Lecture 5: Identity, Imagined Community, the Nation, and Transnational Influences

Question 1

Historic Canadian Identity

Answer 1

• have a lot of ties to the British
• when we were considering the national anthem, “Maple Leaf Forever” was an option that were more politically correct (included Britain, Scotland, and Ireland)
• we don’t consider most of these things to be part of our identity anymore; it’s not all about God and King (like in WWII)
• there’s also the French/Quebec section
• there are also regional versions, i.e. someone from BC or Alberta doesn’t have the same outlook as someone from Ontario
• all of the above are slightly obsolete and old-fashioned
• now, we’re multicultural
• something subtler is that we’re not American
  
  • e.g. we say that we’re politer than the US, but not the Japanese or anyone else
  • there’s more contest to multiculturalism in the US, but they’re not a melting pot anymore
• we also have a North American identity

Question 2

Who is “Canadian”?

Answer 2

• there are degrees to being “Canadian”
• if you ask someone, “what’s your nationality” you’re asking what passport they have or their citizenship
• but when the answer, they usually answer with ethnicity
  
  • some people will just say “Canadian” and some won’t if they’re mixed
• legal citizenship and practical citizenship are not the same thing; practical citizenship means having their voice heard, making a difference in their community, being recognized and cared for by the state, and being recognized by others in the community
• remember that anthropologists aren’t trying to say what’s “correct” or how things should be; they’re just describing how things are

Question 3

Imagined Community

Answer 3

• the idea comes from Benedict Anderson, Cornell University
• imagined community: a group who doesn’t know each other face-to-face but feel and act like a community
  
  • somehow we’re close to each other, as Canadians, but there’s no way for all of us to know each other
• the way we use “community” is almost like a plural; e.g. gay community means “gay people” and Jewish community means “Jewish people”
• in anthropology, we use community to mean groups of people together
• Kalmar: but a group of people doesn’t automatically make a community, e.g. Ontario isn’t a community but BC and Quebec are
• religious communities are also imagined; this is sanctified by the religion; they’re supposed to feel a connection with each other
  
  • religious communities are an older idea than nations
  • religious identities have often been (most of the time unsuccessfully) turned into national identities; e.g. Islam

Question 4

Hockey

Answer 4

• hockey is Canada’s national winter sport, and lacrosse is the national summer sport
• in order for a community to be practiced, we must:
  
  • play hockey
  • watch hockey
  • talk about hockey
• it’s a spectacle of imagined community; even though Russians probably play and enjoy hockey just as much, it’s not as much a part of their identity; it’s a means for us to imagine the nation of Canada
• consider: Canada vs. Russia or Canada vs. the USA in a hockey game
  
  • it’s more intense when we play against the Russians; the USA are like our rival friends, but the Russians are like our “enemies”

Question 5

What is a “Nation”?

Answer 5

• it can mean a “state”, a political unit
• can also be an imagined community; some states don’t have an imagined community (although most modern ones do, it’s more successful this way)
• again, nations as an imagined community is a relatively new concept (although nations as a state has been around for a while, which will be discussed in another lecture)

Question 6

What Comes First? State or National Community?

Answer 6

• e.g. the “German nation” was talked about before Germany was founded as a country 1871; but we tend to think about Germany as being older than Canada
• e.g. Italy was founded in 1861, but even before it was founded, they felt like they were a nation state
• in these cases, the imagined community (“the people”) is the justification for the political nation (“the state”)
  
  • it’s hard for people to reconcile accepting new people into their state while maintaining they’re national identity, since their reason for existence is this imagined community
  • this is why it’s easier for us to be multicultural, compared to Germany
• in Canada, the imagined nation is the result of, and supports, a pre-existing political nation (state)
• it’s not like people just started feeling Canadian the day the nation was established

Question 7

Nations Are Always Constructed

Answer 7

• even if you identify strongly as a Hungarian (or whatever else), it’s still constructed
  
  • this feeling is only a few generations old
  • even if you feel that it’s so ingrained in you, so naturally given, that you’d be willing to die for your nation, there’s nothing intrinsic about this feeling
  • we’re not saying it’s not real, it is, but it’s still constructed
• but remember that an imagined community is not imaginary
• a national “identity” is important for a nation’s existence

Question 8

Language and National Identity

Answer 8

• languages (not the ability to have language itself) are constructed
• the 19th century in Europe is when this linguistic nationalism started to rise
  
  • e.g. German because they spoke German; but in reality, German dialects were very different from each other
  • in the villages the border between Germany and Holland, their language is much closer than what’s spoken between Berlin and Amsterdam
• nations defined themselves by a common language; they decided the borders based on language
• language and dialect are a political difference that has to do with the construction of a nation; they are not a linguistic labels, but political labels
• examples of languages that are very similar and the speakers can understand each other:
  
  • Russian and Ukrainian
  • Czech and Slovak
  • Danish and Norwegian
  • Serbian and Croatian
  • Hindi and Urdu
• but there are many Chinese dialects that other Chinese people don’t understand; these dialects are further apart from each other than Russian and Ukrainian or Hindi and Urdu, but are not different languages
  
  • this is because politically, China is one nation, and historically always has been
  • there’s no other real good explanation for why else this would happen

Question 9

African National Identities

Answer 9

• these countries typically lack a common, distinctive, local language
• they were derived from colonial state formations rather than their own imagined communities
  
  • this is one explanation for why African nations are so prone to separatist movements; they don’t really consider themselves a community

Question 10

National Identity, Minorities, and Immigration

Answer 10

• in Europe, minorities were “trapped” in new states when national borders were drawn based on linguistic-national identities
• in Canada, the French minority was the result of British military victory over the French
• there are immigrants who bring into Canada identities that weren’t there before
• multiculturalism is a solution to all of the different cultures being brought in
• in Quebec, the French people do have the feeling of primordial kinship, which is reflected in the debate of, “how many nations is Canada?”
  
  • people outside Quebec generally answer there’s one, but surveys from within Quebec would say that there’s two

Question 11

Case Study: Afro-Antillianness in Panama and Transnational Tourism and Local Identity

Answer 11

• they (generally) live along the coast of Panama
• history of the title of the article; it was once forbidden to use African drums when the Spanish ruled these areas, and afterwards, since African culture was considered inferior
• the Afro-Antillians are black people who speak versions of English, which we call creole
• the tourists come to these places to have a good time and to encounter “native culture”
• tourists generally have knowledge of calypso or reggae, which is not really Panamanian form, but they play it for tourists to be good sports
• there’s a group called Samy y Sandra, who play tipico music, but blended with reggae so it’ll be more attractive to the tourists
• the tourists are happy with this, but the locals are actually happy as well because it sells
• instead of making the place more American by introducing tourists, the music as actually become more Antillian