Atsuko Ichijo, Nationalism and Multiple Modernities: Europe and Beyond (Identities and Modernities in Europe). UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 143pp. £75.00 (hbk). Reviewed by Slobodan Vasic (original) (raw)
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From internationalisation to globalisation: Language and the nationalist revival in Sweden
Language Problems and Language Planning, 2005
In recent years, much has been made in the media and in academic circles of the risk that the world is heading towards linguistic convergence. But as internationalisation gives way to globalisation, as the emphasis shifts from mere contact between states to pressures for homogeneity, there is a paradoxical tendency towards cultural divergence. Economic-inspired theories of globalisation seem to have underestimated the power of identity, which has contributed to nationalist revivals around the globe. This paper therefore seeks to make identity considerations more central to the current debate on language and globalisation, by focusing on the lesser-known context of Sweden. The minimal importance attributed to national and linguistic identity in Sweden during the era of internationalisation is contrasted with the renewed sense of national identity that has arisen in the more advanced era of globalisation. This nationalist revival could provide the necessary support amongst the general...
The Nineteenth Century Nor- wegian-Swedish
2009
The aim of the article is to study the border between Norway and Sweden during the nineteeth century on the basis of Karl Deutsch's theory of "pluralistic security community" from the 1950s and modern international bor- der theory and research literature on nation building processes. The establishment of a non-violent border relationship including the devel- opment of a shared Norwegian-Swedish belief that political problems must and can be resolved by processes of peaceful change, was an issue that Deutsch dated to the years after the peaceful dissolution of the political union between them —in 1905. Confronted with an overview of the history of the border during the union period from 1814 to 1905, the article claims that the demilitarized union zone was established already in the 1820s. The border was gradually solidified as a consequence of the development of modern cartography, but its significance was weakened as a result of the industrialisation during the ninete...
Scandinavica volume 58, issue 2 (2019), 2019
This article argues that the persistent revanchist feelings in Sweden vis-à-vis Russia over the loss of Finland in 1809 constitute a broad undercurrent in Sweden's otherwise peaceful modern history. The Franco-British attempts to draw Sweden into the Crimean War (1853-1856) against Russia are studied as an example of one such 'critical juncture' that brought Sweden very close to joining a war with the expectation of reconquering Finland. Facilitated by the development of the modern public sphere in Sweden, the war enthusiasm in the Swedish liberal press reflected a deeply-felt national humiliation over the defeat in 1809, but also linked to anxieties over the development of Finnish (Fennoman) nationalism and the possibilities of realising the goals of the Scandinavianist movement.
Nationalism and multiple modernities: Europe and beyond
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2014
The Identities and Modernities in Europe series examines one of the central issues in the social sciences, modernity, by way of a comparative study of processes of Europeanisation. Arising from a European Commission funded FP7 project, 'Identities and Modernities in Europe', an international collaborative research project, the series brings together the latest research findings into modernity carried out by cutting-edge researchers across Europe using 'identity' and 'Europe' as a way into the study of modernity. In the post-Cold War, 9/11 and Lehman Brothers era, which is also marked by a rapid pace of globalisation, questions concerning 'Europe' and identity are becoming more and more urgent and the debates are heating up. With the unfolding of the euro crisis, both 'Europe' and European identity are earnestly interrogated on a daily basis by a wide range of people, not only at the periphery of 'Europe'-both member states and non-member states of the European Union-but also within the euro area. In fact the question of 'Europe' has not been so pertinent for a long time since the inception of the EU. This is taking place against a wider background of rapid globalisation which is accompanied, perhaps paradoxically, by an increasingly fragmented world. In such a supposedly fragmenting world, identities inevitably attract more and more attention. Identities are a modern concern and 'Europe' is the birth place of the currently dominant form of modernity, and therefore these existential questions about 'Europe' and identities eventually lead to the questioning of modernity as we know it. The series endeavours to address these concerns by gathering latest and interdisciplinary research results about the idea of Europe, European identities and Europeanisation. The volumes collected in the series present original research grounded in history, sociology and anthropology on the question of 'Europe', identity and modernity. Some contributors present a comparative analysis; others present a one-country based case study. The geographical areas covered in the series go beyond the EU and include Turkey, Croatia and Japan. Various dimensions about 'Europe', identity and modernity are explored: Europeanisation and modernisation, tolerance, discursive construction of Europe, religion, nationalism, collective identity construction and globalisation. A variety of methods to collect data are employed: in-depth interviews, discourse analysis, civilisational analysis and biographical interviews. Each volume's nuanced analysis will come together to help realise a more comprehensive understanding of 'Europe', identity and modernity.
Scandinavian Journal of History , 2020
An important era for the European Enlightenment-founded ‘republic of letters’ was the cultural internationalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The fin de siècle was also significant in forming the concepts of both the European intellectual and the European public sphere. The starting point of my article is the Finnish liberal cultural intellectuals during this period. In their activities in Europe, these Finnish intellectuals operated in the context of Russification, and that left a national mark. On the other hand, Scandinavia was the first frame of reference for literary-oriented Finnish liberal intellectuals. Through empirical examples from the cultural periodicals they edited, I discuss how periphery intellectuals joined the European republic of letters and how transnationalism in exchanging ideas and sharing universal ideals was realized. The outcome of the article is that although transnationalism in history studies provides a fruitful way to approach the era in question, often nationalism play a significant role in the transnational activities of intellectuals in small nations. Besides the political situation of a young small nation in turmoil, the close relationship between the State and ‘intellectual labour’ makes the Finnish case interesting in terms of transnational history.