Artificial nations: disappeared states, post-colonial borders and methodological nationalism

This workshop is focused on so-called ‘artificial nations’, states either disappeared or in existence today that are perceived as contrary to their ‘natural’ disposition, whether by origin or borders. It takes a comparative, critical approach across different times and places, aiming to both historicise the notion of artificial states and borders, and to deconstruct methodological nationalism inherent in this notion.

• Full workshop programme
• Workshop bibliography

Organised by Ilya Afanasyev

The event is free. To reserve a please email brihc@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Speakers include:

• John Breuilly (LSE)
  A critique of the concept of artificial state boundaries
• Nutsa Batiashvili (University of Oxford & Free University of Tbilisi)
  Horizons, margins and the centres of nation-making: the case of colonial and post-colonial Georgia
• Courtney J. Campbell (University of Birmingham)
  Visualizing the Brazilian Northeast: Maps, borders, and memories in the creation of subnational space
  
• Djene Bajalan(Missouri State University)
  The 'partition' of Kurdistan: a reassessment
• Klaus Richter (University of Birmingham)
  Statehood derailed: Normative views on interwar East Central Europe
• Maria Falina (Dublin City University)
  Was Yugoslavia ever real? Dilemmas of state- and nation-building in the 20th century
• Matthieu Rey (Collège de France)
  State building and integration of the population: a long-term perspective on Syria
• Kate Skinner (University of Birmingham)
  Contingencies of decolonisation and nations against the odds: a case study from Togo, West Africa
• Natalya Vince (Portsmouth University)
  Divided nation or collective performance? The politics of competing versions of Algeria
• Faisal Devji(University of Oxford)
  Memory in the nation without a past

The Long History of Identity, Ethnicity and Nationhood Research Network is convened by Ilya Afanasyev and Micholas Matheou, and sponsored by BRIHC and TORCH.