ABSTRACT

This book centers on one fundamental question: is it possible to imagine a progressive sense of nation? Rooted in historic and contemporary social struggles, the chapters in this collection examine what a progressive sense of nation might look like, with authors exploring the theory and practice of the nation beyond nationalism.

The book is written against the background of rising authoritarian-nationalist movements globally over the last few decades, where many countries have witnessed the dramatic escalation of ethnic-nationalist parties impacting and changing mainstream politics and normalizing anti-immigration, anti-democratic and Islamophobic discourse. This volume discusses viable alternatives for nationalism, which is inherently exclusionary, exploring the possibility of a type of nation-based politics which does not follow the principles of nationalism.

With its focus on nationalism, politics and social struggles, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political and social sciences.

part I|72 pages

Collective action, self-rule, and autonomy

chapter 1|20 pages

A democratic nation

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the idea of nation beyond the state

chapter 2|24 pages

Hikmet Kıvılcımlı’s “History Thesis” and the nation-form

National revolutionaries as modern barbarians? 1

chapter 3|26 pages

Dreams and realities

Do-it-yourself (autonomic) reincorporation by ex-insurgents in Colombia 1

part II|64 pages

Nation, pueblo, narod

chapter 4|23 pages

Venezuela

Revolutionary Bolivarianism against the colonial nation-state

chapter 6|20 pages

Narod as a radical political invention

The outset of intellectual struggles over the nation in nineteenth-century Russia

part III|62 pages

Anti-colonial nation