Nationalist Urbanisms on the National Peripheries

Abstract

Nations have been imagined from urban centres of power, and nation-building in post-colonial states has been one of the most important forces powering developmental urbanisms. While dominant nationalist urbanisms transforming the core of the national space have garnered scholarly attention, the prevailing view in literature empties peripheries of agency and nationalist vision. This special issue explores nationalist urbanisms in civic, provincial, precarious and everyday spaces that are peripheral to the dominant national imaginations. It argues that both dominant and peripheral imaginaries of the nation draw on competing forms of nationalisms giving rise to urbanisms which reflect ideological shifts in the nation-state.