This thesis examines the National Heritage Board in Sweden and the way they look upon themselves, the surrounding world and their mission. Methodologically it’s a discourse analysis based on poststructuralist and social constructionist thoughts. This means, simplified, that nothing is taken for granted and that power relations and ideology always matters. There is no true or distinct heritage. The public cultural heritage was often used as a tool in creating a homogeneous national identity, but what is its function today? The nationalistic function is politically impossible in the paradigm of today, stressing diversity and multiculturalism. The main result of the study is the Board’s alteration from a unity discourse to a diversity discourse, but at the same time there is an over-all ambiguity, which leads to the conclusion that the Board wants to describe themselves and their work in accordance with the diversity discourse, but are constantly falling back into the views of the unity discourse.

Since Ukraine's independence, a burgeoning private sector has been increasingly encroaching in cultural spaces that previously were conceived of as "property of the state." This dissertation is an ethnographic account of how objects of cultural heritage are being re-configured within the new post-Soviet economy. Specifically, it focuses on sound archive field recordings of traditional music and how they are being transformed into cultural commodities. Regarding the jurisdiction of culture - who controls cultural heritage and how it is used to represent ethnic and national identity - my research shows how these boundaries are increasingly being negotiated within structures of social, cultural and political power. Thus, culture becomes a contested object between competing ideological systems: cultural heritage as a means to salvage and reconstruct repressed histories and to revive former national traditions, on the one hand, and cultural heritage as a creative, future-oriented force to construct new identities in growing consumer marketplaces.

"Imagining Unity" investigates how an evolving concept of transcendence in early modern England, influenced by Reformation and counter-Reformation theology, created new ways of responding affectively and philosophically to emerging articulations of national identity in British devotional poetry. My project focuses on a series of politically disruptive moments in the seventeenth century--from the residual trauma of the Protestant Reformation to the Civil War of the 1640's--that troubled England's developing sense of national identity. In the shadow of these troubles, devotional poets reworked ideas of transcendence that they had inherited from medieval Catholicism to provide a sense of national cohesion in the midst of a changing political landscape. This dissertation explores transcendence as it is reconceived by four different authors: John Donne's work translates Catholic iconography to symbolize the ascension of a Protestant England; Aemelia Lanyer's poetry appeals to the exclusivity of religious esotericism as a palliative for the actual exclusion of women from political life; Richard Crashaw's writings reinterpret mystical union to rescue sovereignty from failure; and John Milton's work revises transubstantiation to authorize a new republic. By investigating how early modern poetry reimagines transcendence in response to political events, my project widens ongoing conversations in political theology and "the religious turn" of literary studies, which are often unilaterally focused on the influence that religion had on politics in the course of an inevitable secularization of culture. My contribution to this work, and the underlying premise to my argument, is that literature provides a forum for rethinking religious concepts at the heart of political organization despite the apparent impulse toward secularization. In doing so, literature serves as a cultural medium for testing the conceptual limits of transcendence--its viability as a tool for inspiring and maintaining social unity. This dissertation ultimately witnesses a concerted effort in the early modern period to extend the life of religious ideas within the political imagination through devotional poetry's insistent recasting of transcendence as central to the formulation of the body politic.

In this thesis, the purpose is to analyze the path that the nation building process in Kazakhstan has been following in the post-Soviet period through examining the various policies implemented and the official rhetoric and discourses stated by the Kazakh policymakers. The ethno-symbolist approach of Anthony D. Smith and the views of Walker Connor and Willfried Spohn on nationalism and national identity have been utilized in the analysis of the research. The Soviet Nationalities Policy is examined to be able to better understand the post-Soviet nation-building, because the policies implemented under this comprehensive project, which had been outlined by the Bolsheviks, had deep political, cultural, demographic and linguistic impacts on the process in Kazakhstan. The ethnic situation has also been laid down in order to highlight under which ethnic circumstances the nation building process has been taking place. After analyzing the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the post-Soviet policies about language, education, employment, culture and national symbols, the statements of the President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the move of capital, this study claims that post-Soviet nation building process and nationalism in Kazakhstan have both ethnic and civic components whereby the nation building process in Kazakhstan is a more ethnic process than it is civic.

This thesis analyzes the construction of children of Iranian asylum-seekers&rsquo / national and religious identity who are dwelling in Kayseri provisionally. Identity construction of the children was based on a &lsquo / flexible&rsquo / and &lsquo / malleable&rsquo / ground in the research. The research was conducted through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with a selected group of participants. The participants belong to two different religious cohorts, Shi&rsquo / is and Baha&rsquo / is. Within the scope of the research question, national and religious of the children were investigated profoundly by taking into consideration of related identity theories. In addition, childhood experiences of the children were examined in order to find out if there is any interplay between childhood experiences and national and religious identities. It was determined that ambit of a contested process of identities, national identity enunciated its vigour by far for all the participants. It was also ascertained that while for the Shi&rsquo / i children, religious identity has reduced its strength / religious identity is still potent for the Baha&rsquo / i children in the host society. Moreover, the children&rsquo / s interrupted childhood results from their religious professions and their family&rsquo / s political views reconstructed in Kayseri. The participants&rsquo / interrupted childhood in Iran achieved a relative maintenance in Kayseri without any fragmentation due to relative free environment comparing to Iran.

More and more foreign spouses have been immigrating to Taiwan. The ¡§New Taiwan Children¡¨ are consequently expected to become the elites of Taiwan¡¦s next generation. The political education and learning in families, as well as the political attitude of the husband¡¦s family, will all influence the political attitude and national identity of foreign spouses and their children. Most of the dissertations regarding foreign spouses now, however, are focused on the life adaption and Chinese character recognition services for foreign spouses. Little effort has been made to explore their political attitudes. In this research, therefore, we focus our research on the participants of the Chinese-character Recognition Classes in 24 elementary and junior high schools in Kaohsiung City and probe their political attitude after attending the courses. In this paper, we will discuss the factors influencing the political attitudes of foreign spouses, particularly, their personal backgrounds (including nationality, language and education), family backgrounds of their husbands (e.g., the political party supported by their spouse and their perspectives on unification or independence), and social inclusion factors (for example, political-related discussions with neighbors and friends, community activities, participation in Chinese-character recognition classes or life adaptation-courses organized by the government, etc.) The ultimate purpose of the study is to determine whether innate factors (i.e., personal backgrounds) or environmental factors (i.e., the social factors) are more influential on their political attitudes. If environmental factors turn out to be more influential, we may expedite the social inclusion process through collaborative efforts between the government and private agencies. We will also incorporate in the ¡§conclusion¡¨ our recommendations for further facilitating social inclusion. It was found in the research process that, in terms of political inclusion, a significant level (P<.001) has been reached in four aspects including ¡§Evaluation of Government Performance¡¨, ¡§National Identity¡¨, ¡§Political Participation¡¨ and ¡§Political Efficacy¡¨. The correlation coefficients between social inclusion and political inclusion are, respectively, .370, .362, .187 and .270. It is therefore recommended that increasing the political participation of foreign spouses may be achieved by encouraging their social inclusion. The research results also show that, for foreign spouses with different language proficiency, there is a significant variance in the extent of social inclusion. On the average, more foreign spouses communicate with the families of their husbands in English, Mandarin or Fukienese, as compared with those communicating in the language of Thailand, Philippines or Indonesia. We suggest that the authorities should provide more subsidies/incentives to encourage foreign spouses to participate in language-training courses. The survey also shows that foreign spouses rarely attend the community activities or discuss with their friends, mainly because of language barriers. Improvement of language ability will be a motivating factor for their social inclusion. Foreign spouses seldom participate in community activities or in political discussions. The main reasons for this include busy with childcare or household chores, language problems or inadequate Chinese proficiency, which causes insufficient social inclusion. It is recommended that the government should provide subsidies/incentives to encourage their participation in community activities, including attending the life coach classes and Chinese-character Recognition Classes, etc. The research shows that foreign spouses with better Chinese proficiency are better prepared to participate in political activities. For example, they will find it easier to read election-related information. Among the foreign spouses surveyed this time, few have the habit of reading political commentary in newspapers or TV programs; this is due to their incompetency in Chinese language. One of the ways to improve their abilities in political participation, therefore, is to encourage them to participate in the Chinese-character Recognition Classes. In our visit to the Immigrant Center of Learning in the city, we learned from an instructor at the YMCA that free Chinese courses are now offered by the YMCA to the foreign spouses. It is our hope that through close cooperation between the government and the private institutions we can expedite the social and political inclusion of foreign spouses, enabling them to enjoy a happy life in Taiwan with all of us.

2004年總統大選前後台灣出現許多電視政論節目，其中以劇作家汪笨湖主持年代MUCH台「台灣心聲」節目曾帶動台語政論風潮，引發「台灣心聲現象」，這個現象之後隨政治情勢變化等原因結束節目。政論節目召喚閱聽人的「認同」，閱聽人也對政論節目產生「迷」現象。政論節目與政治、國族認同結合，節目內容呈現特定符碼與意識形態。 / 本研究依據Hall的媒介文化模型，從這個概念研究產製流程、文本、與接收者解碼，了解其中的儀式性參與及最後形成的認同，透過「台灣心聲」政論節目的意義生產（編碼）與消費（解碼）面向，來觀察政論節目的文化產品意義。 / 本研究由研究者參與並觀察政論節目的運作流程，發現影響政論節目運作的因素包括收視率、主持人、政經大氣候、電視台小氣候等，呈現動態變化。本研究採論述分析法分析「台灣心聲」節目文本所呈現的認同意涵與意識形態建構。研究發現，當涉及族群及國族認同時，政論節目展演者在國家、台灣、中華民國、拚經濟等議題與符號上，呈現出運作差異範疇，透過符號運作政論節目區分出我者與他者的差異認同。 / 本研究深入訪問長期收看「台灣心聲」節目的閱聽人，了解閱聽人觀看節目的動機及認同；並採問卷調查法抽樣大台北地區大學生了解閱聽人選擇觀看的政論節目與其政治認同的關連性。深度觀看「台灣心聲」的受訪者強調認同「台灣主體意識」，台灣心聲的節目呈現形式、主持人風格、台語說書式模式並進一步產生了「迷」現象。 / Many political talk shows were brought forth in Taiwan before and after the 2004 presidential campaign. One of the shows, “Taiwanese Hearty Voice” in the channel “MUCH”, hosted by a playwright, Wang Ben Hu, surged the political talk shows in Taiwaness native tongue that caused the so-called “the phenomenon of Taiwanese Hearty Voice”. The phenomenon has waned while the political fever dropped and the show has ceased. Political talk shows arouse a sense of ‘identity’ among the audience and the audience is prone to be ‘fans’ of the shows. Political talk shows combined with politics and national identity present special encoding and ideology. / The thesis is based upon the Media Culture Model by Dr. Stuart Hall. From the model on the media process of production, text and the decoding of audience, the audience’s ritual participation and the finalized identity are studied. Through the political talk show case of “Taiwaness Hearty Voice”, I studied the media production of meaning “encoding” and comsuming “decoding” to explore the culture insight of the political talk show production. / The author of this thesis played both roles as participant and the observer in the show’s operation process and found the factors that affect the operation of political talk shows, such as ratings, who’s the host, political and economical climate at the moment, the atmosphere in the TV company, etc. They are dynamical. The method applied is discourse analysis, that analyses the identity insight and ideological structure presented by the text of “Taiwanese Hearty Voice”. It is found that, when involving ethnic and national identity, the participants of the show characterized distinct differences in the issues and encoding on “country”, “Taiwan”, “Republic of China” and “straining for economy”, etc. Manipulating the endcoding of political talk shows can distinguish the different identity between ‘we-group’ and ‘they-group’. / In order to understand the audience’s motivaton and identity, a survey is conducted to interview long-term audience of “Taiwanese Hearty Voice”. It adopted questionnaire survey and sampled college students in Grand Taipei area to correlate the choice of which political talk show to view and his/her political identity. In the survey, the audience who admits to be loyal audience of “Taiwanese Hearty Voice” emphasizes ‘the ideology of Taiwan’s identity’. “Taiwanese Hearty Voice” has presented its special form, host manner, and talk- show style in native Taiwanese tongue, which further produced a ‘fans’ phenomenon.

The Middle East saw much social change in recent tumultuous decades. On one hand, some communities embraced Westernness as part of the inevitable path to development and modernization. On the other hand, there were communities that resisted global trends that were mostly dominated by the West. The latter deemed these trends as a threat to native cultures, religious groups, and local traditions. This made the Arab world a ground for constant redefinition of the meaning of identity. Of the countries in the region undergoing a turbulent debate over what constitutes national identity, Lebanon serves as a good example. Ever since its independence, Lebanon was a nation-state with no sense of nationality to unite its people. As some communities saw themselves more francophone than Arab, others felt a close connection to a pan-Arab nation. Arguably, the Lebanese people found themselves amidst a tension between the two poles. Defining one’s identity required a negotiation between the two extremes. Not only did this negotiation demand a thorough investigation of one’s beliefs, social network, and history, but it also necessitated a diligent ‘performance’ of identity. An individual represented her identity by habits and expressions that she associated with that particular identity. The study at hand is an exploration of the relationship between identity and consumption in the Lebanese society. This project applies a unique approach in that it considers the producers’ agency in the construction of identity. Taking television advertising as a site for inquiry, the study explores how commercial advertisers utilize the tension between the local and the non-local to promote the consumption of the advertised products. Through exploring the values that educate advertising producers’ choices in creating text and meaning, this study applies theories of globalization, postcolonial studies, and consumer behavior through which advertisers manifest an ambivalence of identity. Therefore, by taking Lebanon as an example and focusing on advertising, this study contributes to the debates of globalization and the Arab world by invoking questions of producers’ agency in producing identity references through attitudes, behaviors, and social status associated with the featured products. / text

Le projet européen, à travers ses différents jalons, esquisse les contours d’un nouveau type d’entité sur la scène internationale qui serait étrangère à l’État-nation sans toutefois lui être supérieure. L’intégration toujours plus poussée a été à l’origine de questionnements sur l’interaction entre les identités nationales et l’identité européenne en gestation. La France constitue un champ d’étude privilégié de cette interaction, compte tenu qu’elle organise deux référendums – en 1992 et en 2005 – sur l’intégration européenne. Dans le présent mémoire, il est question de déterminer la manière dont cet approfondissement influence l’opinion publique française dans son processus de construction d’un discours identitaire national. L’analyse porte sur les périodes de débats préréférendaires entourant le traité de Maastricht de 1992 à l’origine de l’euro et celui de 2005 établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe. Le mémoire repose sur le dépouillement de la presse réalisé pour chacune des deux périodes de débats préréférendaires. Afin d’étudier l’évolution de la perception identitaire des Français de toute allégeance politique, le mémoire a pour base documentaire les éditoriaux et les courriers des lecteurs des journaux Le Monde, Le Figaro, L'Humanité et Libération. La comparaison des discours identitaires de 1992 et de 2005 révèle que la relation d’identification entre la France et l’Europe a complètement changé durant cette période. Elle est passée d’une relation basée sur l’altérité entre ces deux entités idéelles à une relation fondée sur un socle de valeurs partagées. En 1992, les Français se servent de l’idée européenne comme d’un référent identitaire autour duquel ils réaffirment les valeurs perçues comme françaises, alors qu’en 2005, l’identité française n’est plus en question. Le débat se situe dorénavant sur le plan des valeurs que les Français souhaiteraient voir composer l’identité européenne à laquelle ils sont appelés à adhérer. Ces valeurs sont dorénavant tirées de l’identité personnelle de chaque Français plutôt que d’une certaine conception de l’identité nationale française. / The European project, through each of its milestones, outlines a new type of entity on the international scene, one which is a stranger to the nation state without being its better. From the intensification of European integration emerged a questioning on the nature of the interactions between national and European identity. In this respect, France represents a very interesting field of study as the country organised two referendums on European integration, one in 1992 and the other in 2005. The main goal of this research is to reveal the way in which the construction of a national discourse within the French public opinion is influenced by the deepening of European integration. The analysis covers both debate periods before the 1992 and 2005 referendums dealing with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on the Euro and the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. This work is based on a press analysis covering both periods of debate. In order to study the evolution of the French perception of their national identity with the least political bias possible, this thesis relies on documentary resources comprising editorials and letters to the editor of four newspapers: Le Monde, Le Figaro, L’Humanité and Libération. The comparison of the identity discourses of 1992 and 2005 reveals that the relation of identification between France and Europe has drastically changed during this period. It went from a relation founded on alterity to a relation founded on shared values. In 1992, the French use the European idea as an identity referent around which they reaffirm the “frenchness” of their shared values. In 2005, the French national identity is not in question anymore. From now on, the debate turns around the values the French hope to see at the root of the European identity to which they are called to adhere. These values are henceforth drawn from the personal identity of each Frenchman rather than from an encompassing concept of the French national identity.

In the mid-1990s, Japanese artists Mariko Mori (b. 1962) and Takashi Murakami (b. 1967) began creating works that referenced Japanese popular culture tropes such as sexuality, technology and the idea of kawaii, or cute. These tropes were associated with emerging youth cultures instigating a “soft rebellion” against social conventions. While emancipated female youths, or shōjo, were criticized for lifestyles based on the consumption of kawaii goods, their male contemporaries, the otaku were demonized for a fetishization of kawaii girls and technology through anime and manga, or animation and comic books. Destabilizing the nation’s patriarchal theory of cultural uniqueness, or nihonjinron, the youth triggered fears of a growing infantilized, feminized automaton ‘alien’ society during Japan’s economically tumultuous 1990s. In response to these trends, Mori and Murakami create works and personae that celebrate Japan’s emerging heterogeneity and reveal that Japan’s fear of the ‘alien within’ is a result of a tenuous post-war Japanese-American relationship. But in denoting America’s position in Japan’s psyche, Mori’s and Murakami’s illustration of Japan as both victim and threat encourages Orientalist and Techno-Orientalist readings. The artists’ ambivalence towards Western stereotypes in their works and personae, as well as their distortion of boundaries between commercial and fine art, intimate a collusion between commercialization, art and cultural identity. Such acts suggest that in the global economy of art production, Japanese cultural identity has become as much as a brand, as art a commodity. In this ambivalent perspective, the artists isolate the relatively recent difficulty of enunciating Japanese cultural identity in the international framework. With the downfall of its cultural homogeneity theory, Japan faced a crisis of representation. Self-Orientalization emerged as a cultural imperative for stabilizing a coherent national identity, transposing blame for Japan’s social and economic disrepair onto America. But by relocating Japanese self-Orientalization within the global art market, Mori and Murakami suggest that as non-Western artists, economic viability is based upon their ability to cultivate desirability, not necessarily authenticity. In the international realm, national identity has become a brand based upon the economies of desire, predicated by external consumption, rather than an internalized production of meaning.