Exchange: What Can We Learn from Two Decades of Everyday Nationalism?

Abstract

Abstract In their landmark article on nationalism in the everyday, Jon E. Fox and Cynthia Miller-Idriss (2008a, 537) set out an ambitious research agenda which endeavored to observe “the actual practices through which ordinary people engage and enact (and ignore and deflect) nationhood and nationalism in the varied contexts of their everyday lives.” The authors’ focus on decentering elite perspectives and questions about the origins of nations in the study of nationhood in favor of a “bottom-up” approach signaled their commitment to building a research agenda that seriously examined processes of social construction of identity rather than merely signposting it. This approach inspired a subsequent generation of nationalism scholars, and in the ensuing years, everyday nationalism has become a burgeoning subfield in nationalism studies. As scholars increasingly embrace the framework of everyday nationalism and employ “bottom-up” approaches, a look at what the paradigm has accomplished is merited. This exchange assesses everyday nationalism’s impact on nationalism studies. What advancements or innovations have been wrought by nearly two decades of everyday nationhood? Furthermore, what challenges to scholars of the everyday still remain? Finally, where are the areas of opportunity for everyday nationalism to grow and develop in the future?