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Selected Works

Nationalism

2008

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in History

Refugee Camps In The Palestinian And Sahrawi National Liberation Movements: A Comparative Perspective, Randa Farah Dec 2007

Refugee Camps In The Palestinian And Sahrawi National Liberation Movements: A Comparative Perspective, Randa Farah

Randa R Farah Dr.

Drawing on ethnographic field research, this analysis compares the evolution of refugee camps as incubators of political organization and repositories of collective memory for Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Sahrawi refugees of the Western Sahara. While recognizing the significant differences between the historical and geopolitical contexts of the two groups and their national movements (the PLO and Polisario, respectively), the author examines the Palestinian and Sahrawi projects of national consciousness formation and institution-building, concluding that Palestinian camps are “mapped” in relation to the past, while political organization in Sahrawi camps evidences a forward-looking vision.

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Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman Dec 2007

Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman

Gareth Knapman

This article explores how early anthropological writing (1830s and 1840s) on the nation faced the question: How natural was the nation? In exploring development of the nation from the tribe, colonial ethnological writers in Southeast Asia also explored the limits of primordialism. Debates on the humanity of the orang-utan represented the search for these limits. The theme of degeneracy underpinned these connections. Degeneracy was a complex belief that connected the civilized nation to the savage tribe. Two methodologies underpinned this discourse: scientific rationality and imagination. Many contemporary studies focus on how scientific rationality created distance between the colonized and the …

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