On Nationalism: Borders and Belonging

January 2021

INTRODUCTION

In an era of resurgent and terrifying ethnic and racial nationalism around the world, how can contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers reimagine the concept of nation itself? What does it mean to belong?

Nations are imagined into existence with real-world consequences. As the scholar Hugh Seton-Watson once wrote, “a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one.” National sovereignty is a key component of struggles for self-determination around the world; but once embedded in existing nation-states, it can be warped into an ideology of borders, state repression, and racist, religious, and ethnocentric violence. At the present moment, we are facing what Trinh T. Minh-ha calls an “epoch of global fear”: the idea of a globally interconnected future of interchange and national coexistence, widely shared after the end of the Cold War, has given way to talk of walling off people, rights, and resources to reinforce existing allocations of power and privilege.

Is the proper response to this predicament an argument for open borders and the dismantling of the nation-state? A utopian or futurist aesthetic in which nations have ceased to exist in their present form? Or an aesthetic of decolonization, focused on what Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “abolishing the conditions of voicelessness through having the unheard own their share of the means of representation” in a dominant national culture? In 2022 the Racial Imaginary Institute will bring together participants from many fields to address these questions, and more, at events in New York City, Los Angeles, and other locations to be determined.

In an era of resurgent and terrifying ethnic and racial nationalism around the world, how can contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers reimagine the concept of nation itself? What does it mean to belong?

Nations are imagined into existence with real-world consequences. As the scholar Hugh Seton-Watson once wrote, “a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one.” National sovereignty is a key component of struggles for self-determination around the world; but once embedded in existing nation-states, it can be warped into an ideology of borders, state repression, and racist, religious, and ethnocentric violence. At the present moment, we are facing what Trinh T. Minh-ha calls an “epoch of global fear”: the idea of a globally interconnected future of interchange and national coexistence, widely shared after the end of the Cold War, has given way to talk of walling off people, rights, and resources to reinforce existing allocations of power and privilege.

Is the proper response to this predicament an argument for open borders and the dismantling of the nation-state? A utopian or futurist aesthetic in which nations have ceased to exist in their present form? Or an aesthetic of decolonization, focused on what Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “abolishing the conditions of voicelessness through having the unheard own their share of the means of representation” in a dominant national culture? In 2022 the Racial Imaginary Institute will bring together participants from many fields to address these questions, and more, at events in New York City, Los Angeles, and other locations to be determined.

Sorry, there are no matching results. Please clear your search and try again.

Joshua Weiner

Isadora Alsadir Knutsen

Emily Jacir

Ajay Kurian

Hafizah Geter

Mercedes Teixedo

Joshua Weiner

Isadora Alsadir Knutsen

Emily Jacir

Ajay Kurian

Hafizah Geter

Mercedes Teixedo

Share Issue

CLOSE ISSUE CONTENTS

January 2021





Sculpture by Ajay Kurian

Excerpt of poetry by Hafizah Geter

Still from Emily Jacir film

Pencil drawing of a bed by Merecedes Teixedo

Sculpture by Ajay Kurian

Ajay Kurian

ART

The Dreamers
2016

Excerpt of poetry by Hafizah Geter

Hafizah Geter

POETRY

Still from Emily Jacir film

Emily Jacir

VIDEO

ENTRY DENIED (a concert in Jerusalem)
2003
Installation with single-channel video (105 minutes), sound, and free-standing wall

Pencil drawing of a bed by Merecedes Teixedo

Mercedes Teixedo

ART

Slept Here
2005–08
8.5” x 11”
graphite on stationary

News & Events

Event

TRII at AWP! Poets Writing Whiteness

Mar 29, 2019
12:00 PM – 1:15 PMOregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Portland, 97232

Poets Writing Whiteness Presented by The Racial Imaginary Institute Portland Ballroom 252, Oregon Convention Center, Level…

News

Nell Painter at CUNY Graduate Center

November 20, 2018

Whiteness Symposium Talkbacks: Nell Painter Tuesday, November 20, 2018 6:30pm - 8pm CUNY Graduate Center Join us for the…

Event

Whiteness Symposium Talkbacks: Sadiya Hartman at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

Oct 9, 2018
6:30 PM – 9:00 PMGavin Brown's Enterprise
439 W 127th St
New York, 10027

Join us for the launch of the "Whiteness Symposium Talkbacks," a year-long series unpacking…

News

The Kitchen and The Racial Imaginary Institute: On Whiteness

Jun 27–Aug 3, 2018

Exhibition June 27-August 3 Gallery hours: Monday - Friday, 11am - 6pm FREE and open to the…

Event

Dark Noise Collective Residency

Jul 19 – Jul 20, 2018The Kitchen

During their residency with the Racial Imaginary Institute at The Kitchen, the Dark Noise Collective (Fatimah…

News

The 2018 TRII Biennial

Jun 27 – Aug 3, 2018

The members of The Racial Imaginary Institute are extending an invitation to cultural institutions,…

Event

Alexandra Bell, Doreen St. Felix, and Claudia Rankine in Conversation at The Brooklyn Museum

Jul 19, 2018The Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Talks Thursday, July 19, 2018 7–9 pm Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Claudia Rankine…

News

On Whiteness: Symposium

June 30, 2018

The Kitchen in collaboration with The Racial Imaginary Institute presents a day-long symposium on…

See all News & Events