Nation and Commemoration

Turner, Charles C.

doi:10.4135/9781848608061.n18

Cited by 30 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…For such performative aspects of national holidays, Charles Turner has used the term commemoration. He describes it as ‘all those devices through which a nation recalls, marks, embodies, discusses or argues about its past, and to all those devices which are intended to create or sustain a sense of belonging or ‘we feeling’ in the individuals who belong to it, a sense of belonging which may or may not provide for a means of addressing future tasks and possibilities’ (Turner : 6).…”

Section: From Seasonal Holidays To National Holidaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity formation through national calendar: holidays and commemorations in Pakistan

Qasmi

2017

Nations and Nationalism

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This article contributes to academic literature on the project of identity formation in a postcolonial nation‐state. The article argues that a nation‐state emphasising certain aspects of the past for commemorative or celebratory purposes, while suppressing or ignoring the memories of some other event or historical figure, are both parts of the same process. Both these processes, in different ways, seek to give a certain direction to the narrative about the history of the nation and the nation‐state. These aspects of national memory and amnesia have been explained through the prism of national/public holidays while foregrounding the case study of Pakistan. The article argues that although this process of shaping a specific narrative (referred to as commemorative narrative in this article by using Yael Zerubavel's work) is common to every project of identity formation, its peculiarity is more pronounced in a postcolonial state like Pakistan, which has certain cut‐off dates and ruptures but is, simultaneously, eager to emphasise continuities in its trajectory and antiquity in historical tradition. The study of the process of developing a national calendar in case of Pakistan will show that identity formation is a transient process in which various identarian values, political considerations and social processes play an important part. In particular, it requires an attempt on the part of the state to try impose a homogenising historical narrative by envisaging a national calendar, i.e. by announcing a national or public holiday. This helps accord prestige to persons credited as founding fathers or ideologues, ascribe solemnity to days remembering wars and festivity to mark independence or religious occasions. By discussing these themes in detail, this exploratory study of the history of national calendar will lend an alternative lens through which to look into the processes of identity formation in postcolonial nation‐states in general.

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Section: From Seasonal Holidays To National Holidaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity formation through national calendar: holidays and commemorations in Pakistan

Qasmi

2017

Nations and Nationalism

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“…Turner (: 208) argues that in postcommunist Eastern Europe commemoration has been a central element of nation‐building, while it has also implied a ‘return to Europe’ and to the values associated with it. The project of reinventing the Alka certainly aimed to symbolise Croatia's return to Europe as well.…”

Section: The Reinvented Alka and Croatia's ‘Return To Europe’mentioning

confidence: 99%

The practical limits of inventing traditions: the failed reinvention of the Sinjska Alka

Erözden

2013

Nations and Nationalism

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The Alka is a traditional game in Croatia, held to commemorate the victory of the local warriors of the region of Cetina over the Ottoman army in 1715. The Croatian nationalist discourse of the 1990s tried to reinvent the Alka as symbol of a certain national identity, by nationalising this local event and emphasising its religious aspect. In a period of just over a decade, however, the project of reinventing the Alka has failed completely. This paper analyses the reinvention of the Alka and its failure in order to argue that concrete cases of invented tradition are context dependent and may encounter practical limits.

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“…Most importantly, scholars of the politics of memory have insisted that "collective memory" and "memory-nation" should not be taken for granted and reified, but that research should rather focus on "mnemonic practices" and also study cases in which "memory-makers" fail to make their visions of the past collectively binding (Olick 2003: 6-7). Important here, so Charles Turner (2006), is the study of the institutional anchoring and the social organisation of commemorative practices and its contextualisation in a wider ethnography of "nationhood". National holidays and commemorations of independence should be understood, therefore, as objects of state policies and as sites of societal contestation over images and practices of nationhood.…”

Section: National Commemoration In Comparative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Ghana@50

Lentz¹

2013

etudesafricaines

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Celebrating the Nation Debating the Nation 1 On 6 March 1957, Ghana became the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence. Ever since, Independence Day has been celebrated, albeit with varying intensity and sometimes overshadowed by national holidays commemorating incumbent military or civil regimes. Since independence was declared in the midst of bitter political struggle between the supporters of the triumphant nationalist party, the Convention People's Party (CPP), and adherents of alternative political and constitutional projects the meaning of 6 March 1957 was contested from the start. For many, Independence Day commemorated the achievements of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first Prime Minister and Life Chairman of the CPP. For Nkrumah's adversaries and victims, who after the 1966 coup d'État formed the new government, the holiday primarily symbolised the end of colonial rule and the contested birth of a new nation, a history in which they sought to inscribe the importance of their own contribution towards independence. Up to date, 1. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the panel "Comparative perspectives on postcolonial nation-building and concepts of nationhood in Africa", organised by Jacqueline Knörr at the biennial conference of the Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde, Halle, October 2007, and the panel "Ghana@50: celebrating the nation" at the African Studies Association Conference, Chicago, November 2008. Thanks go particularly to

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Nation and Commemoration

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

Identity formation through national calendar: holidays and commemorations in Pakistan

Identity formation through national calendar: holidays and commemorations in Pakistan

The practical limits of inventing traditions: the failed reinvention of the Sinjska Alka

Ghana@50

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