Introduction
The work of Anthony D. Smith is considered as a milestone in the
field of ethnicity and nationalism studies. His ‘ethnosymbolic’
approach, developed from many years of intellectual evolution, could
be widely used to explain the rise of nationalism. With Gellner,
Smith is the most recognized and influential author on the topic.
This essay will address briefly the intellectual evolution of
Smith’s work, his main theoretical postulates and the most important
critiques made to his approach.
Anthony D. Smith: his work through time
Anthony D. Smith was born in 1989. He is a British Sociologist
with a first degree in Classics and Philosophy in Oxford and a
master and doctoral degree in Sociology at the London School of
Economics and Political Science (LSE). Nowadays, he is Emeritus
Professor of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the LSE, co-founder and
President of The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and
Nationalism, and Joint Editor in Chief of the journal ‘Nations and
Nationalism’. Considered with Ernest Gellner as a pioneer in the
study of nation and nationalism, Smith analyses the study of nations
from an “ethno-symbolic” approach. His intellectual production is
overwhelming, with over one hundred articles and chapters on
nations, nationalism and ethnicity, and seventeen books, including
Theories of Nationalism (1971), The Ethnic Revival (1981), The Ethnic Origins of
Nations (1986), National Identity (1991), Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era
(1996), Nationalism and Modernism (1998), Myths and memories of the Nation
(1999), The Nation in History (2000), Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History
(2001), Chosen Peoples: sacred sources of national identity (2003), Cultural
Foundations of Nations: Hierarchy, Covenant and Republic (2008), Ethno-symbolism &
Nationalism: a cultural approach (2009) and his latest book, The Nation Made
Real: Art and National Identity in Western Europe.
Despite of having been a former student of Ernest Gellner, his
point of view is quite different from the Gellner’s modernist
approach. Moreover, Smith does not attempt to present alternative
political projects or judge the positive or negative nature of it as
Hobsbawm or Greenfeld do, but merely to describe and explain
nationalism as an object of study.
More than complement Gellner’s theory, Smithsonian ethno-
symbolism seeks to transcend modernist explanations: While Gellner
looks the nationalism as a complete new phenomenon intellectually
originated from the French revolution, Smith considers that the
advent of the nations where pre-conditioned for cultural and
historical backgrounds already present when the enlightenment and
the French revolution burst. Inspired by the work of the classic
ethnicist Fredrik Barth, Smith specially stresses the role of
ethnicity, as Barth did in his 1969 book ‘Ethnic groups and
boundaries’. Although Smith considers, as well as Gellner, the
nationalism as a modern phenomenon, he believes that the nation has
pre-modern origin (i.e. the Hegelian 'historical nation'). This idea
constitutes a strong justification that influence on modern
nationalism, as the case of Russia, Serbia, England, France, Peru or
Mexico.
Smith's theoretical development is carried out in an
intellectual context located in the post-Second World War period, in
which we could observe a process of decolonization strongly related
with the development of nationalism. Nationalism, seen as
responsible for the preservation of the differentiating
characteristics and culture of the ethnic groups, can be seen as a
guarantor of the survival of cultural diversity. The intellectual
work of Smith experienced a noticeable evolution throughout its
development; however, it contains no turning points of a disruptive
nature, but we contemplate rather to a sustained and continuous
theoretical development, with greater explanatory complexity over
time.
In his debut book, ‘Theories of Nationalism’ (1971), he makes
an attempt to concentrate the existing research on the subject. He
also defines separately nation and nationalism, explains the
formation of nations and finally presents a first model of the
emergence of nationalist movements. He tries to explain the
evolution from ethnocentric nationalism to polycentric, starting
from the existence of traditional societies governed by an empire,
those which will be affected by the substitution of the empire by a
"scientific State", with an interventionist character towards the
homogenization of the population through centralized administration.
Added to this, the scientific and technological revolutions defied
the prevailing religious canons, resulting in a crisis of authority
in which institutions will be both divinely and scientifically
legitimated. The intellectuals react to this crisis in three
different ways:
- Traditionalist, defending the basis of religious legitimation;
- Assimilationist, supporting the scientific legitimacy;
- Reformist, outfitting both views.
Of all these options, it is going to be the reformism in its
revivalist mode, which uses the history of the community to justify
their political project, the preferred departure considering the
contradictions posed by the process of modernization, thus making
the ‘ethnie’ an historical subject .
In ‘Nationalist movements’ (1976), he explains with more detail
how and when does nationalism develop, understood as an ideology and
political mobilization strategy. Locating in the late eighteenth
century the development of political, social and cultural conditions
that enable the existence of nationalist ideas and philosophies, his
main hypothesis is that nationalism was born in Europe during the
rise of the Enlightenment and Romanticism as a way of reacting to
the consolidation of absolutism, chasing after the transfer of
sovereignty from the monarch to 'people', interpreted this from a
point of view either civic, for the illustration, or ethnic, as in
romanticism. While both intellectual currents have marked
differences, they share the quest for sovereignty and national
solidarity as well as the interest in culture and education. As a
more complex analysis, ‘Nationalism Movements’ seeks to explain the
variables that led to the rise of nationalism. Even when he discards
the general explanation model of his first work, it still retains
the dominant role of the state, the status of the intellectuals, the
role of history as political discourse and the importance of
cultural secularization. Now, Smith considers 3 types of conditions
for the emergence of nationalism:
-Geopolitical frameworks – i.e. territory and the state.
-Ethnic bases, such as the common history, language and culture.
-Social - bearers, placing between them the exclusion and the growth
of the urban intelligentsia, its alliance with other social
interests and market penetration.
For 1979, 'Towards a theory of ethnic separatism' highlighted
the importance of historicism, the emergence of centralized
bureaucracies with increasing participation of intellectuals,
economic and social conditions, government policies and cultural and
educational system rationalization as decisive factors for own
awareness and political mobilization of ethnic communities .(too
long)
In 'the ethnic revival' (1981), he returns to defend this
explanatory model, now focusing on the role of war and conflict as a
factor in the formation of ethnic and national identity. Although
Smith establishes the emergence of nationalism in the eighteenth
century, also identifies that the identities linked to such
movements are continuous and based on ethnic and historical
arguments.
This interest in investigating the ethnic nationalism is what
makes him develop their ethno- symbolic perspective, which is fully
reflected in ‘The Ethnic Origins of Nations’ (1986) setting as a
main hypothesis that the ethnic origin of nations is based on
memory, values, myths and symbols; being so to explain the origin of
nations is to explain first the origin of ethnic groups. However,
Smith states that the circumstances that conditioned the emergence
of nations were created after the establishment of the capitalist
model, the bureaucratic state and the secularization of culture.
This set of changes created the conditions for the emergence of
centralized and culturally homogeneous states, in which nationalisms
arose.
In ‘National identity’ (1991), he considers that ethnies become
nations through bureaucratic training and instrumentation of the
core of the state, thereby consolidating political and territorial
nations (lateral ethnie) or through political mobilization promoted
by intellectuals (vertical ethnie).
Ethno-symbolism approach
The core of the Smith’s explanation is based on the ‘ethno-
symbolism’ approach. He defines it as a framework where can be
recognized different cultural identities based on their mythical,
symbolic, traditional, collective memory and value components.
According to Smith, modern nations are just new and modified
versions of pre-existing and established ethnic groups (defined as
‘ethnies’ by the same Smith). This supposes that the nations cannot just
be justified ex nihilo without having historical bases. Smith believes
that the existence of an ethnic identity is indispensable for
national construction, inasmuch as this is based on solidarity built
from the same identity, justified by history and shared memory. The
problem with this assumption is that it can easily fall in the
identification of popular culture with the speeches of the most
influential elites in every society. Modesto Gayo agrees with this
when he mentions that ‘. . . ultimately, if nations do not have an
ethnic past, it seems that would be found, at least to justify such
an extraordinary intellectual enterprise’ (Gayo, 2001: 270).
Although Smith recognizes the primordial role of modernization
to support and create the basic conditions for the emergence of
nationalism, and therefore, modern nations, he deems that the
existence and identity of this modern nations were conditioned and
dependent on former collective identities –the so called ethnies–.
These ones play a paramount role as “ethnic cores”, which through
their continuity and stability ensure the formation and the
perpetuation of the national identity and viability, as well as a
political unity under the control of the state. The originated
nationalism- understood as social mobilization- could be classified
as ‘civic’ when is grounded in the individual and its right as a
citizen of the state or ‘ethnic’ when is based on the individual’s
identity as part of the community and related to a delimited
territory. This classification has been broadly accepted for the
most of nationalism theorists, as the case of Liah Greenfeld, who
analyses it deeper and adds the property of collectivistic-
authoritarian or individualistic-libertarian.1
Smith defines the ethnie as ‘a named unit of population with common
ancestry myths and shared historical memories, elements of shared
culture, a link with historic territory, and some measure of
solidarity, at least among elites’ (Smith, 1995: 57). Nationalism,
meanwhile, is seen as ‘. . . an ideological movement for the
attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity and identity of a
human population, some of whose members conceive it to constitute an
actual or potential 'nation'’ (Smith, 1991: 4) and the nation as
‘. . . a named human population sharing an historic territory,
common myths and memories, a mass, public culture, a single economy
and common rights and duties for all members.’ (Smith, 1991: 4)
The ethno-symbolic approach consider that the modern
nationalism is definitely linked to ethnic discourses which justify
its existence. These discourses are viewed as a requirement for
nationalist movements to emerge, whose basis are the memories,
values, symbols, history and myth that the group share. In other
words, modern nationalism cannot be understood without earlier
1 According to Greenfeld ‘. . . egalitarianism . . . and popular sovereignty . . . may be interpreted in radically different ways. The interpretation depends on whether the nation is seen as a composite entity or in unitary terms, and on whether the criteria of national membership . . . are civic or ethnic . . . these variables . . . yield three types of nationalisms . . . the individualistic-civic type, the collectivistic-civic type, and the collectivistic-ehtnic type.’ (Greenfeld, 2001: 2)
ethnic ties, since these play a role in creating shared memories,
values and symbols, having a widespread popular appeal and
acceptation.
The general characteristics of the ethnies are their ‘. . . shared
ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a
speci c territory, and a sense of solidarity’ (Smith 1986: 32). The fi
study and rationalization of ethnie as a concept is fundamental in the
ethno-symbolic approach of Smith, since it is the analytical unit
from which he bases his analysis of the development of nationalism
as a social phenomenon.
Smith classifies ethnies as laterals and verticals. This depends on
the social structure and class-division: while the lateral is more
diffuse and less self-identified in term of a shared popular culture
between social classes, the vertical is more popular, characterized
for its lack of cultural rigid divisions between social classes. An
important theoretical element that Smith rescues from Armstrog’s
explanation on nationalism is the term mythomoteur. As it has been
said before, a nation, viewed as a community, necessarily shares
common ancestry myths and historical memories. The role of the myths
on the identity is decisive, since they give a justification and a
reason to be for the community, explaining in most of the cases
their origin and their role in the world as a legitimated mission.
These constitutive myths are the referred mythomoteurs, which define
the groups in relation to their selves and to the others (Armstrong,
1982: 25). The mythomoteurs could be dynastic (as religion or
monarchy) in lateral ethnies, or communal in vertical ethnies.
The ethnie and the justification of the nation from this
explanation has, according to Smith, two main groups of functions.
The first one has an external character, including political,
territorial and economic issues. Those functions serve to recognize
the physical existence of the community and make it metaphorical and
idealized as sacred (in the case of territory), logic (for the
economy) and inclusive and solidary (in politic terms). The internal
functions are more intimate to the individual experience: The
socialization of members to be citizens of the state and nation
through education and the social cohesion by exploiting shared
traditions, rituals, symbols and signs. (Smith, 1991: 16-17).
Regarding the role of the state in the socialization of
members, Smith coincides with Hobsbawm in relation to the role of
the ordinary persons this dynamic when Hobsbawm describes them as
“object of propaganda” (Hobsbawm, 1990: 11). Even though Smith does
not mention openly the same, he agrees with the point that he
considers the intimate functions of the ethnie as very related with
the responsibilities of the governments and the individuals just as
receptors of their policies.
National identity is very appealing among the population since
it provides a powerful means to save people from personal oblivion.
This fact makes nationalism to become almost a religious
identification which gives sense and personality to the individuals
through self-identification with the nation (Smith, 1991: 161). This
asseveration about national identity as a way to transcend existence
remembers Greenfeld’s point of view about dignity and nationalism
when she says that
‘It is not status attainment, but rather status maintenance -
which applies to low status as much as to high status- which is
essential . . . Yet, dignity is addictive: having known it, one
can no longer be happy without it.’ (Greenfeld, 1993: 50)
For Smith, nationalism works as a mechanism of identity for
the people, giving them an idea of belonging and
‘. . . a powerful means of defining and locating individual selves in the world,
through the prism of collective personality and its distinctive culture. It is through a
shared, unique culture that we are enabled to know ‘who we are’ in the
contemporary world’ (Smith, 1991:17)
Critiques and debate
The main critique of Erikssen regarding the concept of ethnie is
that it is so vague due to its incapacity to explicate why there are
another collectivities with the same characteristics of the ehtnies
but without that specific political and cultural self-identity that
does not let them to be involved in any nationalistic vindication.
Moreover, there are a lot of groups with the same characteristics
established for ehtnies that are not considered as ethnic ones (as
African clans, religious minorities, Muslims, etc.).
By the side of the myths and ancestral justifications, they are
usually contested and ambiguous, sometimes contradictory to the
myths of other groups, and in some cases their shared memories are
in open contraposition to them. It is also difficult to explain the
cases where two or more different groups share certain features, as
the cultural background or the territorial claims. These critiques
are supported by the fact that ethnies are neither the only nor the
most important form of belonging, and indeed it is even difficult to
say how, what nor how much of the claimed common cultural heritage
is shared by the whole ethnie. This is more evident in cases as China,
México o Nigeria, where every each region has different traditions,
histories and sometimes even regional mythomoteurs, exemplifying the
existence of heterogenous nations regarding its cultural features.
The same differences regarding the length of the nominal ethnie
may be reflected for “solidarity markers”, insomuch as there is a
direct relation between the length of the referred community and the
solidarity expressed within. Following this explanation, it could be
said that the more conflicting the socioeconomic or political
situation is, the less expressed the solidarity is (i.e. the
secessionist movements attending economic reasons and based legally
in “national federal contracts”). In those cases, the solidarity
ties (as well as all the other markers of ethnie) are not enough
strong in order to avoid the emergence of separatist parties.
The existence of multinational states implies the possibility
of the existence of various ethnies in one national state. In this
case, the definition problem lies on the delimitation of the concept
of ethnie and its political utility. As in the case of multicultural
states, it is difficult to define the existence of just one “ethnie”,
despite of the existence of several ethnic groups with different
cultural markers.
Although Eriksen recognizes the importance of shared cultural
features within the national communities when he stresses the role
of cultural homogeneity in the development of equality of the
citizens in modern nations, he focuses his critiques on the cultural
aspect, affirming its difficulty to be defined when he says that
‘. . . it is a purely empirical question what is considered and
accepted as ‘shared culture’ in the context of group identity.
It t can be language, it can be religion, or a particular
historical experience . . . which is externalised as the
cultural emblem of a group, or it could be a unique combination
of cultural elements. . .’ (Eriksen, 2004: 52)
According to Eriksen, it would be proper to add to the ethnie
characteristics ‘interpersonal networks’ and ‘contrasting’ as
markers of those communities (Eriksen, 2004: 56), since they could
promote the required emotional ties to make the individuals feel
self-identified with the abstract community called nation. This is
notorious at a personal experience level when is reflected through
the terminology used to refer to some cultural features of the
community or to the community itself through words as ‘fatherland’,
‘mother tongue’, ‘beloved flag’ or ‘brother and sisters’ to denote
other citizens, emphasizing the emotive link and empathy that
promotes the existence of certain kinship among the individuals.
Even though Eriksen agrees with Smith’s about the importance of
shared narratives and territorial belonging as prerequisites for
national solidarity, he debates whether they necessarily must have
an ethnic foundation to be considered as nations (Eriksen, 2004:
58). To his mind, the role of place and kinship as metaphorical
concepts is more important than the ethnicity, inasmuch as
‘Virtually all political identities known to political anthropology
are based, in different ways and to varying degrees of course, on
place and kinship’ (Eriksen, 2004: 58). The territory and the role
that it plays in the mythomoteurs is at certain times superimposed to
territorial claims, especially when two or more ethnies include the
same territory as part of their descent myth, what makes that zone
likely to be object of political and military negotiations and
conflict (as Israel and Palestine or Kashmir).
If we contemplate nationalism, as Worsley suggests, as the sum
of political interests and ethnicity features in a determined group
or society, then, the concept and idea of ethnie becomes a political
tool for the self-defined and politically active ethnic groups in
the competition for political scarce goods in order to legitimize
power claims (Worsley, 1984: 249). Hence, the ehtnie, looked as a
determined group with specific claims and features, is prone to
cultural and political manipulation by nation’s construction
narrative. Following this reasoning, the nation seems to be
reflected by the active organization of the ethnie to reach some
political goals, what makes under these considerations the division
between the nation and the state very flimsy, even confusing them
each other in their roles and tasks regarding social identity.
Eriksen considers that Smith’s explanation on the nature of the
national groups is deeper than those ones of Anderson and Hobsbawm,
who consider the nations just as ‘invented’ or ‘imaginary’. However,
he finds as well that the concept of ethnie, very linked with la longue
durée and preconceptions of bloodlines, is very rigid, with
connections to land and kinship, both seen as metaphorical and
fictive connections. (Eriksen, 2004: 52).
Among other critiques made to Smith’s point of view are the
consideration of his theory as very top-down, static and
functionalist and the assumption that he makes about the presupposed
concerning of people about national identity. It is also claimed the
competition of national identities and the need to treat national
identity as the claims made in the context of particular political
purposes, since some of the dimensions of “ehtnie” are shared with
other communities, as religion. Likewise, ethnosymbolism is very
focused on cultural aspects, to the detriment of a deeper analysis
of political aspects and interests of those groups that intervene to
boost and foster the national identity
Regarding national identity, Montserrat Guibernau criticizes on
Smith that it could not be just treated as synonymous of
citizenship, since there are other superposed or even different
national identities within one single state, as the case of
Catalonia or Basque Country in Spain, Corsica in France, Quebec in
Canada or Scotland in United Kingdom. Even if those communities
present a hard identification as a nation, they also share their
respective citizenship with the majority of the population, and
sometimes, the national identity of the state itself. Thus, contrary
to Smith, she considers that it is possible to bear more than two
national identities (Guibernau, 2004: 134).
Although Kaufmann and Zimmer support the ethnic identity
argument of “ehtnie”, what makes it be seen as a unitarian
community, it is difficult to brush aside the difficulty to confine
the dimensions of “ethnie” in a very delimited community
sociologically speaking, which is even more complicated if we
consider the regional identities and the multiple ways that the
communities defines themselves as part of the nation. The elements
and attitudes that these different communities rescue are
occasionally contestatary and reactionary each other.
Following Banton, the conceptualization of ethnicity is very
problematic in empirical terms, since the knowledge and the
definition of “ethnicity” imply a different categorization of
markers as ‘race’ in specific situations. The ‘race’ as a component
of the ethnic identity (as established by Smith) is very difficult
include in a functionalist explanation, since there are a lot of
phenomenological elements depending on the ‘situation and
encounters, and . . . people's ways of coping with the demands and
challenges of life’ (Eriksen, 2010), , as McCrone explains when
says that
‘while race . . . has no influence on people’s behaviour, it
does serves as a role sign . . . what people see is not race
but the phenotypical variations to which they attribute social
meaning . . . ‘Racial’ and ethnic differences are then mapped
on to socio-economic differences in different societies in
different ways’(McCrone: 26).
Conclusion
The current international system is experiencing dramatic
changes toward contradictory directions: In one sense, the
supranationality, and in the other sense, the ‘renaissance’ of
nationalisms all around the world as a reaction. These
interconnected phenomena are prone to intellectual analysis from an
ethno-symbolic approach. A new investigation agenda on this topic
could include the intercultural communication between the nations,
the globalization of the regions and their search of autonomy, the
political agenda of separatist movements and how they justify their
demands on historical discourses. Doubtless, Smith’s approach will
be influential for much longer.
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