What is the nature and historical origin of nations? Are nations (and nationalism) a recent or an ancient phenomenon? Is a world dominated by transnational economy and global mass culture still a place of belonging and national identities? In the course of the past thirty years, a heated debate regarding these questions has raged in the scientific community between different schools of thought: from “modernists” to “perennists”, to “primordialists” and “ethnosymbolism”. The scientific production of Anthony Smith, one of the main characters in this debate, represents an innovative and original theoretical position. The aim of his critique of the constructivist paradigm – held by leading authors in the academic world such as Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm– was to show that, in order to understand the nature of nations (and nationalism), it is necessary to study the long-term historical and cultural entrenchment in the ethnic structures of the past.
Naciones y nacionalismo en la era global. El paradigma científco de Anthony D. Smith y la crítica al modernismo
Alessandro Campi
2017
Abstract
What is the nature and historical origin of nations? Are nations (and nationalism) a recent or an ancient phenomenon? Is a world dominated by transnational economy and global mass culture still a place of belonging and national identities? In the course of the past thirty years, a heated debate regarding these questions has raged in the scientific community between different schools of thought: from “modernists” to “perennists”, to “primordialists” and “ethnosymbolism”. The scientific production of Anthony Smith, one of the main characters in this debate, represents an innovative and original theoretical position. The aim of his critique of the constructivist paradigm – held by leading authors in the academic world such as Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm– was to show that, in order to understand the nature of nations (and nationalism), it is necessary to study the long-term historical and cultural entrenchment in the ethnic structures of the past.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
