Nation as Network - by Victoria Bernal Paperback

About the Book

In this book anthropologist Victoria Bernal reveals the ways that forms of nationhood, strategies of state power, and modes of political participation are being redefined in the context of the rise of digital media and the growing significance of diasporas in the 21st century. She outlines the broader trends and wider implications suggested by the processes documented in this study of Eritrean politics, diaspora, and cyberspace to explore the nation as network. The book develops the concept of infopolitics to foreground the management of information as a central aspect of politics. The heart of the book is an ethnography of the vibrant Eritrean public sphere established on diaspora websites. Close readings of posts reveal people s struggles to understand the conflicts that have shaped their lives, while striving to chart the nation s future. Set in the context of Eritrea s turbulent history, the activities of the diaspora reveal the ways that sovereignty and citizenship are being reconfigured and reproduced by means of the internet. Chapters examine: how the internet was used to create Eritrean space outside Eritrea, how posters defended Eritrea in the border war with Ethiopia, struggles to create new political subjectivities and expand the boundaries of what can be publically articulated, the use of websites as an offshore platform for civil society, the establishment of an unofficial war memorial online using leaked government documents, and how citizenship is gendered online. As one of the first ethnographies to theorize the relation between cyberspace and sovereignty this work will have a wide audience beyond African Studies."

Book Synopsis

How is the internet transforming the relationships between citizens and states? What happens to politics when international migration is coupled with digital media, making it easy for people to be politically active in a nation from outside its borders? In Nation as Network, Victoria Bernal creatively combines media studies, ethnography, and African studies to explore this new political paradigm through a striking analysis of how Eritreans in diaspora have used the internet to shape the course of Eritrean history.

Bernal argues that Benedict Anderson's famous concept of nations as "imagined communities" must now be rethought because diasporas and information technologies have transformed the ways nations are sustained and challenged. She traces the development of Eritrean diaspora websites over two turbulent decades that saw the Eritrean state grow ever more tyrannical. Through Eritreans' own words in posts and debates, she reveals how new subjectivities are formed and political action is galvanized online. She suggests that "infopolitics"-struggles over the management of information-make politics in the 21st century distinct, and she analyzes the innovative ways Eritreans deploy the internet to support and subvert state power. Nation as Network is a unique and compelling work that advances our understanding of the political significance of digital media.

Review Quotes

"In her ethnographic study of Eritrean diaspora politics, anthropologist Bernal makes valuable contributions to current scholarship in communication technology and diaspora politics as they jointly create a new definition of citizenship in the emerging reality of globalism."
-- "Choice"

About the Author

Victoria Bernal is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Cultivating Workers: Peasants and Capitalism in a Sudanese Village, coeditor of Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism; and editor of Contemporary Cultures, Global Connections: Anthropology for the 21st Century.