IMITATING THE NATION-STATE

Abstract

This exploratory research considers the implications to actual world (AW) nations and attachments of an online virtual world (OVW) which mimics so many aspects of AW nation-states. Using Lessing's interrogation of mimesis as a framing device, this paper presents the results of a quantitative investigation that examines the relationship between the competing loyalties of AW nations and the OVW of Second Life (SL). To that end, a subsample of 212 members of SL completed an online survey which measured five aspects of the national and SL attachment, including a section in which participants ranked their concern for fellow co-nationals (CNs) versus their concern for fellow Second Lifers (SLers). Analyses of the data produced four main findings. First, 45 per cent of participants ranked their concern for their fellow SLers above that of their fellow CNs. Second, those who preferred SLers were significantly less attached to their AW nations than those who preferred CNs. Third, the SLer-preferred, on average, considered SL to be like a world, while the CN-preferred were more ambivalent in this regard. Fourth, gender differences indicate that males who preferred SLers spent most of their time in the SL engaged in activities while females who preferred SLers spent most of their time in the SL engaged in communicatory socializing. Discussion of these results focuses on notions of cosmopolitanism versus nation-statehood and uses the category of gender to illustrate the implications of mimesis to the durability of the phenomenon of nation-statehood.