Paper short abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in Nueva Germania, in Paraguay, I will present nationalism as an embodied disposition that implies contextually nationalised bodies with its social, political, sensory, and existential connotations.

Paper long abstract:

Nueva Germania was founded at the end of XIX century by Bernhard Förster and Elisabeth Nietzsche (Friedrich's sister), as an eugenic experiment in the wilderness of Paraguay. Fourteen German families travelled to Paraguay to take part in the creation of a racially pure colony, the intended nucleus of a new Germanic Empire. However, this ideological undertaking was quickly abandoned. Currently the local population is divided between Germans and Paraguayans, with the demarcations drawn by history, descent, language, religion, etc. These are contextually evoked or dismissed, producing contradictory notions of solidity and fluidity. In my (18 months long) research of these local denominations, discourses and daily life enactments, the concepts of national identity and ethnicity have proven to be limiting and reductive, in their traditional meaning. Drawing from ethnographic examples I will present nationalism, beyond articulated discourse, as an embodied disposition that implies contextually nationalised bodies with its social, political, sensory, and existential implications. Thereby I hope to problematize our understanding of nationalism, drawing attention to its embodied and existential aspects, and to present its contextual variability.