Imagined communities (Benedict Anderson)
Traditions & nationalism package:
- Imagined Communities
- The invention of tradition
- Mirror of modernity
At long last, I am making progress on my piles of books on tradition and nationalism. I actually started more than 2 years ago with Hobsbawn & Ranger’s Invention of tradition but picked up the two as they were either listed as a big contribution (for Imagined communities) or an application to Japan (for Mirror of modernity).
As I write this review, I am in various level of progress into The Invention of tradition and Mirror of modernity but I finally managed to aligned my neurons to read and finish Imagined Communities. Hurray.
What is it about ?
The book focuses on the emergence of the concept of nation, as an identity shared within a certain group of people. Benedict Anderson traces it way before the 19th century, considered to be the birth of the concept of nation state, to the printing press and the revolution it introduces, not only in diffusing ideas but mainly in elevating the local vernacular language, quickly toppling church latin or the previous administrative language and fostering the emergence of vernacular language books and authors. From this, he elaborates on the role of commercial newspapers and how they shaped both the language across their diffusion area and create a sense of proximity and unity amongst its readership as stories published in the newspaper, no matter how mundane, are reported as news-worthy and relatable to everyone reading them.
Of course, the impact of colonialisme is taken into account. But Anderson points that the colonial administration produces an esprit de corps both among the colonized people but also the people dispatched from the imperial core (and their children) as they suddenly become second-tier citizens who can only move higher in the hierarchy in the country they are assigned to or, if they are “lucky” to another colony. Which leads to them being closer in their concerns to their peers stuck in the colonies and further away from the concerns of the core. Continuing on the newspaper case, he notes that even when being able to access newspapers from the imperial core, their day to day was more impacted by the local newspaper.
He further describes how the colonial power and their educated administrators needed to rely on local administrators, which they could “trust” meaning they had a similar education and system of reference. These local administrators they became estranged from their own peers as well as still being separated from the colonial administrators, no matter how similar they were in both situations. On the other hand, this also lead to the formation of association or friendships between the local administrators from different countries, especially in the different colonies in Africa as the french colonial power first established a very limited number of high level education centres.
Finally, he describes how this sense of community is extended and promoted across the whole area / country and the educated elite work hard to frame the country history, folklore and so on to be traditional, established from time immemorial and specific to their country, even though no one 30, 50, 70 years before that, no one had any idea what this specific country concept was supposed to be.
He also spends some time explaining how technical procedures (mapping, census, …) were also an integral part of this process as they define the where but also create strongly defined categories to define who is and isn’t part of the national community. A discussion which not echoes in my recent read.
Further comments
The blurb above might look as if the book focuses on the european colonies and their way to emancipation. Anderson certainly draws examples from all around the globe, either in colonised countries (for example Indochina) or independent countries strongly influenced by such countries (using that previous example as a reference: Thailand). But he also applies it to their imperial core (England, France, Germany, Holland, Austria…).
The book is also from the time when the authors felt confident that inserting a quote in a different european language didn’t need providing a translation. The book is peppered with quotes in French, German, Latin and no translation is provided. When discussing the emergence of nationalism in Indonesia / Malaysia, he does provide translation after some paragraphs discussing the original text first. A different time. Or I am just not smart enough.
Final word
A tough one. The concepts discussed are interesting but, to be frank, I read quite a few pages diagonally as the content felt kinda repetitive in the end.