The sacrificial emplotment of national identity. Pádraic Pearse and the 1916 Easter uprising
Journal Title: Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology - Year 2014, Vol 5, Issue 1
Abstract
A sense of national identification remains amorphous and inert unless it is cognitively structured and motivationally oriented. Perhaps the most consequential way of structuring and orienting nationalism is through emplotment (organizing in the form of a story). Emplotment commonly follows one of a few cross-culturally recurring genres. In nationalist contexts, the heroic genre—treating military conflict, loss or potential loss, and reasserted sovereignty--is the default form. However, this default may be overridden in particular circumstances. When social devastation precludes heroic achievement, a sacrificial emplotment—treating collective sin, punishment, sacrifice, and redemption—is often particularly salient. Earlier work has examined cases of sacrificial emplotment in its most extreme varieties (treating Hitler and Gandhi). The following essay considers a more ordinary case, the sacrificial nationalism of the prominent Irish anti-colonial revolutionary, Pádraic Pearse, as represented in his plays.
Authors and Affiliations
Patrick Colm Hogan
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP40997
- DOI -
- Views 200
- Downloads 0
No crumb shall be left behind. Perceptions of food waste across generations
This paper aims to explore whether there are age-specific differences in perceptions about food waste in two groups of women living in Bucharest (born in/after 1989 vs mature in 1989), as well as the extent to which su...
Destinations without regulations: Informal practices in Romanian rural tourism
This article is an ethnographic account of the informal practices I encountered during my fieldwork in three touristic destinations in the Romanian countryside. In these places, as in other parts of rural Romania, over...
„They took personal data and some pictures, yet they found nothing for us” – misunderstanding and suspicion in a marginal Roma neighborhood from Romania
This paper claimed to reveal, that mistrust during fieldwork is more than an unpleasant individual experience: it is a telling ethnographic data. Repudiation of Gallilei Street ghetto residents was equally due to a wro...
An exploration of life experiences of left behind wives in Edo State, Nigeria
Research emphasising effects of migration on left behind families often focus on implications of absent fathers, particularly in Africa and areas with historic male migration. Yet, information on the experiences of lef...
Matthew Engelke (ed.) The Objects of Evidence. Anthropological approaches to the production of knowledge, 2009, Willey-VCH, Anthropological Approaches to the Production of Knowledge, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Special Issue Book Series
Frequently, ethnographies and anthropological articles open with vignettes or anecdotes that convey a sense of being there on the author’s part and transpose the reader to transiently witness that experience. Following...