From Anthropology of Nation to Nationalism
The author notes that studies centered on the idea of nation and nationalism have not met great success in France, in spite of the founders of sociology and anthropology, Mauss and Durkheim, whose initial intentions were strong but without effect. In the last two decades, however, the interest for social sciences was revived thanks to the many questions circulating through French society as to the symbolical efficiency of the French nation. The author would like to see the development of an anthropology of the nation as well as its ideological counterpart, nationalism. This would lead to a better understanding of the construction process of each national experience and the new compositions which can nowadays result from new regionalisms, peripheral nationalisms or from the process of European integration.