Concept: Nation

Definition: (noun) a large grouping of people inhabiting a particular country or territory, united by a common history, descent, culture, or language. 

Related Terms: community, native, home, belonging.

Description: The nation and its variants – nationalism, national identity – have been highly contested terrain in recent years in relation to migration, pulling in the opposite direction. As events in the 20th century and increasingly in the 21st, such as war, persecution, climate change, environmental degradation and poverty, saw the massive movement of people away from their native soil to either neighboring countries or those that are more affluent and hospitable to foreigners, host countries have reacted in alarm. This is particularly true since the migrations to western Europe that commenced in 2015 and the number of refugees seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border with Mexico. 

If the nation is at its core a political concept, it has been explored for its cultural dimensions in much recent scholarly work. Since the publication of Benedict Anderson’s book, Imagined Communities (1980), in which he argued that, more than the common attributes of racial descent long thought to be central to national belonging, in modern times the nation was comprised of people who had never seen, or were likely to see, the majority of their compatriots, yet shared common ideals and aspirations. Anderson emphasized the role of print capitalism as a means of nation-building in Europe and in its colonies in Asia and Africa. Following this cultural turn, many scholars have examined the role of film, television, and now digital media in evoking various versions (exclusive or inclusive) of national belonging and the status of immigrants and foreigners in established societies.  

There have always been strong critiques of the concept of nation, primarily because it can descend into narrow chauvinism and prejudice against, or the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities. This is particularly a tendency at the present time when authoritarian leaders across the globe try to whip up nationalist fervor. Yet in the 1950s and 1960s, in culture and media, the concept of “national cinema” helped third world filmmakers understand the long effects of colonialism on their societies and assert their identity against the dominance of Hollywood. Thus the concept of nation has both positive and negative charge, being perhaps the strongest form of political and social identity in the contemporary world. 

S.C. 2024

Further Readings: 

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Revised edition. London, New York: Verso, 1983, 1991.

Hansen, Miriam. Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Flusser, Vilem. The Freedom of the Migrant: Objections to Nationalism. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Williams, Alan. Ed. Film and Nationalism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Mihelj, Sabina and Cesar Jiminez-Martinez. “Digital Nationalism: Understanding the Role of Digital Media in the Rise of ‘New’ Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism. 2021, vol. 27 (2): 331-346.