What Role Does Othering Play In Maintaining The Illusion Of Imagined Communities?

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1 What Role Does Othering Play In Maintaining The Illusion Of Imagined Communities? It appears that all societies need to invent differences between themselves and others. Explore possible reasons for this and consider how such thinking can be used by those who have particular political aims and purposes. Make sure to draw on academic literature and present examples. Othering is a way of defining and securing one s own positive identity through the stigmatization of an other. Whatever the markers of social differentiation that shape the meaning of us and them, whether they are racial, geographic, ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the danger that they will become the basis for a self- affirmation that depends upon the denigration of the other group ( The imagined community is a concept created by Benedict Anderson, which states that a nation is a socially constructed community. He argues that nations are imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion (Anderson, 1991: 6). The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them has finite boundaries, beyond which lay other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind. So what exactly is a nation? A nation is a territorial and social space; it s a shared history, language and culture. The concept of a nation makes people feel like they re the natural inhabitants of a certain land. This separates these inhabitants from others of rival nations. The other is extremely important when trying to maintain the illusion of imagined communities. Societies often invent differences between themselves and others to bring them a sense of common purpose. Some of the most common used discourses in British news include; terrorist threat, Islam as dangerous/irrational, threat to British way of life, clash between Islam and West etc We often view others among us (immigrants) and others beyond our borders as threats or enemies. We think in terms of us vs. them (e.g. Western freedom vs. the evil others). These certain ideologies are often used in politics. How many times do you hear Western Politicians say something along the lines of they pose a threat to our way of life when they talk about terrorism or our reasons for going to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. In this context, othering is an extremely important political tool as we have been conditioned to fear what we don t know or understand. Bush vs. Bin Laden is a good example; we see one as a freedom fighter and one as an extremist. But what if we switched the perspectives? Bush could be seen as the one who s trying to force fundamentalism onto another nation and they are simply defending themselves. Othering can occur in many different circumstances. For example, it has been argued that the media is key to creating groups of people who believe they share a common identity. In other words the media constructs imagined communities and national identities. One example of this would be the death of Diana as media coverage of public mourning gave people a sense of Nationalism and togetherness. Most did not know her but felt that she was ours, so we should express our grief at her loss. The British people were unique in this circumstance as Diana was once a part of our Monarchy. The huge impact of

2 Diana s death caused many British people to experience it as a loss in the family of the nation (Rojek, 2007: 60). Her death was given the importance of a national symbol, thereby bonding the nation in grief. However, some may argue that this grief was not spontaneous but a product of the media coverage. In other words the public had been conditioned to learn their reaction from the media (hypodermic needle theory people see others grieving and feel that they also need to grieve). The consensus that the media create can be a construction rather than an expression of popular feeling (Thomas, 2008: 363). This theory is supported by Dayan and Katz as they argue that [television] makes clear the event s absolute priority, and, in particular, its precedence over news of all sorts. It gives resonance to the event s specific mood (Dayan and Katz, 1987: 175). If people s reactions to Diana s death was a product of the media some may claim that they were responsible for constructing a global imagined community based on people s grief, as it seemed like the whole world mourned the loss of the people s princess. Tony Blair himself said, The death of Princess Diana was a global event like no other. This community is not based on differences however, but is instead based on similarities. The Monarchy can also be responsible for othering, which adds to the illusion of an imagined community. The Monarchy is probably what most people think of when they think of Britain and it creates an immediate difference between us and many other nations. The Monarchy reminds us of our shared history, culture, traditions and British greatness. Hobsbawm states that nothing appears more ancient, and linked to an immemorial past, than the pageantry which surrounds the British Monarchy in its public ceremonial manifestations. Yet in its modern from it is the product of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Traditions which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented (Hobsbawm, 1997: 1). Many practices that are considered traditional are in fact recent inventions and these are deliberately constructed to serve particular ideological ends. Cannadine adds to this and believes that no head of state is surrounded by more popular ritual than Queen Elizabeth II (Cannadine, 1997: 102). The Monarchy does seem to have many seemingly pointless rituals but these do remind people of the Monarchy s central importance to our lives, hence giving us a sense of identity. Many Countries use their history and traditions as a tool of political, intellectual and popular nationalism. A very recent example of how the Monarchy can maintain the illusion of an imagined community is the announcement that Prince William is going to marry Kate Middleton. There was a lot of media coverage on this and in an interview with BBC News David Cameron said the whole country wish them all the best. He says the whole country in an attempt to unite everyone throughout the country but in truth most did not care about the wedding. He also said this is a great day for our nation and some may accuse him of nation building. He makes the whole event an exclusive celebration. This was international news but he did not mention the rest of the world in his interview. This was an out- and- out British event. Sport is probably the most obvious medium in which othering occurs because it is competitive. Supporters create imagined communities in sport as you either support one team/person or the other. People who have never met before come together to support a team/person who they don t actually know but want to win because winning means a lot to their nation. This othering can

3 be represented via colours. For example, in Babylon 5, no one can work out why the aliens are always fighting. They all look the same and sound relatively similar to one another. It turns out that the only reason they re fighting is because they wear different colours. This at first seems ridiculous but if you think about it, many humans fight and are willing to die for a certain pattern. Humans all look pretty similar and we all sound pretty similar but we fight for our flags. It s a very similar situation in sport. For example, football kits all look pretty similar but their most defining features are their colours. The colour is usually what makes you different from the other team and people often fight because they wear (support) different colours. Colours can create visual and conceptual binary oppositions. Even political parties use colours to distinguish themselves from other parties. The Conservatives are blue, Labour is red and the Liberal Democrats are yellow. Colours contain many different connotations and these are often representative of pretty specific things. When people think of Communism they think of the color red and when people are asked to list things that connote Wales the colour red is likely to appear in that list alongside other stereotypes like; dragon, leek, mining etc Colours can unite people who share a common identity (support a certain football team or political party) but as a result can also create visual others. So colours can definitely create imagined communities. The word nation appears to have been naturalized by sport. The word is always used in a sporting context and people often get very patriotic when their nation goes up against another nation. Wales is often described as a rugby nation and this in itself is an imagined community because it is described collectively as something but not everyone in Wales likes rugby and not everyone in Wales knows one another. The game developed through being built around a strong sense of community and local identity (J. Harris, 2007: 156). Nationally the whole country would support the Welsh nation in rugby but locally there are other connections and people are part of a much smaller imagined community, which exists inside the larger community. Playing for the town or village in the next valley would be considered a heinous crime and the rivalries between neighboring places were often fraught (J. Harris, 2007: 156). This means that many different subcultures exist. The media s broadcasting of sport can also contribute to imagined communities because it means that millions of people, and not just those at the stadium, can watch their nation. National broadcasting can create a sense of unity and of corresponding boundaries around the nation; it can link the peripheral to the centre; turn previously exclusive social events into mass experiences (Morley, 2000: 107). If a particular nation is successful at a certain sport then this is often used as a piece of political propaganda to convince people of their nations greatness over others. For example, the myth- making (BBC News) Kim Jong- Il, leader of North Korea, reportedly lied to his country and told them that North Korea had won the 2010 Football world cup. This was an attempt to make the Country seem dominant in everything that it does. Even music is responsible for othering and can be used in imagining the nation. Britpop endorses and reinforces particular ideas about what it means to be British. The term Britpop was invented by the media in the mid 90 s so is completely made up and is yet another example of how othering can maintain the illusion of imagined communities. It is a tradition portrayed as timeless but is

4 completely invented. Its goal is to remind us of our shared history and gives the British a unique style, which is different from that of other music types. Bennett argues that the use of visual romanticism and pastiche in Britpop videos serves to provide audiences with a stock of images and ideas about British life from which they are able to form their open views about what constitutes the true British identity (Bennett, 1997: 31). In a way Britpop reconstructed British national identity. However, some may argue that there s no such thing as imagined communities or so called others because the world is one large community. Globalization has resulted in most of the world becoming connected so is British national identity possible? Rojek argues that it is not; the challenge of globalization, multiculturalism and multi- ethnicity to traditional models of the nation may be stated simply. If so much difference is acknowledged within the nation, and economic, military and cultural convergence recognized with other nations, what price national unity? And if larger numbers of citizens acknowledge little or no meaningful unity in the nation, in what sense can it be said to be a nation? (Rojek, 2007: 42). Globalization causes cultural fusion and hybridity (Storey, 2003: 117), which in turn leads to multiculturalism and this makes it impossible for societies to invent differences between themselves and others because there is so much difference within individual societies in the first place. In other words, othering is a reductionist theory because it doesn t take subcultures into account. There are hundreds of smaller cultures that exist within larger cultures, as I previously mentioned, but this theory does not acknowledge that people can belong to any number of imagined communities. To conclude, the above would suggest that, othering does play a major part in maintaining imagined communities as there are countless groups of people who believe that they are fundamentally different from others. These differences can be religious, cultural or just differences in opinion. Othering gives everyone an identity and makes them feel like they re part of a nation of some kind. Whether that nation is a culture, a religion, a country, a club, a political party, a spots team or a general opinion. But just because you re part of one socially constructed community, it does not mean that you can t disagree with others who belong to this community on a different topic. Everyone is individual in their opinions and beliefs so can be part of a number of imagined communities.

5 Bibliography: Books; Anderson, Benedict. (1991) Imagined Communities, London: Verso. Bennett, A. (1997) Village greens and terraced streets': Britpop and representations of Britishness. Cannadine, David. (2002) Ornamentalsim: How the British saw their Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dayan, Daniel and Katz, Elihu. (1992) Media Events The Live Broadcasting Of History, United States of America: First Harvard University Press. Harris. J (2007) Cool Cymru, Rugby Union and Imagined Community, International Journal of Sociology. Hobsbawm, E.J. (1990) Nations and Nationalism since 1780 Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge: University Press. Rojek, Chris. (2007) Cultural Studies, Cambridge: Polity Press. Storey, John. (2003) Inventing Popular Culture: from Folklore to Globalization, Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishing. Thomas, James. (2002) Diana s Mourning: A people s history, Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Websites; (accessed 12th December 2010). (accessed 14th December 2010). TV; BBC news. DVD s: Babylon 5.