The Rule of the Sacred: Religion, Nationalism and Secularity

Interrogating the relationship between religion and nationalism ultimately means interrogating the relationship between culture and politics, or rather what is - in the modernist mindset - considered as the separate fields of culture and politics. Interrogating this relationship is also the predicament in the study of nationalism. Nationalism already posits the relation between culture and politics as fundamental - albeit problematic - for its (re)production and its critique. The historical importance of religious institutions (for our purpose, Christianity in the European context), the analogy between the Church and the institutions of secular states (E. Hobsbawm) points a finger to their elemental correlation. The quasi-religious discourse in E. Renan's "What is nation?" (the notion of sacrifice e.g.) already suggests, for instance, how nationalist myths are closely related to and perhaps of the same nature as religious myths. It is in terms of cultural hierarchies (understood as the organisation relative to "the rule of the sacred") that, in this paper, we approach the question of the relation between religion and nationalism. Re-examining the Aristotelian categories of "form" (eidos) and "matter" (hylè), the paper attempts to define the articulation between the two different cultural arrangements (G. Deleuze) represented by the institutions of the Church and of the secular State in Europe, and define their lines of concurrence and their lines of difference

Discursive Elements in the (de)Banalisation of Nationalism. A Study of Speeches by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy.

International audienceThe paper offers a study of the contributions of Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown to a dominant culturalist discourse on identity in Europe. In recent years, issues about immigration and integration have been central across the European community, concurrent with a general feeling of cultural insecurity. In this paper, I argue that mainstream political discourse has shifted from common sense nationalism into an even more ambiguous discourse by also taking over aspects of national-populism. The aim of the paper is consequently to show that common sense representations of nationalism tend to go beyond 'banal nationalism'. I suggest how a culturalist shift has occurred in their more overt use of nationalist representations. Thus, despite the formal aim to render a new social cohesion, the cultural references inherent to nationalism seem to generate an exclusionary imaginary, which not only allows the reproduction of nationalism but also promotes forms of exclusions, which foster introverted assertions of identities

Cultural Hybridity and Modern Binaries: Overcoming the Opposition Between Identity and Otherness?

This working paper addresses the debate on cultural hybridity. Hybridity, as it is understood in postcolonial theory, is perceived as having the potential to go beyond the sort of modern binaries from which, as Ulrich Beck suggests, contemporary social imaginaries have to find a way out. According to Jan Nederveen Pieterse, hybridity is precisely that: "Hybridity is to culture what deconstruction is to discourse: transcending binary categories." Yet, as it is pointed out in many works discussing cultural hybridity, the term and the vast array of concepts it encapsulates has raised already long-running discussions and debates. The paper explores some tropes inspired by the debate between Homi Bhabba and Jonathan Friedman on cultural hybridity. As Friedman sets his critique of hybridity in opposition to what he considers "true" cosmopolitanism to be, we will show how his understanding can be considered as flawed and how hybridity can in turn be considered as being less but meaning more than cosmopolitanism. The paper does not provide a comprehensive study of hybridity theories or of the debates around it, and rather offers a starting point for a wider reflection on contemporary modes of social exclusion and inclusion

Religion and Nationalism in Contemporary Europe: Towards a Renewed Syncretism?

In the past decades, we have witnessed the global re-emergence of the political meaning of both nationalism and religion. This paper explores contemporary fragments of this trend across three European countries: Britain, France and Poland. The discursive occurrences brought into the analysis are taken from the state-centred political arenas as well as more diffused or marginal sociological elements. While the approach is primarily set in the perspective of nationalism studies, the final aim of the paper is to nourish the reflection on the negotiations of political and social significations which transpire through the occurrences presented in the analysis. To what extent are religious discourses inherent to the resurgence of nationalist discourses and social practices? Reversely, are nationalistic phenomena inherently religious in nature, hence favourable to combinations between religious and nationalist discursive elements? Are the contemporary forms presented in this paper, tokens of a new (or renewed) syncretism of a would-be dominant reactionary grid of social significations

The Principle of Secularity and the (Mis)Use of Ethnic Statistics in France

This paper presents elements of a work in progress on the question of multiculturalism in France. A central concept for elucidating this question is the republican principle of secularity (laïcité). After a brief presentation of this principle to get a sense of the grid of interpretation it provides, we will use this grid to analyse the use of statistics in political discourse in relation to multicultural issues. As we will see, this principle along with other constitutional dispositions, do not allow for official statistics to use categories related to ethnicity or race. This lack of data on ethnic minorities in France partly explains the "French exception" in its policy towards what is usually termed in France, cultural diversity. Since 2006, the term multiculturalism has been appropriated by government officials as well as the media to describe the traditional identity and diversity politics in France. We will see how the recurrent use of elements similar to ethnic statistics in speeches by ministers in recent governments are in fact introducing the very tools associated with communitarian multiculturalism

Nationalism as a Social Imaginary: Negotiations of Social Signification and (Dis)Integrating Discourses in Britain, France and Poland

forme et stylage revus en octobre 2011Since 1989, nationalism has once again become a major discursive theme in European public and political spaces. Nationalism has thus become "banalised" (according to Michael Billig), relegating the complexities of social histories to mere cultural 'Others'. The common origin of the resulting social and symbolical tensions can be found in the promotion of State-centred nationalist discourses. The dominant discourse on national identity aims for the reproduction of a continuity of traditional national values and histories in reaction to the threat it perceives in the presence of multiple 'Others'. This transversal study presents a social-historical analysis of the endurance of national imaginaries and of the modern paradigm of exclusion they reproduce. By elaborating a theoretical framework as an open system (Edgar Morin) to make sense of the complex relations between texts, ideology and the social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis), the aim of the thesis is the analysis of the dynamic symbolic promotion, expression and contestation - negotiations of social signification - of national imaginaries. Basing on the study of texts expressing these negotiations, the formation and consolidation of British, French and Polish national imaginaries in the late modern period is articulated through this framework. The analysis then focuses on mainstream political discourses in Britain, France and Poland between 2004 and 2009 which is contrasted with the analysis of contemporary texts of popular culture.Depuis 1989, le nationalisme est progressivement redevenu un thème discursif majeur dans les espaces publics et politiques européens. Le nationalisme s'est alors " banalisé " (selon l'expression de Michael Billig), reléguant le complexe des histoires sociales à de simples altérités culturelles. Les tensions sociales et symboliques ainsi produites trouvent leur origine commune dans les discours nationalistes centrés autour de l'Etat et des institutions nationales. Percevant une remise en cause en présence d'altérités multiples, il apparait que le discours dominant sur les identités nationales œuvre à reproduire une continuité de valeurs et des histoires nationales traditionnelles. Cette étude transversale a pour but de présenter une analyse sociale-historique de l'endurance des imaginaires nationaux et du paradigme moderne d'exclusion qu'ils entretiennent. En élaborant un cadre théorique sous la forme d'un système ouvert (Edgar Morin) pour exprimer les relations complexes entre les textes, l'idéologie et l'imaginaire social (Cornelius Castoriadis), le but de la thèse est l'analyse de la dynamique de promotion, d'expression et de contestation symbolique - des négociations de signification sociale - des imaginaires nationaux. C'est dans ce cadre que, à travers l'étude de textes exprimant certaines de ces négociations, que sont articulées la formation et la consolidation des imaginaires nationaux britannique, français et polonais pendant la période moderne. L'analyse est ensuite centrée sur des discours de dirigeants politiques britanniques, français et polonais entre 2004 et 2009, mis en contraste par l'analyse de textes de la culture populaire contemporaine

: Press representations of ‘Otherness' in Britain, France, Poland and Sweden (2002-2007)

WORKING DRAFTThe aim of the project is to build a coherent framework of social and political theory around defined case studies of discourse analysis – an analysis of the representation of ‘Otherness' in political and press discourse