Everyday Affordances of Nationalism within the RCF Centre of Excellence in Nationalism Research in the Humanities (NARS, 2026–2033)
To historicize nationalism effectively requires not only its examination in the context of belligerence, but also a focus on unseen and unacknowledged nationalisms, national feelings, and their impacts. The research group examines how the everyday shaped, negotiated, legitimized, and challenged nationalisms of the 20th century. Our contribution lies in developing a historically grounded and materially oriented approach that emphasizes how national meanings were afforded and contested in people’s encounters with institutions, practices and spaces of welfare, care, and consumer culture.
By examining these sites, we aim to show how nationalism was not only lived but also experienced, re-evaluated and, at times, resisted across the life course and between generations. We approach this question by combining historical analysis with the analytical concept of affordance and the theories of everyday nationalism.
The theoretical lens of everyday affordances of nationalism, and the empirical sites of welfare, care, and consumerism, also enable analyzing the episodic, fluctuating, and asymmetrical nature of nationalism.