Nationalism in a Transnational Context: Croatian Diaspora, Intimacy and Nationalist Imagination

This paper contributes to existing debates on the significance of modem diasporas in the context of global politics. In particular, it examines how nationalism has adapted to the newly emerging transnational environment. The new type of nationalism, long-distance nationalism, utilises modern forms of communication and travel to sustain its potency and relevance. Long-distance nationalism is not a simple consequence of global and transnational commu­ nication, but involves complex cultural, political and symbolic processes and practices.The first part of this paper examines some theoretical issues pertaining to the intersection between nationalism and transnational environments. It shows how nationalism is not antithetical to globalising and transnationalising tendencies, but instead, that it is becoming adapted to these new social conditions. In order to move beyond a rather simple assertion that trans­ nationalism and nationalism are safely co-existing, the paper argues that such cases of symbi­ osis are always concrete and ethnographically documentable. This paper grew out of the need to both assert the co-existing nature of nationalism and transnationalism and to provide a concrete example of nationalist sentiments in a modem transnational setting. This latter aim represents the core of the second part of the paper, which is based on research among second generation Croatians in Australia. It specifically explores the under-examined question of how nationalist sentiments inform and define people’s intimacy and marriage choices. The exami­ nation of this domain of intimacy is seen as an important test of the intensity of nationalist sentiments.