Nationalism: threat or opportunity to critical intercultural communication?

When formulating the theme and question for this special issue in 2021, we could not have anticipated how timely this project would become, with our work compiling the papers from our contributors running parallel to the political and intellectual debates on nationalism that emerged in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The ongoing war in Ukraine marked the end of more than 75 years without international conflict in Europe, reinforcing nationalist discourses, ideological positions, enemy images and military manoeuvrings that contemporary Europeans had come to associate with a distant, violent past. Ukraine reminded us of the dangers of nationalism when the idea is hijacked by political leaders, such as Vladimir Putin, to unite the population against a common enemy. Putin’s ‘greater Russia’ speaks to a common ethnicity, religion, history and language; which includes the Krim peninsula, parts of Eastern Ukraine, and Russian-speaking parts of Estonia, to name a few; echoing the ‘hot’ or ‘ethnic’ nationalism identified by Michael Billig (1995) and Anthony Smith (1991) in the 1990s (Leoussi, 2016). Yet daily reports from Ukraine also showed us how the idea of ‘our’ nation provided the common purpose and power that motivated citizens to stand up and defend their imagined community (Anderson, 1991). Writing in May 2022, the American intellectual Francis Fukyama declared the Ukranians’ struggle an expression of their loyalty to ‘an independent, liberal democratic Ukraine’ (p. 3), insisting that ‘liberalism needs the nation’. Like Billig, Fukuyama accepts that there are many forms of nationalism and national identification – and that ‘societies can exercise agency in choosing among them’ (p. 9).

Fukuyama’s comment appears thirty-three years after his famous proclamation of ‘the end of history’ (1989), which would bring about the era when Western-style democracy and ideological liberalism became universally accepted. An age of global principles and solidarity had no need for nations, national culture, and nationalism, which, in the words of British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1990, p. 182), might consequently give way to ‘the new supranational restructuring of the globe’. Over the next twenty years, intellectuals’ representation of globalisation as a phenomenon that had superseded the nation became dominant in the Social Sciences, including Sociology, Anthropology, International Relations, and Intercultural Education. In 2007, the eminent German sociologist Ulrich Bech thus issued this warning against ‘methodological nationalism’:

As prisoners of methodological nationalism we do not understand Europeanization, we do not understand the new global meta-power game. We do not understand that the nation-state legitimacy of social inequalities is being challenged to its core by universalized human rights, we do not understand the ‘global generation’ and its transnational fragments, and so on. This is because we are captured by zombie categories, sociology is threatening to become a zombie science, a museum piece of antiquated ideas. (2007, p. 287)

A similar rejection of ‘the nation’ can be observed within the intercultural communication literature from and beyond the 1990s. Examples of this can be seen in the writing of numerous scholars working on topics ranging from cultural identity and colonialism to language learning and classroom teaching. For instance, within the context of nation building and colonialism, cultural theorist Homi Bhabha (1994) questions the utility of viewing the world through the lens of nations and nationalities, noting the cultural flexibility and ethnic in-between-ness of individuals living even within the same communities or nation states. Within this hybrid context of the nation, Bhabha (1994, p. 128) observes that the homogenising effects of homeland discourses leads to ‘an effective, productive cross-cutting across sites of social significance, that erases the dialectical, disciplinary sense of cultural reference and relevance’. In short, according to Bhabha, the nation is a blunt tool that is incapable of seeing beyond a monolithic cultural identity.

Around the same time, within the context of immigration policies in Austria, Wodak and Matouschek (1993) also view the nation as a problematic tool that can be used to divide ethnic groups and create images of the perpetual foreigner. The authors examine the discourses of the elite, such as the rhetoric of politicians and the fearmongering of news outlets, noting that such institutions rely on a singular notion of the nation to illuminate cultural differences rather than seeing ethnic groups as members of the same community. Indeed, nationalist rhetoric permeates through all domains of society, leading to a dangerous discourse that, as the authors observe, can be used as a weapon of fear and a tool to marginalise. Wodak and Matouschek (1993, p. 235) summarise the political sentiments of the early 1990s to reinforce the problems with nationalism:

This general evolution of attitudes was reflected in the results of an opinion poll taken in the summer of 1990. Sixty-four percent of the respondents in this poll either agreed fully (33 percent) or tended to agree (34 percent) with the statement that ‘Above all else, insecurity, disorder and criminality have been the main side effects of the foreigners who have come to Austria’ … the public discourse of the print media and the political parties became fully contaminated by this subject. Playing on such sentiments, the Vienna section of the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, or FPÖ, a party which shares many features with the Le Pen movement in France), for example, put up a campaign poster declaring ‘Vienna must not be allowed to become Chicago!’

The examples of English colonialism in Asia and neo-Nazi sentiments in Austria are not unique in that there are many past and current examples that can be used to argue why nationalism is a problematic discourse. Indeed, there are strong historical reasons for taking a critical and pessimistic stance towards national identities, nationalism, and ‘homeland’ discourses. Such phenomena can lead to communities being marginalised, dominated, and exiled, as well as being the subject of verbal and physical violence (Infante et al., 2012). Yet, as with all cultural phenomena, nationalism must be understood and evaluated through a chronotopic lens. The diverse ways in which nationalism is discursively assembled, as the contributions in this special issue demonstrate, suggest interculturalists need a more context-sensitive approach to the nation that is open to the possibility that the construct can lead to good or be used in inclusive ways.

It is important to note that we are not suggesting that scholars disregard history, nor is it our goal in this special issue to minimise the problems that communities experience when they are the subject of, or subjected to, nationalist rhetoric. The contributions and criticisms of scholars such as Bhabha must be valued and indexed in future work on the topic. Yet, the cultural problems and challenges of one region or nation as experienced within a particular time should not be used to distil all forms of nationalisms into one problematic construct that cannot and should not be used by critical intercultural scholars. Hence, we argue for the importance of engaging with the one-size-fit-all approach found within the intercultural communication literature, where scholarship is largely resigned to seeing the danger in nationalism. One example is Fred Dervin, who contends that intercultural communication scholarship is anchored to essentialist notions of culture, arguing that the field has the potential to prop up ‘social injustice and inequality’:

The intercultural has become a wide range of ideological ‘fictions’, some of which are potentially counterproductive and lead to further social injustice and inequality. This is the case with purely essentialistic approaches which continue to analyse interculturality with categories which seem to belong to another era […], namely national culture, race, and ethnicity. (Dervin, 2017, p. 89).

While sympathetic to the call to reject the nation as an organising construct, we believe it is necessary to occasionally take stock of what is happening ‘out there’ in the world with a view to reflect on whether intercultural communication scholarship captures the diverse ways in which communities experience nationalism.

For instance, in organising this special issue, we reflected on whether the field has collectively overlooked the persistence of nationalism in shaping the structures of the welfare state. Immediate examples of this that come to mind include the educational systems, health care work, social security programmes, and labour market regulations that are often conceptualised and codified in law in and through national discourses. Other related questions that compelled us to reflect on the current state of scholarship on nationalism include the possibility that scholars failed to understand the power of nationalist discourses to mobilise people against a common foe, as was seen in the context of Brexit as well as the Trump presidency. Furthermore, did we collectively as intercultural communication scholars favour global communication at the expense of national languages and cultural heritages? Have efforts to internationalise Higher Education through English, for instance, privileged some academic staff and students while disadvantaging others? Within the context of Covid 19 and health communication, did efforts to move away from the nation colour our ability to understand what it means to have, prop up, and manoeuvre across borders?

Such questions are part and parcel of a larger effort to consider to extent to which nationalism is a threat or opportunity. The impetus for asking contributors to consider this question again comes from the need to take stock of what is happening out there in the world in relation to critical intercultural communication scholarship. The challenge in taking stock of what is happening out there is that the task requires attending to the myriad ways nationalism is understood and put into practice.

Nationalisms: the good, the bad and the ugly

By asking our contributors to consider nationalism as opportunity as well as threat to critical intercultural communication, we acknowledge the Janus-like nature of ‘the nation’, which has been subject to so much criticism from scholars representing a ‘modernist’ or ‘constructivist’ take on community-building, and yet has retained its power to capture people’s imagination and indeed mobilise them against an oppressive regime or invading force. Hence, the Scottish political theorist Tom Nairn, who famously predicted ‘the break-up of Britain’ in 1977, writes in 1997 of ‘the essential ambiguity of nationalism’ (1997, p. 71), accepting that no single theory of nationalism can explain a phenomenon that manifests itself so differently in Ulster, Scotland, Palestine and Andorra.

The contributions published in this special issue reveal a similar divergence in the forms of nationalism that authors have chosen to examine. Contributors’ objects of study include, but are not limited to, protectionist citizenship education in Iran and Denmark (Babaii, 2023; Rasmussen, 2023), ‘foreignness’ in an English Only environment such as the United States (Zhang-Wu, 2023; Osborn & Wagner, 2023), nation-branding on online language learning sites (Curran, 2023), and nation-building in the United Arab Emirates (Hopkyns, 2023). To prepare for such variety, we find it necessary to clarify the multiple meaning(s) of nationalism, which explains how a single idea can show a good, a bad and an ugly face to the world.

Good face

‘Good’ or benign forms of nationalism arise from the idea of the nation as ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991). Anderson uses ‘imagining’ to highlight the invented nature of national-ness, which places him in the tradition of modernists such as Eric Hobsbawm (1990) and Ernest Gellner (1990). The term ‘imagining’ has been used by theorists to point to the invented nature of national traditions (eg. Hobsbawn & Ranger, 1983). Yet ‘imagining’ also connotates creativity, artistic pursuits, culture-making and heritage, which are essential elements in a process of nation-building and branding. Accordingly, Leersen (2006, p. 559) argues for a cultural historical approach, insisting that (1) ‘All nationalism is cultural nationalism’ and (2) ‘Nationalism begins as a cultivation of culture’. Leersen’s claim that culture constructs and is constructed by ‘the nation’ suggests that cultural ‘nationalisation’ anticipates political nation-building. Historically, an example can be found in the Danish national awakening of the nineteenth century, which followed from the country’s loss of Norway in 1814 and Schleswig-Holstein in 1864. A key institution in the Danish movement was the ‘Folk high schools’, where ‘common’ people, or folket in Danish, would meet to become educated citizens, learning about the national language, literature, history, Norse mythology, and Christian traditions (Rahbek, 2017). In recent years, a similar movement of people ‘imagining the nation’ through literature, music and visual arts can be observed in Scotland. As demonstrated by Craig (2018), nationalism was always present in Scottish culture, but with the 2014 independence campaign artists and intellectuals moved to the fore of a national ‘YES’ movement, rallying people around a vision of a better, more progressive and inclusive Scotland. On a different note, some varieties of ‘banal nationalism’ can also be considered relatively benign, with people ‘flagging’ the nation in support of a football team, to celebrate Independence days, or to ‘perform’ the nation at international gatherings such as an international sports event or a scout camp (Tange, 2022).

Bad face

‘Bad’ nationalism arises from a perceived need to ‘limit ‘the nation’, establishing or maintaining ‘ethnic’ boundaries between those who belong, and those who can be dismissed as ‘foreign’ or ‘Other’ (Hylland Eriksen, 2002). The Us/Them dynamics that emerge as a consequence of nationalism are well-documented in the literature on intercultural communication, including several contributions to the special issue which show how learner identities and motivation are affected by the sense of belonging/not belonging to the nation (Zhang-Wu, 2023; Wang et al., 2023). The question of ‘who belongs’ is key to understanding the workings of ‘bad’ nationalism, as seen in the example of ‘welfare nationalism’ (Larsen et al., 2014). Welfare nationalism is commonly associated with the development of a social-democratic state in countries such as Sweden and Denmark, and involves a form of nation-building based on an egalitarian model, which guarantees basic social and economic security for all members of the imagined community. Free welfare services are costly if made available to all, which makes it important to set clear boundaries around the imagined community. As a result, an exclusive rhetoric of ‘welfare for our own’ recurs in the discourses adopted by political parties in countries such as Denmark and Norway, not least in relation to the question of immigration (Andersen and Bjørklund 1990). Politicians treating welfare as a zero-sum game where services provided to people recently arrived to the nation can only come at the expense of those with a long history, or ethnic ‘roots’, has been observed in various contexts, e.g. the 2016 Brexit campaign in the UK, the ‘America First’ movement led by Donald Trump, and the debate on Chinese students in Australia. A recent example of politicians intervening to ‘limit’ the nation can be seen in Danish Higher Education, as documented by Tange and Jæger (2021).

Ugly face

Nationalism will always involve an element of exclusion, setting up boundaries around a specific cultural, linguistic, or geographic territory. Yet one should distinguish between the type of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ rhetoric that may be observed, for instance, among a crowd of football supporters at an international match, and the extreme nationalism performed by hooligans. Hooliganism constitutes one of the nation’s ‘ugly’ faces, documented in frequent reports about physical violence, racist attacks and discourses of war, conquest and betrayal (Sly, 2021). Billig would describe this as ‘hot’ nationalism, which is characterised by ‘outbreaks … of passion, which arise in times of disruption and which are reflected in extreme social movements’ (1995, p. 44). Billig highlights the close relationship between ‘hot’ nationalism and patriotism, which in a US American context, for instance, is commonly regarded as a relatively innocent waving of flags and display of national symbols. Hence, it only takes a single incident perceived by citizens as a threat to the nation to transform everyday patriotism into ‘hot’ nationalism, as became evident after 9/11 when US president George Bush launched his ‘War on Terror’ (Zembylas & Boler, 2002). Nationalism, in its ugliest manifestations, involves people acting to establish or consolidate the dominant position of ‘Us’, who belong to the nation, over ‘Them’, which is category that may include foreign nationals, refugees, but also religious, linguistic or ethnic minorities. ‘Taking action’ involves a range of discriminatory practices, eg. verbal abuse, xenophobia, hate crimes, institutional and/or systematic racism, and, in the extreme case, genocide. Extreme nationalism is frequently associated with an ethnic idea of ‘the nation’, emphasising members’ shared history, cultural heritage, language, and genealogy (Smith 1991). Ethnic nationalism defines belonging in terms of ancestry, implying that only those who can document a family line connecting them to the nation over several generations, can be recognised as ‘true’ Finns, English or Americans. Ugly nationalism is probably the main reason why so many intellectuals have sought to deconstruct ‘the nation’, replacing it with alternative notions of cosmopolitanism or interculturalism. Yet contemporary political discourses are full of ethnic conceptions of the nation, as seen, for instance, when Chinese leaders speak of a ‘greater China’ including Taiwan, president Putin promises to unite Krim Russians with their ‘motherland’, or French right-winger Marine Le Pen presents her agenda for ‘putting France first’.

While not meant to offer a comprehensive account of nationalism, the three dimensions presented in this section provide a neutral reference point for readers to consider while reading through our collection of papers. It is important for readers to begin with this balanced overview, as the good, bad, and ugly of nationalism shape intercultural communication in varied ways, forcing the field to reflect on how the nation should be understood moving forward in an increasingly contentious world that is both propped up and divided geographically and politically along national lines. What our examples also suggest is that ideas of ‘the nation’ are constantly scrutinised, negotiated and changed as a consequence of their interaction with poststructural constructs such as transnationalism and translanguaging. Put differently, what constructs best capture the individuals and communities living within the margins or between national borders, such as refugees fleeing war-torn countries? If it is necessary to reject the nation as a construct, then what terms do interculturalists use? Numerous frameworks and constructs are offered within the literature, including superdiversity, third space, scales, cosmopolitanism, globalism, and of course internationalism. Yet, do these frameworks and constructs adequately capture the rigid and restrictive forms of nationalism that are transformed into forced realities for many communities?

Such reflections naturally lead to more questions. How does nationalism play out, and interact with, intercultural communication? Should intercultural communication scholars avoid engaging with nationalism except when perhaps denouncing it for reinforcing essentialist ideas of language and culture? In formulating these questions, it is our hope that readers will – like the contributors of this special issue – consider intercultural communication scholarship in relation to the plethora of ways and forms that nationalism map onto societies.

Contributions

The special issue is made up of 10 contributions that are organised into three, interrelated clusters: transnational lives, nation-building, and language education.

The first cluster, which is referred to as transnational lives, includes three contributions that explore from varied methodological perspectives how identification processes mediate the ways in which individuals make sense of their lives in diverse contexts. Andreas Musolff (2023) investigates how metaphors are used to depict migrants and migrant identities within the context of xenophobic discourses. The author explores how the responses of migrants to such metaphors can be used in didactic contexts to counter such discriminatory language. Vázquez and Guzmán (2023) analyse how two language teachers of Mexican origin make sense of their transnational lives working in the US. The authors reveal that mobility from one country to another is a complex endeavour that requires individuals to construct and negotiate a range of linguistic, cultural, and professional identities that can at times problematise what it means to belong to a nation. Zhang-Wu (2023) provides a similar set of observations from the perspectives of three Asian undergraduate students at a private urban institution in the US. The author observes how Asian students construct dynamic racial, cultural, and linguistic identities despite the rise of American nationalism at the time of writing. All three papers offer examples of how cultural constructs, such as foreigner and native, can be used to prop up static notions of the nation while marginalising communities that do not fit within a singular national imagination.

The second cluster, which is referred to as nation-building, includes three papers that provide examples of how civic nationalism is used to structure cultural and language identities and ideologies. Rasmussen (2023) considers how citizenship education in Denmark has developed into an integral procedural component of the immigration process within the country. The author’s findings show how such pedagogical practices are inextricably connected to a specific national imagination, reflecting education policies for so-called local students at folk high schools. Hopkyns (2023) investigates banal nationalism within the UAE context. Unlike other Middle Eastern countries that are often associated with war and border disputes, banal nationalism as practiced within the UAE seems to rely on a multi-layered understanding of belonging and authenticity as understood by a population that is largely made up of foreign residents. The author uses the findings to reflect on how banal, civic, and cultural nationalism can be used in future intercultural communication research. Babaii (2023) offers a unique look into the Iranian context by an academic living and working in the country. The study begins with an overview of the paradigmatic movements within intercultural communication scholarship, using such observations to consider the extent to which the literature is commensurate with how nationalism is expressed in Iran. The author identifies several cultural factors that make it difficult to practice intercultural communication principles, such as a long and perhaps even troubled history with foreign powers and protectionists policies. All three papers demonstrate that nationalism is rooted in historical accounts of what it means to belong to a nation despite ongoing demographic and ideological changes to the population.

The third cluster, which is referred to as language education, includes four papers that evaluate how cultural nationalism is foundational to what it means for teachers and students to successfully teach and learn. Wang et al. (2023) analyse the role of national identity in the motivation of Chinese learners of Japanese. The authors show how national interests can be used to motivate students to develop multilingual competences, suggesting that political nationalism is an aspect of language education that deserves further attention within and beyond the Chinese context. Dengler (2023) examines how language course books rely on restrictive discourses and problematic ideologies that ultimately fail to represent the lived experiences of Lau students learning English. The author argues that course books must be more sensitive to local contexts to encourage students to view nationalism in more pluralistic and multicultural ways. Curran (2023) explores the ideological positions that are adopted by online language teachers when marketing their pedagogical skills as authentic and successful. The author shows that such teachers rely on banal nationalism to legitimise their ability to teach in a particular language. Similarly, Osborn and Wagner (2023) examine how the focus on ‘foreignness’ in traditional language education may have consolidated stereotypes instead of prompting learners to engage with intercultural dialogue, citizenship and social justice. The authors offer a way of considering and problematising the tradition of conflating culture and nation within language education, pointing to possible ways of disrupting such potentially harmful practices. All four papers establish the importance of examining language education as a site for the construction and circulation of all forms of nationalism.

This special issue showcases the different methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks that can be adopted when investigating nationalism. Each paper uncovers the complex ways in which constructs that are bound to the nation, such as nationalism, are used by individuals, communities, and institutions to perform identities, contest ideologies, and fabricate homeland discourses in myriad contexts and settings. The collection of papers is not the first to explore nationalism, nor will it be the last. The nation and nationalism will rear its good, bad, and ugly heads as societies become even more intertwined through, and as a result of, technology and globalisation; as well as in the face of growing populist sentiments and widespread fear of the cultural Other. It is consequently important for societies in general, and intercultural communication scholarship in particular, to continue attending to the topics and themes studied in this special issue.

Acknowledgements

The editors should like to acknowledge the effort of the 26 peer reviewers who have contributed with expert knowledge from Applied Linguistics, Intercultural Communication and Education. We should like to express a special thanks to LAIC chief editor Malcolm MacDonald for his support, patience and advice along the way.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).