In the 1700s traditional understandings of what made up a nation were revised when with the eruption of the enlightenment in Europe and in the Western Hemisphere the idea of a King associated with the concept of a nation was replaced by the notion of a republic as a nation. Three different ideas about nations have been theorized as historically emerging out of the ordeals of a triple revolution the first begins with a notion of nations as demanding loyalty to a King, or to the Pope, or to a main leader (usually holding both religious and political authority) and that idea was overthrown by a second revolution in thought. And, depends on nations being defined by “divine rule” or a king.Īnderson’s book, Imagined Communities, defined a nation in ways that we today may take for granted, but which is still an important departure from the more biological/linguistic definitions of belonging.Īnderson argues that a nation is “an imagined political community imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. Unlike earlier understandings of the ways that people belong to ‘the nation’ which bordered on distinguishing belonging based on biological connection, phenotype, and language. It is a concept used to describe the ways that belonging to a “people” or to a nation, as a community, is socially constructed-in essence it is much more psychological than biological.Īnderson wanted to communicate that notions of belonging are produced by our imagination, and as such they are imagined by individuals who perceive themselves as part of a particular group. The theory of imagined community was developed by a scholar named Benedict Anderson.

Introduction to the Theory of Imagined Community We will be exploring the concept of imagined community during this module as a way to analyze the influence that the idea of community has within Latin American and LatinX cultural production. Two examples of such as imagined communities are: the concept of Aztlan (for Chicanos/Mexicanos), and Borninquen (for Puerto Rican Communities). Scholars also focus on the influence that these ideas about LatinX populations as being an identifiable “people” that have historically been within a specific geography have in forming the imagined notions of community. And, they also focus on the power of producing ideas about the lands and places LatinX populations dream about-the myths of historical homelands for example. Scholars writing on the topic of the Latino imaginary dissect the meaning of terms such as “Latina/Latino, and LatinX.

This chapter grapples with the definition of “community.”

Imagined communities meaning