Why is post-nationalism so difficult to accept? Why is it that everyone still clings to ideas about their nations and cultures that limit exchange and construction? Why is it that Europe, the post-national project par excellence, is still facing a deficit in commitment compared to national and even local commitments? In this her essay Post-Nationalism, Rosi Braidotti tackles these questions through a renewed examination of the social imaginary underlying how people understand their communities, cultures and nations.
Europeans in particular, she says, need to become Europeans just as we became French, Italian or German in the past.
In the contemporary geopolitical context — war, the rise of authoritarian right-wing politics, the return of illiberal, neofascist political movements spreading a climate of gloom and crisis — the unfinished task of becoming post-national has acquired new urgency. The way to make it possible might lie in a renewal of love and solidarity, creative energy and affirmative ethics.
