Nations and Nationalism 6 (4),2000, 631-38.

0 ASEN 2000

Review Article
Nationalisms, national identities and
nation states: gendered perspectives
NADJE AL-ALI

NIRA YUVAL-DAVIS, Gender & Nation. London, Thousand Oaks, New

Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1997. 157 pp. E12.95 (pbk.).
LOIS WEST (ed.), Feminist Nationalism. New York and London: Rou-
tledge, 1997. 294 pp. E13.99 (pbk.).
RICK WILFORD AND ROBERT L. MILLER (eds.), Women, Ethnicity
and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition. London and New York:
Routledge, 1998. 212 pp. E14.99 (pbk.).
CYNTHIA COCKBURN, The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and
National Identities in Conflict. London and New York: Zed Books, 1998 247
pp. E14.95 (pbk.).

More than a decade ago, Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias provided a
groundbreaking theoretical contribution to the study of nationalism in their
edited volume entitled Woman - Nation - State (1989). For the first time,
scholars systematically explored the link between nationalism and gender,
i.e. the ways in which nationalism and the nation-state are gendered as well
the various ways in which women participate in or challenge nationalist
processes. Case studies of women in a variety of geographical and political
contexts substantiated the theoretical model sketched out by Yuval-Davis
and Anthias (1989: 7) to describe the various ways in which women can and
do participate in ethnic and national processes: as biological reproducers of
members of ethnic collectivities; as reproducers of the boundaries of ethnic
and national groups; as actors in the ideological reproduction of the
collectivity and as transmitters of its culture; as signifiers of ethnic and
national groups; and as participants in national, economic, political and
military struggles.
Prevailing theories on nationalism and ethnicity (Anderson 1983; Gellner
1983; Hobsbawm 1990; Smith 1986) had hitherto ignored or marginalised
the issue of gender in the study of nationalist movements and nation-state
formations. While the issue of the marginalisation of feminist analyses by
the mainstream theorists still remains a vexed issue within the study of
nationalism, the last decade has certainly witnessed a flurry of literature by
632 Nad-ie Al-Ali

feminists addressing the kind of issues and questions raised in Woman -

Nation - State. Indeed, the model provided in Yuval-Davis’ and Anthias’
anthology has been used and applied to such a multitude of case studies,
that one might wonder whether it is not time to go beyond this originally
useful but somewhat formulaic framework.
It was with the hope for both original empirical research and theoretical
innovation that I approached the four books reviewed here. Nira Yuval-
Davis’ Gender & Nation presents the author’s evolving ideas and conceptua-
lisations of gender and nation, particularly their interdependence as revealed
in the linkages, tensions and dynamics within nationalist projects. National
reproduction, national culture and national citizenship as well as national
conflicts and war constitute various spheres in which the author attempts to
develop a gendered understanding of nations and nationalism.
Very much in line with the earlier model developed with Anthias, the
author begins with a discussion of the most ‘natural’ way in which women
participate in national and ethnic processes. The ‘biological reproduction of
the nation’ corresponds to the notion of Vofksnation, a nation of common
origin, common ‘blood and belonging’. She then shows how within the
perceived Kulturnation of a nationalist project, gender relations are at the
centre of cultural constructions of social identities and collectivities where
women tend to constitute their symbolic ‘border guards’. Being constructed
as carriers of the collectivity’s ‘honour’ and the intergenerational reprodu-
cers of its culture, specific codes and regulations delineate ‘proper women’
and ‘proper men’ (p. 67).
However, going beyond earlier formulations, Yuval-Davis more critically
examines the concept ‘culture’, which has often been used in a reified and
essentialised manner. Her deconstruction of the term culture is not merely a
theoretical exercise pertaining to postmodern and post-colonial thought.
Rather, her conceptualisation of culture as fluid, changing and full of
contradictions, is deeply rooted in politics. Stressing the fact that different
social agents selectively use ‘culture’ in various social projects within specific
power relations (p. 43), the author takes issue with liberal multiculturalist
policies that assume a homogeneous minority collectivity. Conflicts related
to different power relations, along the lines of gender, class and generation,
tend to be obliterated when assuming fixed cultural communities, as is the
case with multiculturalist policies.
The problematic effects of multiculturalism also become evident in
Yuval-Davis’ discussion of the links and tensions between state-related
citizenship (Stuutsnation) and gender relations (Chapter 4). In the context of
state provisions related to education, marriage, divorce and women’s
refuges, women frequently lose out when ‘the cultural needs of the
community’ are addressed (p. 78). In South Africa, for example, women in
the ANC have had to fight an uphill battle to have the principle of ‘non-
sexist South-Africa’ supersede the principle of ‘custom and tradition’ within
the constitution (Biehl 1994, quoted on p. 78).
Nationalisms, national identities and nation states 633

Yet, state citizenship as a criterion for membership in the national

collectivity, according to Yuval-Davis, could potentially be ‘the most
inclusive mode of joining a collectivity, because in principle anybody - of
whatever origin or culture - might be able to join’ (p. 24). But, in reality, as
the author shows, state citizenship is also exclusive and tends to favour
those with socioeconomic resources. Gender is one of the many factors
(others are ethnicity, class, sexuality, ability, place of residence etc.) which
affect people’s citizenship. The author stresses that, within any given nation-
state, women tend to be subjected to specific laws and regulations, despite
being included in the general body of the citizens.
The private/public dichotomy, which has placed women within the sphere
of the family and men in public life, has been a highly contested issue
among feminist scholars. Yuval-Davis cautions us to look more carefully
into this dichotomy, and contends that the division between the ‘public’ and
the ‘private’ constitutes ‘a political act in and of itself’ (p. 80). States have
the power to demarcate that which is ‘private’, thereby justifying interven-
tion and non-intervention alike. Accordingly, comparative theories of
citizenship need ‘to include an examination of the individual autonomy
allowed to citizens (of different gender, ethnicity, region, class, stage in the
life cycle and so on) vis-a-vis their families, civil society organisations and
state agencies’ (p. 83).
Yuval-Davis suggests a ‘multi-tier construction of citizenship’ which
allows for people’s membership in ‘more than one community, sub-, supra-
and cross-states’ (p. 91). Moreover, the author stipulates, citizenship needs to
be analysed as neither an entirely individual nor collective phenomenon, but
rather a complex interplay of both that entails a continuum of active and
passive citizenship, i.e. the conceptualisation of the citizen as political agent
or subject. The notion of ‘active citizenship’ becomes particularly relevant in
the discussion of participation in the military and war (Chapter 5).
Yuval-Davis concludes her book by questioning how women can
cooperate with and resist nationalist struggles on the one hand and
international feminist politics on the other. Promoting a ‘transversal politics’
- as developed by Italian feminists in facilitating dialogue between
Palestinian and Israeli politics - the author attempts to provide a way out
of the impasse created by universalism versus relativism debates. Transversal
politics are based on the principles of ‘rooting’ and ‘shifting’ in which
‘differences’ between political actors are acknowledged while establishing
common ground for political action.
Stimulating and promising as Yuval-Davis theoretical and political
stipulations are, the conclusion leaves the reader lacking a clear perception of
the links and dynamics between the various theoretical constructs presented.
I would have valued a synthesis of the various theoretical models which have
arisen in the context of the different spheres of gender relations and
nationalist projects. Such a synthesis would require a stronger grounding in
empirical analysis, which Yuval-Davis uses elegantly, though sparingly.
634 Nadje Al-Ali

Empirical evidence is certainly not missing in the remaining three books

under review; yet, the balance with theory is not always satisfactory. A
critical and complex approach is evident in Rick Wilford’s and Robert
Miller’s edited volume Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of
Transition (1998). The editors and contributors to this anthology generally
take a bleak view of the relationship between the struggle for women’s
rights and the forging of national and ethnic identities.
Their focus is on the ways women have been affected within countries
undergoing transition - due to either war, political conflict and/or
transformation, or Islamisation. But the book also addresses women’s effect
on and resistance to these diverse transitions.
The editor’s theoretical presuppositions closely follow Yuval-Davis’
(Chapter 1 in this volume) and Anthias’ model of the various ways women
participate in or challenge nationalist projects. Other chapters are based on
specific case studies in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Russia and the
former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Yemen, Lebanon and Malaysia.
Overall, the emphasis is put on the changing position and status of women
in terms of legal rights, access to the labour force and political participation,
as well as cultural codes and values.
Some chapters more successfully than others manage to link a discussion
of ‘women’s status’ with an analysis of the construction of nationalist and
ethnic identities. Elisabeth Porter’s chapter on Northern Ireland and Sheila
Meintje’s contribution based on South Africa more directly address issues
of how women both have been affected by and have resisted nationalist
rhetoric and political action. Both chapters also give evidence of a ‘window
of opportunity’ (Miller, p. 201) within the general context of attempts to
push women back into the ‘private sphere’ in the period following conflict
and upheaval. The latter is central to Rosalind Marsh’s discussion of
women in Russia and Maxine Molyneux’s analysis of women’s rights and
political conflict in Yemen. These case studies painfully show how transition
has to be equated with a revival of patriarchal values and an often forceful
assault on women’s rights.
In the case of Russia as well as the former Yugoslavia, feminist voices
and movements also have to struggle against their perceptions of promoting
a return to ‘the old order’, as the demand for women’s rights is being
associated with ‘state feminism’ under socialist rule. Unfortunately, the
potentially interesting chapter on post-socialist societies remains extremely
abstract and conceptual. It omits social, economic and cultural differences
within different post-socialist states and also uses ‘women’ in a totally
undifferentiated manner. A similar problem is evident in Norani Othman’s
chapter on Islamisation and modernisation in Malaysia. Aside from the
debatable equation of Islamisation with nationalism, her media and
discourse analysis remains abstract and distant from more tangible micro-
processes.
Overall, Wilford’s and Miller’s anthology certainly includes a number of
Nationalisms, national identities and nation states 635

insightful and thought-provoking contributions. Yet, aside from the fact

that some chapters would have benefited from more ethnographically
grounded analysis, the book does not provide any new theoretical insights
and merely follows in the footsteps of the premises set out by Yuval Davis
and Anthias (1989) and Yuval-Davis (1997). Miller’s concluding chapter
begins to draw out some interesting comparisons between the various case
studies, which, if elaborated, could have provided scope to transcend the
common pattern of applying the existing theoretical models to different
empirical data.
The attempt to move beyond existing theoretical frameworks, is a starting
point for Lois West in her edited volume entitled Feminism und Nationalism.
West picks up where Yuval-Davis ends, and ambitiously sets out work
towards a theory of ‘feminist nationalism’. Focusing on ‘feminist nationalist
movements’, i.e. ‘social movements simultaneously seeking rights for women
and rights for nationalists within a variety of social, economic, and political
contexts’ (p. xxx), the anthology presents case studies from Europe, the
Middle East, Africa, central and east Asia, the pacific Islands and the
Americas. Many of the chapters are based on original research and some
provide interesting theoretical insights. Yet, the book fails to convince in
terms of coherence and theoretical soundness. The central problem is that
West seems to define the significance of gender in the context of nationalist
struggles in terms of ‘the struggle for women’s rights’ (p. xxx), thereby
conflating gender with feminism, more precisely a specific strand of
feminism, i.e. rights activism.
In addition to this highly problematic conflation, which omits all other
dimensions in which gender and nationalism intersect (see Yuval-Davis
1997), her notion of ‘gendered cultural relativism’ raises many questions.
Like Yuval-Davis, West is concerned to avoid the kind of ethnocentrism
and essentialism characteristic of earlier ‘white western feminism’. Yet,
unlike Yuval-Davis who cautions us against the dangers of relativism in the
context of multiculturalist policies, West suggests a methodology of
relativism which takes account of the variety and difference in ‘the way
women define feminism and nationalism within their cultural context’
(P. xv).
West’s intentions are certainly of the best. But her proposed approach
runs the risk of taking at face value what people say without critically
examining its meaning. One resulting ‘blind spot’ in West’s framework is
what I believe to be a viable possibility, namely that feminist movements are
pressured or even forced to engage in nationalist rhetoric and ally
themselves with nationalist movements in order to remain credible. This is
particularly the case in the context of post-colonial nation-building. More-
over, a closer look at the various contributions reveals that it is mainly the
respective authors who define feminism and nationalism as it seems fit in
their specific case studies. Indeed, voices of women from the relevant
countries under study are conspicuously absent within the various contribu-
636 Nadje Al-Ali

tions (Haunani-Kay Trask’s chapter on Hawaii and Alice Yun Chai’s on

Korea being exceptions).
The danger of applying the notion of a ‘gendered cultural relativism’ is
most obvious in Valentine Moghadam’s chapter on Afghanistan, where she
states:
If we define feminism not in the Western ethnocentric sense but, rather, as ‘organised
activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests’, and if we define nationalism as
‘organised activity to promote the advancement of the nation’, then clearly the
PDPA government had a feminist nationalist agenda, as did the government of King
Amanullah in the 1920s.

It is beyond the scope of this review to closely analyse the specific policies
of the Afghan state. The point I would like to make here relates to the fact
that the author premises that there was one definition of feminism that
holds true all over the Western world, thereby overlooking the various
strands and tensions within feminist movements (besides reproducing the, to
my mind, unhelpful dichotomy of Western versus non-Western political
thought). Employing West’s call for cultural relativism, Moghadam herself
labels the state’s gender policies and interventions feminist. Never do we
hear the Afghan feminists giving their own views on the matter.
A more convincing chapter is Sherner Berger Gluck’s analysis of
feminist-nationalist connections in the Palestinian movement (pp. 101-29).
Here the author lucidly and insightfully analyses the links and tensions
between feminism and nationalism, deploying the voices of Palestinian
women to support her arguments. Gisela Kaplan explores the relationship
between feminism and nationalism in the European context (pp. 3-40),
arguing very eloquently and convincingly that they are generally incompa-
tible ideological positions. The author managed to only find two exceptions
to the rule, namely nineteenth-century Italy and twentieth-century Finland,
both cases where a confluence of feminism and nationalism had occurred.
Kaplan’s overall negative assessment highlights the significance of contex-
tual analysis and raises the question if fascist nationalist movements, such
those existing under Hitler and Mussolini, can be analytically compared to
nationalist liberation movements, for example, in South Africa or Palestine.
Furthermore, Kaplan’s superb analysis contradicts the editor’s somewhat
uncritical and unproblematised assumption about the existence of ‘feminist
nationalism’.
Explorations of the various types of nationalism and feminism women
might engage in constitutes one of the main axes of analysis in Cynthia
Cockburn’s The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National
Identities in Conjfict (1998). Her original and theoretically compelling work
revolves around the issue of women’s resistance to nationalist projects.
Cockburn’s own political activism prompted her to more systematically
explore her nagging question of ‘how peace is done’ (p. 1). Subsequently, the
author spent time with three different women’s projects, which have all
Nationalisms, national identities and nation states 637

‘chosen cooperation between women of polarized ethno-national groups,

contradicting the norm in their countries, where those identifications have
been mobilized for war. They are alliances’ (p. 21 1).
The Women’s Support Network in Northern Ireland represents working-
class women’s organisations from both Protestant and Catholic areas in
Belfast. These organisations provide a number of different services, such as
education, child-care and counselling. Cynthia Cockburn also did research
in the Medica Women’s Therapy Centre in Zenica (central Bosnia), which
provides medical and psychosocial care for women who have been
traumatised by the war in Bosnia, and recently also to victims of domestic
violence. Here Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat women (as well as women
of ‘mixed marriage’ background) work side by side with the predominantly
Bosnian Muslim staff. In Israel, Cockburn describes Bat Shalom as an
alliance of Jewish and Palestinian women struggling for peace, for an
autonomous Palestinian state and the citizenship rights of Palestinian Arabs
within Israel.
Given the comparative nature of Cockburn’s book, certain questions
become inevitable: What kind of nationalism have the women in the
respective projects experienced? And how do their experiences differ
depending on their ethnic belonging? In each project, there are women who
have been at the receiving end of oppressive nationalist projects, and women
who are part of the ruling group. The acknowledgement of differences and
related injustices are among the major tools for alliance-building. Also, as
Cockburn argues, ‘the projects are on the whole good at non-closure on
identity, They do not essentialize identities and therefore do not predict
what might flow from them’ (p. 227).
It is not only that nationalism and experiences thereof vary among and
within the different women’s projects, but the author also underlines the fact
that in order for these projects to work a certain type of feminism is needed.
Again anti-essentialism appears to be the key for feminism to be able to
overcome regressive constructions of national and ethnic identities. What
Cockburn is actually describing are the very mechanisms and processes
sketched out in Yuval-Davis’ account of ‘transversal politics’ (pp. 125-32),
whereby the search for common ground of ideological and political spaces is
preceded by a recognition of differences and unequal power relations.
Yet, in all three projects tensions and problems are common and
sometimes endanger the carefully balanced common ground. Some tensions
revolve around differences not just with respect to their respective ethnic or
national group belonging, but also political views, class and educational
backgrounds. In this context, participatory and democratic group processes
of setting agendas and making decisions become as important as the content
of the specific activities (ibid.).The Women’s Support Network in Northern
Ireland is probably most conscious about the need to create mechanisms
and structures to ensure democratic processes to manage their work and
have put much time and effort into doing so.
638 Nadje Al-Ali

Whether in Israel, Bosnia and Northern Ireland, women have been

largely excluded from conflict resolution schemes and nation-state building
processes. Their marginalisation from more official and formal political
channels ironically might have increased the ability to think and act outside
of the ideology and course of action designed by the primarily male ruling
elites. Instead of submitting themselves to the very roles ascribed to them,
i.e. biological and cultural reproducers of the nation, the women Cockburn
speaks about actively resist not only traditional gender roles but also
prevailing conceptions of ‘the community’ and ‘the nation’.
Women’s marginalisation and exclusion might partially explain the fact
that the three projects are women projects, and more specifically women
only. Throughout the book a number of other explanations are given by the
women themselves ranging from essentialist notions of women as mothers
and care-takers, to arguments pertaining to women’s ability to understand
other women’s plight, which appeared to be particularly relevant in the case
of rape among Bosnian women. However complex the reasons, in situations
of war and conflict as well as in the aftermath, women appear to be more
willing and able to engage in peace-making, in creating new communities
and risk stigmatisation by the status quo. Filling ‘the space between’ with
words and deeds, the women interviewed by Cockburn provide ample
evidence that we need to carefully identify and distinguish the kind of
nationalism and feminism we are talking about.

References

Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imugined Communities. London and New York: Verso.
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nutions and Nutionulism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nutions und Nationulism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Smith, Anthony. 1986. The Ethnic Origin of Nations. Oxford: Basic Blackwell.
Yuval-Davis, Nira and Anthias, Floya (eds). 1989. Woman - Nation - State. London:
Macmillan.