ABSTRACT
Nation-states towards the second decade of the 21st century face a world that is growingly globalized – with the capitalist system entrenched – and also more interconnected, with the internet, social media, waves of migration and the random spread of terrorism. Scholars have discussed the contradictions of this global complexity which can engender an inward looking, tightening of national security and surveillance of borders (Sabanadze, 2010; Kuortti & Dwivedi, eds., 2012).
This section addresses this issue of nation in flux, examining citizen’s sense of belonging in a permanent transit space, and discussing how identity politics, religion and gender are implicated in this process. The papers, coming from the field of social and humanities, are diverse not only in their methods and approaches, but also in the kinds of data they are looking at. Discourse analysis, speech act, critical theories of hegemony and ideology, corpus linguistics, philology, ethnography, historical analysis, are used to analyze manuscripts, epics, rituals films, novels, magazine, speeches, blog writings, social media and also diaspora and online communities. Different in their methodologies and disciplines, these papers share a similar perspective that the texts, expressions, policies, teachings and praxis are all historically and socially constructed. Another common thread that binds these papers together is the focus on representation of national identities or gendered and religious subjectivities in a transnational context.
