Locating Madawaska: Lessons on the Corporate Economics of Contemporary Nationalism
2016; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês
10.2139/ssrn.2733440
ISSN1556-5068
Autores Tópico(s)Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
ResumoThe residents of the town of Madawaska, Maine are historically French-speaking. Moreover, the town – far from any sizeable English-language anchor – lies cradled against the significantly larger and solidly French-speaking population of the Canadian city of Edmundston, New Brunswick. Nevertheless, although many of the residents of Madawaska are dual-citizens, the majority are currently shifting toward English-language use with a corresponding re-calibration in imagined community that increasingly privileges the US to the exclusion of Canada. Existing scholarship cannot explain this shift. Given its distinct characteristics, Madawaska therefore serves as a rare site for examining theories of nationalism and community, uncontaminated by the typically contested forces of power struggle, political charisma, and media influence. My analysis reveals key links between the systematization of corporate global supply/value chains and the socially contingent relationships that cause and follow those monetary concatenations, shedding light on nationalist/community trends worldwide. In this case, the transformations in Madawaskans’ language use – and their concomitant change in national cultural identity – stem from a two-element process involving:
Referência(s)