Crossing Boundaries

Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World

Edited by Brian D. Behnken and Simon Wendt

Crossing Boundaries: Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World explores ethnic and racial nationalism within a transnational and transcultural framework in the long twentieth century (late nineteenth to early twenty-first century). The contributors to this volume examine how national solidarity and identity—with their vast array of ideological, political, intellectual, social, and ethno-racial qualities—crossed juridical, territorial, and cultural boundaries to become transnational; how they altered the ethnic and racial visions of nation-states throughout the twentieth century; and how they ultimately influenced conceptions of national belonging across the globe.

Human beings live in an increasingly interconnected, transnational, global world. National economies are linked worldwide, information can be transmitted around the world in seconds, and borders are more transparent and fluid. In this process of transnational expansion, the very definition of what constitutes a nation and nationalism in many parts of the world has been expanded to include individuals from different countries, and, more importantly, members of ethno-racial communities. But crossing boundaries is not a new phenomenon. In fact, transnationalism has a long and sordid history that has not been fully appreciated. Scholars and laypeople interested in national development, ethnic nationalism, as well as world history will find Crossing Boundaries indispensable.

Lexington Books

Pages: 338 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-0-7391-8130-0 • Hardback • June 2013 • $121.00 • (£93.00)

978-1-4985-1506-1 • Paperback • March 2015 • $59.99 • (£46.00)

978-0-7391-8131-7 • eBook • June 2013 • $56.50 • (£43.00)

Subjects: History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Modern / General, History / World, Political Science / Globalization

Crossing Boundaries

Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Crossing Boundaries: Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World explores ethnic and racial nationalism within a transnational and transcultural framework in the long twentieth century (late nineteenth to early twenty-first century). The contributors to this volume examine how national solidarity and identity—with their vast array of ideological, political, intellectual, social, and ethno-racial qualities—crossed juridical, territorial, and cultural boundaries to become transnational; how they altered the ethnic and racial visions of nation-states throughout the twentieth century; and how they ultimately influenced conceptions of national belonging across the globe.

Human beings live in an increasingly interconnected, transnational, global world. National economies are linked worldwide, information can be transmitted around the world in seconds, and borders are more transparent and fluid. In this process of transnational expansion, the very definition of what constitutes a nation and nationalism in many parts of the world has been expanded to include individuals from different countries, and, more importantly, members of ethno-racial communities. But crossing boundaries is not a new phenomenon. In fact, transnationalism has a long and sordid history that has not been fully appreciated. Scholars and laypeople interested in national development, ethnic nationalism, as well as world history will find Crossing Boundaries indispensable.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 338 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-0-7391-8130-0 • Hardback • June 2013 • $121.00 • (£93.00)

978-1-4985-1506-1 • Paperback • March 2015 • $59.99 • (£46.00)

978-0-7391-8131-7 • eBook • June 2013 • $56.50 • (£43.00)

Subjects: History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Modern / General, History / World, Political Science / Globalization

Author

Brian D. Behnken is an associate professor in the Department of History and U.S. Latino/a Studies Program at Iowa State University.

Simon Wendt is an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Hybrid National Belonging and Identity in a Transnational World
by Simon Wendt and Brian D. Behnken
Chapter 1. Politics of Belonging on a Caribbean Borderland: The Colombian Islands of San Andrés and Providence
by Sharika Crawford
Chapter 2. "To the Reconciliation of All Dominicans": The Transnational Trials of Dominican Exiles in the Trujillo Era
by Charlton Yingling
Chapter 3. Mexico's American/America's Mexican: Cross-border Flows of Nationalism and Culture between the United States and Mexico
by Brian D. Behnken
Chapter 4. Nuestro USA?: Latino/as Making Home and Reimagining Nation in the Heartland
by Marta Maria Maldonado
Chapter 5. Imperial Citizenship and the Origins of South African Nationalism
by Charles V. Reed
Chapter 6. "An African Nation in the Western Hemisphere": The New Afrikan Independence Movement and Black Transnational Revolutionary Nationalism
by Paul Karolczyk
Chapter 7. Transnational Ethnic Identities and Garinagu Political Organizations in the Diaspora
by Doris Garcia
Chapter 8. Avoiding Vagabond Nationality: The Emergence of Ivoirité in 1990s Côte d'Ivoire
by Karen Morris
Chapter 9. Russians in Manchuria: From Imperial to National Identity in a Colonial and Semi-Colonial Space
by Frank Grüner
Chapter 10. Japan's Race War: Transnational Dimensions of the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, 1942-1945
by David C. Earhart
Chapter 11. Creating a European Constitutional Monarchy for Afghanistan: The Transnational Dynamics of Afghanistan's Constitutional Period
by Kristina Benson
Chapter 12. "So Tired of Playing the Parts I Had to Play": Anna May Wong and German Orientalism in the Weimar Republic
by Pablo Dominguez
Chapter 13. About "Thunderstorms of History" and a Society in Crisis: Transnationalizing the Study of Ethnic Nationalism in Southeastern Europe
by Nenad Stefanov
Chapter 14. Beyond the Straight State: On the Borderlands of Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Nation in the United States and Europe
by Kevin S. Amidon

Reviews

These essays document the creation, contestation, and dynamic nature of borders, belonging, and identity during the explosively transnational 20th century. Behnken (Iowa State Univ.) and Wendt (Univ. of Frankfort, Germany) add to their extensive publishing record on the modern history of race and civil rights by assembling 14 essays written by authors whose experiences fittingly cross national, ethnic, and disciplinary boundaries. The essays satisfyingly stay anchored to the overriding sociospatial/identity politics dialectic, but each ventures into its own waters enough to incite readers to explore more of the topic. Eight essays deal with Latin American and African/African American examples, while three essays concern Asia, two pieces are on Europe, and one focuses on the discursive and imagined boundaries of homosexuality. Although the essays span the globe and the century, there are many interesting subthemes that weave through the book—expanding national identity to include minority voices, reimagining the past for contemporary political control, and navigating the frontier of imagined boundaries, to name a few. Scholars and students in the social sciences with interests in transnationalism, nation building, or identity politics will find this to be a thought-provoking treat. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates to faculty.
— Choice Reviews

Crossing Boundaries is a wide-ranging volume that untangles the transnational dimensions of ethnicity, race, and national belonging. Brian Behnken and Simon Wendt have skillfully woven a collection of fine essays that demonstrate how these important aspects of modern identity are critical to understanding nation-building projects.
— Gregory D. Smithers, Virginia Commonwealth University

Brian D. Behnken and Simon Wendt have given us a volume that is truly transnational in design and scope. From its conceptual discussions to its well-chosen examples spanning the entire world, Crossing Boundaries is destined to become a major work in this fast-developing field.
— Andres Resendez, University of California, Davis