New blog Life on NARS offers new perspectives on nationalism

Interested in topical nationalism research? Research Council of Finland Center of Excellence in Nationalism Research in the Humanities (NARS) has launched a new blog, Life on NARS . It focuses – as the name suggests – on both NARS’s timely research into nationalism and other aspects of life at the centre of excellence, such as events.

The contributors include researchers from NARS – researchers from SKS, the University of Helsinki, the Tampere University and Åbo Akademi University – as well as visiting researchers and partners.

The blog opens with a reflection by Ville Kivimäki, Research Director at SKS and head of the Centre of Excellence, on why we need nationalism studies.

“Although nationalism may have appeared in the late twentieth century to be an ideology belonging to the past, its historical dynamics have never actually come to a halt. Motivation for today’s research stems from the experience that nationalism has returned with growing force and in ever new forms as part of our everyday lives,” Kivimäki writes.

In the CoE NARS, which was launched at the start of the year and is led by SKS, the key themes include for example the processes through which nationalism becomes everyday and naturalized, the role of memory and remembrance in the construction of nationhood, and the dynamics between national minorities and majorities.

“Around us, we see nationalism creating, building, destroying, and fracturing human communities. Understanding nationalism plays a crucial role in determining how today’s entangled global problems can be addressed. At the same time, nationalism continuously generates new questions and problems. Understanding this complex phenomenon in its temporal dimensions is our object of research,” Kivimäki emphasizes.