Citizenship, nationality, and ethnicity : reconciling competing identities / T.K. Oommen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oommen, T. K., 1937-2026.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nationalities, Principle of.

Nation-state.

Nationalism.

Citizenship.

Ethnicity.

Physical Description:

viii, 270 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge [England] : Polity Press ; Cambridge, Mass. : Blackwell Publishers, 1997.

Summary:

Most interpretations of ethnicity concentrate either on particular societies or on specific dimensions of world society'. This work takes quite a different approach, arguing that variations within and across societies are vital for understanding contemporary dilemmas of ethnicity. The author develops a new analysis of the relation between the nation on the one hand, and ethnicity and citizenship on the other.

Oommen conceives of the nation as a product of a fusion of territory and language. He demonstrates that neither religion nor race determines national identities. As territory is seminal for a nation to emerge and exist, the dissociation between people and their homeland' makes them ethnic. Citizenship is conceptualized both as a status to which nationals and ethnics ought to be entitled and a set of obligations, a role they are expected to play.

Analyses of three historical episodes -- colonialism and European expansion, Communist internationalism and the nation-state and its project of cultural unity -- are examined to provide the empirical content of the argument.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [246]-259) and index.

ISBN:

0745616194

0745616208

OCLC:

35586625