Understanding National Identity: Between culture and institutions
Résumé
This article aims at sketching a synthetic and original approach to decrypt the process of the formation of national identities. The theoretical framework proposed tries to combine different perspectives of nationhood (‘from above’ versus ‘from below’, constructivist versus performative and so on), which may appear to be contradictory but can be actually complete each other in a heuristic and novel way. The process of nationhood is explained within two major interactions. The first refers to the relationship between the materiality and practices of everyday life, on the one hand, and the engendered representations and symbolic patterns, on the other hand; the second focuses on the inputs provided by communication systems and the motivations/strategies of the social agents. The first dimension refers to the referential aspect of national identity, while the second dimension raises the issue of power (the role of institutions, devices and strategies) underlying its formation. This model also aims at establishing a research agenda for the study of national identities in all their complexities and dimensions. An example is presented to showcase its heuristic value. A comparative study of two LinkedIn migrant groups illustrates how different types of habitus, linked to social structures, engender, when transformed into meaning through specific communication processes, distinct patterns of thought about nationhood.