The National and Transnational

Matt Altstiel
12/10/05
GLOS:3144
Ilona

The National and Transnational

Long the unquestioned unit of governance, the nation state imposes limitations, consistently reproduces inequalities and prevents social justice. Nation states follow a progress narrative which validates certain events, traditions of the cultural majority while simultaneously marginalizing groups lying outside the power structure. However, conceptions of nationalism, nationality and citizenship rights are far from universal. Europe, the United States, and diasporic communities all provide unique examples with unique social, political and economic consequences. This paper examines and challenges existing conceptions of nationalism, nationality, and citizenship. Both positive as well as negative aspects are considered in determining a workable conception that avoids past anachronisms and leads to greater empowerment for all global citizens.

Admittedly a broad generalization, Europe nonetheless embodies a singular conception of nationality and citizenship. In part a defensive strategy to resist forms of cultural and economic imperialism, European nations have strived for cultural preservation. Portrayed as a threat to national sovereignty and cultural purity, cultural change becomes demonized. Gilman explains, “forms of cultural insiderism they (nation states) sanction typically construct the nation as ethnically homogenous” and impose “hermeneutic procedures deployed to make sense of its distinctive cultural content,” (Gilroy 3).Under such a strategy, common cultural markers and institutions become further embedded within the national consciousness. Nationalism under the nation state model becomes one and the same with race and ethnicity.

Such a singular conception of nationality invites a wide variety of socio-political consequences for minority as well majority groups. Typical of the treatment received by many minority groups prevalent in singular nation states, Gilroy reveals, “black history and culture are perceived, like the settlers themselves, as an illegitimate intrusion into a vision of authentic national life, that prior to their arrival was as stable and peaceful as it was ethnically undifferentiated,” (Gilroy 7). Such a value laden conception, necessarily allows certain groups to dominate every public sphere of national life. Therefore, minority groups which do not fit into a national narrative are denied a voice culturally, economically, and politically. A systematic denial of full citizenship predicates an unequal relationship with the state and its apparatuses. However, under such a system minority groups eventually seek to assert differing cultural identity and may do so violently. The denial of cultural recognition and the use of state repression to maintain the status quo recently released a “huge well of fury and resentment among the children of North African and African immigrants in the suburbs of French cities,” (Ghettos Shackle Muslims BBC 10/31/2005). Such outdated and exclusionary conceptions of singular nationality and citizenship only lead to repressive societies.

All nation states do not observe such strict adherence to singular conceptions of culture and allow for a somewhat pluralistic society. The United States which presents the concept of hyphenated or dual identities reveals its own set of problems. The hyphenated identity represents a politically assertive move for cultural empowerment, and a cultural reclamation of ethnic identity. A politically divisive issue, “hyphenated status has been seen as a marker of one’s belonging to two worlds, of one’s hybrid identity, and also criticized as a sign of not belonging to the mainstream culture,” (J. Ling 112). However, the limits of dual consciousness appear through certain markers such as race or ethnicity. In essence, multi-ethnic or racial Americans must make a choice which often results in different treatment by society. By using a hyphenated identity such as “African American” or “Native American” one admits, that by definition, the majority, in this case, the Caucasian represents the “American.”

Especially in pluralistic, liberal societies, the nation state fails to reconcile self-determination and personal freedom against ethnocentric state apparatuses. Furthermore, national recognition of certain hyphenated realities can impose policies to “guarantee the long term survival of a particular cultural community by fixing the identity of new or future citizens,” (Carens 91). Using hyphenated identities allows one to lapse into cultural relativism. Stereotypes as well as cultural expectations associated with certain distinctive groups are taken as givens. Accepting dual identities at face value fails to address differing relations of power and prevents the judgment necessary effect positive social change. Likewise, the hyphenated dual identity carried by many represents a culturally, politically and economically loaded trade off.

Another side to consider when discussing nationality involves diasporic communities at the transnational level. The figure of the refugee clearly shows the limitations of the traditional nation state and citizenship. Often nation states appear unwilling or unable to accommodate refugee populations since they are not legal citizens within their old nation of origin and lack documentation for asylum within their new nation. Without any legal documentation, such populations exist in communities with marginal resources and systematic degradation. Often refugee camps further divide the certainty and privilege of citizenship with the uncertainty and underprivileged of refugee status. Anzaldua explains the precarious relationship with the state, “living in a no-man’s borderland ,caught between being treated as criminals and being able to eat, between resistance and deportation, the illegal refugees are some of the poorest and most exploited of any people,” (Anzaldua 34). While international and internal refugees do place a strain on the nation state, the exclusionary concepts of citizenship and nationalism only serve to exacerbate dire situations.

However, the advent of mass migration and increased communication networks has allowed diasporic populations to reconnect or maintain ties with their ancestral homeland. Important to loosening the hold of cultural nationalism, the embrace of the transnational and global allows one to adequately view the changing nature of national populations. According to Appadurai, “electronic mass mediation and transnational mobilization have broken the monopoly of autonomous nation-states over the project of modernization,” (Appadurai 10). Widespread media allows members of a certain group to maintain linguistic and cultural practices, as well as political ties anywhere on the globe. Thus minority groups within nation-states have repositioned themselves as members of much larger disaporic communities, which hold increased leverage to facilitate change on their own terms. Per Gilroy, the transnational perspective “desires to escape the restrictive bonds of ethnicity, national identification and sometimes even race,” (Gilroy 19). Adopting the transnational discards petty regionalism and helps create cohesive populations capable of mass collective action. Nationalism within the typical nation state seeks to define and exclude populations, while the embrace of the transnational proposes active inclusion and unity.

Rapidly changing demographics have already disproved the logic of singular conceptions of nationalism. Mass media, by the same token challenges the widely held conception of ethnicity and nationalism as an “extension of the primordial idea of kinship, which in turn is biological and genealogical,” (Appadurai 14). Under this new conception, cultural identities can no longer be viewed as fixed and unchanged. Similarly, reality shows that unequal relationships of power and incompatible values create national instability, but “inherent” and “biological” cultural traits do not.

In conclusion, every incarnation of the modern nation state is ill equipped to deal with modern realities such as mass migration and the mass dissemination of information. Singular conceptions of nationality fail to account for cultural difference and homogenize diverse populations. Even pluralistic societies place unfair cultural expectations upon certain groups of people, and perpetuate systems of inequality. An increasingly large worldwide refugee and “illegal” population highlight damaging relationships of privilege and power. Therefore, the transnational society and global citizenship helps avoid the pitfalls of nationalism and instead provides universal empowerment.

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Fransisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.

Appadurai, Arjum. Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Carens, Joseph H. Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness. London, Oxford University Press, 2000.

“Ghettos Shackle Muslims.” BBC News. 10.312005. BBC News. 12.09.2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4375910.stm

Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Ling, Jinqi. Narrating Nationalisms: Ideology and Form in Asian American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.