The Gellnerian modality revisited: towards a ‘genealogy’ of cultural homogenization and nation-state congruency

Abstract

This paper re-evaluates Ernest Gellner's theory of nations and nationalism and particularly his conceptions of cultural homogenization and congruency. The paper shows how Gellner's historical and epistemological stance naturalizes homogenization processes and rationalizes modern history as an inevitable trajectory of congruency making of states and nations. The paper proposes, nonetheless, to deploy a critical framework and read Gellner's notions of congruency and cultural homogenization as a ‘social imaginary’/‘fantasy’. That is, understanding congruency as a sociopolitical project that idealizes a certain imaginary as positive, necessary and inevitable – a ‘fantasy’ that sets to secure and stabilize discursively the contingency of social relations. It is suggested, moreover, to deploy a Foucauldian genealogical technique in an attempt to de-naturalize congruency and homogenization practices and expose the conditions of their emergence in modern history.

Keywords:

• Ernest Gellner
• congruency
• cultural homogenization
• genealogy
• fantasy
• nation state

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jutta Weldes, Columba Peoples and Jon Fox for excellent comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful for the constructive comments by the reviewers and the editors of ERS. I would specifically like to thank Jan Dobbernack, who has been exceptionally helpful.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Moran M. Mandelbaum

MORAN M. MANDELBAUM is a PhD student at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (University of Bristol Centenary Scholarship)