For this entry, place Anderson’s and Chatterjee’s pieces in dialogue with each other. Consider, among other questions: 1) Why does Anderson conceptualize the nation as an “imagined community?”; 2) In what ways do Anderson’s observations reflect the formation of an Italian nation?; 3) What are some of Chatterjee’s critiques of Anderson?; 4) Can any of these critiques be applied to the imagined Italian community?
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Viewing Italy in 20/20 
Anderson conceptualizes nations as imagined, arguing that the borders and confined spaces that make up nations are essentially arbitrary. When you are in a specific nation, there are implications and assumptions that come with that space, which makes up things like culture and customs. Anderson argues that since every person in a nation experiences life somewhat similarly, yet will never meet or even see most of the people sharing that nation with them, it contributes to this notion that communities are imagined.
As we spoke about in class, Anderson’s concept directly relates to Italy’s formation as a nation, mainly due to the country’s shape. The peninsula formation allows Italy to be autonomous toward the bottom of the country, but the definition of nation and culture gets trickier when observing the north. Italy shares its northern border with France, Switzerland and Austria, which directly effects the culture in towns that exist close to that border. Anderson compares having a nationality to the binary choice of gender saying that everyone is forced to choose one specific nationality much like people are forced to choose one gender. Yet this notion gets more complicated when observing regions that fall between two countries. Do these citizens only have one nationality even though they identify with multiple? Is it acceptable to possess more than one nationality? Things like nationalism, regional pride and even citizenship make it hard to identify with more than one. Is this fair?
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Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an “imagined community” because people who consider themselves from the same nation do not know each other, but are bonded over this idea of being from the same nation. This feeling of unity is imagined because the nation’s people feel a connection to one another through different social constructions, such as language, borders, and religion. The unity is reflected in the Italian community because there is something intrinsically similar about the way Italians live as well as their culture. Chatterjee critiques Anderson by saying that his idea of imagined communities does not fit with the data on anti-colonial nationalism. He continues to say that in Asia and Africa the nationalist imagination are “posited not on an identity but rather on a difference with the ‘modular’ forms of the national society propagated by the modern West (Chatterjee 216). This applies to Italy as well because most nationalists would say that nationalism in Italy began with the founding of Italy in 1861 or the formation of the Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana in 1947; however, there was social reform before this, meaning that there was nationalism in a sense. Italy was in some senses ‘imagined’ before it officially became a nation.
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I agree that a potential critique that nationalism began even before the Costituzione or unification is valid. In many historical depictions of Italy, the northern city-states such as Firenze, Milano, and Venezia had relationships with each other and other nations as well. Not only are they in close proximity to each other and united today, but they all were founded by merchants and trade, and the imagined community could/did transcend their city borders.
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The articles on defining Imagined Communities are very interesting because they bring to light how little we know about others in our nation. Anderson calls nations “imagined” for reasons the Samantha and Ali have stated, it is a confined space and you act similar to the other people in your nation yet you do not know all of them. As we talked about in class, we see Italy as a nationalistic nation because of soccer or gelato for example, which are aspects that promote Italy and “nationalism” – the pride of Italy. Anderson reflects the formation of an Italian nation by this sense of nationalism and sovereignty. The nation state of Italy is able to be self reliant and produce a variety of products for this use.
Chatterjee is not the biggest fan of Anderson as she has some points to say opposing Anderson’s views. She has trouble with how there could be anything left to imagine if “nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain ‘modular’ forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas.” She wishes the nation did more itself than letting others choose how to act and what type of model to follow in suit. In regards to ‘print-capitalism’ she agrees with Anderson.
For the Italian community, I believe that they have such a unique nation that I argue to challenge that they just fit into a ‘modular form’ as Chatterjee claims. I think that with their welcoming and trendy culture, they are an imagined community in such that they imagine dreams and accomplish them and they are creative and innovative in their ways of life.
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Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an “imagined community” because he believes that it isn’t physical borders that defines a nation but rather the people and social norms within the nation. He says that the nation is imagined because even though there is no chance that everyone in a nation will be able to meet each other, certain aspects connect people from that specific nation. For example, we talked about how in Italy food and soccer are two examples of important aspects of the italian culture that bring people together and give them a sense of unity. We spoke about how in Italy if you wanted to strike a conversation with a fellow Italian you could just ask them if they follow soccer and then you would bond over discussing the teams you follow and the sport. Soccer is a unifying topic in italy that gives the sense of belonging to the nation. Chatterjee critiques that imagined communities doesn’t fit well with anti-colonial nationalism because they would have to choose their imagined communities from modular forms that were made available by europe and the americas,thus not leaving anything to imagine. Another critique that Chatterjee makes is that language and print- capitalism were complicated in anti-colonial nationalism which is different to Anderson’s idea that print language laid the basis for national consciousness. This could apply to Italy because even though Italy has established a standard language that everyone can understand, there are so many different dialects that can be so different from each other, it can hinder comprehension of Italians from different parts of italy. A big example of this is the dialect differences between the north and the south, they are so different that sometimes a northern Italian would not be able to understand an Italian speaking in the southern dialect. This could hinder national consciousness because just by hearing a person speak you could distinguish where they’re from and if they didn’t speak the same dialect then you could classify them as not in your particular language field creating a divide.
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I agree with all the above statements as I believe Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an “imagined community” because he believes they are inherently limited and sovereign. Anderson describes the nation as limited, sovereign, and a community. He defines the nation imagined as limited by stating that each nation has finite borders, sovereign as “the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely- ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm”, and an imagined community as “the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship”. Anderson’s observations reflect the formation of an Italian nation by, as Sam stated, the shape of Italy allows for isolation of the majority of the country from other cultures allowing it to be autonomous. This creates a feeling of a strong community within Italy. Chatterjee critiques Anderson in a central objection to Anderson’s that “If nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain ‘modular’ forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?” (216). This critique can be applied to the imagined Italian community because due to the popularity of social media across the world I believe lots of Italy’s cultural trends are not born in Italy, but imagined elsewhere.
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Anderson conceptualizes the nation as”an imagined political community” because as he puts it, a nation “is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”As Palma and Marcela stated each nation has specific traditions, foods, sports, etc that sets them apart from other nationals, and makes it publically known that they are all related within a nation for their similarities. Italy is unified by these specific aspects to it’s nation.
Although Chatterjee states that Anderson’s book was one of the most influential about its ideas on nationalism, he still has some criticism. He raises the question, “whose imagined community?” He challenges Anderson’s idea of modular forms of nationalism developed in the West. Chatterjee’s centrail objection to Anderson “is that if nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain modular forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?”
I believe that Italy does embody the concepts of an imagined community because their individual cultural aspects are distinct from other nations.
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I’m posting here for Kenisha.
Anderson conceptualises the nation as an imagined community because nations are created from man made cultural artefacts and beliefs. Anderson argues that the nation is an imagined, limited and sovereign political community because members of a nation perceive one another with a collective sense of belonging, although most members of the political community have no prior encounters with one another. In his journal, Anderson gives the example of how language as a cultural artefact has creates a sense of nationality. This can be observed with the case study of the formation of the Italian nation. When Italy was unified in 1861, the nation did not immediately emerge with a fortified sense of nationalism. The sense of national consciousness in Italy emerged with the new fixity to language which unified communication and exchange, and created the preference of the Italian language over regional vernaculars. Anderson highlights that the fixity to language was conjured by print capitalism and print media, which can today be translated into various forms of digital media.
Although Chatterjee salutes Anderson’s framework on nationalism and national identity, Chatterjee is critical of Anderson’s theoretical tendencies which assume a collective universal history of the modern world. Chatterjee’s central objection is that nationalism is not solely imagined because of projections and normalization from modules, resulting from colonisation amongst other forms of hegemony. Chartterjee argues that nothing is left to be imagined under the influence of a module. Although Chartterjee presents a compelling argument which is evidently applicable to many nations, I am not fully convinced that Italy can be classified with these nations. In any case, if we regard these hegemonic modules as influences of a domino effect, we can see a pattern in the creation of national consciousness in Europe around the same period, with various hegemonic nations being unified.
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Anderson conceptualizes nations as imagined communities because not only are borders made up of human thought, but also members of a particular nation immediately have a bond and shared connection without even knowing each other. There are cultures and languages that are associated with nations that people share with each other. These things can also become a gray area as many countries can share the same language and culture. Italy is a very good representation of this aspect because the North borders so many other countries. For example, those who live in Switzerland may technically be Swiss by birth, but they may also live in a part of the country that speaks Italian and shares many of Italy’s cultural aspects. The strong passion of soccer teams in Italy and the immediate bonds that fans form with one another is an example of the preformed bond that members of a nation/community can have without ever meeting one another. Chatterjee acknowledges the idea of national identity, but he argues against Anderson’s argument of common language playing a key role in the formation of it due to the concept of anti-colonial nationalism, which can occur between communities who unite despite language and cultural differences. In this case, there is not much to imagine in the process of forming a national identity.
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Both Anderson and Chaterjee’s pieces about “imagined community” are engaging and encourage readers to reflect on their interpretation of a nation. First, Anderson conceptualizes a nation as an “imagined community” when he elaborates on how we believe to know everyone in our “confined” communities, meanwhile, we don’t know everyone and our imagination creates the boundaries between nations. Most importantly, Anderson portrays his overall ideology by describing a nation as having three essential components: sovereign, limited, and a community. My peers, including Palma and Ali, also touched upon this concept in their entries. In terms of Italy, it makes sense that with official establishment in 1861, there is a formation of a nation: there is sovereign, limited, and a community. Some of us see nationalism in the notable Italian art or food, while Anderson understands nationalism in the “imagined community.”
On the other hand, Chatterjee is not afraid to identify the flaws within Anderson’s description. Chatterjee critiques by sharing, if nationalisms in all the world are based on the nationalism and imagined communities of Europe and America, then there is nothing left to imagine. Furthermore, while Anderson understood print-capitalism as a positive force for language and encouraging nationalism, Chatterjee suggests that language and print capitalism complicated anti-colonial nationalism (he uses the example of Bengal). I think that many of the critiques Chaterjee explains can be applied to Italy. For example, we view Italy as one nation, but there are different languages and dialects that congregate around each section (i.e. North and South); this complicates our understanding of Anderson’s claims.
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Throughout Anderson’s reading, I found his definition of an imagined community to be extremely interesting. Anderson describes imagined communities as those that are sovereign, limited and imaginary. Nations are described as imagined since many of the citizens and residents will never actually meet each other, yet these individuals all share similar sentiments regarding their nationality. I really enjoyed how Ali stated this as social constructs that we have chosen to identify with. I believe that Anderson’s observations reflect the formation of the Italian nation as the congregation of different states into a single Italian nation translate to the ideas Anderson portrayed. It remains limited, as the borders are finite and they shift over time. It is also sovereign as the Italian nation gained comprehensive control over these territories when the unification of Italy occurred. Along with the fact that the nation can definitively be described as imaginary since many members of this newly unified state have never and will never meet one another, these factors all combine to reflect Italy’s formation. Chatterjee’s critique of Anderson comes from the idea that there is not much left to imagine when discussing the structure of nations. In the modern world, there seems to have been more definite and established nations, and the resources we have today make it impossible to remain fully imagined. These critiques can be applied to the imagined Italian nation as Italy was unified rather late in European history, and perhaps the development of surrounding European countries acted as a catalyst and did not leave more to imagine from those who would lead the unification movement.
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Anderson asserts that nations are not object entities but imagine themselves into being. He conceptualizes a nation as a socially conceived community that is shared among people who perceive themselves as part of that community. While geographic borders provide a limit to the community, Anderson defines the national community as “imagined” because, while everyone in the community does not personally no one another, its members perceive a mutual connection through shared identity from common language, food, customs, interests, education, and other commonalities. Print-media and book-publishing in the vernacular facilitated the expansion of “imagined communities” by allowing people to access the same information at the same time and identify with the larger community. This media initiative to maximize circulation in the dominant languages likely had a significant unifying influence in Italy, especially in the mid-19th century, given the existing division from varying dialects. Media currently plays a similar role in Italy as a basis for national identity. As others noted, soccer is a unifying passion of Italians. Television broadcasts and news reports allow Italians to share in the common experience of watching soccer at the same time. This shared experience is an example of an identity that supports an Italian nation.
Chatterjee criticizes Anderson’s concept because it ignores anticolonial nationalism and identifies nationalism as solely a political movement based on European and American models. Chatterjee argues that anticolonial nationalism creates its own domain of sovereignty by dividing its social institutions into two domains – a material domain related to the economy and science and technology, and a spiritual domain, which marks its cultural identity. As a nation gets better at emulating Western skills in the material “outside” domain, it becomes more important to preserve the distinctiveness of its spiritual “inner” domain. This spiritual domain is the nation’s sovereign territory, beyond the influence of colonial powers.
Recent nationalism in Italy seems to align with the national society featured by the modern West. However, Chatterjee’s critique applies in some ways to the imagined Italian community, especially in the pre-1861 era. As with Asia and Africa, the Italian nation during this era was subject to continual foreign occupation and, therefore, its “imagined community of nationhood” was separate and distinct from “the realities of its statehood.”
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Anderson’s argument in his piece, “Imagined Communities” follows three main points that a nation is limited, sovereign, and an imagined community. He argues that a nation is an imagined community, because it is a mental image of the shape of the nation. There is not actually any “real” borders of a nation. While he does state that physical landmarks such as mountains and oceans can help define a nation, there is nothing else to indicate the borders of the nation. This point helps to describe how Italy was formed. Italy’s boundaries are based upon three seas: Mediterranean Sea, Adriatic Sea, and the Tyrrhenian Sea. These physical landmarks defines the peninsula of Italy.
In the article “Whose Imagined Community,” Chatterjee discusses his argument against Anderson’s theory. Chatterjee’s main argument is that nations are not actually imagined, because citizens have nothing to imagine, since the borders are defined for them. The nations haver pre-defined borders such as physical landmarks as stated by Anderson. According to Chatterjee, this fact negates the idea of an imagined community.
The idea of “imagined communities” is extremely interesting, and something that I never thought of before reading these articles.. I agree with both Anderson and Chatterjee. While I do believe that there are imagined borders that define a nation such as language and culture, there are also physical landmarks that naturally exist that also define a nation’s borders.
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Anderson conceptualizes nations as “imagined” and describes these nations as limited, sovereign, and a community. According to Anderson, nations are imagined because members of a nation live in the image of each other. No matter how small a nation, most members will never meet each other, however, they share very similar characteristics regarding their nationality. Members of a nation agree to take on social aspects that are in the image of other members of the community. Anderson’s ideas reflect the formation of an Italian nation because there are very specific aspects that Italians possess that make them Italian. Whether it is a love for a certain soccer team or a type of gelato, Italians are very similar. Through these common characteristics, they have a bond that makes them a community. Anderson’s ideas relate to Italy because most Italians can recognize each other in many parts of the world through their style, the way they speak, or their common interests. And the Italians who will never meet share the characteristics that make them Italian. Chatterjee critiques Anderson by saying that imagined nations do not go with anti-colonial nationalism. Chatterjee backs this up by explaining how a nation is not imagined when it is just a projection of certain modules. Chatterjee also states that print capitalism is complicated in anti-colonial nationalisms. This idea relates to Italy in particular because there are many dialects of the Italian language depending on where you are in Italy.
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A nation is an imagined community according to Anderson because the nation is imagined, limited, and sovereign. The nation is imagined because all members of that community share something, but all of the members are not going to meet in their lifetime. A nation is limited because there are other nations out there and not everyone is going to be part of just one nation. A nation is sovereign because there is no monarchy that can claim authority. Italians have their own nation which shows throughout the world. Italy has a totally different culture than other nations and a lot of that culture is imagined throughout the nation. For example, a huge part of culture in Italy is the love they have for soccer. There is an imagined community for this aspect of the nation. All soccer fans in Italy are not going to all meet each other, but they know that there are other fans out there who have the same love of the sport. This nation is limited because not everyone in Italy has the same love for soccer and not everyone in Italy likes the same soccer team. A huge part of Anderson’s reading “Imagined Communities” showed how print media really helped the imagined communities and unified their form od communication.
Some of Chatterjee’s critiques on Anderson’s idea are that “if nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain modular forms already made available for them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?” (Chatterjee 216). Chatterjee talks about how imagined communities are chosen from things already there for them so there is nothing to imagine because these communities are already available for them. While I understand both sides of the argument I still believe that there are imagined communities. I don’t think because there are borders creating nations that this means there are not imagined communities. Italy’s culture is an imagined community as I explained above when talking about soccer in Italy. But, also Italy has more imagined communities because of their culture around fashion, food, and more.
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Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an “imagined community” because the members of a nation will never know, meet, or hear of all of the members that belong to that community. The community is “imagined” because the members are able to hold a mental image of what the common interests of the people in that nation have.
Anderson’s observations reflect the formation of an Italian nation because even though members of the community have not met most of their people in their community, there are many distinct common interests that they may share. When people think of Italian nationalism, topics like soccer and popular Italian dishes are brought up. As we discussed in class, these are topics that most Italians can agree that they like.
Some of Chatterjee’s critiques of Anderson’s “imagined community” concept are that his ideas do not fit with anti-colonial nationalism and that if nationalisms have to choose their imagined community from certain “modular” forms already made available, there’s nothing left to imagine.
For the Italian community, I think that Italians feel some kind of kinship because of their shared heritage but there are differences depending on what region they are from.
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When considering nationalism, or as I like to call it, “pride,” in Italy, it is interesting to view the notion through the lenses of Anderson and Chatterjee’s pieces. Anderson conceptualizes the nation as an “imagined community” due to the idea that nationalism creates a non-tangible umbrella over a group of seemingly unrelated people that brings them together through shared memories, despite these members never knowing the majority of the others who reside under that same umbrella. The feeling of horizontal comradeship is essential among these people; without this feeling, nationalism, and pride wouldn’t be synonymous. The nation is also imagined because it possesses finite borders, and because the notion of this community is made sovereign by its members- something that could only happen after divine legitimacy was no longer viewed as almighty. When considering the Italian nation, the first ideas that should come to mind are food and soccer. These two ideas are one of many ways Italians have created their “imagined community,” which is through the shared idea that Italian food will always be the best, and because any Italian that you talk to will have some devoted pride to a team, as we discussed in class. Furthermore, Anderson attributes the development of nationalism to print capitalism, and thus a shared common language. Territories in pre-unified Italy all possessed some sort of dialect that was different from the next, which created fragmentation among peoples that all shared the same lands, that is until a common vernacular was spoken. It is said that the Italian that we learn in American universities is the language that is spoken between Italians from different regions who are now unified.
Chatterjee, however, possesses some objections to Anderson’s argument about nations. Her main objection comes with Europe and the America’s having already created all of the models that nations who follow have to select from. The idea of having to select a pre-made model eliminates the concept of imagining anything unique about your own individual nation. Anderson’s argument becomes further complicated when in nations like Bengali, for example, language was not the primary cause of nationalism, but instead, was a result of repelling a colonial intruder. Her ideas can most certainly be applied to the various dialects present in Italy that I have already mentioned. As Marcella brilliantly stated, these individual dialects that aren’t understood between Northern and Southern Italians can deter from the feeling of belonging to a unified “imagined Italian community” through this difference.
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