Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Patriotic Are Albanians? The Comparative Study Of Patriotic Attitudes In Albania And The Albanian Diaspora, Anxhela Spahiu

Master's Theses

In today’s post-modern digital world, patriotism may not be as prevalent as in the past. In this thesis, my principal aim is to investigate to what extent Albanians, a nationality to which I belong, identify with a patriotic attitude toward Albania. I chose to focus not only on Albanians who live in the diaspora, like myself, but also on Albanians who live in Albania. I believe that to understand national pride to its fullest, you must study the attitudes of those who live in the country of origin as well as of those who live in the diaspora. Many people …

Czech Cultural Identity: Incompatible With Mass Muslim Immigration And Contributes To Rising European Populism, Alana Thi Vorda

MSU Graduate Theses

This thesis examines the respective successes and failures of the Czech experience with integrating Roma and Vietnamese immigrants, and asserts that, given deeply established historical and cultural narratives, and contemporary domestic political considerations as shown in these two previous cases, the Czech Republic is unlikely to effectively assimilate any new surge in Muslim immigration. Developments in the Czech Republic are likely, therefore, to reflect the accelerating populist momentum that is currently sweeping Central and Eastern European states.

The Role Of Elites In The Formation Of National Identities: The Case Of Montenegro, Muhammed F. Erdem

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to answer two interlinked central questions with respect to Montenegrins’ divide over statehood and identity: Why and how Montenegrins, whom were once called ‘the purest and the best of Serbs’, sought to end their century-long common state experience with Serbia and instead establish their own nation-state in 2006, and what explains the rise of Montenegrin national identity and its transformation into nationalism? In attempting to answer these questions, it traces the historical development of Montenegrin national thought dating back to the early 20^th century when Montenegro was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. …

Bbc News: Defining Britishness In The Early Twenty-First Century, Christine Gilroy-Reynolds

English Theses & Dissertations

According to the BBC’s 2006 Royal Charter, the BBC situations itself rhetorically within the notions of ‘public value’ and its commitment to, among other things, "d) representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities; e) bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK [...]"(2-3). In order to achieve these goals, the BBC must define that which it represents particularly when dealing with the news. While BBC News claims to be impartial, rhetorically, impartiality is impossible when committing to the pursuit of definition and representation. In defining “Britishness,” BBC News must negotiate Britain’s global position as post-colonial, …

Americans’ Willingness To Communicate With Mexican Immigrants: Effects Of Ethnocentrism And Immigration Status, Stephanie Leanne Harris

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

Prompted by the 2016 United States (US) Presidential election, the topic of Mexican immigration has come to figure prominently in contemporary societal discourse. This study explores the willingness of US citizens to communicate with Mexicans as a function of US citizens’ ethnocentrism and Mexicans’ immigration documentation status. Specifically, this study measured ethnocentrism (Neuliep & McCroskey, 1997) and general willingness to communicate (McCroskey, 1992) of US citizens and then considered the relationship of these variables to their willingness to communicate with documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants. The study also explored the potential role that various lifespan variables, such as early communication …

Stronger, Leaner, Francophone: Physical Culture In The Nationalism Of Adrien Gagnon, Phillip Chipman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The idea of nationalism within the Province of Quebec has been prominent throughout its history. As a notable subject, French Canadian nationalism has been studied in great detail, in relation to sport, politics, and art. However, the relationship between Francophone pride and physical culture has yet to be examined.

The purpose of this thesis was to reveal the presence of French Canadian nationalism within the realm of bodybuilding, more specifically, to study Adrien Gagnon’s physical culture magazine Santé et Développement Physique as a vehicle for nationalist thinking. Since Gagnon was publishing between 1946 and 1956, but was born in 1924, …

'Mother Bring The Henna': Kına Gecesi And Fragmented Imaginations Of The Nation-State, Alexandra Catrina Vieux Frankel

Theses and Dissertations

This research articulates kına gecesi (henna night) as a critical site for the production and reproduction of gendered politics in Turkey. Kına gecesi, as a women’s pre-wedding ritual, is situated at the margins of civil wedding ceremonies, and thereby intersects with wedding’s politicization in pronatalist discourses. Tropes of fertility in this ritual in concert with its proximity to marriage show it to be salient to biological, cultural, and national reproduction. I argue that women’s discourses on kına gecesi engender frangemented imaginations of the nation-state. This notion of fragmentation follows Dipesh Chakrabarty’s understanding of “provincializing” which advocates direct translation of experience …

Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, …

Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All political communities set normative limits to the acceptable use of force. A threshold of atrocity indicates the point at which acceptable violence meets the boundaries of the unacceptable. In liberal democratic states such norms are ostensibly set higher. Hence, there is a theoretical threshold to the modern state’s ability to act in ways that violate norms it claims to uphold. Paradoxically, thresholds of atrocity are almost never breached and unconscionable violence occurs regularly. This study seeks to explain the persistence of extreme violence by developing a theory of atrocity grounded in moral vision. Liberal democratic nation-states are able to …

Hyphenated Japan: Cross-Examining The Self/Other Dichotomy In Ainu-Japanese Material Culture, Jonathan Chira Shapiro

Honors Papers

This is a historical ethnography that examines how shifts Japanese national identity and values of homogeneity have affected Japan’s minority Ainu population. I argue that the symbolic position of Ainu culture has historically been rearranged to suit prevailing ideas about Japanese nationality and culture without input from Ainu. Using theoretical understandings of Self-Other dichotomies, I examine the particular way these practices manifested in Meiji Japan to create modern Japanese national identity, and how these functioned both against the West and people colonized by Japan. From there, I look at how cultural nationalism was objectified as present from time immemorial in …

Monolingualism In A Multicultural Nation: The Impact Of Nationalism And Color-Blind Racial Ideologies On Support For English-Only Policies, Anna Benker

Departmental Honors Projects

The United States is one of few nations yet to name an official language. However, the desire to make English the official language of the US has been prevalent throughout history and remains strong to this day. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that are related to greater support for English-Only policy. Previous studies have found that ideas of nationalism, specifically holding ethno-cultural criteria of national membership, is correlated with greater support for English-Only policy (Citrin et al, 1990; Frendreis and Tatalovich, 1997; Garcia and Bass, 2007; Schildkraut, 2003). This study will retest some of these …

No Such State As Palestine: Notions Of Home And The State In Palestinian Relationships With Palestine, Osama A. Abdl-Haleem

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

There is no such state as Palestine. But nearly 70 years after the termination of the British mandate for Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, Palestine remains a home for the Palestinian. It is an identity not dependent on the existence of a Palestinian state, nor arrested by the presence of an Israeli one. Palestinians have a home relationship with Palestine, where home is a sense of belonging that comes from within, that isn’t earned and given, but personal and chosen, even while it is communal. Home is a self-determined relationship of person to place. The relationships …

A Contemporary Analysis And Comparison Of Kurdish National Movements: Syria, Iraq, And Turkey, Grayson Lanza

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As commonly understood, and particularly espoused by Kurdish nationalists, the Kurds are by far the largest ethnic group in the world without their own nation-state. An estimated 2 to 2.5 million ethnically Kurdish people inhabit portions of Syria. There are approximately 6.5 million ethnically Kurdish people in Iraq, 7.6 million in Iran, and 16 million in Turkey. Overall, there are about 30 million Kurds in the world. In the broader context of the Kurdish nationalist struggle, this paper suggests that there is a growing bipolar hegemony for power over the control of Kurdish land and politics. Research was predicated around …

Nationalism From Above In Narratives : A Comparison Between Britian And China, Zhaojin Lu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Comparing political speeches and history textbooks in Britain and China from the twentieth century, this study explores the symbolic construction of Chinese and British national identity after the downfall of the empires. In both cases, the decline of the empire and the imperial identity had given the room for the uprising of narrow nationalism, which could be seen respectively in English-centric narratives and Han-centric narratives in the data before and during the World War Two. However, a key difference lay in the building of English nationalism and Han nationalism. The grow of English nationalism was accompanied by a shrinkage of …

“What Sort Of Communists Are You?” The Struggle Between Nationalism And Ideology In Poland Between 1944 And 1956, Jan Ryszard Kozdra

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The period between 1944 and 1956, also known as the “Stalinist period”, is one of the most controversial and turbulent in Polish history. The Polish communist party launched the project of restructuring Polish society, whose historically wellestablished national identity seemed incompatible with the communist project. Firstly, the communists effected a demographic change that resulted in a near monoethnic state. Simultaneously, they introduced a centrally planned economy, transformed state symbolism, initiated a national education system, attempted to reshape popular attitudes to religion, and launched a massive propaganda campaign to reinforce and popularize their objectives.

This study seeks to investigate the communists’ …