Cultural Encyclopedia of the Penis by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2014-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

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NATIONALISM AND COLONIALISM

Nationalism refers to the creative process where ideas and actions operate to unify a nation. Similarly, colonialism refers to the process of “intercultural domination,” where one group unequally attempts to incorporate the ideas, cultures, and resources of another group. Conventionally, such processes are often simplistically depicted as political orientations. However, it is suggested that such processes are not neutral, but are often articulated through gendered and sexual politics, practices, and representations. In other words, contemporary Western understandings of the intimate connection between nationalism, colonialism, and sexuality have been influenced by perspectives from ancient traditions in Greece and Rome, operating with a cultural assumption of men’s supremacy within the sex and gender order. Similar influential patterns of tradition can be found in the emerging economies of India and China. For example, Confucian ethics continue to help shape gendered interpersonal relations between ruler and minister, husband and wife, and brother and sister, premised on idealized images of father-son relations.

Current Western understandings of the interconnection between nationalism, colonialism, and sexuality were largely shaped during the nineteenth century. A new vocabulary developed around notions of Eros and nation, libidinal economies, and motherland and fatherland that informed the formation of liberal, communist, and fascist nation-states. Thus, the nation was often likened to a patriarchal extended family, with colonized societies, such as India and Ireland, seen as essentially feminine and in need of the protection of the masculine colonizing power. In contemporary societies, personal morality is a civic duty where sexual citizenship is constituted by “dutiful” wives and “honorable” husbands. This is often achieved through the celebration of a “patriotic heterosexuality.”

Furthermore, nationalism is often underpinned by a juxtaposition between a civilized and an uncivilized world that is articulated through gendered and sexual ideals. For example, Engle highlights how terrorists and enemies of the state are often depicted as sexually uncivilized, with national security fused with sexual purity. Thus, central to concerns of nationalism and colonialism is an anxiety about securing borders, not simply geographical and economic ones, but also ones of “correct” genders and (hetero)sexuality. National security becomes linked to personal morality and civic duty. National heroes, defenders of the nation, become embodied in strong trustworthy servicemen and firemen, emblematic of the strength, determination, and potency of the nation.

Currently, within a postcolonial period, there is a shift of interest from the colonizing nation to Queer Nation. Contemporary theories, including postcolonial, postfeminist, and queer theory, have suggested more critical and contested understandings of the interconnections between nationalism, colonialism, and sexuality that are played out in terms of how we understand multidimensional cultural differences. For example, white British racial stereotyping of South Asian men is simultaneously a gender and sexual politics, with a legacy of colonialism constructing them as having a weak masculinity, in contrast to the tough masculinity ascribed to African-Caribbean men. Within this racial imagining, Asian men are feminized and projected as possessing a small penis, in contrast to the overmasculinization and oversexualization of African-Caribbean men, who are projected as possessing a large penis.

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