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Borders and banknotes: the national perspective
Author(s) -
First Anat,
Sheffi Na'ama
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12097
Subject(s) - nationalism , typology , hegemony , sovereignty , state (computer science) , politics , national identity , identity (music) , nation state , political economy , sociology , political science , law , economy , aesthetics , economics , anthropology , computer science , art , algorithm
Replacing a banknotes series is meaningful for politicians and the general public even today, while most transactions are executed through virtual means. The choice of images carried on banknotes represents the limits of the State's sovereign border and becomes a means of banal nationalism. Moreover, by utilising scopic regimes, the hegemony portrays the cultural and political borders: historical figures from the country's past on one side, and an imagined or physical border, expressed through the illustrations on the back. This paper addresses the latter and examines the case of the S tate of I srael. The analysis of sites and landscapes that appear on national banknotes can decipher the construction process of a ‘territorial identity’ which, along with struggles for maintaining identity, provides the basis of the nation‐state. Using W illiams's typology of selective tradition, we argue that I sraeli banknotes demonstrate a mixture of residual and new cultural content.