"Gendering the Nation and Empire: Anthropological Investigations in Retrospect" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sociological Review, 1998
Review of: Nira Yuval-Davis, Sage, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, 1997 While studies of specific nationalist projects have often highlighted the centrality of gendered discourse, and while there have been a number of notable article-length contributions to theorizing particular dimensions of gender-nation interrelationships, most theorizing of nationalism has ignored gender. It is for this reason that Nira Yuval-Davis’ excellent overview and intelligent exploration of ‘gender relations and the ways they affect and are affected by national projects and processes’ (p. 1) is particularly welcome.
Special Issue: Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation
South Asian History and Culture , 2018
This Special Issue takes on board feminist reckonings of discourses on nationalisms which deploy gender as a central category to the discursive constructions of nation and nationalism. Women’s bodies emerge as the site of contesting cultures; in fact, women were almost always cultural transmitters as well as cultural signifiers of the national collectivity. The cartographical deployment of the woman’s body onto the nation’s territory ensures that now the nation is no longer a geographical space but an affective one. This Special Issue is a step towards articulating feminist politics and solidarities at a time when the relationship between gender, culture and politics is rearranging itself; where women are increasingly ventilating, voicing, censuring the ideological construction of the nation. Our contributors provoke questions on whether these utterances spell the death of the nation (imagined as the Hindu, upper caste, middle-class, heterosexual, able bodied Indian mother) or lead to its re-imagination? This issue will bring to the forefront and spur further discussions on the ubiquitous and tenacious relationship between gender and the nation.
Introduction: A special issue on gender and nationalism
Journal of Gender Studies, 1992
This issue of the Journal takes up the problematic relationship between gender and nationalism. The ambiguity of this relationship derives mainly from the two-sided character of nationalism. The feminist struggle is one for liberation from gender oppression; to the extent that it stands aside from other struggles against oppression (bourgeois feminists who ignore class oppression, white feminists who ignore racism), it becomes limited and partial: that is, it fails to recognise the gendered ways in which racial and class oppression operate, and thereby accepts the oppression of some women. Similarly, foreign domination and ethnic oppression also affect women in specific ways, and a feminism which stands for the liberation of all women cannot be neutral: it has to take a stand against oppression and for liberation.
Motherlands, mothers and nationalist sons
Stories of women, 2017
Woman is an infinite, untrodden territory of desire which at every stage of historical deterritorialisation, men in search of material for utopias have inundated with their desires. (Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies) 1 Among postcolonial and feminist critics it is now widely accepted that the nationalist ideologies which informed, in particular, the first wave of independence movements and of postcolonial literatures from 1947, are cast in a gendered mould. Nationalism, which has been so fundamental to the decolonisation process around the world, bears a clear mark for gender, and this gender marking, rather than being referred to a monolithic or transhistorical concept of patriarchy, can be explained as a specific historical development of power defined by sexual difference. To put it more plainly, this book submits that, without this marking for gender, it is well-nigh impossible to conceive of the modern nation. Whether we look at its iconography, its administrative structures or its policies, the new postcolonial nation is historically a maleconstructed space, narrated into modern self-consciousness by male leaders, activists and writers, in which women are more often than not cast as symbols or totems, as the bearers of tradition. Stories of women explores the intricate, often paradigmatic negotiations between gender, sexuality and the post-independence nation which have marked postcolonial narratives, including novels by women, from the independence period up to the present day. The central concept informing the book, therefore, which this chapter will theorise, and the following chapters will further exemplify and expand, is that gender forms the formative dimension for the construction of nationhood, if in relation to varying contextual determinants across different regions and countries. This is a point which, with remarkable unanimity, leading male theorists of the nation such as Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Anthony Smith have either ignored or failed to address, often choosing even so to define the nation,
Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family
Feminist Review, 1993
All nationalisms are gendered, all are invented, snd all are dangerousdangerous, not in Eric Hobsbawm's sense as having to be opposed, but in the sense of representing relations to political power and to the technologies of violence. Nationalism, as Ernest Gellner notes, invents nations where they do not exist, and most modern nations, despite their appeal to an august and immemorial past, are of recent invention (Gellner, 1964). Benedict Anderson warns, however, that Gellner tends to assimilate 'invention' to 'falsity' rather than to 'imagining' and 'creation'. Anderson, by contrast, views nations as 'imagined communities' in the sense that they are systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community (Anderson, 1991: 6). As such, nations are not simply phantasmagoria of the mind, but are historical and institutional practices through which social difference is invented and performed. Nationalism becomes, as a result, radically constitutive of people's identities, through social contests that are frequently violent and always gendered. But if the invented nature of nationalism has found wide theoretical currency, explorations of the gendering of the national imaginary have been conspicuously paltry. All nations depend on powerful constructions of gender. Despite nationalisms' ideological investment in the idea of popular unity, nations have historically amounted to the sanctioned institutionalization of gender difference. No nation in the world gives women and men the same access to the rights and resources of the nation-state. Rather than expressing the flowering into time of the organic essence of a timeless people, nations are contested systems of cultural representation that limit and legitimize peoples' access to the resources of the nation-state. Yet with the notable exception of Frantz Fanon, male theorists have seldom felt moved to explore how nationalism is
Patriarchy of the nation-state
The concept of the nation-state supposedly emerged in the 18 th and 19 th centuries with the downfall of monarchies and the formation of nations or countries based on homogenous or majoritarian linguistic, ethnic, racial or religious identities, that are clear characteristics of patriarchy which stands for the oppression, suppression and repression of a variety of individuals and groups and is not limited to the domination of women alone. These nations began to be governed or ruled by autocrats in some cases and by elected representatives of only some people in others, as that was before the introduction of universal suffrage. Such nations grew in number during the 20 th century with struggles for political independence and sovereignty compelling colonial occupiers to leave the occupied territories in parts of Asia, Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean et al, completely after transferring power to local leaders. Democracy has been the preferred paradigm of governance of nation-states and that continues until now. However, the so called elected representatives are often drawn from the majority and typically dominant groups or communities and tend to do their utmost to at least hold on to their positions or even elevate themselves, as far as possible. In addition to that, the prolonged and sometimes violent campaigns/ movements for sovereignty usually referred to as " freedom struggles " (although the presumed success or end of these campaigns/movements did not lead to freedom for socioeconomically marginalized groups) had given rise to the idea of nationalism or the more commonly used term, " patriotism " which has become exclusionary and forceful and thus patriarchal. Nationalism is supposed to stand for a sense of pride and love for the native land. Even if it is considered that such a land is the place of birth or citizenship of an individual, it is a sign of patriarchy as it indicates identification with only a specific location. Further, nationalism has regressed into jingoism and xenophobia and resulted in extreme intolerance and violent rejection of those who do not subscribe to the idea of a single or common identity. This is completely patriarchal as it promotes the dominance of the majority and is visible in government and everywhere else, even in a country like India which is socio-culturally very diverse by nature and secular as per the constitution. Therefore, this paper reiterates through various examples how the concept of nation-state is patriarchal and serves the interests of those with a majority mindset and dominant (caste, class, gender, religious, racial, linguistic, ethnic, regional) identity. Further, it questions the very need for a nation-state, especially one that is created by people belonging to a majoritarian socio-cultural identity or group and thought, in a largely homogeneous manner while professing the need to accept diversity. This paper also argues that the contemporary form of nationalism is not only exclusionary but also indicates an attitude of condescension towards minority groups, particularly in a milieu that is inherently heterogeneous.