The symbolic space of the sea: mythologising a nation, performing an alliance
Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Bidrag til bog/antologi › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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The symbolic space of the sea : mythologising a nation, performing an alliance. / Mälksoo, Maria.
The Sea and International Relations. red. / Benjamin de Carvalho; Halvard Leira. Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2022.Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapport › Bidrag til bog/antologi › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - CHAP
T1 - The symbolic space of the sea
T2 - mythologising a nation, performing an alliance
AU - Mälksoo, Maria
PY - 2022/7/26
Y1 - 2022/7/26
N2 - This chapter tackles seascape as a symbolic space. It explores the political symbolisation and the symbolic power of the sea via a twofold empirical focus. The first move examines the maritime imagining of a nation-space with the example of Estonia’s ex-president and ethnographer Lennart Meri’s historical travelogue Hõbevalge [Silver White] (1976). This imaginative reconstruction of Estonia’s ancient seafaring history and connectivities with the Baltic Sea region and beyond was a conscious exercise in linking a forgotten Baltic province to the mental map of a Nordic-Baltic region. Silver White provided a national mythology for a small nation which was denied an autonomous political present and future as part of the Soviet Union. As a second move, the chapter looks at the emerging maritime posture and posturing of NATO in the Baltic Sea region. Proceeding from Catherine Bell’s understanding of ritualisation as a culturally strategic way of acting in the world and exercising power, NATO’s maritime presence in the Nordic-Baltic space emerges as a case of ritualised performance of deterrence towards Russia. In both instances of cultivating a national mythscape via the sea and performing a multinational military alliance via exercising extended maritime deterrence, the Baltic Sea emerges as a crucial arena for creating and enacting political subjectivities and communities in world politics
AB - This chapter tackles seascape as a symbolic space. It explores the political symbolisation and the symbolic power of the sea via a twofold empirical focus. The first move examines the maritime imagining of a nation-space with the example of Estonia’s ex-president and ethnographer Lennart Meri’s historical travelogue Hõbevalge [Silver White] (1976). This imaginative reconstruction of Estonia’s ancient seafaring history and connectivities with the Baltic Sea region and beyond was a conscious exercise in linking a forgotten Baltic province to the mental map of a Nordic-Baltic region. Silver White provided a national mythology for a small nation which was denied an autonomous political present and future as part of the Soviet Union. As a second move, the chapter looks at the emerging maritime posture and posturing of NATO in the Baltic Sea region. Proceeding from Catherine Bell’s understanding of ritualisation as a culturally strategic way of acting in the world and exercising power, NATO’s maritime presence in the Nordic-Baltic space emerges as a case of ritualised performance of deterrence towards Russia. In both instances of cultivating a national mythscape via the sea and performing a multinational military alliance via exercising extended maritime deterrence, the Baltic Sea emerges as a crucial arena for creating and enacting political subjectivities and communities in world politics
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - baltic Sea
KW - Estonia
KW - Lennart Meri
KW - Silver White
KW - NATO
KW - symbolic space
KW - symbolic form
UR - https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526155108/
U2 - 10.7765/9781526155122.00008
DO - 10.7765/9781526155122.00008
M3 - Book chapter
SN - 9781526155108
BT - The Sea and International Relations
A2 - de Carvalho, Benjamin
A2 - Leira, Halvard
PB - Manchester University Press
CY - Manchester
ER -
ID: 305000772