Vladimir Ivkovic comments on the nation state discussion

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Welcome to Vlado, with whom I spent significant hours in my 1998
visit to the Vienna campus.  Vlado is now doing research at an
institute in Zagreb, Crotia.  It's fun to hear these voices out
of the past coming back to life in my cyberspace ear.


From: Vladimir Ivkovic <vlado@inantro.hr>

Well I guess it's just about the right time I hopped into this discussion...
Regarding the notion of the nation state - it is a very positivist notion -
where there are peoples of given culture, there lay their state.

Questions:
                1.) where do you draw a line between "sameness" and
"difference" within or between cultures, i.e. how different must a
culture be for it to be regarded foreign?
                2.) where do you draw a line between different peoples, and
according to what?

On the other hand, with the diminishing power of nation states due to
economic, cultural etc. globalization (PLEASE DO NOT ENGAGE INTO
GLOBALIZATION DISCUSSION AS YET!), wouldn't it be a much more feasible and
logical step to promote nation states into mere territories with specific
local laws, while the entire world would be abiding to same global laws?!
Remember, the EU's primary motto is Europe of Regions. And not of nation
states if I may add.

I am quite aware of the inherent human need for formation and adherence to a
social group divided from other groups on lines of nationality, religion,
ideology, etc... I urge you however to shun our all-too-natural ethnocentric
drives and take a look at a possibly greater picture.

V.
______________________________________________
VLADIMIR IVKOVIC
Mladi Asistent - Junior Research Fellow
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INSTITUT ZA ANTROPOLOGIJU -
INSTITUTE FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Amruseva 8
P.O. Box 290
10 000 Zagreb
Croatia
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Tel: +385 (1) 4816 903, 904, 905
Fax: +385 (1) 4813 777
Mobile: +385 (98) 454 681
E-mail: vlado@inantro.hr
Internet: http://luka.inantro.hr
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