Transnationalism and the Predicament of Sovereignty: China, 1900-1945
Author(s)
Duara, Prasenjit
Abstract
Prasenjit Duara seizes the opportunity provided by the growing interest in transnationalism to explore the problem historically. He explains that transnationalism tends to be seen as a late twentieth-century development associated with advanced capitalism, flexible production, and postmodernism. However, he maintains, if, as many claim, nationalism emerged in the era of capitalism, then it surely has always had to deal with the boundary-crossing and globalizing impetus of capitalism. Following this insight, Duara explores how nationalist regimes and spokesmen dealt with the transnational demands, flows, and ideals generated not only by capitalism but also by historical forces such as universalizing religions and population movements not easily confined to the new, territorially sovereign nation-states. He does so by focusing on three topics in East Asia during the first half of the twentieth century: the convergence of Chinese and Japanese ideals of pan-Asianism, the Chinese republican regime’s effort to incorporate the non-Chinese peoples of the vast peripheries into the territorial nation-state, and finally that regime’s efforts to cultivate the loyalty of overseas Chinese to the nation-state. Duara also has a methodological goal. He seeks to displace the nation-state as a “natural” or taken-for-granted framework for historical study by revealing how the nation-state sought to confine history and build sovereignty within its claimed territory. Duara’s essay is thus a compelling argument about the ways in which the complex and multidimensional relationships between nationalism and transnationalism should be studied.
