what does anderson mean by imagined communities

Full Answer

What is Benedict Anderson's concept of imagined community?

For the book, see Imagined Communities. An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially-constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of a group. : 6–7

What does Anderson mean by nation as imagined community?

Nation as an imagined community. He defined a nation as "an imagined political community". As Anderson puts it, a nation "is 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".

What is the concept of the ‘imagined community’?

The concept of the ‘imagined community’ is most obviously associated with the work of Benedict Anderson on the ‘nation’. For Anderson, the nation is an ‘imagined community’ and national identity a construction assembled through symbols and rituals in relation to territorial and administrative categories.

Is the nation an imagined community?

In Imagined Communities (1983) Anderson argues that the nation is an imagined political community that is inherently limited in scope and sovereign in nature.

What are imagined communities according to Anderson?

An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially-constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of a group.

What are the two important features of Anderson's imagined community?

' The imagined community is one in which members will not know most of their fellow members, is finite with limited boundaries, sovereign power, and a community of fraternal, horizontal comradeship.

What is an imagined community example?

The most obvious example of imagined communities are modern nation states. To take a classic example, the United States as a modern nation state was founded only in the 18th century by European settlers who came from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

What are the characteristics of an imagined community?

Its borders are finite but elastic and permeable. The imagined community is sovereign because its legitimacy is not derived from divinity as kingship is—the nation is its own authority, it is founded in its own name, and it invents its own people which it deems citizens.

Why did Benedict Anderson define the nation as an imagined community?

In the book Anderson theorized the condition that led to the development of nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the Americas, and famously defined the nation as an “imagined community.” The nation is imagined, according to Anderson, because it entails a sense of communion or “horizontal ...

Why does Benedict Anderson refer to nations as imagined communities?

Why does Benedict Anderson refer to nations as "imagined" communities? He argues that nations are cultural constructions that lead people to believe they have a common heritage and collective responsibility to the nation.

What is imagined communities in sociology?

Imagined communities are populations of individuals that—though they may never come into contact with the vast majority of the group's other members—all self-identify under a shared community identity.

What are Anderson's 3 paradoxes of nationalism?

Anderson's best-known book, “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,” first published in 1983, began with three paradoxes: Nationalism is a modern phenomenon, even though many people think of their nations as ancient and eternal; it is universal (everyone has a nation), even though ...

Is America an imagined community?

The United States of America is perhaps the ultimate imagined community, in two senses: 1-Its own identity self-consciously celebrates an American kinship dependent of people who have come here from other places.

Why are imagined communities important?

Imagined Communities stimulated attention to the dynamics of socially and culturally organized imagination as processes at the heart of political culture, self-understanding and solidarity. This has an influence beyond the study of nationalism as a major innovation in understanding 'social imaginaries'.

How do you cite Benedict Anderson imagined communities?

How to cite “Imagined communities” by Benedict AndersonAPA. Anderson, B. (2016). Imagined communities. Verso Books.Chicago. Anderson, Benedict. 2016. Imagined Communities. London, England: Verso Books.MLA. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Verso Books, 2016.

Who argued that nation is an imagined community?

Benedict Anderson is one of the most important theorists of modern nationalism. Nationalism, argues Anderson, is a story of national origins that creates imagined community amongst the citizens of the modern state. Here, he explains the sense in which the nation is an 'imagined community'.

Why did the idea of imagined communities come about?

Origin. According to Anderson, creation of imagined communities became possible because of " print capitalism ". Capitalist entrepreneurs printed their books and media in the vernacular (instead of exclusive script languages, such as Latin) in order to maximize circulation.

What is the term for nations being imagined communities?

Even though the term was coined to specifically describe nationalism , it is now used more broadly, almost blurring it with community of interest.

What school of nationalism did Anderson fall into?

Anderson falls into the " historicist " or " modernist " school of nationalism along with Ernest Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm in that he posits that nations and nationalism are products of modernity and have been created as means to political and economic ends. This school opposes the primordialists, who believe that nations, if not nationalism, have existed since early human history. Imagined communities can be seen as a form of social constructionism on par with Edward Said's concept of imagined geographies .

How did the creation of imagined communities become possible?

According to Anderson, the creation of imagined communities became possible because of " print capitalism ". Capitalist entrepreneurs printed their books and media in the vernacular (instead of exclusive script languages, such as Latin) in order to maximize circulation. As a result, readers speaking various local dialects became able to understand each other, and a common discourse emerged. Anderson argued that the first European nation states were thus formed around their "national print-languages." Anderson argues that the first form of capitalism started with the process of printing books and religious materials. The process of printing texts in the vernacular started right after books began to be printed in script languages, such as Latin, which saturated the elite market. At the moment it was also observed that just a small category of people was speaking it and was part of the bilingual society. The start of cultural and national revolution was around 1517 when Martin Luther presented his views regarding the scripture, that people should be able to read it in their own homes. In the following years, from 1520 to 1540, more than half of the books printed in German translation bore his name. Moreover, the first European nation states that are presented as having formed around their "national print-languages" are said to be found in the Anglo-Saxon region, nowadays England, and around today's Germany. Not only in Western Europe was the process of creating a nation emerging. In a few centuries, most European nations had created their own national languages but still were using languages such as Latin, French or German (primarily French and German) for political affairs.

How does Anderson describe a nation?

Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. The media also creates imagined communities, through usually targeting a mass audience or generalizing and addressing citizens as the public. Another way that the media can create imagined communities is through ...

What is nation imagined?

Nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities, to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive ...

How did the Imagined Communities start?

The Imagined Communities started with the creation of their own nation print-languages that were spoken by each individual. That helped the development of the first forms of known nation-states, who then created their own form of art, novels, publications, mass-media, and communications.

Why is the imagined community limited?

The imagined community is limited because regardless of size it is never taken to be co-extensive with humanity itself —not even extreme ideologies such as Nazism, with its pretensions to world dominance, imagine this; in fact, as Giorgio Agamben has argued such ideologies tend to be premised on a generalization of an exception. Its borders are finite but elastic and permeable. The imagined community is sovereign because its legitimacy is not derived from divinity as kingship is—the nation is its own authority, it is founded in its own name, and it invents its own people which it deems citizens. The nation can be considered a community because it implies a deep horizontal comradeship which knits together all citizens irrespective of their class, colour, or race. According to Anderson, the crucial defining feature of this type of comradeship is the willingness on the part of its adherents to die for this community.

Why is the nation considered a community?

The nation can be considered a community because it implies a deep horizontal comradeship which knits together all citizens irrespective of their class, colour, or race. According to Anderson, the crucial defining feature of this type of comradeship is the willingness on the part of its adherents to die for this community.

How did print culture affect the idea of nation?

Print had three effects according to Anderson: first, it cut across regional idiolects and dialects, creating a unified medium of exchange below the sacred language (Latin in Europe) and above the local vernacular; second, it gave language a fixity it didn't previously have, and slowed down the rate of change so that there was far greater continuity between past and present; and thirdly it created languages of power by privileging those idiolects which were closest to the written form. Anderson's emphasis on the print culture in all its forms, but particularly the newspaper and the novel, has been extremely stimulating for a number of scholars working in a wide variety of different disciplines. See also postcolonialism.

What was Anderson's first idea of imagined communities?

Anderson first formulated his concept of imagined communities in reference to the emergence of ethno-linguistic movements among the constituents of such empires.

Who criticized Anderson's formulation of imagined communities?

Linda McDowell (1999) criticized Anderson’s formulation of imagined communities from a feminist perspective, pointing out that the very language in which imagined communities were conceptualized was gendered.

What is Anderson's hypothesis?

Chatterjee raised objections particularly to Anderson’s hypothesis that the idea of nations as imagined communities was first born in Europe, and it then provided a “modular form” to the rest of the world. The assumption of Anderson is that the colonized people of Asia and Africa modeled their own nationalisms off the nationalism of Europeans (Chatterjee, 1991).

What language does Anderson use when he calls an imagined community a horizontal comradeship?

For instance, McDowell points out that when Anderson calls an imagined community a “horizontal comradeship” he is using the language of masculine brotherhood (McDowell, 1999).

What was the response of nations as imagined communities?

According to Anderson, nations as imagined communities arose in response to “print capitalism”, or the use of the printing press.

What tools did Anderson use to promote nationalism?

Though Anderson emphasized the role of print technology in nationalism, he also drew attention toward other tools used by nation states. These include television, radio, maps, censuses, and museums.

Who coined the term "imagined communities"?

The term imagined communities was coined by the British political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson . He introduced the term in his well-known 1983 treatise Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism .

What is Anderson's original conclusion to Imagined Communities?

In the ninth chapter, the original conclusion to Imagined Communities, Anderson re-emphasizes the role of imitation and “piracy” in the history of nationalism. He traces his original example from the introduction—China, Vietnam, and Cambodia—to states copying bad models of official nationalism and Marxist revolution.

What is the chapter 1 of Imagined Communities?

Benedict Anderson ’s landmark study of nationalism, Imagined Communities, starts by rejecting the assumption that nations are a natural or inevitable social unit. Instead, Anderson describes the nation as a cultural construct, with a particular history rooted in the fall of monarchies and empires, as well as specific advancements in ...

What is a nation in Anderson's theory?

Anderson defines a nation as “an imagined political community —and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign .”.

What are the three institutions that Anderson believes made it possible for post-World War II revolutionaries to imagine their lands?

Chapter Ten looks at three colonial institutions—the “Census, Map, [and] Museum ”—that Anderson believes made it possible for post-World War II revolutionaries to imagine their lands as nations (specifically in Southeast Asia, his area of expertise). Colonial censuses and maps used “systematic quantification” to divide people and territory into systems of “totalizing classification,” while maps and museums created logos and symbols of national identity, turning living history into a series of dead artifacts. Chapter Eleven looks at the role of history itself in nations’ narratives of identity. The earliest nations were forward-looking and thought of themselves as breaking new historical ground, but the next generation (1815-1850) argued that its nations were “awakening from sleep,” with their people recognizing a longstanding, ancient, primordial unity. With the corresponding shift to homogeneous, empty time, the new academic discipline of History became a key tool for nations to define the deep ties that bound their people, specifically by selectively choosing what “to remember/forget”; that is, what to include in and erase from narratives of national identity.

What was Anderson's fourth chapter about?

In his fourth chapter, Anderson turns to the earliest nationalist movements, which were in the Americas (not in Europe) and led by the elite creole classes (not by the disenfranchised masses).

Why do people feel so attached to their nations?

In his eighth chapter, Anderson asks why people feel so attached to their nations, to the point of dying for them. Nationalism and racism often go hand-in-hand, as many scholars have pointed out, but nationalism also leads to a “profoundly self-sacrificing love,” akin to people’s love for their families. Anderson argues that nationalism is always open to the possibility of new people joining the nation, for instance by learning the language and naturalizing, while “racism dreams of eternal contaminations” and has been used by powerful people everywhere, throughout history, as a tool of oppression. Accordingly, he concludes that nationalism does not cause or lead to racism, although racism can be expressed in nationalistic language.

Overview

An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially-constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of a group.
Anderson focuses on the way media creates imagined communities, especially the power of print media in shaping an individual's social psyche. Anderson analyzes the written word, a tool used …

Origin

Nationalism and imagined communities

Nation as an imagined community

Context and influence

See also