationalism

• Five major ways in which women have participated
  in ethnic and national process1
• As biological reproducers of members of ethnic
  collectivities
• As reproducers of the boundaries of
  ethnic/national groups
• As participating centrally in the ideological
  reproduction of the collectivity and as
  transmitters of its culture
• As signifiers of ethnic/national differences
• As active participants in national struggles.
  1 Yuval-Davis, Nira and F Anthias (eds)
  Woman-Nation-State (London Macmillan, 1989).
• Eg. Volksmoeder in Afrikaner nationalism (Ideal
  motherhood) mother in Zulu nationalism
  domesticated woman in Victorian
  nationalism/imperialism and during end of
  colonialism bhadra mahila in Bengali
  nationalism Reclaiming manhood
  (Israeli-Palestinian conflict)

9
Propositions on nationalism

• There can be no general theory of nationalism
• There is no one nationalism
• What unites different nationalism is the
  discourse and rhetoric of nationhood
• The nationalist discourse can only be
  effectively produced on a daily basis
• Any study of national identity should
  acknowledge differences of ethnicity, gender,
  sexuality, class or place.

10

• Nation-building
• Conflicts as based on ancient hatreds (politics
  of representation)
• Contesting the nation rise of ethnic and
  religious conflicts
• Ethnic cleansing as outrage peculiar to
  nationalist dementia or totalitarian power
• Ethnic cleansing as not-so-uncommon part of
  nationalist consolidation
• Contesting nationalisms

11
Identity and politics of violenceAncient hatred
vs modern constructs

• Rwanada genocide 1994
• Ancient hatred
• Nation-building
• Logic of colonialism fixing identity,
  politicising indigeneity, divide-and-rule,
  settler violence against natives and native
  violence against settlers
• Role of international development
• Role of Church
• Role of external states including UK
• http//www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/s7027.pd
  f

12
Globalisation, nationalism, and identity politics
(IP)

• Globalisation as anti-thesis of nationalism/IP
• Globalisation as challenging nationalism and
  promoting other IP
• Globalisation as leading to reactions in the
  form of resurgence of nationalism/IP
• Globalisation as re-enforcing nationalism/IP
• Globalisation as transforming nationalisms/IP

13
Assessing identity politics

• A negative force
• A positive force
• Gender and Globalization
• http//www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2000/issue2/0200p
  69.htm

14
Exam preparation

• Limitations of the mainstream IR theories
• In what ways do reflectivist theories offer a
  different understanding?
• Read http//www.oup.com/uk/booksites/content/01992
  71186/ (look for ch. 12 or directly go to
• http//www.oup.com/uk/booksites/content/0199271186
  /ch12.PDF?version1
• Globalization and Nationalism
• Relevance of gender for concepts such as
  nationalism or globalization