The concept of nation: New geographical studies from the cultural and political perspectives

Abstract

The nation has been one of the most important political and cultural constructions of Modernity. The premises that have given the nation more vitality have therefore been its assertion as the imaginary of identity for different peoples, and its significance in the development of the so-called "international relations", as ways of expression of the global interrelations of the dominant sectors. This research is based on the analysis of these premises in the light of some of the new perspectives that emerge from the political and cultural paradigms, developed in the social sciences from the past decades of the last century on and applied to the studies of the national territory, its construction, its changes, and the spatial imaginaries that derive from them. In terms of the critical perspectives mentioned above, the concept of nation seems, at present, to have entered a process of erosion or splitting. Social, economic, political and cultural phenomena, linked to the processes of global restructuring (intercontinental migrations, global media systems, social exclusion, ethnic and religious discrimination, isolation and lack of political participation, new ways of social expression í”í‡ ª) and to the construction of the post-modern discourses, make the concept of nation appear as if it was, at least, being questioned. The most daring already speak about the virtual access into a "post-national" world. Does this mean the end of an idea and a reality which millions of people in remote areas of the planet and along generations have been culturally shaped by? The answer shall be considered in the real and spatial study of these phenomena and of the new realities that emerge from them.