Open AccessInterrupting Mythic Community
Author(s) -
Linnell Secomb
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
cultural studies review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 1837-8692
pISSN - 1446-8123
DOI - 10.5130/csr.v9i1.3586
Subject(s) - idyll , mythology , politics , sociology , fantasy , institution , government (linguistics) , aesthetics , environmental ethics , social science , political science , law , literature , philosophy , art , linguistics
If nation is increasingly perceived as a less than honourable institution formed through war, invasion and geo-political territorialisation, and government is widely denounced as the site of political intrigue and the means of subjectification of citizen–voters, community appears to escape this critique and to be viewed as an idyllic formation based on bonds of affinity. However, this romancing of community is disrupted by trans-cultural and sub-cultural formations that expose the fantasy of a harmonious, homogenous community. While community is often conceived as arising organically from familial, tribal or cultural similarity, or as constituted through a common history and shared cultural institutions, this totalising conception of community is interrupted by the demands of difference and heterogeneity and by a questioning of the idyll of community authenticated in myths of archaic origin