ABSTRACT
The proliferation of studies on multiculturalism, diversity, ethnicity, and nationalism is a clear indicator that the congruence or conjunction of state, nation, social identity, and territory is highly problematic. Despite this, many social scientists stumble into the trap of what Andreas Wimmer and Glick Schiller call ‘methodological nationalism’, a naive assumption that only nation-states matter as units of analysis. Teodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, lamented that Jews had vainly sought to assimilate to the nations around them, and so had been forced into becoming a nation. Although ardent nationalists continue to assert the dominant or exclusive role of the nation and nation-state in defining group identities, many social identities have escaped the confines of the nation altogether and become both more personalized and more multiple. As the eminent political philosopher Hannah Arendt argued, in ancient Greece, women and slaves were locked into the oikos by the need to reproduce the requirements of life.
