An imagined community only solidifies when educational and administrative pilgrimages coincide

Evidence

Third was the fact that there was no real isomorphism between the educational and administrative pilgrimages in Indochina. The French made no bones about expressing the view that if the Vietnamese were untrustworthy and grasping, they were nonetheless decisively more energetic and intelligent than the ‘child-like’ Khmer and Lao. Accordingly, they made extensive use of Vietnamese functionaries in western Indochina. The 176,000 Vietnamese residing in ‘Cambodge’ in 1937 – representing less than one per cent of the 19 million Vietnamese-speakers of the colony, but about 6 per cent of the Protectorate’s population – formed a relatively successful group, for whom therefore Indochina had a rather solid meaning, as it did for the 50,000 sent into ‘Laos’ prior to 1945. Particularly the functionaries among them, who might be posted from place to place in all five subsections of the colony, could well imagine Indochina as the wide stage on which they would continue to perform. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 472

Categorization

• DEFINE: Isomorphism of educational and administrative pilgrimage is a core mechanism concept in Anderson’s model; this is its clearest statement in the chapter.
• XREF: Explains why Indochinese consciousness evaporated while Indonesian survived — the direct comparative test of the pilgrimage model developed earlier in the book. — connects to: Shared journeys among strangers create the sense of an imagined community — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 223; Barred pilgrimages, not ethnic pluralism, fractured national community — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 529; Education once occurred in public streets rather than private buildings (+3 more)

Related

• Educational and administrative pilgrimages built national imagined communities (similarity 0.83)
• Shared journeys among strangers create the sense of an imagined community (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial school hierarchies converted bureaucratic geography into national pilgrimage (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Shared journeys among strangers create the sense of an imagined community #corroborates (0.95) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 223
• Colonial unity imagined at a shared school evaporates when administrative practice fails to match #exemplifies (0.92) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 464
• Barred pilgrimages, not ethnic pluralism, fractured national community #qualifies (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 529
• Education once occurred in public streets rather than private buildings #exemplifies (0.72)