NEW BOOK: Diaspora Online

One of the many graduates from the MSc in Nationalism Studies has just published a new book:

DIASPORA ONLINE
Identity Politics and Romanian Migrants
Ruxandra Trandafoiu

After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, millions of Romanians emigrated in search of work and new experiences; they became engaged in an interrogation of what it meant to be Romanian in a united Europe and the globalized world. Their thoughts, feelings and hopes soon began to populate the virtual world of digital and mobile technologies. This book chronicles the online cultural and political expressions of the Romanian diaspora using websites based in Europe and North America. Through online exchanges, Romanians perform new types of citizenship, articulated from the margins of the political field. The politicization of their diasporic condition is manifested through written and public protests against discriminatory work legislation, mobilization, lobbying, cultural promotion and setting up associations and political parties that are proof of the gradual institutionalization of informal communications. Online discourse analysis, supplemented by interviews with migrants, poets and politicians involved in the process of defining new diasporic identities, provide the basis of this book, which defines the new cultural and political practices of the Romanian diaspora.

Details here:

http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=TrandafoiuDiaspora

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Two events on Scottish Independence Referendum research

The first (5th June) will present results of the first representative survey of 14-17 year olds’ attitudes on the topic, relating them also to questions of political views, national identity and socio-demographic factors.

http://aqmen.ac.uk/events/June2013/youthsurvey

The second event (19th June) will showcase research projects from a range of speakers from different Scottish universities on a great variety of projects and taking into account a longitudinal perspective.

http://aqmen.ac.uk/events/June2013/SSA

Both events are very much worth attending if you are interested in the topic, but require advance sign up via the links provided.

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Conference: Nationalism and Globalisation

Nationalism and Globalisation
New Settings, New Challenges

23-24 May 2013
University of Edinburgh

Keynote address: Professor Michael Ignatieff

A two-day international symposium bringing together research on the interface between nationalism and multiculturalism on the one hand and the evolving dynamics of transnational constitutionalism on the other.

Find out more and register for this event at http://bit.ly/12mx5JC

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New online journal: Studies on National Movements

NISE, a network of comparative historians focused on national movements, is proud to present the first issue of Studies on National Movements (SNM), our new online journal for comparative nationalism research. In this field, SNM is specifically devoted to historiography, theory formation and transnational (transfer) studies. In line with NISE’s geographical scope, the whole of Europe is included.

Apart from articles and critical analyses, SNM provides space for the publication of inventories, catalogues, bibliographies and even sources, as such stimulating further scholarly research. By granting online access to all of its contents (free registration at http://snm.nise.eu), SNM resolutely opts for a new model of scientific publishing.

Four articles in this first volume deal with the historical production in/of national movements (Flemish, Breton, Catalan and Lithuanian), each with its own perspectives and peculiarities. Two more theoretically oriented contributions take the variety in forms of nationalism into account. The presentation of a bibliography, an inventory and a database offer building stones for future research whereas reviews of some recent studies on nationalism give an additional orientation to the interested reader.

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Seminar: ‘Matryoshkas in the Periphery, or, Should Constitutional Pluralism be Provincialized?’

The Constitutional Law Discussion Group is hosting a Neil MacCormick Seminar TODAY, Tuesday, May 7th, 3:00-4:30PM in the Ken Mason Suite, Old College. The seminar features Dr Zoran Oklopcic, Assistant Professor at Carleton University and visiting fellow at the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law. He will give a 40-minute presentation on the topic:

‘Matryoshkas in the Periphery, or, Should Constitutional Pluralism be Provincialized?’

The presentation will address the possibility of the migration of the idea of constitutional pluralism outside of the European Union, its ‘regional comfort zone’. Using as a foil recursive constitutional claims of ultimate authority in the former Yugoslavia, the talk will offer a preliminary sketch of a normative case for provincialized constitutional pluralism—not in the EU, but in its periphery.
The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and a wine and chocolate reception.

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