Imagined Community: Imagined political unity, imagined as inherently limited and sovereign.
Imagined - citizens don't see each other
Limited - bounded by borders, even if they are elastic
Sovereign - the nations have administrative/political power
Community- horizontal comradeship
Emergence of Nationalism:
1. Decline of coherent religious communities
2. Decline of dynasties
3. Emergence of empty homogenous time.
Print Capitalism: unified fields of exchange and communication.
Creole Pilgrimage and Print:
First nations were nationalism emerged were not in Europe but in Latin America. Spaniards traversed their territory on secular pilgrimages, and met other spaniards from their territory. These introduced a national consciousness that was further bolstered by newspaper (print media) that carried information about ships, commodity prices etc.
Old languages-New Models: European Nationalism 1820-1920
Print capitalism - vernacular lexicographers made dictionaries, translations etc in vernacular languages. Scholars were producers in this print-capitalism market and the growing bourgeois its receivers. Europe was filled with vernacular imagined communities. This form of nationalism, was made modular (blueprints) by Europe, and transported to colonies around the world.
Official Nationalism:
While Latin America was the model for European nationalism, Europe packaged and transported this “official nationalism” to colonies in 19th century. Anderson calls this “top-down-nationalism’ were countries with dynastic realms were also forced to adopt national symbols and foster nationalism.
Census, Map, Museum
Census: Everybody is identified with a number. Everybody has one place. Nation is naturalized, since nationality becomes a necessity, like gender.
Map: creation of map helped imagine the nation as limited. There are bounded nations, next to which other nations lie.
Museum: construction of a linear history. Shared heritage.
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