Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Imagined communities is a term coined by Benedict Anderson (1983) in an influential book on the emergence and persistence of the nation. Anderson addresses a number of central sociological issues associated with belonging and cultural communities. A paradox of the modern age is that although many feel that the nation is our natural community, we do not know the vast majority of the other people who constitute this group. Indeed, Anderson famously defines the nation as imagined “because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (p. 6). The nation is defined as a community because “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (p. 7). Therefore, the concept of imagined community assumes that nations, national identities, and nationalism are socially constructed; “imagined” in this context then does not mean false, but instead points to the socio-cognitive element in the construction of the nation. Like many others working in this tradition, Anderson argues culture is crucial to these constructions, placing major emphasis on the chance, yet highly dynamic, coincidence of the emergence of print culture and the development of industrial capitalism ... log in or subscribe to read full text