Is there weak nationalism and is it a useful category? Cover Image

За ползата от категорията „слаб национализъм“
Is there weak nationalism and is it a useful category?

Author(s): Maria N. Todorova
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Customs / Folklore, Sociology, Ethnohistory, Political history, Social history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Nationalism Studies
Published by: Институт за етнология и фолклористика с Етнографски музей при БАН
Keywords: anthropological analyses;nationalism;

Summary/Abstract: Introducing the category “weak nationalism,” this article emphasizes the scales of intensity and the different operational modes of nationalism across time and space, as well as within the same space. It refuses to create a model or another dichotomy – strong/weak – on a par with earlier ones like organic/civic, Eastern/Western, bad/good. Rather, it approaches nationalism as a binary variable on a scale from weak/low to strong/high. It argues to extend the research focus beyond the fixation on extreme cases to so called weak or weaker manifestations that remain subordinate and underresearched, all the time stressing the changeability of nationalisms in their local context and in the course of time. While it is a category more recognizable in a common sense approach than in a strictly quantifiable one, it can be identified and comparatively evaluated by the mobilizing ability of the nationalist message in the public sphere.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 328-347
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Bulgarian