Across Nationalisms: Nascent Conceptualisation, Rudimentary Cross-Regional Historicisation

Abstract

If nations are non-preordained configurations of socio-political collectivities then they cement – or fragment – as a consequence of two core sets of on-the-ground interactions: those taking place within a national movement among contending intra-national constituents; and those taking place between competing national movements, typically over territory. A third set of on-the-ground socio-political interactions has received less attention in the study of the phenomenon of nationalism: I term it ‘dynamics across nationalisms’. If such dynamics are explored in conjunction with the more prevalent study of interactions within and between nationalisms, they can shed brighter explanatory light on the phenomenon of national consolidation/disintegration.