National Belonging Research Articles

When Citizenship and National Belonging Diverge

When Citizenship and National Belonging Diverge

Two Gender–Equal Nations? Anti-Gender Re-Configurations of National Belonging in Sweden and Spain

ABSTRACT Gender equality and the rights of LGBTQI* and people of colour are being contested across the globe due to the rise of anti-gender far-right politics and movements that threaten feminist socio-political gains. In a nostalgic defence for a traditional gender order, these exclusionary politics articulate nativist, gendered and racial ideas of the nation. This paper examines anti-gender discourses in relation to dominant discourses of gender equality in specific national contexts and nation-making. We develop the concept of nation-gender equality nexus to account for the different imaginaries of the nation in relation to gender equality that are (re)produced by anti-gender forces through a comparative study of Sweden and Spain. We argue that Swedish and Spanish anti-gender actors configure nationhood and belonging through the reinterpretation of dominant discourses on gender equality in their respective contexts, identifying two main axes that articulate this construction: religion-secularism and migration-race. As a result, anti-gender actors produce different nation-gender configurations that lead to specific boundaries of national belonging and exclusion across the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship.

Educational Institutions Role in Enhancing National Belonging Values: A Social Service Perspective Study

Educational Institutions Role in Enhancing National Belonging Values: A Social Service Perspective Study

The Cold War Politics of National Belonging in Korean American Novels of Comfort Women

The Cold War Politics of National Belonging in Korean American Novels of Comfort Women

Canadian Club: Birthright Citizenship and National Belonging by Lois Harder

<i>Canadian Club: Birthright Citizenship and National Belonging</i> by Lois Harder

Memes, National Identity and National Belonging: Visual “Nation-Talk” on Indian Social Media Pages

I collected data from political social media pages to show how memes serve as means to engage in heated “nation-talk.” Contending claims are made through memes on the identity of an “Indian” and on the sense of belonging to India. I collected memes over a period of twenty months from two overtly political Facebook pages with hundreds of thousands of followers. After multiple rounds of coding and filtering we arrived at a final sample of memes to be studied in depth. The memes, from opposing political sides, draw inter-textual component elements from the same popular culture, mythology etc. Through the repetition of specific components, slogans etc. these memes exclude certain claims of belonging to India while enforcing others. Key to this repetition are the circulatory dynamics of memes over digital networks, and their performative aspects. India’s history emerges as a significant battleground for these memes.

Forging National Belonging: Transformation, Visibility, and Dress in the German-Jewish Youth Movement Blau-Weiss, 1912–1927

AbstractLooking at Blau-Weiss as the first Zionist youth movement in Germany between 1912 and 1927, the article examines the role of dress in expressing new feelings of national belonging as “Jewish” in modern Germany. Drawing on publications of the movement, memoirs, and photographs, the article shows how Blau-Weiss members tried to become visible as Jews while at the same time trying to copy the dress codes of the nationalist German youth movement Wandervogel. It further shows how, after the First World War, Blau-Weiss tried to forge their own way of Zionist dressing. The article argues that it was not the actual clothes worn or the perception of others that was most crucial to the creation of a national Jewish identity, but rather the inner function that reflections and debates on dress had for Blau-Weiss members in forging and redefining their feelings of belonging and identification as Zionist Jews in Germany.

Canadian Club: Birthright Citizenship and National Belonging Lois Harder, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022, pp. 216

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Constructing Ethnic and National Belonging: Ingrian Finnishness in a Museum Exhibition

Abstract A temporary exhibition called Ingrians—The Forgotten Finns was on display at the National Museum of Finland in 2020. The exhibition presented the ethnic minority of Ingrian Finns, concentrating on their memories of persecution in the Soviet Union, ethnic mobilization, and migration to Finland. By examining the exhibition's meaning potentials across different semiotic modes, the article explores the ways in which it discursively constructed Ingrian Finnishness. The findings suggest that the exhibition strongly argued for the inclusion of Ingrian Finns in the Finnish nation and highlighted cultural features associated with Finnishness, but also presented them as a distinct group. Remembering the difficult past was viewed as the very essence of the collective identity.

The Most Mexican of Us All: Yiddish Modernism and the Racial Politics of National Belonging

The Most Mexican of Us All: Yiddish Modernism and the Racial Politics of National Belonging

Dual Nationality and National Belonging: A Case Study of Chinese Diaspora in Indonesia from 1949 to 1960s

The paper examines the connection between dual nationality and national belonging through a case study of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia from 1949 to 1960s. About 3 million Chinese in Indonesia were dual nationals in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was established, holding both Chinese and Indonesian nationalities. Under a treaty signed in 1955 by China and Indonesia on dual nationality, the Chinese with dual nationality were forced to choose a single nationality. The paper traces the history of the nationality selection of those Chinese, including the broader legal and social contexts, to establish a foundation for understanding their sense of national belonging. The paper provides insightful historical knowledge which can be used to further the current debate on whether the 1980 Chinese Nationality Law should be revised to permit overseas Chinese to keep their Chinese nationality, as they could before 1949. The potential change to Chinese nationality law may impact the nationality of Chinese diasporas worldwide.

Patriotic Connotations in the National Anthem of the Republic of Yemen

This paper, based on a structuralist approach and content analysis, intends to investigate and analyze critically how the national poet, the author of the National Anthem of the Republic of Yemen, Abdullah Numan connotes patriotic lyric expressions and how he repeatedly uses lexical words such as unity, banner, and particularly the possessive adjective 'my' through the national anthem. Splendidly, due to indicating Numan's love for his country and feeling of belonging, it is of great interest to trace our concern, loyalty, and sense of belonging towards our homeland through his creative humanistic work (anthem) and its dignity. As to this worldly concern, most national anthems intuitively represent patriotism.&#x0D; The structure of this paper is divided into four parts; in the first part, the researcher initiates by introducing the topic including the geographical, historical and political overview of the Republic of Yemen and indicating the three symbols of the country: national emblem, national flag and more specifically national anthem. In addition to those, two patriotic pioneers of Yemen's stars are written about: the author of the National Anthem of Yemen Numan and the composer Taresh. The second part states the conceptual and theoretical framings of this paper. The third part is devoted to the methodological framework identifying the linguistic texture and thematic texture of the National Anthem of the Republic of Yemen. In this part, the researcher through the textual analysis of the anthem, furthermore, attempts to semiologically concentrate on structuring both the surface and the underlying systems to generate the production of meanings or connotations. She also follows some intrinsic ways of some social psychologists' emphasis on the main characteristics of patriotism as loyalty, love and individual's national belonging by elucidating the content of the text linguistically and signifying the religious, historical, cultural, nationalistic and ideological patriotic signified of the national identity of Yemenis. The last part summarizes the analysis of the text by portraying patriotically two important sides: first, struggling of the soldiers for their lives. Second, observing the two bisectors of the North and the South of Yemen in alliance with keeping the dignity of the national anthem despite of their different ideology. &#x0D; Key words: Patriotism, Connotations/Signifieds, National Belonging, National Anthem, Identity, Love, Loyalty, Homeland, the Republic of Yemen

National Belonging and the Production of Neglect in the Japanese Repatriate Figure, 1945–1950

Abstract This article analyses the discourse of national belonging produced by the Japanese government. After Japanese empire collapsed in August 1945, hikiagesha (‘repatriate’) was the term officials used to categorise approximately 3.2 million Japanese civilians in the colonies when Japan surrendered. Previous research suggests a repatriate figure emerged in postwar Japan so that non-repatriate Japanese could offload anxieties about imperial failure. Consequently, the repatriate figure was important for Japan to transition from an empire to a nation-state. This article reassesses this transition which in previous research seems to be almost a natural outcome of decolonisation. Starting from the premise that such transitions require the active involvement of specific actors, this article examines how Japanese government officials constructed a discourse of national belonging around the repatriate figure to assuage concerns about state affiliation. It then considers the effects of this discourse on the Japanese ‘extruded history’ of former colonial residents.

Vera Lynn Sings: Domesticity, Glamour, and National Belonging on 1950s British Television

Abstract In the late 1950s, musical variety shows on television played a critical role in the careers of numerous singers, particularly women working in mainstream pop. Some even hosted their own shows, becoming “television personalities,” a new type of performer skilled at conveying televisual authenticity and intimacy. We can better understand the significance of these often overlooked singers by recentering the role of television in their careers. This article takes as its case study the British singer Vera Lynn and Vera Lynn Sings, the lavishly produced, prime-time musical variety show that she hosted from 1956 to 1959 and that was the centerpiece of her exclusive, multi-year contract with the British Broadcasting Corporation. By examining her star persona on the show, the article offers a corrective to accounts of Lynn’s long life as a public figure, which tend to emphasize her fame as a singer in World War II while skimming over her accomplished career in the decades that followed. Drawing upon production documents and scripts at the BBC Written Archives Centre, together with press sources, this article argues that Vera Lynn Sings helped shape popular notions of British national identity in the late 1950s. Through its musical, performative, and visual strategies, the show offered a vision of national belonging that placed aspirational, white, feminine domesticity at the center. Anchored by Lynn’s sincere persona and sentimental songs, the show’s intimate address and musical repertoire welcomed a “family” audience across lines of gender, class, and age, while simultaneously reinforcing racist and colonial definitions of national belonging.

Contributors

Contributors

Turkish and Refugee Students’ Views about Their National Belonging

The purpose of this study is to determine Turkish and refugee middle school students views on their national belonging. The study employed the qualitative research approach, and, aligned with the purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with Turkish and refugee students. Data were analyzed using the content analysis method. Results showed that the most important common features for national belonging of both Turkish and refugee students were the common language they spoke and the place they lived in and the difference of views regarding national belonging were in terms of discrimination. Regarding Turkish society expectations of them, both groups emphasized universal values such as being hardworking and being a good person, but their perceptions of serving the state differed. As for what Turkish and refugee students should do for this society, Turkish students believed that they should be hardworking and refugee students thought that they should be good people. It can be said that the differences of opinion between Turkish students and refugee students who migrated to Turkey would decrease if both groups came together on the subject of universal values.

Gaming Borders: The Rhetorics of Gamification and National Belonging inPapers, Please

AbstractGame media have long participated in projects of nation building by remediating historical, political, and social relations in ways that reinforce affective processes of national belonging. The genre of border games in particular is well-known for staging the discursive and symbolic value of national boundaries through the deployment of specific gameplay mechanics and storytelling elements. However, as this essay argues, border games do more than merely represent borders in games; they reflect how borders themselves might be experienced as games within the cultural logic of gamification. Through an analysis of Lucas Pope’s independently produced American video game Papers, Please (2013), this article interrogates gamification as a rhetorical process that communicates how play dynamics sustain the procedural logics of border security and citizenship. Such logics, the game suggests, are marked by the installment of a series of rule-based interactions that modulate affect within the sociotechnical mechanics of state-sanctioned racism to enable the proper flow of both play and mobility. However, through failure, the game also reveals gamification to be an incomplete diagram of control, one where the priming of affect rubs up against the sociopolitical frictions that shape individual play experiences. Ultimately, this article argues that border games like Papers, Please enable players to experiment with the forms of national belonging that subtend our experiences of gamification.

Examination of Turkish Middle School Students’ National Belonging Levels in Terms of Different Variables

The purpose of this study was to determine middle school students’ national belonging levels in terms of different variables. In this quantitative study, middle school students’ views on national belonging were determined by the “National Belonging Scale for Middle School Students”. The study was conducted with 1318 middle school students in Niğde province of Turkey during the Spring term of the 2019-2020 academic year. Research data were collected through “National Belonging Scale for Middle School Students” and were analysed with SPSS 24 software package. According to the study results, middle school students had a high positive view of their national belonging. Their gender did not make a statistical difference in terms of both reasons and results of their national belonging. On the other hand, students’ views on national belonging differed in terms of their grade level. Again, although there was no difference between the public and private schools in terms of reasons of their national belonging, there was a statistically significant difference between them in terms of the results of their national belonging in favor of the public school. Another difference was determined between Turkish and refugee students’ national belonging. Turkish students’ mean scores of reasons and results of their national belonging were statistically higher than the refugee students’ mean scores. Considering national belonging in terms of each variable, middle school students’ national belonging can be strengthened with some activities that can be done within the scope of the implicit program as well as the educational activities carried out within the curriculum at schools. Social Studies is the most important course into which works on this subject can be integrated.

Youth Attitudinal Trends Bearing on National Belonging A Study on Samples of Umm Al-Qura University Students

Having utilized a social survey technique on a study sample of (1024) students, and aggregating data via a questionnaire mechanism, the subject study objective is to explore the bearing of young people's attitudes on their national belonging through stressing the role of social media tools, social groups, and institutions of social upbringing. It also targets revealing the ambit of the different attitudes of young people with regard to the national belonging factors as per their diverse social characteristics. The study data arrived at a number of conclusions in the subject regard, most noteworthy among which is the social media having a favorable impact on the national belonging of youth, with Twitter being uppermost in influence and Instagram of the least influence. It was also concluded that the family is of a stronger influence than the tribe, and that the school has more influence than the university and the mosque in nurturing and fostering the national belonging of the youth. Moreover, statistically indicative substantial differences were discovered pertinent to the influence of different social groups on national belonging and affiliation, which can be attributed to some variables, such as gender, being in favor of males, point of origin and birth place favoring and fostering affiliation to villages and countryside, and the level of education of the mother and father tilting the balance in favor of intermediate school or even below as a terminal educational goal. Besides, also found of considerable effect on the youth trends were statistically indicative differences with regards to the extent of the impact of the social upbringing institutions on the national be longing, attributable to some variables relevant to school level, closely akin to and in favor of the socially lower and higher levels, place of birth and upbringing with relevance to villages and countryside, and parents’ education regarding its being average or below average.

Mendelssohn on the Edge: Memory, Agency, and National Belonging in Weimar Germany

Abstract In times of great political unrest and disorientation, societies generally invent and reinvent myths. As unrest and disorientation were among the most striking characteristics of the Weimar era, it is not surprising that the bicentenary celebrations of Moses Mendelssohn’s birth, held in 1929, constituted the peak of the Enlightenment philosopher’s popularity as a German-Jewish patron saint. This article argues that the commemoration of Mendelssohn on the eve of catastrophe, four years before the Weimar Republic’s collapse, serves as a particularly precise indicator of ambivalent German-Jewish agency at the time, due to its political, social, and cultural implications. Whereas the bicentenary celebrations—featuring the Republic’s most prominent representatives, state-of-the-art exhibitions, cultural events in prestigious locations, and extensive media coverage—attest to the considerable leeway German Jewry had in shaping social reality, the continuing absence of Mendelssohn in the canon of German poets and thinkers illustrates the limits of German-Jewish agency in the cultural imaginary of the German nation.