Nations and Nationalism essays

Nations and Nationalism essays I. The most salient common theme, running through all three sections, is the divergence between the way colonial powers view nationalism, and the way the conquered nations view it, if they view it at all. A. For the first part of a colonial period, the indigenous population is often unaware it is being considered a nation; it is still operating under a more organic system in which things are not enumerated and particularizes; in which places are not located according to scientific principles, and; in which the artifacts' used by a conquering nation to display the national' character of the colony are reduced to logos. B. Later in the colonial period, the indigenous people may separate into two groups, the nationalists,' or those who militate against the colonizer and the colonizer's ways, and nationalists who have subscribed to the colonizer's ways and take pride in a new national identity, supplied by II. The second most common theme revolves around the way a colonizer creates' national identity by defining it, particularizing it, and then A. First, a colonizer attempts to define the characteristics of a nation' on the basis of ethnicity, but that ethnicity might be based on parameters of the colonizer's own, and not on any identity the colonized people would recognize. The colonizer might also mistake religious attributes for others, also leading to the result that the natives would B. Second, the colonizer creates maps. On these, he can locate the ethnic groups already identified. To the colonizer, this makes the area into a cohesive nation; very possibly the opposite could be said of the C. Third, the colonizer makes representations for show of artifacts that were, before colonization, very real and active parts of life to the ...