imagined community

imagined community
Benedict Anderson, in his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (2nd edn., 1991, originally 1983) referred to the nation as an imagined political community. It is imagined because:

    (a) the members never know or meet most of their fellow-members, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion;

    (b) it is limited because even the largest of them has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations;

    (c) it is sovereign because its members have the right to govern themselves;

    (d) it is a community because the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship, despite abiding social inequality between members.

Anderson emphasized that the nation is ‘imagined’ not ‘imaginary’, that it does not imply fabrication and falsity.

Criticisms of the concept include the...

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