ABSTRACT
In 1963 Clifford Geertz referred to the ‘stultifying aura of conceptual ambiguity’ surrounding the subject of nationalism (Geertz 1963:107). Since then, there has been a remarkable growth of perceptive works on the topic, but in the opinion of several influential writers on nationalism, the concept still refers to an ‘unsteady mixture [of ideas]…unsuitable for clear analytical thought’ (Dunn 1995:3. Also Periwal 1995). 1
The problem is sometimes explained as arising from the fact that nationalism is a ‘category of practice’, as well as a ‘category of analysis’ (Brubaker 1996:15). This implies that it is the very conceptual ambiguities which make it so useful for mobilising or manipulating political action in a wide variety of situations, which undermine its utility for clear explanation. Nations are often defined as communities united by their ‘moral conscience’ or their consciousness of themselves as a nation. This faces analysts of nationalism with a particular problem. Should they accept these self-definitions as their defining criterion of nationhood: should they accept these self-definitions only when they coincide with other ‘objective’ criteria (linguistic or genetic, for example); or should they depict these self-definitions as interesting symptoms in need of diagnosis?
