Benedict Anderson – Why Are Nations Imagined Communities?
BENEDICT ANDERSON IMAGINED COMMUNITIES – In this article, we are going to discuss why Anderson said a Nation is an Imagined Community.
Anderson developed the concept and detailed it in his book titled “Imagined Communities” back in 1863. The book was created to analyze nationalism and to deconstruct the the depiction of “socially constructed community”.
He defined a nation as an imagined community because members of the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members. However, even though this fact exists, in each of their minds lives an image of unity.
Similarly, the members of that community may never meet others face to face. However, they still have similar interest or identity being part of the same nation.
This may be the reason why even if a member of a nation migrates to another, that person still holds correspondence to his/her original home. A prime example of these imagined communities are the Olympic Games.
Even though you don’t know the players personally, their history, their stories, you’d still root for your country. Furthermore, even if you had no stake in the event, you would feel a shared victory or defeat in the event.
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