Imagined Communities Reflection. Literature & Language Essay

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Imagined Communities Reflection
Benedict Anderson's book imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism was published in 1983. The book points out the concept of imagined communities, as a popular topic in political science. In his chapter on census map and museum, the author has analyzed South East Asia since the imperial powers of the whites colonized all its territories. Besides, Anderson argues that censuses, maps, and museums in colonized states played a substantial role in shaping nationalism (Anderson 163). Through these concepts, the colonizers of southeast Asia were able to create racial and political boundaries. As a result, Southeast Asia became a region. Such is an indication that the large vernacular literacy has played a role in the increased creation of nationalism since people rarely access certain language scripts. He begins the argument by outlining that census plays a role in the creation and solidification of categories. The census makers were able to classify groups of people as they considered fit. Such classifications would be made based on race or religion. The colonial powers needed a way of categorizing people, and that could only be achieved through a census. Anderson further discusses the map as a way of emphasizing the idea of nationalism. In the past, the maps were not situated in large areas, and therefore, boundary-setting became an important concept to the colonizers (Anderson 172). Before colonization, communities would only create unstable boundaries that only they could comprehend. The methods of creating boundaries were adopted across southeast Asia, even by nations that were not colonized, such as Thailand. Through print capitalism, such methods would easily spread through southeast Asia. Besides, the author discusses the concept of museums and the role in which they played in showing how people viewed themselves. The narratives created after curating artifacts indicated that the museums had political agendas. According to the author, only the colonizers were impressed by the culture that they left behind (Anderson 179). He points out the issue of infinite reproducibility where the humanistic nature of cultural objects was transformed into state logos.
The arguments on the census, maps, and museums bring out a clear picture of the author's definition of a nation. It is through such illustrations that people can explain what it means to have a nation. The author believes that nations are created through social interactions. The main reason why he defines a nation as an imagined nation is that the members never know every other member regardless of how small the nation is. The members may identify as people of the same nation but might never meet face to face. Therefore, the nation becomes a group of imaginary people bound together by a map. The western culture was passed on to many regions hence, explaining why nations have boundaries. The members will usually have a small circle of people from the same nati...