Ambivalent Attachments: The Hegemonic Politics of American Nationhood.

Nationhood has always been characterized by ambivalence in terms of the content and contours of who belongs and how. As countries throughout the world confront the vagaries of globalization, political leaders and the public are struggling to negotiate a sense of belonging that reconciles the reality of global interconnectedness with the rhetoric of national particularism. For the US, this challenge is intensified by the need to reconcile a long-standing rhetoric of civic nationhood with the persistent (albeit malleable) reality of ethno-cultural exclusion. Resulting contradictions are particularly evident in the post-9/11 policies and rhetoric of political leaders and ethnic groups. This article uses these discourses to analyze contemporary nation-shaping politics in the US. Ambivalence is pervasive on the part of government officials and marginalized ethnic groups, but in a manner that ultimately confirms rather than rejects or transcends the hegemony of nationhood as a form of belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]