Nation and Its Others: Violence as a Signifier of National Identity
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| Title | Nation and Its Others: Violence as a Signifier of National Identity |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | This article discusses the rise of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in India, and views it as a complex process of the construction of social reality in order to consolidate a Nation by the nationalist elite. This process is looked through the representation of it in the work of a film director Deepa Mehta, who offers a way to deconstruct the nationalist ideology with the aim to understand how Indian society functions. The aim of this article is to reconstruct the rise of communal violence in India using cinema as a social critique by showing that violence, far from being a deviation, is a signifier of national identity, and to trace the construction of a Muslim as a nation’s Other by a political power. Building upon the postcolonial theory the article argues that violence is not a ‘peculiarity’ of nationalism at work outside Europe, but that violence itself is one of the most important features in consolidating national consciousness.http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.73.3.790 |
| Publisher | Kaunas University of Technology |
| Date | 2011-11-29 |
| Source | Socialiniai mokslai Vol 73, No 3 (2011) |
| Rights | Autorių teisės yra apibrėžtos Lietuvos Respublikos autorių teisių ir gretutinių teisių įstatymo 4-37 straipsniuose. |