National identity in contemporary theory

Journal/Book: Polit Psychol. 1996; 17: 350 Main Street, Ste 6, Cambridge, MA 02148-5023. Blackwell Publishers. 683-694.

Abstract: This paper analyzes two psychoanalytic readings of national identity. It scrutinizes the work of Vamik Volkan and Julia Kristeva, both of whom explain the emotional needs which undergird this category. After exploring these approaches to national identity, approaches which rebuff the postmodern insistence on fluidity, the paper then considers some problems that inhere in too adamant a defense of the nation-state. It insists that, while national identity is nor easily jettisoned, this category should nevertheless be tempered by equivocation.

Note: Article Caputi M, Calif State Univ Long Beach, Long Beach,CA 90840 USA

Keyword(s): target of externalization; good narcissistic image; melancholia

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