Doctoral study on the interfaces of symbolic culture

Brazilian Identities: Compositions and Recompositions, 2014

The growing complexity of social dynamics and the acceleration of transformations render national identity more visible as a discursive construct, with its contradictions and lacunas. In contrast, it is interesting to perceive the longevity of representations surrounding national identities, which still demarcate a “territory of the imagination” through which material and symbolic disputes are established.

2014

There is a complex concept in sociological sciences, and this is called "identity". It can simply be defined that one person's perception, understanding, and expression of himself or herself, and other people's individuality and group affiliations. This paper is related to the concept of national identity and examines it through a broad context.

Družboslovne razprave , 2017

The idea for this special issue evolved in the framework of the project Discourses of the Nation and the National, conducted at the University of Oslo (ILOS), which held the symposium National Symbols across Time and Space in September 2015. 1 Starting from a general assumption that some crucial aspects of the "nation" and the "national" are constructed and deconstructed in discourse, and that national social formations and nationalisms are persistent phenomena although they experience transformations and reappear under the guise of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, the project comparatively studied various aspects of the national across various discourses. Assuming that the modes of realization, visibility, and importance of the reproductions of the national vary from country to country, the project's activities (symposia, core project members' research, guest researchers' projects, doctoral projects, and guest lectures) concentrated on a range of regions and countries, with an emphasis on North American, Romance, and Slavic studies. The topics examined within the project include borders, space and identity, metaphors in identity construction, discursive construction of patriotism, urban landscapes, diaspora communities and their identity, food and national identity, and television and national identity. The realms of discourse examined include mass media, scholarly discourse, discourse by intellectual and political elites, discourse of urban planning, semi-official computer-mediated discourse, graffiti, and literature.

2020

2017

The idea for this special issue evolved in the framework of the project Discourses of the Nation and the National, conducted at the University of Oslo (ILOS), which held the symposium National Symbols across Time and Space in September 2015. 1 Starting from a general assumption that some crucial aspects of the "nation" and the "national" are constructed and deconstructed in discourse, and that national social formations and nationalisms are persistent phenomena although they experience transformations and reappear under the guise of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, the project comparatively studied various aspects of the national across various discourses. Assuming that the modes of realization, visibility, and importance of the reproductions of the national vary from country to country, the project's activities (symposia, core project members' research, guest researchers' projects, doctoral projects, and guest lectures) concentrated on a range of regions and countries, with an emphasis on North American, Romance, and Slavic studies. The topics examined within the project include borders, space and identity, metaphors in identity construction, discursive construction of patriotism, urban landscapes, diaspora communities and their identity, food and national identity, and television and national identity. The realms of discourse examined include mass media, scholarly discourse, discourse by intellectual and political elites, discourse of urban planning, semi-official computer-mediated discourse, graffiti, and literature. The symposium National Symbols across Time and Space was devoted to the widely recognized crucial role of symbols in national identity construction: this is reflected in one of the definitions of national identity as "a form of imaginative identification with the symbols and discourses of the nation-state" (Barker & Galasinski 2001: 124). We provided a platform for discussing official and unofficial national symbols, as well as symbols of cultural identity, be they concrete (material) or abstract, in the light of the assumption that nations and national phenomena have lost their significance at a time of cultural globalization. We examined how cultural globalization affects symbols and symbolic meanings. Furthermore, we discussed whether national symbols reflect universal patterns in symbolic systems, or whether they depend on the particular features of different national discourses. The topics discussed at the workshop included national day celebrations, political symbolism, the symbolic function of language, and fictional characters as symbols. Before addressing how the four articles in this special issue relate to previous research on symbols, we provide a short overview of recent studies. Due to limited space and the fact that symbols and symbolic meanings is an extremely broad field of research (studied, e.g., within social representation theory, social psychology, peace psychology, anthropology, political science, nationalism studies, and the arts), the overview focuses on research in the twenty-first century, particularly on volumes that discuss more than one national symbol, 2 more than one region, and topics of general importance. 3

The author argues that the content of the concept of "national identity" is determined by the way how we construe "nation". She submits two ways of construing the nation as basic ideal types: primordial versus instrumental. In primordial terminology the nation is primarily the "ethno-nation", i.e. a community which unites individuals through "the same blood and common fate". The instrumental way of construing the nation stresses the pragmatic and situational aspects of large communities. Thus it approaches the political understanding of the nation. The beliefs about the character of the nation prevailing within a particular community, determine the identification of the member of this community with the nation. Terminological chaos governs this area of life as well as research on it. The concept of "nationalism" can serve as an example: it denotes loyalty to the state as an instrumental political formation. Simultaneously, however, within the ideology of nationalism, the state is introduced as a primordial community. The aim of this paper is: 1. the analysis of the ways of construing the "nation" as a form of social reality by individuals; 2. the use of the construing about the nation in public, cultural, and political discourses; 3. consequences of the ways of construing the nation for the national identity of individuals.

Academicus International Scientific Journal, 2010

It is often said today that the agreement on the possibility of greater mutual understanding among human beings has failed. Would have led to the resurgence of long-suppressed hatreds, hatreds that have their source in the differences linked to national identities, ethnic and religious. We would be short before the end of universalistic concepts that have permeated the last centuries. In addition, the skepticism resulting from the growing success of postmodern ideas on the philosophical and political. In fact, if we look at history, the decline of universalistic concepts is not specific to our age. The reassertion of national identities, ethnic and religious is a recurrent phenomenon, which occurs every time some supranational empire, more or less tyrannical, collapses. Neither seems safe to regard the resurgence of identity as a sign of abandonment of cosmopolitanism. Such events have happened in cyclic rhythm in the past and should not cause us to be pessimistic about a renewed success in the future of ideals that point to unite rather than divide, to enhance the factors that unite us as human beings rather than to emphasize the elements that separate us from each other.

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Nationalism and nation are the important concept in construct the term of national identity. Benedict Anderson claims that nation as such is always imagined communities that give their members/citizens a sense of identity and belonging. Anderson believes that community actively builds the concept of nation, that a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. The sense of society on national identity is imagined through communities same experience. In Anderson perspective, the shared experience can be achieves through the role of mass media. Postmodern and globalization era, was facilitates the new form of media, that increasingly the possibility of society in experiencing the same idea. The argument of media as catalyst in form the society commonness, said, in other word, that mass media has important role in form the notion of national identity. Mass media presence helped people perceive themselves as homogeneous body. Mass media shared the idea among a nations and its people. Anderson have identified that mass media is a key instrument in the social construction of imagined communities. Media representations are integral to the social construction of national identities. However, mass media also eliminates the geographical boundaries among community. The form of national identity will influence either by internal forces and external forces. Moreover, within the condition, new narratives can change people's perceptions of what constitutes their national identity.

2021

An investigation into the narrative and representation of the modern Egyptian collective identity through design.