National Identity and Belonging

2022/2023

Type: Mago-Lego

Delivered by: School of Sociology

When: 4 module

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Marharyta Fabrykant

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 24

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Abstract

The course is dedicated to key conceptual and methodological issues in resrearch on national identity and belonging. We will cover the following topis: (1) mapping the field (key concepts, theories, and empirical findings and their relation to broader areas of comparative research); (2) current research agenda (key debated issues in national identity studies, unresolved disputes, specific research questions); (3) measuring national identity (national identity related items in key cross-cultural survey datasets, their pros and cons, ways of designing survey items capturing various facets of national identity; comp;ex national identity indices, their rationale, replicability, and (non-)invariance; (4) modeling national identity (national identity as a dependent and independent variable, national identity at individual and country levels in multilevel models); (5) studying national identity discourse (textual and visual sources on national identity, data collection, CDA and its alternatives, normative issues and (limits of) self-critical distancing); 6. studying national identity narratives (collecting individual narratives of national identity formation, selecting national history narratives, comparative narratives analysis within and across countries); (7) national identity in big data (sources, varieties of content, reliability); (8) presenting comparative research on national identity: things to highlight and things to avoid, typical questions and model answers. The course participants will get the first-hand knowledge of the ways academic knowledge on national identities is produced and decisions it entails. Each participant will learn in what ways comparative social research on national identity makes use of his/her preferred research methods and relates to his/her sphere of academic interest.

Learning Objectives

To master key concepts and methodology of national identity tsudies, to design and implement rthe use of various methods in conducting comparative research on national identity and belonging

Expected Learning Outcomes

to learn key concepts and theories in nations and nationalism studies
to learn the key issues in contemporary research on national identity
to learn the existnig ways of meaasuring national identity and databases containing national identity related quantitative data
to learn the ways of including national identity measures in statistical models as dependent and as indeoendent variables
to use various kinds of discourse analysis in comparative research on national identity
to use various kinds of narrative analysis in comparative research on national identity
to incorporate techniques of big data analysis in national identity research
to learn the ways of and ooportunities for presenting research on national identity to academic and wider audiences

Course Contents

Mapping the field
Current research agenda
Measuring national identity
Modeling national identity
Studying national identity discourse
Studying national identity narratives
National identity in big data
Presenting comparative research on national identity

Assessment Elements

Research Project
Students should describe a plan of their individual project of a research on national identity. The deswcription should consist of the formulation of a reserach question and its justification, hypotheses, data and methods.
Research results and discussion
Students should conduct the research they outlined earlier in the research project for this class. The text should present the results and discuss their implications.

Interim Assessment

2022/2023 4th module
0.3 * Research Project + 0.7 * Research results and discussion

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Big Data analytics with R : utilize R to uncover hidden patterns in your Big Data, Walkowiak, S., 2016
Contested communities : communication, narration, imagination, , 2017
Imagined communities : reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, Anderson, B., 1991
K Amber Curtis. (2014). Inclusive versus exclusive: A cross-national comparison of the effects of subnational, national, and supranational identity. European Union Politics, (4), 521. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsrep&AN=edsrep.a.sae.eeupol.v15y2014i4p521.546
Making identity count : building a national identity database, , 2016
Nations and nationalism in a global era, Smith, A. D., 1996
Nations and nationalism, Gellner, E., 1983
The invention of tradition, , 2013
The science of stories : an introduction to narrative psychology, Laszlo, J., 2008
Understanding national identity, McCrone, D., 2015

Recommended Additional Bibliography

National matters : materiality, culture, and nationalism, , 2017
Nations and Nationalism (Journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism. V..., , 2008
Theories of nationalism : a critical introduction, Ozkirimli, U., 2010
When is the nation? : towards an understanding of theories of nationalism, , 2005

Authors

FABRIKANT MARGARITA SAULOVNA

Course Syllabus