ABSTRACT
To capture and simplify the varied conceptual distinctions and the empirical variation found in the volume, the conclusion proposes to disaggregate national indifference into two categories: (1) national indifference as things people do and (2) national indifference as things people do not do. The first and to date dominant interpretation sees national indifference as a stance, claim, or project. This indifference to nationalism can manifest itself individually as strategies that include instrumentalism but also ambivalence, apathy, and indifference, or collectively as a population’s anti-nationalist mobilisation against their self-proclaimed leaders. The second and less explored version of national indifference views it as a more fundamental lack of awareness of the nation, where the nation is simply not a meaningful category. This indifference to the nation can be a kind of pre-national consciousness before peasants finally become Frenchmen, but it can also feature in post-national contexts, right up to and including the banalisation of nationalism. This is the nation as a widely available category but one that is nonetheless discarded, accorded lesser priority, or ignored, at least most of the time, in favour of other, more salient categories of belonging.
