National identity rests on selective memory and oscillates between longing and terror

Evidence

Collective identity is based on the (selective) process of memory, so that a given group recognizes itself through its recollection of a common past. From this perspective national identity is a specific form of collective identity, a belonging, which is both a way of being, of social existence, and a longing. Identity thus conceived fluctuates between two poles, “romantic longing” and “terror.” “Romantic longing” involves a hungering for identification with common members, those one takes to be like oneself because social representation has suggested they are. “Terror,” by contrast, is prompted by the inevitable failure to fulfill the membership drive (Goldberg, Musheno, and Bower, 2001). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 124

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides a compact working definition of collective and national identity as memory-based belonging fluctuating between romantic longing and terror.
• XREF: The ‘selective memory’ basis of identity parallels how racial formation theories treat race as an unstable, processual construct rather than fixed essence.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 124