What makes a nation?

The class discussion that dominated on Thursday pertained to the definition of one’s nationality. What was intriguing to me and what I will like to possibly study in the future is the experiences of people as related to their nationality. But first, I think I want to find out what a nation is, before I start doing studies on what people think their nationalities are....

In class, I basically stated that nationality is a group of people with a common bond, history, present, future, and culture. At the time, in my view, all of these factors needed to be present. Recently, a new idea has popped into my mind. What about the United States? Someone might have mentioned it in class, but perhaps it just didn’t resonate. So now I think I thought of something new. The United States: it is filled with a multitude of ethnicities, and a multitude of nationalities. The same is true for many diverse countries, and (though the course is on international relations, I know more about my country of citizenship, and where I’ve lived for the past 21 years, so I feel like more of an expert on the US) their ethnic and national diversity has shaped the greater (meaning larger, not better) nation.

I’m even more confused about the concept of the nation than I was just 24 hours ago, so maybe if people are still interested about speaking about this topic, this would be a good place for people to possibly come to a consensus or even, be slightly less confused than before.

The United State is a state. In the state there are many ethnicities, who are also American (or, United States-ian, because Canadian, Mexicans, and people from South America are also Americans. American (or United States-ian) is not an ethnicity. So what is it? Is it just a citizenship? Or is this the nationality that Professor Hayden was speaking about when he said that nationality was tied to the modern state? I imagine so, but then we have the dilemma that I also brought up in class, that is, this just a geographical definition now? Does it matter what groups of people are in the nation? Is a nation tied to a specific group of people or ethnicity?

*The possible reason why this term become so confusing and hard to define may be because no one really knows the reality of its definition, and therefore use the term incorrectly, thus increasing the possible meanings of the word, until it has contradicted itself.

Dictionary.com (not exactly an IR or IC text, but the general populous has accepted its validity) has four commonly accepted definitions of ‘nation’. So let’s look at each as see how/if they work, AND if they work TOGETHER.  Another problem I believe we find often in IR is many times we want to find a definition that can be explained in one phrase. The professor asks a question, and the students are expected to think of a comprehensive, all encompassing, answer. That’s just not possible.  

–noun

1.a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or topossess a government peculiarly its own: The president spoke to the nation about the new tax.

2.the territory or country itself: the nations of CentralAmerica.

3.a member tribe of an American Indian confederation.

4.an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, oftenspeaking the same language or cognate languages.

To address the first, ‘a large body of people, associated with a particular territory’ that pretty much covers what most of the students agreed upon in class. So were we wrong? Probably not, but mostly, our ideas were not complete. Now we can use the American example. In America, if you are a citizen, you are an American.  The example that is presented about the president presents the nations as subjects of a kingdom. This means that a nation is a group of people who are connected not only with each other, but in their roles as citizens, their roles in the workplace, school and home, and their roles interacting with their government. One is a member of a nation when they can fit into a framework responsive to these roles.

The second definition is incorrect in my view. The territory or the country itself is very important to the nation as defining where the people of the nation reside, (which allows for participation in their roles) however, the physical space is not the nation itself.

The Nation of Islam, the Cherokee Nation, and the Chickasaw Nation are three of many examples of groups of people who consider themselves a nation. This view of a nation has no strong psychical boundaries, however, nations can and do generally trace back to a particular region. This act created that shared common bond (Anderson’s imagined communities) of history, present and future that works as glue for the people. Other than a common physical source, people who identify with a particular nation also have ideological ties. Ideological ties are not difficult to have in this particular instance, because people who share the same religion will usually have very similar ideologies and people who are within the same family are raised to believe in what everyone else in the family believes in.

Persons within the same ethnic family, connected by languages should also be considered a nation.  This is a very wide-scope view of nation. This idea could potentially negate the first and third idea as being connected by physical space. The connection with language is seen to be more important, and ethnic history can replace the physical space. So what happens when the Indian population, spread all over the world as a result of British colonization, still speak their native language? Does that still make them a nation, even when they are not bonded to each other in a physical space?

What I can deduce from this web of confusion is that the most important feature of a nation is the physical space. While the actual location of the space may not have any bearing on the nation, it is important that the group of people be together, and have ideas in common that binds them over time. You cannot be a one man nation, can you?


Jessica F