Nationalism as a Way of Life : The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities

Exploring the global rise and transformation of nationalism, this book shows why nationalism is much more than an ordinary political ideology such as liberalism, conservatism, or socialism. Maleševic explores the practices through which nation-centric idioms have become normalised and naturalised in everyday life.

While nationalism is a term that is often associated with instability, violence, extremism, terrorism, wars and even genocide, in fact most forms of nationalism are nonviolent. Beyond politics, it is a set of discourses and practices that shape economic, social, legal, and cultural life all over the globe. This book explores the global rise and transformation of nationalism and analyses the organisational, ideological, and micro-interactional mechanisms that have made it the dominant way of life in the twenty-first century. In a series of case studies across time and space, the book zooms in on three key forms of lived experience: how nationalism operates as a multi-faceted meta-ideology, how national categories have become organisationally embedded in everyday practices and why nationalism has become the dominant form of modern subjectivity. The book is aimed at readers interested in understanding how nation-states and nationalisms have attained such influence in contemporary world.