Thèses sur le sujet « Discursive Nationalism »

The year 2008 witnessed an explosion of online Chinese nationalism, triggered by a series of incidents relating to the Beijing Olympics. In this thesis, I mainly examine the significance and relevance of the internet to the studies of Chinese nationalism, and investigate the extent to which the internet can contribute to the shaping of Chinese nationalism in contemporary Chinese society. I treat online Chinese nationalism as discursive, because the production of online nationalist information, the construction of online nationalist identities and the discussion of online nationalist actions, are all discursive practices which are intrinsically related to the political use of language. Therefore, I argue that the study of online Chinese nationalism should entail critical linguistic analysis of the online texts that discuss Chinese nationalism. Rather than seeing nationalist texts as sheer expressions of nationalist concerns or claims, I am interested in how nationalist texts are made linguistically, and see linguistic features, structures and organisations of the texts as clues for unveiling the underlying nationalist ideologies and power relations. I mainly focus on the online popular discourse of Chinese nationalism, however, since research on nationalism can hardly avoid the power relations between the state and popular nationalist players, I also shed significant light on the official nationalist discourse. To carry out the research, I examine the official newspaper The People’s Daily and the non-official online media the Tianya Forum. By doing this, I intend to find out how the official and online popular nationalist players shaped and reshaped Chinese nationalism through media discourses during the time of the international torch relay of the Beijing Olympics. Moreover, by taking both the official and online popular nationalist discourses into consideration, it also allows me to examine the possible tension and co-optation between both nationalist players, and investigate to what extent online Chinese nationalism as an alternative nationalist discourse, challenges the domination of the state over the politics of Chinese nationalism. To analyse the discourses of Chinese nationalism, I employ Norman Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis as the ultimate research method of the thesis.

Le nationalisme peut-il être envisagé comme un simple instrument de légitimation ?Cette thèse répond à cette question en se penchant sur un nationalisme particulier à une époque donnée, celui du moldovénisme du Parti des Communistes de République de Moldavie au pouvoir dans ce pays entre 2001 et 2009.

Sur base d’un cadre théorique mettant en avant les théories de Hermet, Greenfeld, Brass, Breuilly, Hobsbawm, Calhoun et Brubaker, le nationalisme est envisagé comme un discours et la réponse à la question centrale de recherche a été donnée suivant une méthode influencée par l’Analyse critique de Discours, telle qu’élaborée notamment par Wodak. Après une mise en contexte problématisée, reprenant les divers projets nationaux ayant été historiquement mis en place en Moldavie, une recherche empirique a été effectuée :la construction discursive de la nation a été étudiée, premièrement, dans les discours des présidents de la république, Vladimir Voronine entre 2001 et 2009 et Mihai Ghimpu entre 2009 et 2010 ;deuxièmement, dans les discours des partis politiques à l’occasion d’une campagne électorale en 2009 ;et troisièmement, dans les articles de presse qui traitent de la participation du pays au Concours Eurovision de la Chanson entre 2004 et 2010.

Cette recherche montre empiriquement que le nationalisme est principalement une affaire de « politique », selon l’expression de Breuilly, qu’il est utilisé par les acteurs en fonction d’un intérêt de préserver ou de conquérir le pouvoir. Les acteurs créent une nation ad hoc et en usent en fonction du contexte dans lequel leur lutte s’inscrit et en fonction de l’électorat à convaincre. Néanmoins, cet usage politique de la nation n’est pas le fait de l’ensemble des acteurs étudiés :les journalistes, même proches des acteurs politiques étudiés, esquissent une conception « primordiale » de la nation. Par ailleurs, la recherche montre empiriquement que le moldovénisme, comme tout nationalisme, est forcément exclusif, le « nous » se construisant implicitement et explicitement contre un « autre ».

Can nationalism be seen as a mere instrument of legitimation? The dissertation addresses this issue by focusing on a particular nationalism in a given period, the ‘Moldovanism’ of the Party of the Communists of the Republic of Moldova in power in this country between 2001 and 2009.

The theoretical framework of the research takes into account the theories of Hermet, Greenfeld, Brass, Breuilly, Hobsbawm, Calhoun, and Brubaker. Following these authors, nationalism is considered as a discourse, and the answer to the main research question has been given by using a methodology inspired by the Vienna School of Critical Discourse Analysis. Before proceeding to the empirical research, the dissertation shows the various national projects that have historically been implemented in Moldova. On this basis, the discursive construction of nationhood has been studied among three different sources :first, the speeches of two presidents of the republic, Vladimir Voronin between 2001 and 2009 and Mihai Ghimpu between 2009 and 2010 ;second, the speeches of political parties during an election campaign in 2009 ;and third, press articles dealing with the country's participation to the Eurovision Song Contest between 2004 and 2010.

The dissertation shows empirically that nationalism is primarily a matter of ‘politics’, to quote Breuilly. Nationalism is used by actors trying to preserve or gain power. These actors create an ad hoc nation and make use of it depending on the context in which they struggle and depending on the need to convince an electorate. Nevertheless, all the actors taken into consideration in the research do not exhibit this political use of the nation: the journalists, even close to the political actors who were studied, prove a ‘primordial’ conception of the nation. Moreover, the research shows empirically that Moldovanism, like any other nationalism, is necessarily exclusive. ‘We’ is indeed implicitly and explicitly constructed against an ‘other’.

Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Since the early 1990s, more and more people in Taiwan have come to view Taiwan itself as a country independent of China. They consider themselves Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Drawing on a social constructionist perspective to nationalism and Laclau and Mouffeâ s theory of discourse, this dissertation attempts to analyze the discursive mechanisms that have constructed this new collective imagination by many people in Taiwan that now regard themselves as members of an independent Taiwanese nation. The research questions of this dissertation are: how has the post-1949 national identity of Taiwan been discursively transformed since the early 1990s? What are the discursive and institutional mechanisms that have reproduced the Taiwanese national identity? What challenges is the Taiwanese national identity facing? To answer these questions, this dissertation outlines three nationalist discourses and five representations that have been derived from them regarding Taiwanâ s status, its relationship with mainland China, and the national identity of people in Taiwan. It examines the changes in Taiwanâ s discursive regime and symbolic economy since the early 1990s, showing how the rise of Taiwanese national identity has been closely related to political leadersâ identification with Taiwanese nationalism. I argue that the rise of Taiwanese national identity in Taiwan has been an effect of a discursive contestation among the three major nationalist discourses and the polarization of the discursive field. This dissertation also explores the provincial origin issue---which has been closely related to ethnic tension in Taiwan---and the relations between the nationalist discourses and democratization. In addition, to explore the possibility for a deconstruction of the Taiwanese national identity, I examine the challenges that the Taiwanese national identity faces, focusing on democracy, the Democratic Progressive Partyâ s performance as the ruling party, and the cross-Strait economic integration and political interactions.
Ph. D.

This thesis provides a feminist perspective on the inter-ethnic conflict between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan. The empirical data for the analysis consists of reports describing the conflict and from interviews conducted in the region in the spring of 2016. The concept discourse is used both as theory and method, in order to analyze how hegemonic identities related to ethnicity and gender can be both reiterated and challenged. The thesis recommends alternative methodological approaches including the object of research, in order to construct knowledge relevant to local conditions. This field study suggests that a feminist perspective on the inter-ethnic conflict in the southern region of Kyrgyzstan is necessary for obtaining a perspective on security which is valid for both men and women. Moreover, women’s passive position in the nationalist narrative may provide a valuable perspective on conflict prevention and reconciliation processes due to inter-ethnic conflict.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 221-234). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

This thesis uses Benedict Anderson's theoretical contributions on the topic of national identity and Michel Foucault's contributions toward discourse analysis to perform a discursive analysis of Donald Trump's campaign speeches in which he exploits pre-existing anti-immigration sentiments among certain voters to gain political power. The research question addressed herein is: How has Donald Trump invoked the issue of national security to single out groups of immigrants as threats to U.S. national security, and what conditions exists so that he is able to do so in a way that enlists the support of a sizeable portion of the American public? First, this thesis works to put into context what drove post-World War II immigration in the U.S. to provide insight into what conditions lead to certain groups being encouraged or discouraged from immigrating. Second, I contrast Anderson's concept of nationalism with that of Samuel Huntington, whose idea of nationalism more closely aligns with Trump's nativist sense of national identity. Third, having put the history of U.S. immigration and the concept of national identity into context, I perform a discursive analysis of three of Trump's campaign speeches and tweets that focus on immigration and make problematic his racist, far-right ideology and its purpose toward the de-politicization and de-historicization of immigration as a national security and economic issue. I conclude by reminding the reader that allowing anti-immigrant discourse to become normalized without the burden of proof can lead to curbed freedoms under an authoritarian regime, a direction toward which Trump appears ready and willing to lead the American electorate.
Master of Arts

Rural and remote areas of Australia remain the last bastion of health disadvantage in a developed nation with an enviable health score-card. During the last ten years, rural and remote health has emerged as a significant issue in the media and the political arena. This thesis examines print media, policy documents and interviews from selected informants to ascertain how they represent medical practitioners and health services in rural and remote areas of Australia, why they do so, and the consequences of such positions. In many of these representations, rural and remote medical practitioners are aligned with national and cultural mythologies, while health services are characterised as dysfunctional and at crisis point. Ostensibly, the representations and identity formulations are aimed at redressing the health inequities in remote rural and Australia. They define and elaborate debates and contestations about needs and claims and how they should be addressed; a process that is crucial in the development of professional identity and power (Fraser; 1989). The research involves an analysis and critical reading of the entwined discourses of culture, power, and the politics of need. Following Wodak and others (1999), these dynamics are explored by examining documents that are part of the discursive constitution of the field. In particular, the research examines how prevailing cultural concepts are used to configure the Australian rural and remote medical practitioner in ways that reflect and advance socio-cultural hegemony. The conceptual tools used to explore these dynamics are drawn from critical and post-structural theory, and draw upon the work of Nancy Fraser (1989; 1997) and Ruth Wodak (1999). Both theorists developed approaches that enable investigation into the effects of language use in order to understand how the cultural framing of particular work can influence power relations in a professional field. The research follows a cultural studies approach, focussing on texts as objects of research and acknowledging the importance of discourse in the development of cultural meaning (Nightingale, 1993). The methodological approach employs Critical Discourse Analysis, specifically the Discourse Historical Method (Wodak, 1999). It is used to explore the linguistic hallmarks of social and cultural processes and structures, and to identify the ways in which political control and dominance are advanced through language-based strategies. An analytical tool developed by Ruth Wodak, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl and Karin Leibhart (1999) was adapted and used to identify nationalistic identity formulations and related linguistic manoeuvres in the texts. The dissertation argues that the textual linguistic manoeuvres and identity formulations produce and privilege a particular identity for rural and remote medical practitioners, and that cultural myth is used to popularise, shore up and advance the goals of rural doctors during a period of crisis and change. Important in this process is the differentiation of rural and remote medicine from other disciplines in order to define and advance its political needs and claims (Fraser, 1989). This activity has unexpected legacies for the rural and remote health sector. In developing a strong identity for rural doctors, discursive rules have been established by the discipline regarding roles, personal and professional characteristics, and practice style; rules which hold confounding factors for the sustainability of remote and rural medical practice and health care generally. These factors include: the professional fragmentation of the discipline of primary medical care into general practice and rural medicine; and identity formulations that do not accommodate an ageing workforce characterised by cultural diversity, decreasing engagement in full time work, and a higher proportion of women participants. Both of these factors have repercussions for the recruitment and retention of rural and remote health professionals and the maintenance of a sustainable health workforce. The dissertation argues that the formulated identities of rural and remote medical practitioners in the texts maintain and reproduce relationships of cultural, political and social power. They have also influenced the ways in which rural and remote health services have been developed and funded. They selectively represent and value particular roles and approaches to health care. In doing so, they misrepresent the breadth and complexities of rural and remote health issues, and reinforce a reputational economy built on differential professional and cultural respect, and political and economic advantage. This disadvantages the community, professions and interest groups of lower value and esteem, and other groups whose voices are often not heard. Thus, regardless of their altruistic motivations, the politics of identity and differentiation employed in the formulated identities in the texts are based on an approach that undermines the redistributive goals of justice and equity (Fraser 1997), and works primarily to develop and advantage the discipline of rural medicine.

Rural and remote areas of Australia remain the last bastion of health disadvantage in a developed nation with an enviable health score-card. During the last ten years, rural and remote health has emerged as a significant issue in the media and the political arena. This thesis examines print media, policy documents and interviews from selected informants to ascertain how they represent medical practitioners and health services in rural and remote areas of Australia, why they do so, and the consequences of such positions. In many of these representations, rural and remote medical practitioners are aligned with national and cultural mythologies, while health services are characterised as dysfunctional and at crisis point. Ostensibly, the representations and identity formulations are aimed at redressing the health inequities in remote rural and Australia. They define and elaborate debates and contestations about needs and claims and how they should be addressed; a process that is crucial in the development of professional identity and power (Fraser; 1989). The research involves an analysis and critical reading of the entwined discourses of culture, power, and the politics of need. Following Wodak and others (1999), these dynamics are explored by examining documents that are part of the discursive constitution of the field. In particular, the research examines how prevailing cultural concepts are used to configure the Australian rural and remote medical practitioner in ways that reflect and advance socio-cultural hegemony. The conceptual tools used to explore these dynamics are drawn from critical and post-structural theory, and draw upon the work of Nancy Fraser (1989; 1997) and Ruth Wodak (1999). Both theorists developed approaches that enable investigation into the effects of language use in order to understand how the cultural framing of particular work can influence power relations in a professional field. The research follows a cultural studies approach, focussing on texts as objects of research and acknowledging the importance of discourse in the development of cultural meaning (Nightingale, 1993). The methodological approach employs Critical Discourse Analysis, specifically the Discourse Historical Method (Wodak, 1999). It is used to explore the linguistic hallmarks of social and cultural processes and structures, and to identify the ways in which political control and dominance are advanced through language-based strategies. An analytical tool developed by Ruth Wodak, Rudolf de Cillia, Martin Reisigl and Karin Leibhart (1999) was adapted and used to identify nationalistic identity formulations and related linguistic manoeuvres in the texts. The dissertation argues that the textual linguistic manoeuvres and identity formulations produce and privilege a particular identity for rural and remote medical practitioners, and that cultural myth is used to popularise, shore up and advance the goals of rural doctors during a period of crisis and change. Important in this process is the differentiation of rural and remote medicine from other disciplines in order to define and advance its political needs and claims (Fraser, 1989). This activity has unexpected legacies for the rural and remote health sector. In developing a strong identity for rural doctors, discursive rules have been established by the discipline regarding roles, personal and professional characteristics, and practice style; rules which hold confounding factors for the sustainability of remote and rural medical practice and health care generally. These factors include: the professional fragmentation of the discipline of primary medical care into general practice and rural medicine; and identity formulations that do not accommodate an ageing workforce characterised by cultural diversity, decreasing engagement in full time work, and a higher proportion of women participants. Both of these factors have repercussions for the recruitment and retention of rural and remote health professionals and the maintenance of a sustainable health workforce. The dissertation argues that the formulated identities of rural and remote medical practitioners in the texts maintain and reproduce relationships of cultural, political and social power. They have also influenced the ways in which rural and remote health services have been developed and funded. They selectively represent and value particular roles and approaches to health care. In doing so, they misrepresent the breadth and complexities of rural and remote health issues, and reinforce a reputational economy built on differential professional and cultural respect, and political and economic advantage. This disadvantages the community, professions and interest groups of lower value and esteem, and other groups whose voices are often not heard. Thus, regardless of their altruistic motivations, the politics of identity and differentiation employed in the formulated identities in the texts are based on an approach that undermines the redistributive goals of justice and equity (Fraser 1997), and works primarily to develop and advantage the discipline of rural medicine.

This study analysed the reporting of the debate over the Guggenheim Bilbao in the Basque nationalist newspapers Egin and Diario Vasco. I was looking at differences/similarities between the newspapers, and at how argumentation changed over time (1997/1998), drawing upon content analysis, discourse analysis of the ideological themes in the reporting and an indepth analysis of two editorials, one in Spanish and one in Basque. The content analysis confirmed that economy and Basque culture/identity were highly controversial themes; and that in 1998 the museum became more accepted. An analysis of rhetorical strategies e.g. quantification rhetoric for economic predictions; vagueness/evasiveness to portray the Basques' reception of modem architecture/art, permitted the examination of intragroup/intergroup models of interaction, strategies and underlying ideological dilemmas (Billig et ai, 1988). After the inauguration, Diario Vasco claimed that the museum was concerned with Basque modem art, while Egin maintained a cautious distance. The in-depth comparative analysis of political rhetoric in two Egin's editorials, reporting similar events in Basque or Spanish, confirmed that the use of these different languages involves different construction of the readership; and different strategies to convey communality between writer/reader. In the Basque language editorial, communality was cautiously constructed until an assertive we Basques stressed search of unity, differentiation, and sovereignty: conflict/differences between Basques were omitted, backgrounded or ironized, while differences with the Spanish foregrounded. In the Spanish editorial, an impersonal third person tone avoided using the rhetoric of we. Specific Basques were blamed for the repression of Basque secessionism. A dramatic tone suggested subtle criticism against ETA, yet implying that it was reasonable to include ETA among the human victims. The explicit nation state's deixis in the Spanish editorial implied Spain was the nation state. In the Basque context the nation state's deixis was ambiguous: we Basques might be used to address Basques beyond French-Spanish boundaries, suggesting a long-term representation/project that imagined Basqueness beyond its present-day administrative division or actual political influence. The implications of such fine detail differences were discussed.

Cette thèse trace une généalogie discursive des débats sur les langues au Conseil de l'Europe. Au moyen d’une approche sociolinguistique des institutions internationales dans une perspective discursive, différents textes institutionnels produits entre 1949 à 2008 sont examinés dans leurs conditions de production sociohistoriquement situées. L’intérêt est porté sur la (dis)continuité des anciennes idéologies langagières dans la construction du discours sur la diversité linguistique et le plurilinguisme et sur la manière dont s’articulent sur le terrain discursif des langues, d’une part les idéologies des États-nations, en tant qu’entités indépendantes, et d’autre part, les idéologies du Conseil de l’Europe en tant qu’institution internationale fonctionnant sur la base d’une coopération interétatique. Cette thèse est une réflexion critique sur le discours de célébration et de valorisation du plurilinguisme et de la diversité linguistique, sur le rôle (du discours) des institutions internationales dans le contexte de la nouvelle économie globalisée et de l’internationalisation de la politique, et sur l’exercice du pouvoir symbolique au moyen des dispositifs institutionnels et discursifs
This thesis traces a discursive genealogy of the language debates at the Council of Europe. Through a sociolinguistic and discursive approach to international institutions, different institutional texts produced between 1949 and 2008 are examined in their socio-historically situated conditions of production. The focus is on the (dis)continuity of old language ideologies in the construction of the discourse on linguistic diversity and plurilingualism and on the way the discourse on languages is a terrain which articulates, on the one hand, the ideologies of nation-states, as independent entities,and, on the other hand, the ideologies of the Council of Europe as an international institution that functions on the basis of interstate cooperation. This thesis is a critical reflection on the discourse of celebration and valorization of plurilingualism and linguistic diversity, on the role of (the discourse of) international institutions in the context of the globalized new economy and the internationalization of politics, and on the exercise of symbolic power by means of institutional and discursive apparatus

This thesis shows how misogynous and stereotypical images of women, which historically have been used to transform them into witches and monsters, are now reused in the construction of the term “batikhäxa” (“tie-dye witch”). Feminist and discourse theory form the framework of this study which includes the analysis of three opinion pieces, or political pamphlets, that were published between 2010 – 2018: "Batikhäxorna och makten" by the pseudonym Julia Caesar, "Refugee 'Children" & The Women Who Sexually Exploit Them" by the pseudonym Angry Foreigner and "De ansvariga för Sveriges kaos behöver en intervention för att ställas till svars " by Katerina Janouch. I use critical discourse analysis to study how discursive strategies are applied in these political pamphlets to delegitimate women, making them the scapegoats of society by use of the concept of the tie-dye witch. My thesis argues that the use of the tie-dye witch discourse reproduces patriarchal power relations by denying women the right to have and express their opinions, decide over their own bodies and exercise power in society. The tie-dye witch can therefore also be understood as an anti-feminist counterimage to the feminist witch who was established as a female role model in the 1960s. The study also uncovers the psychological function of the tie-dye witch as a female super monster who demarks the borders of nation, culture, religion, body and gender. In the studied texts, the tie-dye witch is constructed to separate "us" from "the others", and in doing so she also acts as a unifying figure in and of anti-feminist, islamophobic, xenophobic, nationalist and apocalyptic discourses.

This dissertation traces the emergence of a State-sponsored revolutionary culture in Mexico during the late 1920s and early 1930s through an eminently literary corpus of works. The analysis opens by highlighting the role played by literature in the formation of a politically and culturally homogeneous national identity in the years that followed the Revolution. An identity that was politically construed by the nationalist discourse of the Revolution, socially imagined as rural and peasant, and culturally characterized by machismo, secularism, and political unawareness. In this way, the dissertation argues that the consolidation of a national identity and political hegemony in those terms entailed the removal of marginal subjectivities and spaces: like the urban space of Mexico City and its inhabitants, the villista revolutionaries, the Cristero rebels and communist militants from the body politic because those subjectivities problematized the horizontality of Mexican identity, a process I call the Excisions from the National. In order to problematize these Excisions, I examine the representation of some of those marginal subjectivities and antagonistic identitary positions namely those found in key works of urban revolutionary, Villista, Cristero, and communist literatures. The dissertation traces how these subjectivities challenged revolutionary culture’s narrative of identity and of the nation itself and them moves on to construe what I call the Sutures of the National, a term I have coined to designate the manner in which these marginal subjectivities were later reincorporated to the body politic of the nation in a neutralized way once the revolutionary regime had stabilized during the 1940s and 50s. My analysis concludes by examining how the process of re-incorporating these subjectivities into the symbolic order of national identity led to certain unintended paradoxical binarisms of Mexican culture.