Philosophy Behind Bars最新文献_第2页

Towards Theory: 对理论:

Philosophy Behind Bars Pub Date : 2021-07-16 DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1rnpjbn.7

LandscapesByPeter F. Stadlera

{"title":"Towards Theory:","authors":"LandscapesByPeter F. Stadlera","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv1rnpjbn.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1rnpjbn.7","url":null,"abstract":"level but is constantly reproduced, represented and reinterpreted at the most local level in ways that cause cross-level contradictions. Other approaches to national identity formation have attempted to reconcile these contradictions by awarding ontological priority to one of the levels, causing the problems outlined above. James argued that it is not necessary to reconcile these contradictions. Instead, locating and understanding the contradictions is an essential part of the study of national identity formation. The idea that the nation results from a variety of social contradictions is expressed in the oxymoronic concept of ‘abstract community’. According to James, ‘the nation is an abstract community which only becomes possible within a social formation constituted through the emerging dominance of relations of disembodied extension’. He moves from ‘imagination’ to ‘abstraction’ in order to emphasise that the processes he is describing are both material and ideational, unlike Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’ which are essentially constituted in the realm of ideas. The oxymoron is completed with ‘community’, implying ‘direct relations of mutuality’, something which in turn implies spatial presence in contradiction to the processes of abstraction that seek to move away from such presence. James deliberately married ‘abstract’ and ‘community’ in order to emphasise the contradictions of ‘continuity-in-discontinuity’ and the ways that subjectivity both constitutes and is constituted by the abstract, and therefore the way in which identities can appear to persist or change depending on the ontology employed to study them. Paul James explicitly argued that his insights do not constitute a new research agenda for the study of national identity formation. Indeed, he argued MUP_Bellamy_03_Ch2 9/3/03, 9:21 26 Alex J. Bellamy 9781526137739 Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 04/26/2019 10:12:01AM via free access 27 R-   that he should consider writing a second volume that is more richly historical in nature. Although he raised many themes that enable us to move beyond the ‘great divide’, he did not suggest how these themes can be operationalised. If we are to use James’ account of the formation of abstract communities to study contemporary Croatian national identity, it is necessary therefore to elaborate on these themes. For this, we need the work of Katherine Verdery. Verdery accepted many of James’ insights, such as the problematisation of the ‘great divide’, and offers a series of research questions that combine the themes of continuity and change that are embedded in James’ work. All too often, Verdery suggested, national identity is reified so that it appears no longer to interact, compete, mould and be moulded by other forms of identity and different social settings. Furthermore, even after the complex processes of its formation, the nation continues to exist at more than one ontological level. Verdery pointed out that ‘n","PeriodicalId":143624,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy Behind Bars","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122307489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}