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Bok nr. 6 Ivar Aasen`s Logic of Nation
J. Peter Burgess
Pris: 150,-
Utgjevingsår : 1999
Trykt i ny redigert utgåve i 2005
Who belongs to the Norwegian nation? Those who carry a Norwegian passport? Residence permit? Those who speak Norwegian? Those with Norwegian ancestors? Those who have lived a certain period on the Norwegian territory? Indeed who belongs to the Norwegian? And who decides who belongs? Who or what authority prescribes the criteria for inclusion or exclusion in the group "Norwegian"?
It is not the nation itself, but the concept of nation which was prosecuted on the 19th century ideological fields of battle and in the articles and treatises of Ivar Aasen. The struggle for Norway in the 19th century is the struggle for the concept of Norway, for possession of the concept`s territory, for the right to draw its borders and create a corps of conceptual border police, charged with the task of governing and policing the Norwegian. Who will own the concept, who will manipulate it, according to which terms, and with regard to whom? Ivar Aasen was thus not merely the engineer of a language, a capable philologist who carried out the nuts and bolts labor necessary to consolidate the New Norwegian language. He was the catalyst of the question of nation, of cultural identity in general and of Norwegian cultural identity in particular. Aasen did not fix Norwegian cultural identity for all times, but rather he problematized it, recast it as a question: New Norwegian is an interrogation, a challenge, a possibility, and a moral imperative.
J. Peter Burgess (b. 1961) is a philosopher and cultural historian. He is editor of Security Dialogue and leads the Security Programme at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).
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