Imagined community
Topic: Nationalism and National Self-determination · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Nationalism"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Challenges of Nation Building"
Meaning
An imagined community is Benedict Anderson's (1983) description of a nation. Members of a nation will never meet most of their fellow members, yet each person carries a picture in their mind of belonging together. That shared belief, not face-to-face contact or common descent, holds the nation together. Anderson said print capitalism, meaning newspapers and books in a shared language, spread this picture. NCERT compares a nation to a team: it exists only while its members believe they belong together. "Imagined" does not mean false. Nations are real to the people who value them.
Example
NCERT's cartoon shows Indians cheering the national cricket team, and Indians living abroad still watching Bollywood films. They do not know one another personally, but they feel part of one nation.
Don't confuse with
- Family or tribe: in a family, everyone knows everyone face to face. In a tribe or clan, members are linked by marriage and descent that can be traced. A nation needs neither.
- Primordialist view: this view says nations are ancient and natural. Anderson belongs to the modernist side, which says nations are built.