Nations produce identity through cultural representation, not mere legal citizenship

Evidence

Part of the dilemma we face is that collective identities are not things with which we are bom. Rather, they are formed and transformed within and in relation to representation. We only know what it is to be English or French because of the way Englishness and Frenchness has come to be represented, as a set of meanings within a national culture. It follows that a nation is not only a political entity but something which produces meanings - a system of cultural representation. People are legal citizens of a state; but they also participate and are implicated in the idea of the nation as represented in national culture. A nation is a symbolic community and it is this which accounts for its power to generate a sense of identity and allegiance. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 122

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definitional statement: identities are constructed through representation within national culture rather than inherited at birth.
• XREF: Directly parallels vault usage of racial formation as the process of racial categories being created, transformed, and destroyed through representation.
• CANDY: Compact, quotable formulation that a nation is ‘a symbolic community,’ not merely a political entity.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 122