M Antonsich
Biographic Data
| ID | 23683 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Antonsich |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Antonsich |
| SIGNATURE | ANTONSICH M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1499-3202 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1044 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Rethinking the Race–Nation Nexus: Spatial Narratives of Racialised Italians in the United Kingdom
Nation and race are often theorised as closely intertwined, with nationalism frequently positioned as a driving force behind racism. The article advances an empirically grounded argument that challenges this assumed relationship. In particular, it explores how space, understood as a socially constructed category, is discursively mobilised in everyday conversations and interactions to articulate notions of nation and national belonging beyond race…
The diversity continuum: Blurring the boundaries between internal and external others among Italian children of migrants
In recent years, studies on nations and nationalism have experienced a rapid growth prompted by the so-called ‘new nationalism’, which has been interpreted, in the Western world, as the product of white majorities and their anxiety towards a demographic change caused by international migration. This article switches focus and explores the impact of demographic change on the nation from the perspective of its non-white population. Using Italy as a…
What's in a name? Children of migrants, national belonging and the politics of naming
As Western societies experience a 'transition to diversity' spurred by international migration, an enduring question is how this transition impacts on the nation and its symbolic borders. The article addresses this question by adopting an original analytical lens, what I call the 'politics of naming', i.e. the agonistic tensions around naming practices between the majority society and children of migrants. Focusing on the case of Italy, the artic…
Natives and aliens: Who and what belongs in nature and in the nation
The paper offers a brief genealogy of the native/alien divide, both in the natural and social realm, and argues that central to this binary is a national thinking that divides the world into distinct (national) units, enclosed by (natural) borders, with a unique (native) population. It looks at two interrelated processes: the nationalisation of nature, by which the national thinking intervenes as an organising principle in determining ecological …
Making space for the everyday and diverse nation in England's present political predicament: Book Review of Nationalism, Inequality and England’s Political Predicament By Charles Leddy-Owen, Reviewed …
Walking along the shores of Portsmouth, one can still see the remnants of the glorious past of the city and the British Empire which it served as the main harbour. As a plaque on the port’s massive
Everyday Nation in Times of Rising Nationalism
What is everyday nation and why does it matter in times of heightened nationalism? This article offers a brief commentary around these questions. It takes as a context the rise in nationalism associated with the surge in populist politics - a rise which risks being exacerbated by the present COVID-19 pandemic. After reviewing the origins of what can be loosely labelled as 'everyday nation' scholarship, the article makes the case for the importanc…
Ethno-cultural diversity and the limits of the inclusive nation
Migration is often said, in the public discourse, to pose a threat to the nation. Yet, Western societies are undergoing an irreversible demographic change spurred in great part by international migration. Thus, the question about how to reconcile nation and diversity remains of crucial importance for many countries. By focusing on the case of Italy, the article attends to this issue, by exploring the response of leftist political parties. We anal…
Urbanism and geopolitics: The missing links
The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration
Over the last two decades, banal and everyday nationalism have been the main theoretical and methodological approaches for studying how nations are reproduced “from below”. The present article advances this literature by paying close attention to racially differentiated subjects and, more precisely, subjects who are perceived to look different from, but sound like, the national majority group. Building on the feminist attention to the corporeal, …
Theoretical and methodological considerations for the study of banal and everyday nationalism
Living in diversity: Going beyond the local/national divide
Conclusion: The Present and Future of Nationalism
The conclusion reflects on the current status of debates around nationalism and suggests avenues for future research. In particular, it argues that more attention should be paid to incorporating insights from the study of everyday life, across a range of disciplines, and notes the importance of adopting mixed-methods approaches. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updat…
Territory and Territoriality
Territory and territoriality are generally regarded as key concepts in political geography. While anglophone geographers have privileged a rather politico‐institutional understanding, closely related to the state and the notion of sovereignty, francophone geographers have privileged a social and semiotic approach, which emphasizes the role people play in the production of territories. After having been dismissed as a relic of the past in an age o…
Introduction: The Persistence of Banal Nationalism
The introduction puts the work of Billig’s Banal Nationalism into context. It briefly traces its origins and discusses its key argument: nationalism is a dominant discursive register because it pervasively‚ but unconsciously populates our everyday space and time. The introduction also discusses the multifarious ways in which banal nationalism has been operationalized in various settings and disciplinary contexts and it offers a short overview of …
Building inclusive nations in the age of migration
Nation and diversity are often cast in oppositional terms. The present joint intervention explores the limits and possibilities of what we call ‘inclusive nation’, i.e. a nation which embraces rather than expunging diversity. To reflect on this idea, the Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN) organized a symposium, bringing together both academics and relevant stakeholders, to explore both theoretically and practically the feasibility…
Migration and the search for home: Mapping Domestic Space in Migrants’ Everyday Lives
This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Ethnic and Racial Studies on [17 Oct 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1388926. This is a book review of Migration and the search for home: mapping domestic space in migrants’ everyday lives, by Paolo Boccagni, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, xvii + 136 pp., £53.49 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-137-58801-2
National belonging and everyday life. The significance of nationhood in an uncertain world
National belonging and everyday life. The significance of nationhood in an uncertain world." National Identities, 20(4), pp. 424–425
The neoliberal culturalist nation: Voices from Italy
The impact of neoliberal globalisation on the nation‐state has been extensively studied in terms of politico‐economic restructuring and forms of governmentality and securitisation. While the former speaks of a process of de‐nationalisation, the latter brings about a re‐nationalisation process. In both cases, though, the focus has only been on one component of the nation‐state, that is, the state. The nation has either been treated as a given back…
Affective nationalism: Issues of power, agency and method
This commentary was published in the journal, Progress in Human Geography [SAGE © The Author(s)] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132516665279
Interculturalism versus multiculturalism – The Cantle-Modood debate
This is the accepted version of a paper subsequently published in the journal Ethnicities. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796815604558
The 'everyday' of banal nationalism - Ordinary people's views on Italy and Italian
Nation and Nationalism
Nation and nationalism are two referents that continue to play a major role in how politics and social life are organized. This chapter discusses their relevance from two distinct perspectives. Traditional accounts of nation and nationalism have largely focused on the questions of “when” and “what” is a nation; that is, on the historical origins and substance of the nation, including its civic/ethnic character. Starting from the early 1990s, new …
Immigration societies and the question of ‘the national
The aim of the present article is to offer a reasoned argument for putting the ‘national’ back into migration studies. Scholars engaging with ethno-cultural and religious diversity have often tended to move beyond the nation-state, often treated as a site of oppression and discrimination. Urban, transnational or cosmopolitan registers have instead been put forward, often celebrated for their more progressive attitudes towards diversity. In this a…
On Great Hungary and the importance of minor geopolitical traditions
Reading Angharad Closs Stephens's The Persistence of Nationalism. From imagined communities to urban encounters
Searching for Belonging - An Analytical Framework
Belonging is a notion both vaguely defined and ill-theorized. Scholars in various social disciplines often take this notion for granted, as if its meaning is somewhat self-explanatory. Others tend to equate it with the notion of identity, citizenship, or both. By relying on a critical reading of an extensive literature across academic disciplines, this study aims to offer an analytical framework for the study of belonging. I argue that belonging …
The 'everyday' of banal nationalism - Ordinary people's views on Italy and Italian
On territory, the nation-state and the crisis of the hyphen
In an epoch of networks, flows and global mobility, the notion of territory as a politico-institutional bounded space needs further investigation. Besides studying territory as a symbolic resource in nationalist discourses, a control device in the hands of the state or a ‘spatial fix’ in the process of capital accumulation and reproduction, geographers should also explore how territory remains implicated in and implicates discourses and practices…
Meanings of place and aspects of the Self: An interdisciplinary and empirical account
Theoretical and methodological considerations for the study of banal and everyday nationalism
Rethinking territory
This critical commentary engages, both methodologically and theoretically, the notion of territory as discussed by Stuart Elden (2010). Methodologically, I suggest that Elden’s philological concern with the term ‘territory’ rather than with the idea of ‘bounded political space’ risks producing a partial historical account. As a way to enlarge the scope of analysis and include also forms of ‘bounded political spaces’ which existed before, during, …
The face of the nation: Troubling the sameness–strangeness divide in the age of migration
Over the last two decades, banal and everyday nationalism have been the main theoretical and methodological approaches for studying how nations are reproduced “from below”. The present article advances this literature by paying close attention to racially differentiated subjects and, more precisely, subjects who are perceived to look different from, but sound like, the national majority group. Building on the feminist attention to the corporeal, …
Affective nationalism: Issues of power, agency and method
This commentary was published in the journal, Progress in Human Geography [SAGE © The Author(s)] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132516665279
Immigration societies and the question of ‘the national
The aim of the present article is to offer a reasoned argument for putting the ‘national’ back into migration studies. Scholars engaging with ethno-cultural and religious diversity have often tended to move beyond the nation-state, often treated as a site of oppression and discrimination. Urban, transnational or cosmopolitan registers have instead been put forward, often celebrated for their more progressive attitudes towards diversity. In this a…
National identities in the age of globalisation: The case of Western Europe
In an age of increasing globalisation and political fragmentation, does the nation have the relevance it once had? Is the re-scaling of political and economic processes associated with a similar re-scaling of national identities? The aim of the present paper is to offer an answer to these two questions on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data recently collected for Western Europe. Cross-country trends for both national pride and nat…
Living in diversity: Going beyond the local/national divide
Interculturalism versus multiculturalism – The Cantle-Modood debate
This is the accepted version of a paper subsequently published in the journal Ethnicities. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468796815604558
Migration and the search for home: Mapping Domestic Space in Migrants’ Everyday Lives
This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Ethnic and Racial Studies on [17 Oct 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1388926. This is a book review of Migration and the search for home: mapping domestic space in migrants’ everyday lives, by Paolo Boccagni, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, xvii + 136 pp., £53.49 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-137-58801-2
Exploring the correspondence between regional forms of governance and regional identity: The case of Western Europe
In the present post-Fordist epoch, the region has emerged as a strategic site for socioeconomic governance. The region today is viewed as a key centre in processes of capital accumulation and (re)production and it occupies an important position in regulating social life. Yet, little is known about the spatial representations held by people about the regions in which they live. This article aims to contribute to fill this gap, by exploring two int…
Everyday Nation in Times of Rising Nationalism
What is everyday nation and why does it matter in times of heightened nationalism? This article offers a brief commentary around these questions. It takes as a context the rise in nationalism associated with the surge in populist politics - a rise which risks being exacerbated by the present COVID-19 pandemic. After reviewing the origins of what can be loosely labelled as 'everyday nation' scholarship, the article makes the case for the importanc…
Natives and aliens: Who and what belongs in nature and in the nation
The paper offers a brief genealogy of the native/alien divide, both in the natural and social realm, and argues that central to this binary is a national thinking that divides the world into distinct (national) units, enclosed by (natural) borders, with a unique (native) population. It looks at two interrelated processes: the nationalisation of nature, by which the national thinking intervenes as an organising principle in determining ecological …
The Narration of Europe in `National' and `Post-national' Terms: Gauging the Gap between Normative Discourses and People's Views
Among scholars and intellectuals, Europe is often celebrated as a postnational space, i.e. a space built around cosmopolitan values rather than culturally and/or ethnically specific factors. This view is also often sketched in normative terms, being rarely based on what people actually think of this post-national Europe. The present article essays to fill this gap, by focusing on two post-national questions: is European identity constructed in th…
Territorial attachment in the age of globalization: The case of Western Europe
The age of globalization has often been associated with de-/re-territorialization processes. The increasing integration of markets and the appearance of new modes of economic production and capital accumulation on the one hand, and the transformation of forms of political governance on the other, have led to the emergence of new territorial actors at the supra-national and sub-national scales. While these economic and political de-/re-territorial…
The neoliberal culturalist nation: Voices from Italy
The impact of neoliberal globalisation on the nation‐state has been extensively studied in terms of politico‐economic restructuring and forms of governmentality and securitisation. While the former speaks of a process of de‐nationalisation, the latter brings about a re‐nationalisation process. In both cases, though, the focus has only been on one component of the nation‐state, that is, the state. The nation has either been treated as a given back…
Mapping the Swiss referendum on the minaret ban
Geopolitica: The 'Geographical and Imperial Consciousness' of Fascist Italy
Very few contributions have been published in English on the Italian geopolitical tradition of the interwar years. This is rather surprising, given the fact that, after Geopolitik, Italian geopolitics was one of the largest and most significant in Europe. This article aims to fill this void, by offering a detailed and critical investigation into this intellectual production. Although the article traces the origins of Italian geopolitics back to t…
EUropean attachment and meanings of EUrope. A qualitative study in the EU-15
Turkey's Bid for European Union Membership: Between "Thick" and "Thin" Conceptions of Europe
A team of Central Europe-based political geographers examines Turkey's bid for European Union (EU) membership, one of the most controversial issues confronting that country's and EU politics. The authors analyze Eurobarometer public opinion survey data on EU enlargement (and particularly Turkey's EU membership) across the 27 polities of the enlarged EU as well as in Turkey itself. The analysis of the data points to clear regional differences in s…
Nature Knows No Boundaries”: A Critical Reading of UNDP Environmental Peacemaking in Cyprus
In 2005, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) set up in Cyprus a peace-building project called Action for Cooperation and Trust (ACT). This project has aimed to create opportunities for bicommunal partnerships on environmental protection as a way to promote intercommunal tolerance. This article discusses critically the efficacy of this project to contribute to the debate on the significance of environmental cooperation in transforming et…
Interventions on the 'moribund backwater' forty years on
Signs of power: Fascist urban iconographies in Ethiopia (1930s–1940s)
Place and Politics in Modern Italy
Additional informationNotes on contributorsMarco Antonsich Reviewed by
Geopolitics of the world system
Cardinal Markers of Finland's Identity Politics and National Identity
This paper analyzes geopolitical themes prevailing in dominant sectors of the Finnish government and society that have shaped Finland's national identity from the early 19th century to the present. The focus is on the ways cardinal markers (compass directions) have become geopolitical and identity markers. Notions of "West," "Between East and West," "Neither West nor East," and "North" have been used both to position Finland on the world politica…
"In Defense of "Geopolitical Remote Sensing: Reply to Moisio and Harle
The author of a recently published paper on Finland's identity politics and national identity (Antonsich, 2005) responds to comments presented in the preceding paper in this issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics (Moisio and Harle, 2006). The rejoinder focuses on the nature of place knowledge acquired "in place" versus "at distance" as well as on more specific differences in perspective (e.g., use of sources, terminology, critical geopolitcs).…
Linguistic commonality between universalism and particularism: A reply to Ipperciel (2007)
This is the accepted version of the article, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8129.2008.00351.x
The Narration of Europe in `National' and `Post-national' Terms: Gauging the Gap between Normative Discourses and People's Views
Among scholars and intellectuals, Europe is often celebrated as a postnational space, i.e. a space built around cosmopolitan values rather than culturally and/or ethnically specific factors. This view is also often sketched in normative terms, being rarely based on what people actually think of this post-national Europe. The present article essays to fill this gap, by focusing on two post-national questions: is European identity constructed in th…
EUropean attachment and meanings of EUrope. A qualitative study in the EU-15
National identities in the age of globalisation: The case of Western Europe
In an age of increasing globalisation and political fragmentation, does the nation have the relevance it once had? Is the re-scaling of political and economic processes associated with a similar re-scaling of national identities? The aim of the present paper is to offer an answer to these two questions on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative data recently collected for Western Europe. Cross-country trends for both national pride and nat…
Meanings of place and aspects of the Self: An interdisciplinary and empirical account
On territory, the nation-state and the crisis of the hyphen
In an epoch of networks, flows and global mobility, the notion of territory as a politico-institutional bounded space needs further investigation. Besides studying territory as a symbolic resource in nationalist discourses, a control device in the hands of the state or a ‘spatial fix’ in the process of capital accumulation and reproduction, geographers should also explore how territory remains implicated in and implicates discourses and practices…
Nature Knows No Boundaries”: A Critical Reading of UNDP Environmental Peacemaking in Cyprus
In 2005, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) set up in Cyprus a peace-building project called Action for Cooperation and Trust (ACT). This project has aimed to create opportunities for bicommunal partnerships on environmental protection as a way to promote intercommunal tolerance. This article discusses critically the efficacy of this project to contribute to the debate on the significance of environmental cooperation in transforming et…
The 'revenge' of political geographers
Interventions on the 'moribund backwater' forty years on
Geopolitica: The 'Geographical and Imperial Consciousness' of Fascist Italy
Very few contributions have been published in English on the Italian geopolitical tradition of the interwar years. This is rather surprising, given the fact that, after Geopolitik, Italian geopolitics was one of the largest and most significant in Europe. This article aims to fill this void, by offering a detailed and critical investigation into this intellectual production. Although the article traces the origins of Italian geopolitics back to t…
Exploring the correspondence between regional forms of governance and regional identity: The case of Western Europe
In the present post-Fordist epoch, the region has emerged as a strategic site for socioeconomic governance. The region today is viewed as a key centre in processes of capital accumulation and (re)production and it occupies an important position in regulating social life. Yet, little is known about the spatial representations held by people about the regions in which they live. This article aims to contribute to fill this gap, by exploring two int…
Rethinking territory
This critical commentary engages, both methodologically and theoretically, the notion of territory as discussed by Stuart Elden (2010). Methodologically, I suggest that Elden’s philological concern with the term ‘territory’ rather than with the idea of ‘bounded political space’ risks producing a partial historical account. As a way to enlarge the scope of analysis and include also forms of ‘bounded political spaces’ which existed before, during, …
Multicultural Horizons. Diversity and the Limits of the Civil Nation by Anne-Marie Fortier: Book Reviews
Mapping the Swiss referendum on the minaret ban
Searching for Belonging - An Analytical Framework
Belonging is a notion both vaguely defined and ill-theorized. Scholars in various social disciplines often take this notion for granted, as if its meaning is somewhat self-explanatory. Others tend to equate it with the notion of identity, citizenship, or both. By relying on a critical reading of an extensive literature across academic disciplines, this study aims to offer an analytical framework for the study of belonging. I argue that belonging …
Turkey's Bid for European Union Membership: Between "Thick" and "Thin" Conceptions of Europe
A team of Central Europe-based political geographers examines Turkey's bid for European Union (EU) membership, one of the most controversial issues confronting that country's and EU politics. The authors analyze Eurobarometer public opinion survey data on EU enlargement (and particularly Turkey's EU membership) across the 27 polities of the enlarged EU as well as in Turkey itself. The analysis of the data points to clear regional differences in s…
Grounding Theories of Place and Globalisation
In the 1990s, under the perception of increasing transformations brought about by globalisation, scholars started investigating what happened to the notion of place. Among others, the views of Manuel Castells, Robert Sack and Doreen Massey contributed to construct an opposition between a parochial, bounded, and reactionary notion of place versus a global, unbounded, and relation one. This latter view, under the label of ‘progressive sense of plac…
The multicultural dilemma: Between normative and practical reasoning
Bringing the Demos Back In
The creation of a EUropean demos is often debated by referring to forms of ethnic or civic identities. The present article aims to expose the theoretical shortcomings of this dichotomous approach, which confines the complexity of EUrope within a simplifying methodological nationalism. By relying on empirical data collected in four different EUropean regions, the article points to the relevance of a functional or utilitarian rationale which EUrope…
Territorial attachment in the age of globalization: The case of Western Europe
The age of globalization has often been associated with de-/re-territorialization processes. The increasing integration of markets and the appearance of new modes of economic production and capital accumulation on the one hand, and the transformation of forms of political governance on the other, have led to the emergence of new territorial actors at the supra-national and sub-national scales. While these economic and political de-/re-territorial…
Political science (48 works) · Sociology (48 works) · Law (44 works) · Politics (42 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (23 works) · Law (21 works) · Gender Studies (20 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Geography (16 works) · Political economy (15 works)