Gender in Nationalism Studies and Nationalism Theories

Flashcards defining core vocabulary terms, key authors, and major theoretical concepts regarding gender in nationalism and theories of nationhood from the lecture.

Nira Yuval-Davis

Author of the 1997 book Gender and Nation, who asserted that gendered bodies and sexuality play pivotal roles as territories, markers, and reproducers of national narratives, with women fulfilling the maternal function of reproducing culture inside the home.

Amanda Sztein

Author of Protecting the Motherland: Women's Agency in Transforming National Identity, who observed that the nation is most often imagined as a woman, while the state is almost always male.

Joane Nagel

Author of Masculinity and nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the making of nations, who posits that state-building projects such as state power, citizenship, revolution, and democracy are best understood as masculinist projects.

Carole Pateman

Author of The Sexual Contract, a seminal second-wave feminist text that laid the foundation for viewing men not as a gender-neutral force, but as essentially gendered.

Kassie Hartendorp

Author of What do we really know about gender diversity in te ao Māori, who argued that rigid gender hierarchies were inherited through European modes of thinking, sanitizing a history of gender nonconformity in te ao Māori.

Takatapui

Individuals in pre-colonial te ao Māori society who were able to move between genders, demonstrating non-binary understandings of gender.

Modernism (Nationalism Theory)

A paramount theory stating that nations and nationalism are modern inventions constructed alongside processes like capitalism, industrialisation, secularism, and the modern bureaucratic state.

Imagined Communities

Benedict Anderson's concept that nations are inherently limited and sovereign communities imagined by members who will never know most of their fellow citizens, yet these horizontal bonds persist.

Cultural Homogenisation (Gellner)

Ernest Gellner's concept where states select specific cultural elements to unite citizens through mass education and national curriculum, creating a manufactured horizontal bond of egalitarianism that camouflages inequalities.

Invented Traditions (Hobsbawm)

Eric Hobsbawm's concept that traditions are either created completely or adapted from old patterns of behaviour to reinforce national identity, showing that nations are socially engineered.

Ethnosymbolism

A theory conceived by Anthony Smith in opposition to modernism, asserting that all nationalisms are at their core ethnic and that older ethnies, myths, and symbols predate modern nations.

Banal Nationalism

Michael Billig's concept focusing on how the nation is daily reproduced through routine habits like flag waving and songs, maintaining an us and them dichotomy.

Postcolonial Nationalism

A theory advanced by Partha Chatterjee in response to Anderson, asserting that anticolonial nationalism creates its own domain of sovereignty by dividing social institutions into material and spiritual domains.

Ethnic Nationalism

A model of nationalism where the nation is defined mainly by ethno-cultural elements such as belief in common descent, shared historical memories, a homeland, and sometimes a common language or religion.

Civic Nationalism

A model of nationalism defined by territorial and civic elements, including a mass public culture, a shared territory, a single economy, and a set of rights and duties among members.

Nationhood

The status or condition of holding membership in a community or nation, conveying a broader sense of commitment than formal legal status.

Citizenship

The formal membership of a state, entailing full rights and duties typically confirmed in official documentation such as a passport or identity card.

Jus Sanguinis

A legal principle where citizenship is acquired based on blood ties and ancestral lineage.

Jus Soli

A legal principle where citizenship is acquired as a territorial birthright.

State

The legal and political authority governing a territory containing a population and marked by borders.

Nation

A cultural and historical concept describing a group of people who identify with one another based on a shared history, culture, language, or myths.

Nation-state

A state whose citizens share a common national identity, deriving its legitimacy from claims that it represents a particular nation.

Elite Nationalism

Nationalism produced when political or social elites reproduce and decide what cultural material is tied up in national identity.

State-supporting Nationalism

Nationalism that operates within an existing state to actively support and uphold that state.

State-opposing Nationalism

Nationalism expressed by a group within existing state borders that identifies as belonging to a state outside formal legal boundaries, such as Kurdistan or Quebec.

National Identity

A person's collective sense of emotional belonging to a specific nation built over time through cultural symbols, collective memories, and values, distinct from legal citizenship.

Patriotism

A person's specific feelings of pride, attachment, and identity toward their nation, often manifested through engagement with cultural rituals.