National cultural canons as a cultural policy response to globalisation?

• Peter Duelund
• Compendium: Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe

Read the full text

26 November 2009Discussions on identity, the nation-state and cultural policy as well as questions addressing globalisation and nationalism are often presented as closely interrelated. Everywhere in the world people are protesting the de-territorialising effects of globalisation and call for a revitalisation of nationalism as a defence against a possible loss of identity. Strengthening national or social cohesion as an answer to migration and multicultural challenges is argued as vitally important in the current national debates on social and cultural issues.

The national dimension of cultural policy has been strengthened in recent years. In Great Britain, the New Labour and political movements on the left proposed 'progressive nationalism' as a response to the cultural policies of Anglo-Saxon conservatives and their nationalist investments in social and cultural discussions. France gave birth to a new Ministry for Immigration and National Identity. Poland witnessed the creation of a new national self-awareness built on its Catholic faith. In Serbia, radical neo-nationalist movements have been nourished by myths and propelled by demands to legitimise the return of lost territories.

At the same time, the increasing importance of the link between identity and nation within defined borders has generated protests both in majority populations and in ethnic minority groups.