Working Lives Research Institute
12.45 - 2.00pm
The Function Room (JS1-41)
London Metropolitan University
31 Jewry Street
London EC3N 2EY
See our contacts page for map and details.
In 1924 Otto Bauer in his essay entitled The Nation writes: ‘The nineteenth century, indeed saw the most varied nations, even from distant parts of globe, increase our cultural wealth. And despite all of this, it is impossible to speak of disappearance of national specificity! The explanation of this is national apperception: no nation adopts foreign elements unaltered; each adapts them to its whole being, and subjects them to a change in the process of adoption’. This paper aims to examine how, in times of increased globalisation of the 21st century, this process of adoption operates.
The starting point of this analysis will be Randall Collins’ (2004) theory of interaction ritual chains where the basic unit of analysis is a situation. More specifically, this paper will focus on public cultural ceremonies, such as the Proms, as situations of analysis, and will examine emotional dynamics of audiences within that situation. Public ceremonies are seen as performances that have manifest and latent rationales. While manifest rationales are often directed to a distanced global audience and proclaimed by producers of these ceremonies, the latent ones are often shaped by the audience that is directly engaged in face-to-face interaction. These interactions are ones that mobilise specific emotional energy and create cultural capitals that can be generalised as national. The paper will finally argue that through this process, that Bauer labelled ‘national apperception’, elements of ‘global’ culture become nationalised.
Dr Gordana Uzelac is Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Sociology in DASS, LMU. Her main research areas are the formation of ethnic and national identities, and nationalism and emotions. She is the author of the book The Development of the Croatian Nation: An Historical and Sociological Analysis (2006) and aco-editor of the volume When is the Nation? (2005). She is also a member of Editorial Board of the journal Nations and Nationalism.