Policy Press

Reimagining the Nation

Togetherness, Belonging and Mobility

By Claire Sutherland

Published

Jun 21, 2017

Page count

136 pages

ISBN

978-1447326281

Dimensions

198 x 129 mm

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jun 21, 2017

Page count

136 pages

ISBN

978-1447336631

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jun 21, 2017

Page count

136 pages

ISBN

978-1447336655

Imprint

Policy Press

Published

Jun 21, 2017

Page count

136 pages

ISBN

978-1447336648

Imprint

Policy Press
Reimagining the Nation

This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by seeking to transcend ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it steps outside assumptions linking nation to state.

Accessible yet theoretically rich, it explores how to think about nationhood beyond narrow binaries and even broader cosmopolitan ideals. Using cutting-edge critical research, it fundamentally challenges the positive connotations of British patriotism and UK politics’ increasingly shrill anti-immigrant discourse, pointing to how these continue to reproduce vocabularies of belonging that are dependent on ethnonational and racialised categorisations.

With a cross-continental focus, this book offers alternative ways of thinking about togetherness and belonging that are premised on mobility rather than rootedness, thereby providing a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.

'A thrilling, passionate and timely book that takes us from Europe to Pacific Asia and back again to consider the frightening, fascinating power of nationalist ideology'. Angharad Closs Stephens, Swansea University

“A timely and provocative consideration of the recent trends in exclusivist nationalism.” - CHOICE Connect

Claire Sutherland is a senior lecturer in politics at Durham University, UK. Her main research interests are nationalism and nation-building, particularly in Southeast Asia and Western Europe.

Introduction

1.Brexit Nation

2.Home and Belonging

3.‘The Europe we want’

4.Sea as a Political Space

5.Representation beyond the Nation

6.Conclusion