The spatial turn and the history of nationalism: Nationalism between regionalism and transnational approaches

Abstract

Most historians today agree that nations are constructed and their borders largely arbitrary. So, why should we study nationalism by limiting ourselves to the boundaries of existing nation-states or nationalist movements? In fact, since the 1990s historians have been analysing the interaction between local, regional and national identities, mostly by concentrating on the territorial identification processes in a specific city or region. Other scholars examined trans-border influences on the nation-building process by focusing on the role of emigrants, borders, transfers or the impact of foreign scholars and tourists. As a consequence, nationalism is now being studied at various geographical levels besides the traditional emphasis on the nation itself: the local, the regional, the transnational and the global (which will be the topic of chapter twelve). This chapter aims to provide an overview of the impact of the ‘spatial turn’ on the history of nationalism.