Extract

Pablo GIORI

Universitat de Girona

“I would emphasize

the elements of artifact, invention and social engineering

involved in nation-building”1

1. Nation-building: a project and an experience2

We usually read articles and books about nationalism as a political project produced and developed by governmental institutions. This is what we call the top-down perspective which only explains what institutions want people to do. This hegemonic standpoint, based on the disciplinary methods of history and sociology, has been questioned in recent years from the contributions of anthropology and psychology. These new proposals also try to understand nation-building processes from the bottom-up standpoint, what people really do beyond institutions and their desires. This perspective considers the experience and everyday life of citizens as something important to understand nation-building processes3. We believe that both proposals are not opposed but complementary; they have to be part of the ← 431 | 432 → same research because they allow us to understand the process as a whole, nationalism as a project and as an experience. This proposal helps us recognize the limits of the institutions attempts to change everyday life, national feelings or popular traditions. We can also put into perspective how spontaneous is the emergence of national belonging from civil society and how planned it is from some institutions at a national or subnational level. To do that, we have to consider the political and cultural aspects of nation-building processes4.

Since the 19th century,...