National Identities: Temporality and Narration

In: Genealogy ; Volume 2 ; Issue 4

Abstract

National identities are social phenomena with concrete&mdash ; both political and social&mdash ; effects in society, but a fundamental part of their constitution takes place through narratives about the collective. The existence of collective identities thus depends on drawing boundaries between the collective &lsquo ; we&rsquo ; and the &lsquo ; others&rsquo ; as well as on disseminating coherent ideas about the fundamental identity of the we-group. These narratives thus constitute a privileged object for investigating how collective identities are constructed and legitimised in a discourse that places the collective in time, that is, with a coherent and logical narrative about the past and a trustworthy projection into the future. This article defends, first, the concept of the &lsquo ; master narrative&rsquo ; as a useful analytical category for investigating how national history is constructed, and, second, the concepts of &lsquo ; sites of memory&rsquo ; and &lsquo ; Vergangenheitsbewä ; ltigung&rsquo ; as means of accessing this narrative. These concepts represent instances of creation and rewriting, respectively, of the narrative and are thus useful tools for analysing how a sense of connectedness with the community through time is created: that is, how a sense of continuity with certain distant epochs is conveyed, and how, on the other hand, a sense of discontinuity with other periods is favoured.