PHRONESIS

.I 1,·111•1 /10111 I 1'110 nlitl'd by

l·.111nlo 1.uduu u11rl C:hn11taf .\lo11Jli'

",ttH<' l()S'), \\hcn the fi1't Phronc,i, book ,,·as published,

num cH·tH, of fu11cl,1111cnial i111ponance 10 the series
h.n,· 1.1\..1·11 pl.11 ,·. So111c or them initially brought the
h1lp1· th.11 gtl',11 po"ibifiti,·, were op,•ning up for the
c,tcn,11>11 .111<1 dcl'pct1i11g of dc111onac)·, one of'the main
pn1111 nl '"( 11, in 0111 1 dknion,. Di,e11ch:rn1111e11r, how­
,.,,.,. t .1111<· q11i1\..h and 1d1,11 ,,e witnn,cd instead was the
tc111fnt< ,·111c111 and gcnerafi1a1ion of' the neolibcral
hn:c111,m1. l nd.11. the kl1-wi11g pn!jl'CL i, in an even
dcq><·1 , t t,i, th.111 it "•" 1cn )Cal� ago. An increa,ing
t111111h,·1 of ,<H i.1l-d,·111on atic pat 1ic,. 1111dcr the pretence
of · 111odet t111ing · thl'llhl'fn·,. a,,. cli,ca1 cling- tlwi1· Left
t<l.-111111 .. \«n1 di11g 10 the :1<hoc11c, of' thL' 'third way' .
. md 1, llh tlw ,1<hc111 of gl<lbali1atin11. the time has come
lO .1b.111dn11 the old clogtna, of' Left and Right ;rncl
fHntnot,· ., ncw c1111t·p1<·nc11rial spirit al all lc1els or
">< 1t"l\.
l'ht 011,'"' ·, ohjcniH· i, 10 establish a dialogue among
.Iii tlt(h<· "ho a"1·t t the need 10 recldi11e the L.t'i't/Right
dt,111H 1io11 - 1d1ich C<l!hti1111c, the crnci,d dynamic of
mockt 11 clcmoc1 ac, - in,1c«d of' rclinqui,hing it. 0111'
,11 i ,i11,1I < ,i11n·1 11. which wa, to bring wgcther lcft-wi1114
politin .111cl thl' 1hn>1 cticaf cle,clopmcnt., around t:hc
c I i1iqt1c of t'\\t'llti:1l i,111. i, mor,' per1inc11t than ever.
l11dccd. \\t' ,till bclic,c th,11 the 1110,1 impona111 trends in
l nntt'mpora1v 1hco11 - dcconstructio11, psychoanalris,
tlw phil<i-Ppln of' language as i11itiatecl by the later
\\ iugcn,tcin and post-I lcidcggerian hermeneutics - are
the ncn·,,at) nrndition, for u11dcrsta11cling the wide11i11g
of ,oci.11 ,tn1ggks ch;u-ancris1ic or the prescm stage of'
demonatic politic,. an<l for fonnulati11g a new vision for
tht' l.l.'lt in term, of radical a11cl plural democracy.
Politics and the Other Scene

•
ETIENNE 13ALIBAR

TranslaLions by Christi11cjo11es,
_lames Swenson, Chris T1irncr

VERSO
London • Now York
 This "cli1ion liis1 11tililisht'cl hv Verso 2()(12
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/ Verso
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USi\: 180 VMirk Sir<·<·t, N"w York, NY I001-1-·l(iOli
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 Contents

l'reli1cc Vil

Three Concepts or Politics: Emancipation,

Transl<m11atio11, Civility

� ls There Such a Tiling ,is European Racism? 40

1 Ambiguous lclent.ities :i(i

4 What is a Border? 75

:i The llorders ol' Europe 87

(j ls a European Citi1.enship Possible? 104

7 Violence, Icteality and Cruelty 129

8 Ambiguous Universality 146

 /

/
 Preface

The essays collected in lhis book have already appeared in French,

albeil in a diJJcre11l l'orm. So in one sense il is a 11ew book; and in
anolher it is an old one. This creales a cen.iin dillicully in present­
ing il, for which I ask the reader's ind11lge11ce. I shall briefly expbin
how lhis came aboul, hoping- thal I will be forgiven for going inlo
some deLail aboul my p11blicllions in bolh languages. [ will Lhen
proceed lo sumn1ariLe whal l regard as Llie principal themes or Lhe
book, and how I would deluic the mai11 thread thaL connects them.
Finally, l shall say a lew words ahoul the conception or politics that
1 wa11ted lo introduce by borrowing the metaphor or lhe 'other
scene' from Freud.
Mosl or the essays below derive rrnrn a collect.ion published in
France entitled 'Fear or lhe Masses: Polilics and Philosophy before
and art.er Ma1x'.1 They k1rmecl ib general introduction ('Three
Co11cepts of PoliLics'); iLs Lhirc\ pan (,tlreacly presented under the
subtille: 'The Other Scene: Violence, Borders, Universality'); and
its general conclusion ('A1nbiguous Univ,�rsaliLy'). 011ly one of
them ('Js a European CiliLenship Possible:") comes from another
collection.� Some, however, were aclapted f'rom papers or lectures
originally delivered in English. And the Frc11ch volume was itself an
expanded version or Lhe book Masses, Clr1..1ws, Ideas: Studies in Pvlitirs
and Ph.ilvso/Jhy hrjiH,1 mul rifler !War:x, published by Routledge in 1993.
lt was rny friend John R,.(jclnnan who gencnrnsly suggesLed that l
slwuld collect some of my more recent essays, so as Lo indicate Lo
 viii PREFACE

an Angloµhone readership how I thought a crilical reading of' Marx

and Marxist. theory (along lines initiated 1na11y years <1go in collabo­
ration with Althusscr) could he con1bi11ecl with other inlerprewt.ions
or Lhe frnditio11 of· politic.ti philosophy (Spino1.a, Rousseau, Kull,
Fichte), aml above all wiL11 conuiln1tiom lo contc1npor,11-y deiJaLes
aboul univcrs,dis1n, rncis1n, nationalism, ,lllcl citizenship - lllore
gc11crally, \\·h,1t l t,1lkcl a 'politics of· Lile Righh oJ' Man' (cll'iibcrntcly
adopting, in spite of' ils oh\'ious ·111ak chauvinist' hi,ts, the lcrn1inol­
ogy of' the EnlighLL·m11e11t and the 'DcclaraLio11s' in which the
principle or· 'equal lilwny' is expressed 1). By the Lime 1 rc,tfo.ecl that
,l similar collcctio11 111ighL ,dso he 11sd·u1 in f-'re11eh, and I could
devote some clfo1L to its prcparatio11, Li111c hacl already passed,
during which there had hcen occ;1sion cno11gh to discuss tile
politic,11 and philos<>phical q11cstions involved i11 'identity politics'.
The result was a co11.siclerahlc exp,msio11 of' the horizons of Lile
American volume. Conscq11ently, I Lhought iL necessary lo i·eorgan­
ize its conlents by adding new lll,llcrial, all(! ,t gc11eral inLroducLion.
[1 was this ciru1lllstance lh,tl led Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffc
and Verso to suggest that the relltrn _journey should be also
aLLernpLed - Lhat is, lr,tnslllit.Ling Lhe new malerial Lo an English
/
readership. For Lhis I wanl to express 1ny dccpcsl grat.iluclc. 13UL
/ while I accepted their suggestion, I pnsuadccl myself' (and wanl LO
try to persuade my new readers) that the resulling volume is not a
mere sequel or supple111e11l Lo Massr's, Clusses, h/1'{/s, hut has a unity
of' its own: a problematic - ii' nol a single - ol�jecl. To be sure, so111e
of' Lhe presuppositions of' my arguments have been unpacked, bul
Lhey can be f'ound in several existing volumes: Masses, Classes, Ideas,
but also S/1inoza rind Politir:s (Verso), plus Har:e, Nation, Class (written
with Immanuel Wallerstein) (Verso), and Tiu: Philoso/Jhy o/ Marx
(Verso). And I t.akc the opporlunily lo fc>cus Lhe allenlion on what.
l consider lo be a major problem: the aporias ol' a reduction of
r'Xll'l'/1/e violenw, which led me to suggest in rny inlroducLOry essay
that Lhe Lwo critical concepts which continue Lo inspire much
political philosophy i11 the progressive t.radilion (rmanci/Jl/.tion and
trrms/om1alio11) should he rounded off (bul certainly not replaced)
by a third one, f'or which l borrowed the old concept of rivility. 1
Approaching things from a rather l'ormal angle, it mighl be said
 PREFACE ix

that the combination of' issues that underlies my essays, and pro­
vides them with a ccnai11 continuity (there is no ciucstion or
claiming that they arc the only issues ol political philosophy, but I
would reject any suggestion that they arc n1arginal), emerges rrolll
a co111pariso11 betwec11 Lwo titles that. end wit.Ii a question mark - 'ls
There S11ch a Tl1ing as European Racism?', 'ls a Europea11 Citizen­
ship Possible?' - ,111cl two noticrns that ,tre said to be 'ambiguous':
Identities ,11HI Univers,tlity.
'This book was written ,It ;1 time when in1pani11g an aCL11al content
to tl1e notio11 ol ,1 'E1mipc111 Citi1.enship' became 11rgcnt quite
i11clcpenclcntly of the rnci-cly jmiclical point oC how the fULurc
'constillltion' of Europe should he lc1bellcd. The issue is to decide
what kine\ of status and rights (rivil, j)O/itiml and soriri.l, Lo follow a
famous tripanition 1hat retains its relevance) the inhabitants of' this
new political entity would individually and collectively e11joy. They
can rnark either an ,tdvancc or a regression in the history of
citizenship; and this has not yet been sett .led. nut the book was also
written while the various manifestations ol institutional and ideo­
logical racism were acquiring their present. configuration, which I
ventured to describe as a pote11tial 'Eurnpcan apartheid': the dark
side, as it were, or the emergence of' the 'European citi1.en'. It
involves a rampant repression ol" 'alien' communities or immigrants
(with specific modalities progressively unified under the Schengen
Convention); a diffusion among European nations or openly racist
outbursts (11eo-fascist or 'populist' propaganda and activities,
pogroms, expulsions on a massive scale); and a seemingly contradic­
tory combination of nationalist exclusivisrn and 'Western'
cornrnunitaria11isrn.
J have two main theses on this point. One is that a new delinition
of citizenship in Europe can only be the definition of a new
citizenship. It must become more clemocrat.ic than the old 'national­
social' lunn or citizenship used to be, or it will become less so - and
is bound to !"ail. There can ,md will be no status quo. In particular,
t.he construction or citizenship in Europe will either include all lhe
wm,1n11.nitir's !,/lilt are historirnlly /Jre,1Pnl on European territory; or it will
mean a deleat for the ideal of universality that nation-states embod­
ied to a certain extent (because they were pushed by two centuries
 X PREFACE

of class struggle and other democratic 111ovcrncnts), and whicl1

enabled them Lo secure popular consent. But such a crossroads
poses a problem that is si111ulta11cously very specul.itivc in its ror­
rnulalion and very co11crctc in its i1nplications: the problem of' the
ro1111nunity, or the mo<f1, o/identif,:i:alio11 that. gives rise 10 the represen­
tation ol a com1nunity. 'Co11111111nity' and 'citizc11ship' have had "t
problematic relationship since the origins ol polit.ic;d tho11ght. (The
Greeks had only one word to express these two aspects: politeitl,
whence we derive our 'politics' as well as our 'police'. 13111. this
meant that the contraclictio11s were located within this single cow
ccpt, and conferred on it an immediately 'dialectical' n1ca11ing.) I
defend the idea that the co11traclict. . o ry nature or the notion of
political community (which rc(Juircs both unity ,u1d diversity, con­
(·lict and consent, integration and exclusion, subs1;11JLial identity and
openness to inddinitc change) rdlects a tension not only between
the real and L11c ideal, or between di!krcnt 'imagined con11nuni­
ties', hm ,ilso between tfu, .,1,lf11ss1'rlio11 and dnom/1 urlion o/rnmmunity
a1· s1u;/1, - or the opposite requirements oJ' 'iclcnti!icalion' and 'dis­
idcn Lification '. iVI y thesis is that dc1nocratic politics is a clirlicult.,
I 'ambiguous' art of' co1nbining the opposed terms of' identification
and disidcnti!ication (including i1frnti/imli1rn with //w 1111ivnsol), and
l<)r that reason it remains pcnna11c11tly exposed to t11rni11g into its
opposite.
But. these dilemmas arc not prcscntccl to us i11 an indctcnninat.e
and neutral context. The conju11cturc or the brc,il<-up or Yugoslavia
and iL� tragic al't.ennath; the analogy between tendencies towards a
'European apartheid' and t.hc phc11on1cnqn ol 'ethnic cleansing'
that Europeans too easily imagine is typical o/' the ·undcrdcvclopcd'
world; above all, t.hc l�tct that such ultra-subjective or i.rlmlistic !<mus
of violence arc ucver r:o11nPldy isolated from quite dilkrcnt !<mus
which may also lead Lo processes or extermination (economic
violence in which the social causes do not t,1kc the form or human
agency, hut. arc naturalized and !etishizcd, to use Marxist. terminol­
ogy) - these led me Lo take a special interest in the qucstiou or
borders and their current transformation. What I attempted here is
actually only a sketch open to dc..:hat.c, lacking as it docs the requisite
historical, anthropological and sociological precision. But while it
 PREFACE XI

connects the issues or identity, conununity, citizenship and social

policy in a single complex, which constitutes lite internal condition o/
a /Jermrme11.t rewn.1litution o/ politiwl jJmttice, the problem oi' borders
is also intended as a metonymy of how politics can be related to tJ1e
now inescapable issue of glo/)(1,liwlion. Borders (including 'internal'
borders) are 'global' per se: they arc projections of the world
(dis)ordcr; and the kind of' violence that concentrates on their
more or less stable lines, notwiL11standing its 'local' and 'specific'
roots and forms, is widely supposed to form a counterpart to
globalization. At the very least, it becomes integrated into an
expanding economy ol global violence, thus posing the q11estion as
to whether a globalization of' politics can also mean a politics of
globalization.
There is 110 question here or entering into the debates 011
globalization (more than I act11ally do in the book) - not even to
discuss whether the term is acceptable and, ir so, in what sense. l
shall jump to a speculative consideration, which derives from my
focus on the relationship between politics and violence as illustrated
by the operation of the 'border' - the non-democratic condition ol'
democracy itself, as it were. Let me express it allegorically by saying
that the 'global' system, which tends to be pictured in Hohliesia11
terms (as a war of' all rlgainst all based on interests, powers, ct1lturcs,
etc., requiring a regulation through cit.her law or l(ffce, or rather a
close combination of the two), is in reality profoundly anli­
J-lob/Jesian. This is so because it is 110 longer possible to regard the
phenomenon or violence within itsclr as a 'st.ate of· nature', that is,
as a stn1ctt1ral condition that /He1:ede.1 institutions (rivil, politiwl), and
which institutions as such would suppress. 'vVc have had to accept
(particularly after the experiences of revolution and counter­
revolution, fascism a11d anti-L1scism, de-colonization and neocoloni­
alism, the emergence or the neolibcral 'empire' and its opponents)
that extreme violence is not post-historical bt1t actually 'post­
institutional'. Extreme violence arises from institutions as much as
it arises against them, and i t is not possible to escape this circle by
'absolute' decisions st1ch as choosing between a violent or a non­
violent politics, or between force and law. The only 'way' out of the
circle is to invent a politics of violence, or to introduce the issue of'
 ,·11 l'RI·:l•ACI·:

vio{1,11r1'. its f'orms ,111<! li111its, its rq.\°1ilatio11 and pcrvcr,c clfr:cts mt
agents thcn1sclvcs, i,1/0 t/11' rollffj,t rwrl /nm'lil'f' o/ pnl.itir� (whereas,
Lrnclitio11ally. the '<'sscnn·' oJ" politics wa, either n·pn·sc11Led a, Lhc
ab,0l11Lc 11cgation ol violence, or idc11tilicd with its 'lcgitimaLe'
use). In p;1rtinilar, it 111c,111s i11trnd11ci11g the issue of'viokncc ;ind a
straLcgv of' anti-violence into c111,rncipatory politics itself, which h,1s
led me Lo s11ggcsL elsewhere tl1,1t 'civili1.i11g th<' rcvolutio11' n1ight be
a precondition for 'civilizing tlie st,ttc'.
A politics ol viok11cc, or ,l politics of civility /the s,unc thing
obversely f'orn1ula1cd), is 11ot sonH·thing th,u can he p11rsued solely
on the slrt,!.'J' ol glob,tli1.ation, where processes, 111otiv;itio11s and
interests arc supposed Lo he visible and 111<1nagcablc. I lowever
conl!ic1.11al or ,111Lago11istic, globali1.aLio11 tends Lo repn.:sc11t iLscll ,1s
a homogeneous process that combines ,!!,hw11 tl/.','f'lll'it'\ (initially econ­
omic forces, hut also innc,tsingly iclcologic;il ones) into a single
sysLcm ol' intcr,1ctio11s. Yet when we h,wc Lo deal with wh;it makes iLs
evolution unprcdictahlc and possibly uninLclligiblc, ghosts, devils
ancl virtual lorccs are not slow to make their c1111y. It was Lo help
escape this clilcmn1,1, which I found intolerable, that I sought an
analogy in the Frc11clia11 notion of 'the other scene'.
/ Freud uses this cxprcssio11 (which comes from Fech11er) several
times, notably in Tfu, lntr1JnFlalio11, oj /)rntm.1. It contributes Lo a
model ol' the 'rnc11tal apparat 11s' in wltich processes or repression of
desire and tlte rcu1rn of the repressed in 'regressive' form can be
'locatcrl' and dynamically assc1nblccl.'-, Drawing on this represe11ta­
Lion or the t's.1Pnlial ltl'iemgenl'ily or psychic processes t.o express the
no less essential heterogeneity or political processes allords several
possibilities, which I can only briefly indicate here.
A firsl possibility would be to draw aLt.ention t.o the amount or
infor111ation that is either structurally inaccessible LO, or cleliherat.ely
concealed from, collect.ivc agents on Lite world stage. IL is n1ercly a
seeming paradox that this phenomenon has progressed enormously
in the 'information age', when the domimml powers have learnl LO
replace the old practice ol secrecy l_arrn.1111. i111/11:riiJ by the 111a11ip11la­
Lion or mass inl<>nnation (in wltich they, LOO, so111elin1es become
entrapped). Herc, the 'other scene' would mean that crncial deter­
minants oJ' our own action remain i11visiblc in the vc1y forms of
 PREFACE XIII

(tek)visibility, whereas we urgently require t.hern lo assess the

conjuncture or 'take sides' in conflicts where it. is possibk 11either
simply to aurilrnte the bheb or _j11stice ,1nd injustice, nor to rise
'above the fray' in the name of some superior clctcrmination or
history. Although this is not the.:: precise sense in which I w;t11l to
clcwlop the idea, 1 by no means cxcluclc it, if 011ly because it offers
us a di1·ect. lra11sitio11 1.0 the idea that the otlt.n s1P111' oJ politics is ,1lso
tlir' scrnr' of tli1: olfu,1; where the visible-inco111prc.::hensiblc victims ,lllcl
e11cmics are located at. the level or 1;u11asy. Secrecy, cou11t.cr­
infon11ation ,rnd Lt11tas111atic ot.lien1css 111t1st have some conlll1011
root; at least they produce conjoint effects.
But the 'other scene' c01tld also mca11 somcthi11g 11101-c abstract,
which restores a11 essential pattern or historical explan,nion. In a
sense, clrawi11g aucntio11 lo the other scene and i11dicati11g its
capacity to determine the.:: co11rse of hist .oricd events was exactly
what Marx was doing when he urged revolutionaries and, more
ge11erally, rational minds to turn away Crom the 'apparc11t scene' or·
politics, structured by discourses and ideas/icle,tls, and un:ul'i/, the
'real scene' or cco11omic processes, the cleveloprncnt oJ cipitalism
and class struggle. As readers may notice, I have a certain tendency
to invert this /JC/.Uern - not LO return Lo the idea that 'ideas drive
history', but to emphasize the fact that 'material' processes arc
themselves (over- and under-) cletenninecl by the processes or the
imaginary, which have their ow11 very effective materi,tlity and need
to be unveiled. I have,-asjt. were, made the imaginary the 'infrastruc­
ture of the infrastructu1·e' itself, stani11g with the idea that all forces
which interact in the economico-political realm are also collective
groupings, and consequently possess an (ambivalent) imaginary
identity. fn this way, 1 have implicitly suggest.eel that recognition of
the other scene is theoretically associated with the rejection, not. or
class antagonisms and the structure or capitalism, hut 0Lu1 absolute
'last instance', and with the adoption of a bruad (hence heteroge­
neous) concept of materiality. But I have also run the risk of purely
and simply identif)1ing the political other scene with the scene or
imaginary collective processes and their uncouscious determinants.
This is not exactly what I want t.o suggest. here. The other scene that
emerges with the conjunction of several forms of extreme violence,
 xiv PREFACE

such as absoluLc mass iinpoverishn1e11L ,u1cl suicidal or cxLerrni11ist

policies, is no llHffC an idl'olop,-irnl-i111ap;iuwy Lhan an eco11011tiro-socinl
scene: iL precisely involves an inlcrlcn:ncc of their respcclivc logics
and Lheir 'normal' inst.iu1tional articulaLion, procl11ci11g an cffccL of
strangeness and a disruption or subjectivi Lies.
Whal I call Lhe olhcr scene (perhaps I should also say the other
srnwrio) i� thus not. so rnuch a concrete or theoretical place,
alt.hough <lisLincL places arc necessary ror its const.itulion, as Lhe
111.0111ml where it. b1'1'0111es 111.aniji,sl Lhal politics is noL 'raLional' (buL is
noL simply 'irraLiom1I' eiLhcr): panicularly because both institutions
and cou11Ler-i11sLiLuLio11s (wiLl1out which there is 110 collective prac­
Lice, buL also no individual lif"e) include Lhe perrnancnl possibiliLy
of <lesLruct.ion and selfdcsLruct.ion. Death drives arc involved here,
but. so arc oLhcr forms or Lite 'negative' thaL ought Lo be reckoned
worse than cleat.It, or th,11. eng;igc history in regressive processes
(such as the 'nccessiLy' ror capiLalism to 11eut.rali,.e ,uid eliminate
whole populations rather Lhctn including t.hcn1 i11 prnductive pro­
cesses Lhat would also increase their capaciLy for resistance and
political strnggle); or in 'trau1nalic' rcpctiLions (such as Lite Lra11s­
l<>rn1aLio11 or victims or Lhcir descendants into cxccuLioncrs, and
/ the endless cycle olattack and rclaliatio11 L11al the New World Order
seems Lo set. in Lrain). AL st1ch a ti rnc, the neccssiLy or reco11stiLll ting
political practices confro11t.s more clil'liculLies ,uid 1111ccrtai11Lics. But
Lile meaning or collective agency is c11ha11ced rather Lhan dimin­
ished, because il faces addiLio11,tl Lasks, s11ch as i11ve11ti11g new ideas
of" co111111unit.y ihaL have 110 guarantee I)! being )ust.', or - as I said
above - civilizing the revolution in order LO civili,.e the state. Tints
such a political praclice 11<>l only demands cum111iL111ent, int.elli­
gcncc and efforl. IL seems t.o involve a t.rngic din1ensio11, derivi11g
fr0111 Lile f"aCL Lhat. men and women set. themselves goals that they
arc never certain will 11ot. destroy Lhc1n, while they arc precisely
st. ruggli11g against a1111ihilation. 'Pessimism of" Lite i111.clligc11cc, opLi­
mism or the will', as Crnmsci wrote. Another 11ame for phmnesis? I
leave it. Lo Lhe editors lo decide.

hvine, 19.Januruy 2002

 PREFACE xv

Notes

I. /,11, C:m.i11il' riv, 111ass1•s. l'oliti1111,, ,,1 /1/1.ilo.m/1/ii,• 11.vrwt l'l 11/m\ M11.rx. Paris: Calilt'e
l\l97.
2. /Jroil r/1• ril,;. C11//11/'/' ,,1 /mliliq11,• ,•11 r1,;111ormli,,. l .a Tour cl'Aig11es: Ecli1ions de
l'A11be l�l\J8.
'\. In a delibera1e play on words, I called it (11,alilmti, which is 110L really
Lra11slatahle.
4. All t.he essays in this book were writlcn before' 11 Scp1cmhn·, and I have nut
changed a word in 1hcm. Or - t.o lake up ;1 highly pertinent sllggcs1ion by
l111ni.mucl vVallcrst.cin (ill his Ch;llks R. l.awrc11cc II Mc. 1norial l.cctllrc,
Brnuklyn College, r, Dccen1bcr 200 I: 'America all(I t.hc World: The Twin
Towers as Metaphors') - t.hcy were wri1ten be1wecn 1.wo clat:cs whose ·coinci­
dence' rcprcsent.s ,lll amazing symbol: 11 Sep1c1nber 1973 (1hc Pinochet.
coup i11 Chile, seerningly prepared i11 close co-opcrat.ion wit.h 1he US govcrn­
n1e111, wi1h t.lwusands or vicLirns) and JI September 200 I (1he cles1.rnc1io11 ol'
1.hc World Trade Cent.er in Manhat.1.an, apparen1ly prepared by a secret
1erroris1 organiz;!lion root.cd in Saudi Arabia and oLhcr Islamic coumries,
wi1h 1.ho11sands of'vict.ims).
!J. Sec 'f'/", .'itr/.llr/11.rrL Fdition. o/ 1hr Com/htl' l'.,y,-!wlogimL Wmk1 11/ .'iig/1/./1.//.ll hrnrl,
I .ondo11 1958, vol. V, pp. 5'.�5 ll.
 3
Ambiguous Identities'

l1nernatiom1lism or Barbarism

111 the space of a few years or months, the question of nationalism,

which seemed merely a matter or historical interest, or appeared to
survive in most regions of' the world only as a remnant of a previous
age (which amounts to much the same thing), has become the ccnLral
question or politics and the social sciences. Around that question we
have seen a prnlileration of' debates, diagnoses, publications a11ct
genealogies. While the ending of' the great conf'rontation between
East and West., which ranged virtually transnational world systems
against each other, seemeel necessarily to mark the 'encl ofideologies',
we are seemingly now approaching a point where, i11 eve1y counuy,
the crucial question will he whether 011c is for or against. 11ationalism
or, more exactly, lor or against a particular form or nationalism or
critique or nationalisn1. Where, not so long ago, the works or Marx,
Keynes a11d Hayek were being pored over, it is now the theoris1s of
cultural a11d political nationalism -1 lcrdcr, Fichte, Ma1.zini, Rcnan -
who arc studied in the search for keys to historical i11tcrpretation.
At the sarne tirne, tho11gh it is not easy to say which is cause and
which efkct, economic a11d social limns or explanation (i11cludi11g
the Marxian thco1·y of classes and class struggle) and the politico­
juridical theories of democracy and the Hecltlsstrw.l, and so 011, arc
either pushed into the background or c.1llcd 11pon to account for
the national and nationalist 'phenomenon'.
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTJTIES '.i7

With this displacement of the ideological scene, t.he1·c is one

word we now encounter everywhere. That word is idr,ntity. The
prototype ol" identity is, it sce111s, national - ii' not, indeed, ·ethnic'
- identity. All sociology is becorning, or reverting back to, the
sociology or ide11titics (in other words, it is beco111ing, or 1·evening
back to, psychosociology): linguistic identities, religious identities,
class identities. And the great. question or the moment is how these
various identities present obstacles - or <1dd dimensions - to
national idc11tity.
f myself am, therefore, also going to attc111pt to propose the
outlines or an analysis of identities - or rat.lier, or the vc1y concept
or collective identity. In so doing, rny central a1·gumcllt will be,
paradoxically, that there is no idc11tity which is 'sell�iclentical'; that rtll
identity is .J11,ndmnentally a-mbig11.01.ts. ff these outlines arc Lo be prop­
erly understood, however, some preliminary (if not, indeed, precau­
tionary) remarks arc 1·equired on the very possibility or talking
somewhere in the world, in such a way that one will be listened to,
about nationalism. Furthermore, the search for a logic ol" the
ambiguities of identity will lead me LO formulate some theoretical
propositions on the nation-fonn itself', and on cuJTcnt variations or
racism. fn conclusion, 1 shall atternpt to give my opinion 011 the
question which, implicitly, underlies many cu1Tc11t debates: has the
nalion/dass alternative, the choice between nationalism a11d class
ideology (one of the main forms of which is socialisrn), entirely lost
its explanatory function and its historically discriminating value
today?

Let us begin by restati11g an obvious point, though one th,tt is sadly

often forgoucn: wherever one talks abot1L nationalis111, and however
one talks about it, one is necessarily in an awkward position, since
one is necessarily the bu11·cr ol" a particular nationalism, and
potentially opposed lo another. More than in other fields or ideol­
ogy, there is no neutral position or discourse here, no way of being
'above the fray'. Every position is partial in both senses. IL is partial
_-,-, ---------
58 POLITICS AND Tl IE OTI !ER Sc:1,:NI'.:

nut merely as a sland fi!r . or rlgai11sl a pa1·1icular 11a1ionalis111, the

nationalism of a part .icuhr nation, and hence, 11lt.in1at.cly, for or
againsl a panicular rn11io11 i1sclr (since, as we shall sec, each nation
is one with iLs own 11at.io11alis111), but panial also as an auernpl LO
define naLionalis111. We arc already deep i11Lo ,1111i>iguity here since,
on Lhc one hand, there is an absol111c formal si1nilariLy ,trnong all
nationalisms, a unifonnizing, compeliLivc mimicry; and, 011 t.hc
other, cvc1·y nation - or in other words, every m1t.ionalism - has an
absolutely singular way of' defining nationalism and, in particular,
or projccti ng it 011 to others ( nationalism is an essentially /Hojertive
ideology). fn these conditions, ii is highly likely that any ddinit.ion
of nationalism will be unacceptable to its addressees, since it
confronts them with Ll1eir own misrecognitio11 of themselves.
Docs t.his mean that. nationalisrn cannot. be analysed objer:tivtly?
No, undoubtedly it docs not, ,my 111<ffe than this would apply to any
social phenomenon, since objcct.ivit.y in t.his case does not 111ean t.he
a fniori reduction of n,1t.ion,1lis111 t.o so111e 'material base' or 'psycho­
logical mechanism', but the histo1·ical st11dy of it.s constitution, its
part.iutlar forllls and its i111.cract.io11 wit.h other social phenomena.
However, objcclivit.y c;11111ol be equaled here with t.he mere presup­
position or a universalistic stanclpoin1. The Jmrtirnlari.on (or exccp-
./ tionalism) displayed by each 11ationalislll leads easily to the idea
that the 'st.a11dpoi11t' required to analyse it must be a universalistic
one; but it is immediately app,trent that every nationalism has within
it an element. of' universalism, a lllore or less messianic claim to
universality, whereas every thcorclical universalism (religious, sci­
entific or social) always contains a hidden panicularism.
The situation or Marxism is parlicularly interesting in t.his con­
nection !or the acuteness of' the contradiction which shows up
within it.. In basing itself on a historical perspective - more parlicu­
larly, the perspective of the class struggle - it rnight. seem that.
Marxism could find t.hc 'Arcl1imeclean point': the if not supra­
national, t.hcn at least extra-national, standpoint (a point or view
simultaneously distant and ycL internal lo the movement of history)
from which lo get beyond rnere mirror-play with nalionalism. To
do so is, in fact, a key issue for it., yet we know t.hat the analysis and
consideration of nationalism have been the real blind spot or
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITIES

historical, theoretical and p1·actical Ma,xisrn. There a,·e lwo reasons

for this which are diametrically opposed: on the one hand, econo­
rnism, which Marxislll sh,ll'es with its .Ji-r:11' 1'111/nni liberalisrn, and
which causes it to reganl any ideology, any s11bjective constn1nio11
othe,· than its own 'class consciousness', as a 'supe1·stn1nure' (in a
sense, the blindness of Marxism 011 t.he origins and development or
nationalism is strictly correlative with its blindness regarding the
mechanisms of class consciousness - which points to the need to
study the two things together); on the other hand, there is the f�tct
that all historical Marxisms, whethe1· embodied in a party <ff a stale,
have, in the very Jc>nns or their int.enialionalism, been steeped in
nationalism in the broad sense (including the ext.c11dcd nationalism
that is Western ethnocentrism or its antithesis, Third-Worlclism).
I shall make a brief' topical observation here, as we arc cunctllly,
with the 'end of the Cold War', corning out or a period of
confrontation between the two great rival blocs and idcologic,tl
systems (the two 'world-views') which have do111inatcd politicd
analysis for two or even three generations. Each or these prcsc11t.ccl
itself as supra-national, as an i11tcr11ationalisrn, for there was a liberal
internationalism just as there was a socialist inteniaLionalism. It is,
however, doubtful whether the 'blocs', inasllluclt as tltcy wen_'
mutually exclusive and rn·ganized arou11cl slat e constructions, round
any other cement li>r their i1nernation,tlisn1 titan an expanded,
loosened-up form of' nationalism. Liberal inten1ationalisn1 was itt
many rcspccLs a v\!estcr11 nationalism, just as socialist i1nen1ation;tl­
ism was a Soviet nationalism, caclt with its dissident lllove111c11ts.
This tells us sometiting very i tllport,lll l. Although natio11,tlis111 was
historically, institutionally and even 'organically' linked to a ccrt,tin
type or social and historical formation wltich we may call tlte 11a1io11-
slate (either· as the reflection of its existence 01· as the precondition
of its constitution), it c,111 also operate on otltcr scales: 110L just
smaller, 'local' scales, whether al the level of' administrative or
cultural entities, but larger, 'global' scales, dctcnnincd at once by
tradition and the particular co�junclure. There are, at least in the
contemporary world, both infra-national nationalisms and supra­
national nationalisms, so to speak. This suggests that nationalism is
both the expression of certain social structures and, in a relatively
 60 POI.ITICS AND Tl IF OT! !FR SCENE

au10110111m1s way, a spccifie srJi,,11w or idcolog-ical consLill Ition, of'

co111mu11,tl co11strucLio11, of' conflicL11,tl proclucLion and recogniLion
or collecLivc iclcnLiLics. I lowevcr, Lhe salllc cxalllplc, forced upon 11s
by currcnL cvcnls (and we would make the same observations wiLh
rq�ard LO lllorc specific 11;1Lionalisllls), shows LhaL Lhcre is ver·y
sclclon1 - perhaps never - a 'pure' naLionalism, a f'uncLioning of' the
ideological schema of' 'assembling [mssemb!m,mtJ •� in a purdy
national - Lhat is to say, a pu1·ely poliLical - way.
Each of Lhc two gn:at supra-nationalisms was imbuul, in its way,
with religious messianism anci class ideology or 'class consciousness',
though not necessarily along Lhc lines most usually recognized. For
example, one of Lhe clifficult.ics which 1nosL of'tcn stands in the way
of' recognition of (North) American n,1tio11alism, both f'rorn the
inside and f'rorn the outside, is the fact that. it is a very powerful
bourgeois class nationalislll (the 'American Way of' Life' or, in other
words, the absoh1Le prilllacy of competitive individualism and the
dogma of' its hum,111 superiority), at Lhe same time as it constitutes
a prime instance of' the idea of' the 'chosen people' (chosen to save
the world and fight 'Evil'). We can sec here that the universalistic
components of' nationalism arc probably indissociable from rela­
tions which nationalism, as an ideological schema, maintains histor­
/ ically with othe1· such schemas that seem opposed to it, such as
religious, social or class universalism. And, to conclude this point,
we might suggest that, paradoxically, the most purely 'national'
internationalism, but also the least cl'fcctivc during the same µeriocl,
has been that of' t.he third potential supra-national entity, which has
altcmpted t.o carve our a place for itself· alongside the two we have
already mentioned: the Third-Worldism of' Nehrn, Tito, Nasser and
Nkrumah, as a11 alliance between all the political, economic and
cultural ;national liberation' n1ovcrnc11ts.
I have rehearsed these arguments at length as a way of' hi11ting at
another proposition. One of' L11e great dif'ficultics with which any
analysis of' nationalism is faced is wh,IL I shall call the i11Lcrplay
between invisible and (over-)visible nation,tlisrns, which is inextri­
cably entangled with the division between clominant and clorninatccl
nationalisms or, more precisely, between nationalisms which
express and consolidate domination and those which express and
 AMBIGUOUS JDENTITIES 61

consolidate resistance. Between these there is clearly - !"rom the

political and ethical viewpoint, and also rrorn the standpoint of
their historical role - a funclarncntal asymmetry. There is also
necessarily some degree of imitation. It cannot be 1ne1·cly acciden­
tal, Jen- example, that Black Amc1·icans' greatest el"fc:in to conceive
of themselves as a 'national' movc111e11t like other liberation rnove­
rnents coincided with the Vietnam War and, generally, with the
high-water mark or the imperial assertion of 'white' Alllerican
nationalism.
Except where they come into conflict with each other·, dominant
or oppressive nationalisms arc generally 'invisible' as 1rntionalis1ns,
at least to themselves; they present themselves, rather·, as political
and cultural universalisrns in which religious and economic crnnpo­
nents may coexist. Conversely, one is tempted to say that, at least in
a certain per·iud, nationalisms or political and cultural 1·esistance to
imperial, colonial or foreign central domination arc generally ·ovcr­
visible' in that, on the one hand, they arc gcncrnlly blind to those
causes and determinations that do not stem frolll the problem or
the nation, and, 011 the other, they tend to s11bsume within thclll­
selves, particulady by way of the catcgrn-y or c11ltu1·e or 'culwral
identity' - as a metaphor for national ident ity - all the other·
ideological schemas, both social ancl religious. It is true that this
can change. The fact that, in the p1·ese11t co1(juncture, many or the
world's national movements are moving from a secular to a religious
register is undoubtedly both the symptom or a great shift in the
present conjuncture, a crisis of" the dominant representations 01·
politics (in which all identity-based movements, incl11ding the long­
est-standing, will have to redefine themselves), ancl pr·oof" that the
relationshijJ between the social and communal components, and
between the diflerent communal schemas, is nevc,- established once
and for all, despite what might have been tho11gln in the m1111c of a
certain ideology of 'moclen1ity', itself closely linked to the clomin,t11L
nationalisms.
 62 POLITICS AND THE OTHER SCENE

II

What these considcrntio11s show is that the first task facing us is not
to judge nationalisms and na1ion,tlism in general, but Lo underswnd
it or, in other words, rationally LO an,tlyse its specificity. And, though
it cannot be dissoci,1tcd rrom researching into the causes or nation­
alism in the course or history and in a particular conjuncture, this
Lask cannot. simply he reduced to such research. It has a philosoph­
ical or anthropological dimension to it, which concerns, above all,
the specifically national pauern or community or the mode of
subjective iclcntificat.ion which links the constillltion or the individ­
ual personality Lo the nation, LO national institutions or Lo the idea
or nation.
The question or the j11.dgr11wnt to he passed on nationalism iu a
particular conjuncture is clearly unavoicfable in practice. This much
I conceded above when I ref'crrcd Lo the difference between
dominant. and dominated nationalisms. One might further illustrate
it by rcf'crencc Lo the current constitution of a 'European' nation­
alism. Nationalism in gcncrnl, nation,tlism as such, is neither good
nor had; it is a historical form l'or interests and struggles which are
0/1/Josili: in clutrrtr:ler. But the co11_junctnrc requires that we make
choices. And these choices are often difficult, because the domi­
nant, 'hegemonic' nationalisms may include a non-11egligiblc gain
in terms ol' universalism (what they themselves Lenn 'civilization'),
while the dominated nationalisms, whether cth11ic or religious in
lone, inevitably include a tendency towards cxclusivism, ii' not
indeed Lo actual exclusion, all the greater for the fact that they arc
fighting against uniformity. This is why it is important Lo have al
our disposal instrume11ts of' analysis which are not neutral, but
comparative.
As for the question or causes - of' why, in a p,u-Licuhff conjuncture
(for example, in Europe today, from West LO East) national move­
ments are multiplying at all levels - this brings us back, in the last
analysis, to the question of the historicity of lhe nation-state and the
nation-form itself It is impossible to expound the argument fully
here (I have attempted LO do so elsewhere'), but it is necessary to

-
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITIES 63

take a stand on a numbe1· or major issues. Aft.er the great debaLes

or the nineteenth century, the question of what relationship per­
tains between state and '/1(/tion is currently receiving renewed atten­
tion in an entirely new context characterized by an
internationalization or 'globalization' which initially affects econ­
omic life and corn111t111ication systems, the circulation of goods,
people and information, but is also extending inevitably to military
apparatuses, legal systems, and so 011.
\l\1hat do we sec? A renewed tendency to regard nation-building
as (or as potentially) relatively inclepenclent of the construction of
the state, but this tendency takes two opposing forms. On the one
hand, we have a proposal to dissociate 'citizenship' more or less
completely from 'nationality' (in other words, to separate the right
to politics [dmit Ct la fwlitiqu.e] from exclusive rncmbership of a
nation-state). On the other, the contention is that 'the nation
should be separated frorn the state' in a manner comparable,
1nutatis mutmulis, to the 'separation of Church and State'. We can
sec, here, that these arc, in the encl, opposing perspectives, the
latter being formally conservative (globalization at last makes it
possible for nations to acquire their autonomy, as cultural entities,
frorn states), the forn1c1· li>nnally progressive (globalization will
once and for all r·educe the importance of the exclusive criterion or
nationality, noLjust in Lhc economic and cultural spheres, but also
in politics).
111 rcaliLy, it is noL certain that the notion or nation-building is
understood in an 1marnbiguous sense here. This is what makes it all
the more necessary, in my view, t. o rcalfii 111 the historical connecLion
between the lclrm or the rn1tio11 (and hence or the natio11,d 'com­
munity' and ideology, or nat.iomdisrn) and a ccnain form or stale
(which we may term bow;gnJis, provided that we do not take this
notion to be identical to that or a pw·e mjJit(/list stat.c. I shall come
back to this point). The Lranslormation of the nation-form ancl the
rclativii'.ation of the nation-state cannot, then, consist or a mere
separaLion: they necessarily entail a redefinition, a recomposition -
both of the state itself (the history of t.he state is not at an end,
contrary to the beliefs of such very great minds as Hegel and Marx
and such very limited ones as Fukuyama) and of society (or, if the
 64 POI.ITICS AND THE OTIIER SCF.NF.

reader prckrs, or lhc conrn1uni1y and lhc colkClivi1y ;1s forms and
silcs or 'the political').
To say lhal m1lio11alism is, generiecilly, the organic ideology of
the nation-slate lll", lllurc precisely, ot· the ((f!/ ol' the 11a1io11-slale as
dominant ron11, is no\ lo say lhat all 1rn1io11alisms �11-c statisl, any
more than all ideologies and religious movcrnenls were so in an
earlier .ige. Nor is it lo say that the bourgeois slate operates only 011
the basis or m\lionalisrn. ll is, however, lo say that all nationalisms
stand in a. ·1pla.J.ion l.o the nation-slale. That is to say, they serve it,
cont.est it or reproduce it. Arn\ this makes m1tionalisrn lhe Funda­
mental agent or lhe spread or this form, which, as we know, is in no
way imposed everywhere at the same time, or in the same way, by
\' the capitalist ernn.0111.y. It is also whal enables us to undersland why
:,,� nationalism changes scale - why 'int·ra-nationa\isrns' and 'supra­
I nalionalisms', viable or olherwise, are st.ill nationalisms.
,,,
,1 What do we mean when we talk aboul the hisl.oricit.y of' I.he nalion­
J<mn, or or the form of the nat. ion-stat.e? Essentially, we are lalking
about two things which go hand in hand.
First, there have in hislory been other slate .Jr.n ms and even,
potentially, olhcr 'bourgeois' state Forms (such as lhe cily-slal.e or
the empire). And the problem or such allcrnatives in no sense
belongs lo the past: the same rorms, u·,u1sl'ormecl to a grc;t\.cr or
lesser cxLcnl, are reappearing today as '111cta-national' forms. More­
over, Lhere has in history been ·moni than one roule to Lhe building
or 11alions - ro11lcs leading to the 'nationalization' or socieLy by the
slate. And there is still a grcal divide between the 'nalions' o[ lhe
cenlre ancl the 'nations' or the global pcriphny. But this divide
(which renders problematic the unambiguous use of the lcrm
'n.1l.io11' as the name ror a social formaLion) merely serves to
highlighl even more the hegemony or Lhe ·cenlral' form:' ll is,
precisely, lhc paradox or histo1·ical 'liberation' ;md 'development'
movements lhat they have sough1 10 abolish lhis division by making
the periphe1--y (or, lo use Wallerslcin's lcrrninology, the 'scmi­
periphcry') the new liclc\ ror lhe expansion and regeneration or
the central t'orrn it.sell'.
Second, Lhis l'orn1 is neither so111elhing nalural, nor something
stable (not to say lixcd). ll is a process or reproduction, ol' pcrma-
 AMBICUOUS lDENTITIES GS

ne11L ·m-1'slablish:111Pnl or the nation. The n,uionali,.ation or society to

which we have n.:f'enccl - the administrative (dcce11trali1.atio11/
cenlntli,.ation), eco11ornic a11d cultural (mainly schooling-related)
aspects or which we could describe - p1Tsents itself' historio1lly as a
task that can never be cornplet.ccl. The nation is, ulti11mtely, a11
iinf1ossible entity, which c,111 never entirely achieve its ideal, ancl it is
as such - that is to say, as a problem - that it is rm/. An impossible
task culturally, for 'multi-ethnicism' and 'rnulticulturalis1n' arc pres­
ent from the out.set a11d are consta11tly re-forming themselves."' An
impossible task economically, since the 'i11tegral distribution' or
hurnan beings and 1-esollrces betwee11 national units is in no sense
a tendency or capitalism: at most, it is a mca11s or its political
'reproduction' or its 'hegemony' (which once agai11 u11dcrli11es the
distinction between the theoretical notio11s or rn/1ill/.lis111. and /Jow·­
geois society or domination).
In these co11ditio11s, the nationalization or society is a process of'
specific statization. But it is also a co·111./Hmnise - 1101. just a more or
less stable compromise between classes, but a compromise between
the two 'principles' themselves: between the principle or 11atio11ality
and that or class st.rnggle. This is the first great !'actor or ambiguity
in national identities and class identities, a11cl a corollary or their
reciprocal determination.
Nowhere is this arnbiguity more apparent than in the_joint crisis
of these identities we are seeing today. Let 11s remain, !'01 the
moment, at the centre of the system: the effccL'i of globali1.,1tion Gill
be felt everywhere, but it. is at the centre (where the effects ot'social
polarization and pauperization ,:ll'C lo some degree suspended,
where 'man does not live by brc,1d alone' - 01· by oil) that the
ideological dimension shows itself most prominently. The political
crisis (which the end of the East-West confro1n.1tio11 is going to
open up, and which is going to arise i11 'the co11structiu11 or Europe'
a1·ound the crucial question: what is !he /11,0/1/1'? - ls lhffe a 1c·uro/1m11
peof,le, and not_just a European lxmk or European borders?) is not
merely a crisis of the stale in gcn<.'.ral, nor even or the 'bourgeois
state' we have just referred to. It is a crisis or the 1iltimatc form
assumed by that 'bourgeois state' which has been rdcncd to as the
'Welfare Slate' or, in French,' l'l�lal-h-ovirlmre' (religion and ccono111y
66 POLITICS AND TllE OTHER SCENE

once again), and which 011ghL more rigorously Lo he described as

Lhe 11.ationnl-sorial slal11. ln other worcls, it is a crisis or the relative
intcgraLion or the class struggle, ancl classes themselves, into - and
hy - the nation-form. This is why it is propedy a crisis or hegemony in
Cramsci's sense, in which phcnomcn,1 or class decomposiLion (both
from above and from below) antl phenon1ena or vacillating national
ic\cntity occur, leading Lo son1e potent nationalist reactions (I would
prekr to say: potent reactions on the part ol" nationalisrn, character­
ized by the fact that the 'c\0111ina11t' nationalisms themselves become
cldensive in this process ancl, thus, internally aggressive).

III

We may now return to the problem of identity an<l its national

pattern. ls there, properly speaking, a mode or constitution ol'
individual and collective identity that is specifically naLiona\?
We must, I think, study this quest.ion .11. the deepest. level: not al
the level of the mere discourses or the co11111nmit.y (mythical,
historical or \itcr,1ry grancl n.1rratives), nor even t.hc level or collec­
tive symbols or representations," hut the \eve\ of the production of
individ1wlity itse\L In what. way is the national-form linked LO the
product.ion ol" a certain type or 'human being' (and or being a
human being in the wor\c\), which we mighL Lcrm Homo 1wlionalis
(alongside / fo111.o rl'ligio.rns, I lo1110 onm101nirns, et.c.f:' Or, in more
philosophical language, whaL is the relationship ol' sci[ to sci[,
conscious ,me\ unconsciot1s, involving both t.hc inclividual pcrson­
aliLy and the co111111unity, which here produces Lhe sense of" /J1,lrmging
iu the Lhree senses or the Lenn (the individual's belonging to the
comrnunity, but also - and this is no less esscnli,11, as the theme of
'national prcrercnce' shows - the community's bc\011ging to individ­
uals and lo 'national' groups, and he11ce the mutual se11se ol'
belonging between inclivic\uals)?
We must stress once again, against 'holistic' or 'organicist'
myths, that every identity is indivirliw.l. But every individualily is
more Lhan individual, and other than individual. It is immediately
lran.sinclivirlunl, made up of representations or 'us', or of the relation
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITIES 67

between self and othc1·, which are formed in social relations, in

daily - public and private - activities. To sec this, one need only
look back to Althusser's <lcscription or the Lrn1ily or or schooling
(the great 'ideological state apparatuses').
ln this connection, l shall put forward three f"u11damental ideas:
1. There is no giv1m identity; thc1·e is only idenlifirntio11. That is Lo
say, there is only ever an uneven process and prcc;1rious construc­
tions, requiring symbolic guarantees or varying degrees of" intensity.
Identification comes from others, and continues always to
depend on others. Who arc these others? How do they 'respond'�
And are they even in a position Lo respond? (Hci·e, m,nerial
conditions - for example, conditions or social inequality ,md exclu­
sion - have their full impact.) But this loop of" ide11tity has as a
precondition - and operates within - historical i-n!;/itutio-ns (notj11st
official, dominant institutions, but also revolutiona111 institutions:
this is why 'anti-systemic movements' equip themselves with anti­
institutions Lo constitute their 'identity', ami-instilutions on which
their sustainability and relative autonomy depend). 7
Institutions reclnce the multiplicity or complexity or identifica­
tions. But do they suppress that multiplicity in such a way as LO
constitute one single identity? It seems to rne that one can assen
that this is 'normally' im,1Jossiblr1 even though it is,just as 'nornially',
,

required. There is a double-/Jinrl here. This is where the basis of the

problem of 'multicultural' (multinatiomil, rnultircligious, etc.)
society lies: not simply in the pluralism of the state, but in the
oscillation for each individual between the two equally impossible
extremes or absolutely sirnple identity and the infinite dispersal or
identities across multiple social relationships; it lies in the dif'liculty
of treating oneself as different from oneself", in a potential r·elation
LO several forms of 'us'. Given this situation," pan, at least, of" each

person's identity seems given.

2. Identification, constrained in this way, itself" oscillates con­
stantly between two great modalities of behaviour, between two
poles which are inseparable, but in a state of unstable equilibrium.
We find the two combined in what the philosophy of history and
the social sciences of the bourgeois epoch (that is to say, the
68 POLITICS AND TIIE OTHER SCENE

national epoch) have termed 1"11./ture.H Now, any definition o[ culture

always ultimately combines the same two categories o[ distinctive
characteristics:
• customary or riluo/ c\i;iractcristics: this is the clement or
imagina1y 'similarity', exhibiting the individual's belonging to
the community ,ls a cornnHm, physical or spiritual, 'nature' or
·substance', alk:gcdly manil'cstcd in the resemblance or out­
ward appearance, behaviour al\d gesture;
• characteristics or helid or .JiLilh: this is the clcmclll or symbolic
'rraternity' which shows itse\l" above a\\ in the common
response (which is not ollly the same ror a\\, but is symbolically
proffered in commo11) lo ,\ tral\SCCll(lcnl appeal: the call of
Goel, the Fathcrlanct, the Rcvolutioll ancl so on. This is gener­
;11\y mediated (transmitted, repeated anc\ i11terprctcd) by
inspired, authorized voices which l,1y clown where duty lies
(which ultimately takes the rorm, for each illdividual, o[ his or
her own voice, in the sellsc or an inner voice of 'co11science').
Now, in the case or national idc11tity (or o[ m1tionalism in the
generic sense), there arc two basic ideological themes (giving rise
to a constant elaboration or discourses and n,1rratives specific to
each 'people' or 'nation') corresponding to each ol· these poles:
• on the one hand (that or the imagin,ll"y or ritual), what I have
termed Jirtiv1, elhnirily: no ll,11.ion rests historically on a 'pure'
ethnic base, but every nation, through its institutions, con­
structs a lictive ethnicity which distinguishes it from others by
pcrccptih\c (visible, audihlc, etc.) ma1·ks, by 'typical' or
·ernb\crnatic' behavioural traits, which may possibly be worked
up i111.o the aggravat.cc\ form or criteria for exclusion;
• on the other, /Jalriolism - that is to say, the nation as transcend­
ent cmnmunity, implying a common 'destiny', and al least
implicitly lillkecl lo the idea or ,1 transhistorical mission - the
salv,1tion or its members (which may he sublimated i11lo a
mission to save the whole or humanity, ii" need be 'from il!:ielr'),
having as its corollary 1.he duty or each i11dividual lo 'h,rncl oil'
from generation lo generation ,1 symbol which is the country's
'own' (pre-eminently the symbol of the language, but also that
of the national 'dream', etc.) Y
 AMBIGUOUS ]1)£NTITIES 69

The se t wo pole··s, tl1oug 11 quite . c1·I I·t·e1·ent in nature , c-11111

' ' l)' be
l >l 1-e·il
separated, s.·in ce. each, .Ill practi. ce,
.. n 1)e _ , g;u,wan tees' the oth e r l:',ul they
ca � unila
teral]Y accernu
. .. .. ne( 1 and exace1·lx1ted. ln the 011 e case
we co1ne , ti en , lo l1l<tl . suppleme
. - .
._ : nt of nat1011alis m th<1t is 1-aci 'i111 (be
It ps. eudo-bi
� ological or cultUl·al, 'differentialist' r,icism)· in ,he othe1-
wc co1ne to re]'tg;.·1ous or quas1-1·c\1g1ous '
. _ · · · nationalism:'" eithe1· the
alha n ce ol· nation alism with a religion which is in <.:!Teet a ·state
_ ,
rel1°·1 t:> on , or th� e p1··ocl ucllon
· · o.1· an 11111tat1011
· · · rcli u·ion (in many
respect<;, Fren ch ' secularism' is such a form). lt is �uit<.: ck,-11' that
these two 'excesses' may be equally clang<.:rous in difk,·<.:nt siwatio ns
(not to speak of their combination which, paradoxically, character­
ized Nazi sm).

3 . But - and this is our· third id<.:a - given the consta ntly
.
reactivated plurality of identification prnccss<.:s, then� is in the last
an alysis no identity (paniculady not as individual identity) without
the establishrnent of a hierarchy of commun al rcrcH:nces (and,
through this, of 'belongin g': the se1vant cannot have two equal
rnasters; he can only attempt to play on the two register-;).
Establishing a hierarchy or communal n:f'c1·cnc<.:s do<.:s no t mean
absorbin g their dive1·sity into the uniform stn1ctu1·c or a single
'totalitarian ' belonging. It m<.:ans, rath<.:r, constituting what we 11\cl)'
call - honowing on ce again from Gramsci's vocabula1y- a ht'{.!;r'IIIOII)'
within ideology itself. Historically, in the modern e1·a (which has iL<;
rooL5 deep in the 'Middle Ages'), it seems that two ideological
schemas (two patterns of 'total community' 01·, as Ernest Cc\\nc1·
puts it, of Termin al Court of Appeal'') ,md two alone could, in
competitive and alternating rash ion, become hegemonic in this way:
the sch ema of religion (I am thinking here paniculai-ly or the g,·eat
_
universal Western religions: Christianity and Islam) alld 1hat of
nationalism.
Each of these allows for the cons1n1ction or both a spiriiual and
a temporal edifice (in particular, the enshrinillg or 'mies' in a legal
system), capable of incorporating rites and beliefs, and hence or
creating a 'culture'. Each, in its own way, reconciles panicularism
with universalism, and produces a hierarchy or 'belongings' (and
thus or communal identities) by rorcing them - violclltl)' if need be
 70 POLITICS AND THE OTI !ER SCENE

- Lo be transformed, willwnl /;1,ing drstmynl (in precisely Lhis respect

Lhey differ f"rom totaliLarian domination - if" such a thing has ever
completely existed: precisely because all lasting domination o[
distinct, a11d 11, .fi11'liori antagonistic, social groups by an ideology
recp1i1·es 11u1diati1ms). Each of" these scl1en1as, competing historically
with Lhe oLhcr, prides itscll 011 a particular political achievement.:
religion 011 pacit)1ing Lhe nations and the relations beLween Lhem;
naLionalisrn on [i.)1-cing religions Lo show Lolerance.
u· this presentation is correct, we would have, then, to rectify the
error (suggested by a philosophy ol history which is itself very
closely linked to modern nationalism) which sees the destiny of
ideologies as following a li111mr course. In the event, this takes the
rorm of a process or gradual 'seculari,.ation' or 'disenchant111ent' or
societies and politics, which in practice 111eans the decline or
religion to the advantage of nationalism. History is certainly irrever­
sible, but it is not linear: the proof is that, before our very eyes, the
crisis of" hegemony or nationalism has just begun, whereas that of
religion (or of the universalism of a re.ligious type) is still ongoing
- and will probably continue to be so.

/ IV

Let us su1n up the arg11111ent so li1r, and draw some conclusions.

It is cliniculL to [incl ,111 external sLanclpoinL from which LO ddi11e
natio11alis111, to analyse the tra11sforn1,1tion or its functions and its
place i11 the world: hence the need to conrront it f"ron1 within, and
produce an immanent critique. This was our first point.
The nation-Ii.nm is historical thro11gh and through: this was our
second point. 13ut !lutl hislorir:ily ilsel/ /ws a hi.1Lmy: a history which
takes 11s wclay f"rom a classical configuration - characterized by the
opposition bet.ween 'dominant' a11cl 'dominated' natio11alisrns, and
hence also by political stnigglcs for and against the nationalization
of society (taki11g t.he form or class resistance or resist,tnce which is
itself national, and seldom totally independent) - tu a new configu­
ration characterized by the crisis of the national-social state, where
it exists;, and - where it has never really existed (that is Lo say, in the
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITIES 71

perip h ery) - by the no doubt even more serious crisis surrounding

the very /JrosfJect of its constructi on. 1 �
My third and last point was the inu·insic ambiguity and a1 11biva­
lence ofidentities. There is nothing nawral in the area or identity:
there is a process of identification or p1-od11ction of"fonns of"ltt1111an
individuality in history - a process related to the always-,tlrcady
given transind i vidual 'com111 unity' - by way of the co1nµlcmentary
paths of resemblance and sy111bolic vocation. A 11 cl this leads us to
note the irreducible plurality or the great ictcological schema<; or
construction of communal identity (or 'total' ideologies).
On this basis, we might attempt to situate historically a phenom­
enon such as current. racism or neo-racism, paniculal"ly in the 'Nest
and specifically in Eu1·opc. Even if, unarguably, nationalism is not
identical to racism, racism and neo-1-acisrn arc phenomena i n l!>rnal
to t he current history of nationalisms, as colonial rncism and anti­
Semitism were in the past (and we still sec active tmffs or these
today in what is te r·mccl neo-racisrn). Unarguably, too, racis1n is one
of the effects, and the most wonying symptom, or the crisis of the
national-soc i al state : it is linked LO the exclusion of the 'new poo1·',
lumped togeth er with those amoug them who bear the stigmata or
nat i onal or cultural extcriority (and also, secondarily, to resentment
of those 'foreigners' who, desp i te institutionalized 'national pref"cr­
ence', arc integrating into bou1-geois society). Lastly, it is a means,
both real and phantasmatic, or thei1· preventive 1,xdusion.
ln conclusion, racism clearly corresponds Lo a displacement of
t h e i dent i ty systern or nati onalism (of the representations and
discourses which enable it to produce i dentities and order them
h ierarchically) towards the pole of (fictive) ethnic i ty. But it also

corresponds to a transnationalization or national i sm iL-;elr. H ence

the exacerbation of claims of 'ethnic' difference both at the top
and bottom of society: in France, anti-Americanisrn i s combining
w i th anti-Arab sent i rnent. 1·' But th i s is occurring as part oL-1 strange
combination of part i cularism (the 'we' has to be purified) and
nostalgic uni versalism (evoking the lost paradise of the West, or
'European civilization').
It is at this point that the question of the ambiguous relationship
between national and class identities would seem to arise once
 72 POI.ITICS AND TIIE OTHER SCENE

again. I said t.hcy were clisniptcd, if 1101 indeed clcsi:rnyed, together by

globalization. It is rro111 within this context. that we should view this
question. The crisis or tltc 11atio11-st.alc, a11d exclusion-related
phenomena, arc occurring as aspects of' ,in cxtraorclinarily co11tra­
dict0Jy cha11gc in world history: for the first. time a hum,mity
effectively unified (cco11omiu1lly and tccli11ologically), in imumliale
r01mnunimtim1 from one end or the planet to the other (including
miliwrily), has begun to exist. But for the first time, also, social
polarization is assuming the form of' a worldwide division between
rich and poor, a disparity in wc,tlth within a single social formation.
There are 110 longer any t'xter11u . l exclusions; the trend is solely
towards intenutl exclusions. But they ,trc dralllatic exclusions, so
violent that they revive and widely disseminate naturalistic represen­
tations or the suµcrma11 and the suhhulllan. And we have not even
men tio11cd all those who arc 1wsure of tltrir Jilat:t' (now and, crucially,
in the f'u111rc): the foot soldiers of every 'populislll'.
Class consciousness has never been wholly separate from nation­
alism. Although it was intended to be an alternative, it has in fact
been imbued with it (the history ol' the USSR and of 'real socialism'
in g·eneral provides a dr,tmatic illustration of' this). Class conscious­
ness maintains an ambivalc11L relationship even with racism. On t. he
/ one hand (a historical aspect which is too oftc11 underestimated),
'proletarian' class co11scious11ess was a rnilita,n reaction to the
positive class racism directed at European workers in the nineteenth
century (which is still with us today). /nit'l'IWlio11rtlism took some or
its foundations (and the sources or its practiecd humanism) from
the struggle ag,tinst the excessive (i.e. rncist) forms of nationalism
itself. On the other hand, class consciousness is itself' imbued with a
sense of identity which is fonnally aki11 to racism: the lctishism and
rites or rlms origill. Hc11cc its vulnerability to xenophobia and the
theme of t.hc fi>rcig11 threat (exploit.eel by the ruling classes).
The days of worl<inp,cclass i11tcrnationalism arc doubtless now past,
whether by that we lllcan st.ate internationalism 01·, even, that of'
political panics (even if important corporatist aspects still exist, or
lllay possibly rc-fon11 .is pan or the i11tcr11atio11al convergence or
tradc-unio11 i11tcrcsts). However, the need for an internationalist
reaction to the explosion of - ddcnsivc/aggr·cssivc - 'crisis nation-
 AMBIGUOUS IDENTITIES

alisms' is cleat". And in very large measure, the crisis of the rnuional­
social stale derives from the loLal rnisadaptatio11 of" thaL historical
structure when it comes to '1·egubt.ing' a social antagonism on a
wor.ld scale, or constructing political mediations within the field or
a global proleLarianization contemporaneous with the effective
globalization of capitalism. For some years now, scatter·ed ellons to
construct a f1osl-national political inten1ationalis1n or u11iversalis111
seern to have been made within and among peace movements, anti­
racist groups and even ecological movements (in the sense or an
ecologism concerned nor _just with nature, but with the economy
and power relations). Such an internationalism, however, would
not be founded directly on a 'class base', seeking rnyLhically and
rnessianically lo exp1·ess a class iclenLity. Even if it reLc1i11ecl a class
content and a sense of class struggle, its fonn would necessarily be
independent of class, and would thus have to find ,l political identity
for which there is as yet no name.

Notes

l. ContribuLion LO the ninth s,,111m1a (;"/"g" rle Filosufi", 1'011teved1·a (Galicia),

20-24 April 1992. Published in l�tienm: Baliba1·, /.{( c;,.;,,111,, rf,,,· 11111\'�1'.1. Polili1111,, ,,1
j1hiloso/Jliie avant et "/Jri.� Mmx (P,l!"is: Galilee, 1997).
2. Sec Jean-Claude Milner, I.i's Nu111.1 i11,listi111ts (Paris: Scuil, 198'.\).
3. In my books Ha.a, Natio11, Cla,s: 1\111bi[.!;1.w11s lrlr11lili1's (i11 collaboration with
fmma11uel Wallcrst.ei11) (I .011do11/New Yo1·k: Verso, I 9!) I) a11d /.r, l·i·1111tih,,,. dr '"
d,imocm.tif, (Pa1·is: La Dccouvcne, I !)92).
4. The current debates 011 the sociolog-y of the 11atio11, which ,ll't' in pan
governed by the vicissitudes of ·the cons1n1ction of b1ropc' and the tensions
that process injects i11LO the citizen�hip-nationality equation, centre mainly on
an examination of the differences between the French and Cenna11 (or some­
Limes British) 'models' of nationality, p1rsc11ting these at times as opposing ideal
types (sec, for example, Domi11ique Scli11appcr's 1·<·1narkahk hook /.r, hm1rP r/,,
l'inligr{(tio n. Sor:io lup;ir rf,, /" //{{/io n r11 /990 (Paris: Gallimard,_19!)1)). This_is,
among other things, a very E11n>pca11 way of passillg_ on·r the far m01·e dcc1s1vt'
determination by the ce11trc-pel"iphc1·y stn1CLu1·e (wl11ch, ll,ll11rally, runs through
Europe ii.Self). . .
5. IL is, as we know, clirficulL /111/y 10 f'o1111<l a national socicLy 011 "h)'brtd1za-
tion' (in spite of Mexico) or 011 mulLilingualisn1 (Swi1znla11cl and India notwi1h­
standing); it is noL clear Lhat it is any easier LO base a n,11 ional �ocietv on
 74 POLITICS AND THE OTIIER SCENE

rnulti-conlcssium1lit)' (there is, a1 least, a price 10 pay for ii , as the example or

Germany shows).
(j_ lknedicr ;\11derso11 has provided ;r rernarkahle a11alysis of these in his
/ 111. agi11ed (.'0 111.m1witi,,. ,·: U1jll'l'lio11.s 1m ff,,, Ori,i!,·i11 m11/ SjJl'mri o/ Natio 11"li.rn1 (l.ortdort:
Verso, 198'.I).
7. There is rw ·class' wi1ho111 a 'party' , whatever 1he ,1r11currc of 1ha1 pany
111igh1 be. Is not fcrni11is111 ·s problc111 the dirlic1ill)' or dc1cnni11i11g- whal 1hc anti­
f,11nily (or a11ti-pa1riarchal) i11s1i1u1ion 111igl11 he)
8. 11 is striking how 1hc notion of ·c11l111re' (in i1s d11;tl aspcei. of Knlt11rand
liild1111g), after l>cing prnjcued rn1 10 'peoples' wi1ho111 11a1iu11s, c11ai>ling these
t.o be rcpn·scn1cd as 11on-historical, closed 'ethnic groups', has s11bscquently
been rc1ro-projcc1cd 011 10 ·national' societies, which have wday c111crcd a phase
of cn1l111sias1ic self'.cdll lologizing.
<J. IL will be evident that I am, in a way, s,·j,omti11g two clc111c11LS which arc
conceived as a nnity by Bcncdic1 Andcrso11 in his description of 'Imagined
Com111uni1ic,'. 1 lowcvcr, I am doing this in order 10 ane rnpr 10 think their
necessary ar1ic11lation.
I 0. Fur rhc history of I he syrnhulic 1ramkr of the notion of 'pa1rio1is111' from
the domain of rcligio,1 to that of rhc 11a1.ion-sta1e, sec Er11s1 Kantorowicz, 'l'ro
l'otrin M111i in ivlcdicval Political Thought', in s,,/ nll'li St11rlil-s (l.oc11s1. Valley, NY:
.J..J. A11g11stin. 1%'>).
11. Ernest Gell11er, 'Tracta111s Sociologico-l'hilosophicus', in C:11.lt1111', ldn1tily
a11d A,litin (Cambridge: C1mbridge University Press, 1987), pp. I fi(j ff.
12. For art attempt to imcrprer the history of ·1·cal socialism' as an ,�bonivc
co11strnc1ioll of' the 11a1iollahoc;ial state in 1hc ·scrni-pniplH;ry', sec Etienne
ilalibar, 'l.'l•'.rrrope apr('s le corn1n11nis1nc'.· i ll /.1•s J,1 011.ti,:l 'l'I' rf,, la 1/,;11101:m.Lir' (Paris:

/
La Deco11ver1c, 1992).
I:�. Or is dis1rilrntcd according 10 soci;tl position: those who do nol have the
1nca11s to be ;u11i-A111crica11 arc anti-Arab, wh crc:1s ,nany ,.vriters and acadc1nics,
who would he ash;rrncd to l>c an1i-J\rah, rail agail lsl 1he American 'cultural
JllVi\SJOll

( 'fra:nslattrl by (;h:ris ·rurrun)

 4
What is a Border? 1

You can be a citizen 01· you ca11 be stateless, but it is dif'ficult

to imagine ur1inga borde1·.�

To the question, 'What is a border?', which is certainly 011c oi the

necessary preliminaries to Olli' disc11ssions, it is not possible to give
a simple answer. 'Why should this be? lhsically, because we cmnot
allributc to the border an essence which would he valid in all places
and at all times, for all physical scales and time periods, and which
would be includecl in the same way in all individu,d and collective
experience. Without going b,1ck as l;ir as the Roman li111n, it is clear
that the bordc1· of a European rnon,-ll'chy in the ciglnccnth ccntlll')',
when the notion of' cosmopolitanisn1 was invented, has little in
common with those borders the Scl1cngcn Convt> ntion is so keen
t.O strengthen today. And we all know that you do not cross the
border between France and Switzerland, <ll' between Switzc1fand
and ftaly, the same way when you have a 'Furopcan' passp<fft as
when you have a passport from the i<Jrmcr Yugoslavia. It is, inclced,
to discuss such a q11cstion that we ,ll'c here.
In reality, however, though it complicates matt.c1·s theoretically,
the impossibility of giving a simple answer to our q11cstion is also an
opportunity. For, if we arc to understand the unstable world in
which we live, we need complex notions - in other wonJs, dialectical
notions. We might even say that we need to complicate things. And
if we are to contribute to changing this wodcl in its unacceptable,
 7(i 1'01.ITICS AND Tl I 1,: OTJ-11".R SCENE

int.()lcrablc aspects - or (and this perhaps conics down Lo the same

t.lting) Lo resist. t.ltc ck111gcs occurring in that world, which arc
.
presented to 11s ,ts i11c\'it.1blc - we need Lo overturn t.he Jalsc
simplicity or so111e obvious not.irn1s.
Allow inc to flirt f"or ,t 1ni11ute witlt sornc or the L111guagc play of·
n1y philosopltcr colleagues. The idea or a si111plc definition or what
constitutes a border is, by definition, absurd: Lo 111ark out. a border
is, precisely, to clef inc a tcrrit.01")', to delimit it., and so t:O register the
identity of that territory, or confc.:r one upon it. Conversely, how­
ever, to define or idcntif), in general is nothing other than to trace
a border, to assign boundaries or borders (in Creek, hows; in Latin,
finis or ll'rminus; in Gen nan C1nnr in French bom1'). The theorist
·who attempts to dehnc wha: a bord�r is is in d,;nger of going round
in circles, as the very represent.at.ion or the border is t.he precondi­
tion fi_ir any definition.
This point - which 111,ty seem speculative, even idle - has, none
the less, a very concrete side to it. Every discussion of borders
relates, precisely, to t.hc cstablislmicnt of definite identities, national
or otherwise. Now, it is certain that there are identities - or, rather,
idcntihcat.ions - which arc, to varying degrees, active and passive,
voluntary and irnposcd, individual and collective. Their multiplicity,
their hypothetical or fictive nature, do not make them any less real.
/ But. it is obvious that these identities arc not well defined. And,
/ consequently, from a logical - or jui-iclical or national - point of'
view, they arc not defined al. all - �>r, rather, t.hey would not be if,
despite t.hc funda1nent,tl impossibility inherent. in t.hein, t.hey were
not subject Lo a forced definition. In other words, their practical
definition 1·cquircs a 'reduction of" complexity', 1hc applicatio11 of'a
sirnplif)1ing f'orcc or of wh,tt we might., paradoxically, term a sup­
plement or simplicity. And this, naturally, also complicates rnany
things. The st.ate - as nation-stale and as a Her:hlsstaat - is, among
other thi11gs, a formidable reducer or colllplcxity, though its very
existence is a per111ane11t cause of complexity (we might also say oJ"
disorder), which it then falls to it. to reduce.
All this, as we know, is 110t merely theoretical. The violent
consequences an.: felt cvc1y day; t.hcy arc co11stitt1tive or that. ron­
dilion o/ viole1,.u,, to which the Declaration issued to launch this
 WHAT IS A BORDER:,
77
conference refers/ in the LKe of which we arc look" n . .
. .. . . . i g 1 or 1)01' .
ideas and 1rnt1at1ves which are not merely that 'Hob! ,s.·. , 1lical
tion oJ · complcx1ty · wluc · I 1 a s11np
· I c central a11thorit)' .l.e ictn rec I Uc-
. . . s<1nct.ionc
law and armed wnh the monopo I yo 1· lcg1t1111atc viol-• d I 1y
. . . . '{•
111e f . ence. I.Cp1·csCill • s.
- this be111g, 111 any case, an ecru,Jl solution at the .
g, cne
. i·aJ Wor
level, where ·
' 1t cou 1 ( I ,1t most pul c own a panicuhu t ·ou 1 ld
here or there.... In utter c r . .
1sregarcl o{ certain bor I b lc111·
�
t1 ,
,ei..
ders _ 0 1,
some cases, unde1· cover oJ such borders - indclin,ible . . 111
. . . . nnposs-
ible idenuues emerge 111 vanous p I aces, . 1clentit.ics· wl · <Ille!
llc.1 1 arc ·1 • ct
'
. . .
consequence, regarded as no11-1dcnti lies. However th . . . ' 's
.

' .. e n e xiste
is, none the less, a ]de-and-death quest. ion for la'rg·e nu nce
. . mbe rs or
hurnan bc111gs. fh1s 1s, 111creaslllgly, a problem everywhc ..
. r • . '

. . . . .. · the lormc ,. te ,. c11Hlth e

c1uest1on commg out ol the I 1rn.1 01 111 r Yug·< >s.1.c1v1.a,
. (the
·
very exp1·ess1on speaks volumes) concerns us all in rc·tl y, .
. . . . <ll and it
concerns us (rorn wnh111, �nd wnh regard to our own hi
story.
For borders have a l11story; . the very notion or ] )()i·d,
- Cl _ 1 1·1s ·1
history. And it is not the same everywhere and at ever)' level. 1 '.1·.
. . . · . s 1.t 1'1
come back to l I 11s pomt.·IF'rom our po111t. o 1 view ' as· Eurcll) ean m
en
and women at t�le very en� or th � twe1�tieth century, this hist
_ _ - - _ ory
seems to be rnovrng tow<11 els <111 1de,tl of I ec1p1 ocal appropriation or
individuals by the slate, and of the state by individuals,t.hrotwh
the
'territory'. Or rathe:, as Hannah Ar�ndt pointec! out so admi; h ­
_ l ly
and we arc right t:o _,nvoke_her in tins c'.n'.text-1t. 1s moving towards
a cwjJ al which the 1mposs1bil1t:y of at.ta111111g this ideal is m anifested
al the very moment when it seems closest lo realization. vVc arc at
that point now.
Since earliest Antiquity, since the '01·igins' or the st.ate, or cit.y­
st.ates a11d empires, there have been 'borders' and 'm arches'_ that
is to say, lines or zones, strips of land, which are places or separation
and contact or co11fronlation, areas of blockage and passage (or
passage on payment of a Loll). Fixed or shirting zones, continuous
or broken lines. But these borders have never had exactly the same
function - not. even over the last two or three centuries, despite the
continuous effort of codification put in bv nation-stales. The 'ty1·­
anny or the national"' - lO use Gerard Noiriel's expression - is it.s eir
co11stant.ly changing shape, including the shape or its policing. It is
currently changing its functions once again, and doing so before
 78 POLITICS AND THE OTHER SCENE

our very eyes. One of Lhc lllajor i mplicaLions of Lhc Schcngen

ConvcnLion - which i s indeed the only aspect or 'the construction
or Europe' that is currcnlly 1nov i 11g f<>1ward, not i n the area of
citizenship, but in that of r111ti-ciliz1,11,shijJ, by way of co-ordination
between police forces and also of more o r less simultaneous legisla­
t i ve and constitulio11al changes regardi11g the ri ght or asylum and
immigraLion regulations, fi11nily reunion, Lile granling or naLionality,
and so 011 - is Lliat fro111 now 011, 011 'iL�' bo rder - or ralhe r, at
certain favoured bordn'j1oiill.1 or ' i ts' tcr rito1y- each member slate is
becoming Lhc represenlalive of Lhe olhers. 111 Lh i s way, a new mode
of disc riminati on bet.ween Lhe national and the alien is being
establ i shed. Also chang i ng arc Lhe cond i tions 11nder which ind i vid­
uals belong Lo states, i n the various- inclissociably connected- senses
of the term. One has only to sec with what repugnance states,
almost wiLhout excepti on, view dual or rnu!L i ple nal i onaliLy to
understand how essential it is to t.he nat i on-state to behave as the
owner or i ts nat i onals (and, Lheoret.ically at least, Lo undertake an
exknistivc div i si on of incl i vicluals belwcen terr i tories, wiLh no one
counted twice or left over). This is merely an adjunct Lo Lhe
pri nciple or the - at least rclaL i ve and symbolic - exclus i on or
/ f<) re i gners. But there Gill he no doubt that, in national normality,
/ the normality of' Lhe national cit i zen-subject, such an appropriation
1� also inln77rtlized by ind i v i duals, as i t. becomes a condition, an
esse11ti,tl refcn.:nce or their collt:ctive, communal sense, and hence,
once again, or the i r i dent i ty (or of' the o rcln, the ranking, by which
they arrange their multiple identities). As a conseq11e11cc, borde rs
cease to be purely external realities. They become also - and
perhaps predom i nantly - whal Fichte, in his Reden a n die cleutsdie
Na tion, magn i f i cently tcrniccl ' i nner bo rders' [innem Grenzen]; that
i s to say - as indeed he says hi111self - invisible borders, situated
eve1ywhc rc and nowhere.

To attempt to understand how this operates i n detail, T shall briefly

touch on three m,�or aspects or the eq11ivocal character or borders
in history. The f-i rst l shall term their overclelermina tion. The second
 WHAT IS A BORDER) 79

is their polysnnic character- that is to say,

the fact that bord ers never
exist m the sam · e, Wdy· 1·01· ·lilt 1·1v1clua
· ls belo11gm ·
· g to clilfcre
_ 11t social
groups. The thir d <·ts·• ·1)ecl1s
· · ti ,·
1e11 - /1. e lnof!,P?J.1'1
- /y - ·
_ _
·
· Ill other words, the
!act that , Ill re·1l't ·, , ..,\ I [.11ncuo11
< 1 Y, seve1 - · s o[ · dc1narcat1on · and t en"!lorial-
ization - between distinct social exchanges or flows,
. bctwee11 dis­
tmct ngh ts, and so forth - arc always f"ullillccl si rn ullaneo
usly by
borders.

1. l shall begin, then, with what I call - fi.>r · the purposes of this
discussion - overclelerminulion. We k11ow that l'TJl''Y border has its ow11
history. lndeed, this is almost a commonplace of histo1y textbooks.
In thal hislory, the demand for the right to seH�detern1i11atio11 a11cl
the power or impote11ce of slates are combi11ccl, together· wit h
cultural demarcations (often 1.e1·med 'nalural'), economic i11teres1s,
and so on. It is less often noted tlial 110 poli t ical border is ever the
rnere boundary between two states, but is always ovndetenninecl
and, in that sense, sanctioned, reduplicated ,11HI relat ivi/.ecl hy olher
geopolitical divisions. This feature is by 110 means incidental or
contingent; il is intrinsic. vVithout the worlrl-ro11/ig-1i1i11gf"unctio11 they
perform, there would be 110 borders - or 110 lasli11g borders.
Without going back heyo11cl the moclen1 ,1ge, le t us give two
examples or this which slill have effects t.oday. The Eun>pean
colonial empires - rnughly l"rnrn the Treaty of"Tonlcsillas ( 1494) to
the 1960s - were most certainly t h e condition of ern c1·gence,
reinforcernenl and subsistence, wi1.hi11 the frarn ework or successiv e
world-economies, or the nat.ion-slat.es of' vVestern - and even or
Eastern - Europe. As a result, t.hcse states' bo1·clers will, Nllh othn
were both, indissociahly, national bo1·clcrs and irnpe1·ial ho1·dcrs,
with other frontiers extending and replicating the rn right into 'the
heart of darkness', somewhere in Africa and Asia. A'> ,-1 consequence,
they served to separnle dillereut categories or 'natiom1�s'. For the
'imperial-national' stales did not me1-cly have ·c,uz�ns; they also
had 'subjects'." And those sul�jects, as far as the nauo11,tl adrrnms­
tration was concerned, were bolh [,,ss_/oreign lhan {l[frns, and y et more
different (arm.ore 'alien') than them.: which means that in some respects,
 80 POLI TICS AND Tl 11•: OTIIER SCENE

(ll" 111 solllc circu,nstanccs (as in Limes of war), it. was s omcLimcs

easier for l11em Lo crnss bo rders t.lrnn it was for aliens in the stricL
�e11sc, and somcti111es 111orc clil"ficul1..
A second example is l11aL o r the ·camps' or blocs in the Cold War
between 194.S and 1990. Whcre,is the 'clivisio11 or the world'
beLwccn colu11ial empires 1tnmgtltl'111· nati o11al sovcreig1"lly in so me
cases (while purely and silllply pn.:venting it in others), the division
into bl ocs (t.o which, we should n ot forget, Lhc creatio n and
operaLion of the UN was a corolla,·y) seems Lo have combined an
exLensio11 or the naLion-form worldwide (a11d, co nsequently, or an -
at lcasL LheoreLical - national irle11tity as the 'basic' identity for all
individuals) with the creation of a rle /at:lo hierarchy among those
nations withi11 each bloc, and, as a resu !L, more or less limited
sovereignty for most of L11cm. This me,mL that the national borders
of' states were once again ovcrdcLcnni11cd and, depending on the
particular case, strengthened o r weakened. It also meant that there
were once agai11, in practice, several types or aliens and alienness,
and several different. modes of border-crossing. When the border,
or the sense of crossing a border, coincidecl wi I h the super-borders
of the blocs, it. was ge11<..:rally more difficulL Lo pass Lhrough, because
the alien in Lhis case w,1s also an enemy alien, ii' noL indeed a
/ p oLcntial spy. This was the case l'Xre/Jt where rcf'ugees were c on­
cerned, because the right o r asylum was used as a weapon in Lhc
ide ological strnggle. Might it not. be said thaL the dispositions for
asy lu m seekers which passed into law in the l950s and 1960s, b oth
in international conventions and national co11stitt1tions, owe much
ol Lhcir fon11ulat.io11 and their· theorl'.tical liberalism t.o this situ­
ati on? The German law, which has just been changed, is an -
extreme - example which illusu·ates this very clearly.
If we did not keep this situation in mind, it seems LO me that we
wo11lcl nor 1111dcrstand the terms in which the question of refugees
rrorn Eastern Ei1ro pe crnre11tly prcsc11Ls it.self" (from t.haL Eastern
Europe which is suddenly 110 longer Eastern Europe any more, but
almost a pan of" the Third Worlcl). 7 Nor would we understand the
difficulties the 'European CommuniLy' has in seeing itself as a
romm,mity underpinned by specific interests or its own, whereas it
was essentially the by-product, ,mcl part or the mechanism, of the
 \-\1 1-IAT IS ;\ BORDER� 81

Cold W,ff - even in so f'ar as the aim of' const.it11Li11g ,1 connt.erweight

to Arnencan hegemo111c power within the 'v\lestern bloc' was
concerned.
The colonial empires of the past and the 'blocs' of' the recent
past have left deep marks 011 institutions, bw and rne11talities. 13ut
they no longer exist.. It would, however, be naive to think that they
have now given way lo a rne1·e _juxt,1position or similar nations. What
is today tenned the crisis oJ" the nation-stale is µ,u"Lly (even if" it. is
not only) the objeclive uncertainty regarding, on the one hand, the
nature and location oJ" the geopolitical demarcations which rnay
overdetennine borders and, on the other, what type or deg- i -ee of'
national autonomy these hypothetical super-borders might be corn­
patihle with, given their milit,ll"y, econrnnic, ideological or symbolic
operation. With the question of the inner (ethnic, soci,il or relig­
ious) divisions within each 11,1tion-state - and even within ve1")'
'ancient' ones - it 111ight well be that this Lorrne11 t.ing but gcnernlly
unacknowledged question, fraught with potential conflict, will be
decisive in dctennining 111/i.ii:h 11at.iowil /Jorrlns in Europe itselJ" ,ire
likely to survive into the new historical period. The borders or
Germany have already changed; those of·Yugosbvia and Czechoslo­
vakia, too, by two very clif"fcrcnt processes. lt could lie that others
further West will follow.

2. Second, I come Lo wk1t I have referred to, in a perhaps rather

overblown fashion, as the j)()/y.1P111ir 11r1/n1F of" borders. In practical
terms, this simply refers to the Etct that they do not have the sa111e
meaning for everyone. The facts of" this arc co1n1no11ly known, and
i11cleecl, form the core of' our discussion here. Nothing is less like a
mate1·ial thing than a border, even though it is of"ficially 'the same'
(identical to itsell", and therefore well cldinecl) whichever way you
cross it - whether yon do so as a bnsinessrna11 or an academic
travelling to a conlcrence, or as ,\ young unemployed person. In
this latte1· case, a border becomes al111ost two distinct entities, which
have nothing in common but a nrt:111e. Today's borders (though in
reality this has long been the case) arc, to some extent, desig11cd to
perform precisely this task: not merely to give individuals from
clifferent social classes clifferent experiences of the law, the civil
 POLITICS AND THE OTHER SCENE

administration, the police and elementary righL'i, such as the free­

dom or circulation and rrecclom or enlrcprise, b11l actively t.o
rlijfi'm1Jiolr between individuals in tcrrns or social class.
I !ere the state, settled on and constituted by its own borders,
has, over the course or history, played a fundamentally ambivalent
role, !<:Jr 011 the one side it conce;ils - and, up to a point, lormally
limits - clif'lerentiat.ion, in order to insist upon the notion of
nation,tl citizen and, through that notion, a certain primacy of' the
public authority over social antagonisms. On the other hand, how­
ever, the more transnation;tl t:ral"fic - whether or people or of
capi1,tl - intensifies, t.he 1nore a transnational politico-economic
space has formed as ,t result, and the more states - including,
particularly, the most 'powerful' among them - tend to operate in
the service oran international class difkrentiation, and, to that end,
t.o use their horders and apparatuses of control as instruments of
discri111ination and triage. Yet they attempt to do this while preserv­
ing Lo the utmost the syrnbolic sources of their popular legitimacy.
This is why they find themselves in the contradictory position of
having both lo relativi1.e mul to reinforce the notion oJ' idenlity and
national belonging, the equ,ttion or citizenship with nationality.
There is a double-bind of' the sa111e kind inherent in the very
notion or the circubtion orper-sons. The problem lies not so rnuch
in the difference in treatment between the circulation of comrnod-
/ ities or G1pit.al and the circulation of' people, as the term circulation
is not used here in the same sense. It is, rather, the fact that, in
spite or computer networks and telecommunications, capital never
circulates wit.bout. a plcntif'ul circulation of' human beings - some
circulating 'upwards', others 'downwards'. But the establishment of
a world rt/Jartheid, or a dual regime frn the circulation of individuals,
raises massive political problems of acceptability and resistance. The
'colour bar', which no longer now merely separates 'centre' from
'periphery', or North from South, but runs through all societies, is
for this very reason an uneasy approximation to such an apartheid.
The actual management of this 'colour bar' has a rnassive but
double-edged impact, because it reinforces an uncontrollable rac­
ism, and promotes insecurity - and this in turn necessitates an
excessive degree of security provision. Not to mention the fact that
 WHAT IS A BORDER:,

between the two extremes - betwee11 Lliose who ·circuh1Le capital'

and Lhose 'whom capital circulates', through 'trans11.-1tio11al rcloca­
_
ltons' of indusu·ial pla11L and 'llcxibility', there is ,111 enormous,
unclassiliablc, intermediate mass.
It is pct"haps also rro111 this point or view that we should reflect
or'. one or the 111ost odious aspect_-; or the question or ,·crugccs and
m1grauon, to which Marie-Claire Caloz-Tschopp and her friends
have recently devoted a detailed study: the quest.ion of 'intc1·­
national zones' or 'transit 1.ones' in ports and airports." Not 011ly do
we have here an illust1·,1tion or the state of gc11er,di1.ed violence
,�hich now forms the backdrop both to so-called cco11omic 111igrn­
Lion and Lo the flows or refugees, recog11i1.ed or unrecog11ized, hut
we sec here in material reality the dilTcrential opcr·ation a11d, so to
speak, duplication or the notio11 of bordc1· which was already
beginning to emerge in the different formalities which applied to
the crossing or borders.
\1\/e must not conhne ourselves solely Lo a disc 1 1ssio11 or the legal
aspects here; it is essential that we also unclcnakc a phenomeno­
logical description. For a rich person hum a rich cou11t171, a pcrso11
who tends towards tltc cosmopolitan (and whose passpon inc1·cas­
ingly signifies not just mere 11a1.io11al belongi11g, protection a11d a
right or citi,.enship, but a .1urJJlllS or rights - in parLicuh:ll", a wodd
right to circulate unhindered), the bon.ler has become an embar­
kation formality, a point or symbolic ack11owledgcrne11L of· his social
status, LO be passed at a jog-trot. For a poor person from a poOI·
country, however, the border tends to be something quite different:
not only is it an obstacle which is very difficult LO surmount, but it
is a place he runs up against. rcpealcdly, pa-;sing and 1·epassing
through it as and when he is expelled or allowed to rejoin his
E-1 111ily, so that it becomes, in the end, a place where he resirf,,s. It is
an extraordinarily viscous spatio-tempoi-al zone, altnosL a ho111c - a
home in which to live a lif"c which is a waiting-to-live, a non-life. The
psychoanalyst Andre Green once wrote that it is difficult enough to
live on a border, hut that is as nothing compared with IH't11ga border
oneself. He meant this in the sense of" the splitting or multiple
identities - migrant identities - but we must also look al the rnatcr·ial
bases or the phenomenon.
 84 POLITICS ANO THE OTHER SCENE

3. This would lead me quiLC naturally, i i" I had the time, t.o
discuss my third poi11t: the heterogeneity and ubiqui ty of borders
o r, in other words, the fact. that. the ten dency o f borders, political,

c1dtural and socioecono 111i c, t.o minrirle- sotnething which was more
or less well achieved by nat ion-states, o r, rather, by s ome of them -
is tending to day LO fall apart. The result of' this is that some borders

me no longf'r .1it11ritnl al ilif' borr/ns al all, i11 the geographico-politico­

aclmi nistrative sense o r the tcnn. They are in fact elsewhere, wher­
ever selective c ontrols arc to be found, s11ch as, liir example, health
or sernrily checks (health checks bei ng pan of what Michel Foucault
termed l>io-power). The concentration of all these functions (for
example, the control or goods and people - not to mention
microbes and viruses - ,tdrninistrntivc and cultural separation, etc.)
at a single point - along a single line which was simultaneously
refined and clensilied, opaci liecl - was a do m i na nt tendency during
a particular period, the period or the nation-st.ate (when it really
existed in a form close t.o its ideal type), but not an irreversible
historictl necessity. For quite some time now, it has been giving
way, before our very eyes, to a 11ew ubiquity of borders.

What I wanted to stress - perhaps it is a tru ism is that in the

,,.,, historical c o111plexity or the 11otio11 of' border - which is curren tly
becorni11g irnpollan t for us again, _just as it. is changing and assum­
ing new forms - there is the questio n o f' the iuslilulion. The
i nstitution of the bo nier, or c<>tll"se, and the ways in which borders
can be insti t11Lecl, hut also there is the border as a condition of
possibility of" a whole host of' instit11tions. If the border was defined
fictively in a simple, simplistic way and if: as I suggested at the
beginning, that simplicity was /mrnrl - that is to say, subjected to
forcing by the state - it was· p1·ecisely for this reason. But the
conseq11ence has been that the borders within whi ch the conditions
for a relative democracy have in some cases been won have them­
selves always been absol11tely an ti-democratic institutions, beyond
the reach or any political purchase or practice. 'Citi zens' have
settled there for a11y length of time only for purposes of mutual
exterminati on....
 WI-IAT IS r\ HORDf.R2 85

( orders have been the anti-dernocr;itic condition for 1hat partial,

. �
lim1Led democracy whteh some nat1011-states enjoyed l.'or a ei·
c tain
period, managing their own internal conf-licls (sometimes l'X/JOrfi'llg
them loo, but that 1s very much a process which requi 1 ·es ,t border
li1:e). This is why I think you arc right i11 yo 1 1 · Dechu·,uio11 Lo spe,tk
_ , �
of a requirement l01· radical democracy . As soo11 as borders
become difkrentialed and multiple once again - once they b �in
q
to consLJtute a gnd rangmg over the new social space, and cease
simply to border it f'rom the outside - then the alternative lies
between an authoritarian, ancl indeed violent, intensification ol' all
forms of segregation, and a clernoc1·,t1.ic radicalism which h,ts as iL'­
airn to dcconstruct the institution of the border.
For 111y own part, however, I would hesitate Lo iclentif)' such a
radical democracy - which is necessarily intcni,ttionalist or, more
accurately, transnational - with the p11rs11it or a 'hordcrlcss world'
in thejuridico-political sense of the t.erm. Such a 'world' would nlll
the risk or being a mc1·e arcrrn for the unl'c tt.erecl dorni 1 1ation ol' the
private centres o[ power which rnonopoli,.c capital, communications
and, perhaps also, arms. It is a quest.inn, rather, of what de 1 11ocratic
control is to be exerted on the controllers ol' borders - that is to
say, Oil states and suprn-naLional institutions thc 1 1 1 sclvcs. This
depends entirely oil whether those on the different sides or the
border eventually discover common intcres1s and ,t common
language (common ideals). But it depends also on the quest.ion o[
who will meet in those unlivcahlc places that ,u-c the different
borders. Now, in order to meet, one most ol'ten needs interpreters,
mediators. Disheartening as their experience is today, it seems to
me that those who clekncl the right ol' asylum precisely rank among
those mediators.

Notes

I. Papct deltveied 10 the conlet<.;tHC, ·v1olcncc c'. droi1 c1:asilc c11 Europ e :
Des it onucres des Eta u;-Na11ons ,l ]a I cspo11s.1b1l11e pana?�e dans \Ill sen\
mondc', organized by rvtarie-Claire Caloz-Tschopp _ and /\xel Ocvenot, � n1vc1, . sn
of' Geneva, 23-25 September L9tJ3. Published 111 l'.11c _ 1 n Bal , ;.
'. c_ �b.it, /.11 (.uunl,, rl,.i
111.asslis. Poliliq ,w i,l el /Jhiloso/Jhie 11.va11l l'I a.fnes 1\tlarx (Pans: (,altlee, 1997).
 8G POI.ITICS ANO THE OTIIER SCENE

2. i\ndrt Cr<"e11. I.r, J,i,/i,· /1rit,,;,,_ l'lyrhr1111dy ,.,, r/1•. 1· ms-/i111 i/1•s (Paris: Gallimard,
1990), p. 107.
:L 'Vioi<-11ce is a r1111 1/itiu11 11/,,xi,1,,111·,, i11 socie1ics or exile ;i11d i11 Lile societies
of' 1lic 11or1li': Frn111di11g lkclar,11io11 of' tile co11r<"rc11c<" •violc1 1ce cl droit d'asile
en 1-:t,rnp<"', rcpri111 t"d i11 �L1ril'-Ci;1irc ( :aloz-Tsclwpp. Ax<"l Clt·ve11ot and Maria­
l
l'ia 'J\cliopp (l'cls). ,\ ,·if,, - \ iu lmn• - l,\·r/1ni1111 ,,,, F11m/11'. l li1'llliu,, r111"(l'-'''· j,ms/m"liv,,
(Ce11<"v;i: Caliiers de la S1Ttio11 ell's S. cic1HTs cit" 1·1::d11catio11 de l'U11ivcrsi1 e clc
Ge11<'.·vc/ Gro1 1p<· d<" (;cntw 'Vioi<-11cc ct droit d'Asik- c11 Europe',1994).
4. Thi, liisto,y, 1ogc1lin wi1h an ;1111liropolo1-,')' ;11ul a seman1ics of'hordcrs , is
l)('gi1111i11g 1 0 l>c wriuc11. Sec D. Nord111a1111, ·tks li111itcs d'U:tat a11x frornicrcs
11;nio11;des', i11 I'. Nora (ed.),/.,,, I.i,·ux ,11, 111/mu i,1,, rnl. II (Paris: Callimard, lD8G)
p. :l:i ff'; P. S,1hli11s, Ho11 11rlr11i,,,._. "/J11, 1\l(l /1 i11g o/ J-i-(l11n· r1 11d Sjmi11 i11 . t/11• r'y r,,111•,•.1·
(Berkeley, U11ivcrsi1y or (:;dili,rni;1 Press. 1989); M. 1-"<,1 1cher, /•1·1mls dfim1tih·1•s
(Paris: Fayard, 19')1); ;111d the A111111n1 1 l\J<)r, 11111111,n of' (211r1 rf,,mi, ed. Yves
\,\'i11ki11, 011 1 lic tlH"mc ' l'c11st-r la f'ro111icre'.
5. See s;trard Noiricl, I.r, '/)•m1111 i,· r/11 11atiu 111,L (l'aris: Calma1111-l.cvy. 1991).
6. See E1ic1111c Bali bar, 'S 11jc1s 011 l'i lO )'!'llS _ p 011 r J'<'.-gali1c' in, /.1•s.Jim1/i1in•.1· rill
'" rl/111111mti,· (l'aris: Li D(To11wnc. I 9')2).
7. Balibar writes: 'cct Fst q 11i S<Htdain 1 1'est pi 11s l'Esl m, 1 is plit16t une sonc
de de111i-Sud' I have ;Hlapt('(l 1 his rrom the French c11 J11 1 ral cun1ext in which l'f'.'st
is Easl!'l'll E 11ropc and /,, Suri the so11rcc of most 'Third-World' immigration.
ITra11s. j
8. i'vlari<'-Clairc C;iioz-'f'schopp (<"d.), I-i o11 tiiu,1 r/ 11 d 111 it, Jim,tihn <1,,.1· rlmils.
I. 'i11tro11.1111/J
. /,, .11!1/ 11./ rf,, /11 'zo1r1· i11/1•n1 11 / iu ,11,1,, · ( !';iris: L · I la nnat tai1, 199'.�),

/
( 'frrwslrtled by Chris T11 rner)