Introduction

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Sonja Lehmann
Nevertheless, it is also obvious that this understanding of the nation-state centres
only on one very specific notion of identity, which is marked by commonality
and sameness and disregards all other possibilities, which do not fit this theory
and has been increasingly subject to criticism. Especially postcolonial and feminist
critics have pointed out that such definitions of nation-states neglect to mention
minorities and marginalized groups and construct a homogeneous view, which
does not actually exist (Horatschek 276). Furthermore, it has been pointed out
that from a historical perspective the existence of nation-states is a rather new
phenomenon with its starting point located in Europe between the late eighteenth
and early twentieth century (Anderson 4; Beck, “Globalisierung” 51-52; During
139). 13 Especially Benedict Anderson has pointed out the socially constructed
nature of nation-states. He illustrates that a nation is most of all an “imagined
community” because “the members of even the smallest nation will never know
most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them” (6).
Yet, even without face-to-face contact the nation-state’s members still feel
connected to one another (Anderson 6). This “deep, horizontal comradeship”, as
Anderson calls it (7), leads to identification with the nation-state and a sense of
groupness among the nation’s members. Even though this unity is to a great extent
only imagined it regardless makes the nation-state a real entity as can be seen
from the huge number of people ready to “not so much kill as willingly die” for it
as Anderson puts it (7). This pertains to the “emotional legitimacy” of the nation
(Anderson 4) and shows its members’ identification with it and their selfunderstanding
and social location in the nation. However, Brubaker and Cooper
also emphasize that the nation-state is “a powerful ‘identifier,’ […] because it has
the material and symbolic resources to impose the categories, classificatory
schemes, and modes of social counting and accounting with which bureaucrats,
judges, teachers, and doctors must work and to which non-state actors must refer”
(16). A nation-state, whether one sees it as imagined or not, thus holds a great
amount of very real power over its members in that it can identify and categorize,
whether they feel particularly emotionally invested in it or not.
When it comes to migration these things get complicated. For a start, if the nation-state
and thus a specific territory is seen as a person’s home, a migrant must
inevitably be homeless because he or she is separated from it. Migrants consequently
must be literally displaced and since commonality, connectedness and
groupness are joined to the place they left, they are also separated from all familiar
social space, which in turn must have a significant impact on their selfunderstanding.
In addition, they are confronted with the confusing situations that
there are now several nation-states competing in their attempts to categorize and
identify. It seems that the crisis of identity, which is so frequently invoked by
13 The exact dating is disputed. Anderson argues for the late eighteenth century. During situates it
slightly later in the early nineteenth century. Beck on the other hand links it to the rise of the
discipline of sociology and accordingly dates it to the nineteenth and early twentieth century.