Culture, community and territory: the politics of ethnicity and nationalism

Abstract

Social scientists and historians usuallyfocus on the impact ofpolitics on ethnicity and nationalism, and their political usesfor elites. The impact of ethnicity and nationalism on politics is less commonly treated, because most analysts adhere to an instrumentalist and modernist view of ethnicity and nationalism. We need rather to explore the relationship between culture and politics, and between premodern ethnic ties and modern nations, througlh an examination of three major trends: the purfication of culture through authentication, which can lead to cultural and social exclusion; the universalization of ethnic chosenness through nationalist ideology, which engenders national solidarity and self-assertion; and the territorialization of shared memory, which inspires historical claims to historic homelands and sacred sites. These processes can befound throughout history, but they are particularly marked and widespread in the modern epoch; and they underlie many current political conflicts.