`Flagging' the Skin: Corporeal Nationalism and the Properties of Belonging

Grabham, Emily

doi:10.1177/1357034x08100147

Cited by 61 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In this article, the focus on the corporeal dimension of nationalism (Grabham, ) privileges a particular feature, the face, as somatic traits were often mentioned by participants in their “troubled” national encounters. Does the nation have a face?…”

Section: Banal and Everyday Nationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration

Antonsich

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

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Over the last two decades, banal and everyday nationalism have been the main theoretical and methodological approaches for studying how nations are reproduced “from below”. The present article advances this literature by paying close attention to racially differentiated subjects and, more precisely, subjects who are perceived to look different from, but sound like, the national majority group. Building on the feminist attention to the corporeal, I argue that face‐to‐face encounters with the simultaneous embodiment of (somatic) strangeness and (linguistic) sameness generate a sense of surprise which interrupts the reproduction of the nation. This, in turn, allows for the “troubling” of the very identity category (nation) which both banal and everyday nationalism avoid interrogating directly. I support and illustrate this argument by focusing on the case of the children of migrants born and raised in Italy and their personal experiences in mundane settings. The article discusses the implications of this short circuit in the banal and everyday processes of national reproduction in terms of potential openings of the nation to more inclusive forms.

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Section: Banal and Everyday Nationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration

Antonsich

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…Thus, alongside state sight are practices which allow publics and populations, in turn, to see (and thereby help to consolidate) the nation-state. This visual production of nation-statehood has generated a vibrant series of writings examining metonymic practical displays, from landscaping, memorials, statues, and flags to body surgery and national commemorative festivals (see Billig 1995;Roy 2006;Grabham 2009a).…”

Section: Thinking About Touchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading the State as a Multi-Identity Formation: The Touch and Feel of Equality Governance

Cooper

2011

Fem Leg Stud

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How does a sense of touch, figuratively and practically, get deployed within equality governance, and to what questions and ways of thinking about the state does this direct us? Taking 2009-2010 as a snap-shot moment in the development of British equality reform-the year leading up to passage of the Equality Act 2010-this article explores the relationship between touch (the haptic) and equality governance from three angles. First, how have governmental bodies used touch language and imagery, including in geometrical representations of disadvantage? Second, what other, more challenging encounters and actions are imaginable; specifically, can touch mobilise the feeling state as a critical form of active citizenship? Third, what re-conceptualisations of the state does the touching, feeling state invoke, and with what effects? Specifically, does conceiving of the state as a multi-identity formation reframe the risks associated with a haptic state, thereby opening up new strategies for political action?

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“…6 Approaching beliefs, today, as things that can also be "held" and possessed similarly reveals the extending power of property discourse, as religious, ontological and moral beliefs get constituted as the legally recognised social property of individual and group subjects within the neo/ liberal north (Cooper and Herman, 2013). The concept of beliefs as property does not mean beliefs are market-alienable, any more than other social properties such as whiteness (Harris, 1993;Grabham, 2009;Keenan, 2010).…”

Section: Possessive Beliefs and Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

Possessive Attachments: Identity Beliefs, Equality Law and the Politics of State Play

Cooper

2017

Theory, Culture & Society

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One feature of the neo/ liberal possessive self is the propertied character of certain beliefs: treated as belonging to those who hold them, recognised and supported in acting on the world, and protected. While an ownership paradigm predates anti-discrimination and human rights regimes, these regimes have consolidated and extended the propertied status of certain identity beliefs in ways that naturalise and siloise them. But if beliefs' propertied character is politically problematic, can it be unsettled and reformed? This paper considers one possible mode for doing so, namely play. Oftentimes, play works to secure and assert the propertied attachments people have to their beliefs; but some forms of play offer other possibilities. Focusing on the state as a complex site of play relations and encounters, this article explores how state play engages identity beliefs in a contemporary legal drama of colliding beliefs between conservative Christians and liberal gay equality advocates. Exploring these interconnected processes, this article focuses on state-based play in relation to the "propertisation" of beliefs. Specifically, it explores how play "plays with" the possessive ties attaching beliefs to their holders. Treating beliefs as belonging in propertylike ways is not a modern development; however, this discussion focuses on contemporary anti-discrimination and human rights law's contribution to propertising authorised beliefs about one's own and others' identities. While may deem these laws an important progressive

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`Flagging' the Skin: Corporeal Nationalism and the Properties of Belonging

Cited by 61 publications

References 35 publications

The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration

The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration

Reading the State as a Multi-Identity Formation: The Touch and Feel of Equality Governance

Possessive Attachments: Identity Beliefs, Equality Law and the Politics of State Play

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