Recognizing Corsica: The drama of recognition in nationalist mobilization

Abstract

Corsican nationalism offers a valuable opportunity to identify the uniqueness of nationalism as a mode of political claim making as well as the characteristics nationalist mobilization shares with other forms of collective action. Like all nations, the Corsican nation does not exist as objective reality, but must be projected as real; it must be made to appear real through the drama of political struggle. Thus, unlike leaders in other forms of social mobilization, nationalists agents must convincingly project the existence of their subject as well as the righteousness of their objective. The struggle over the official recognition of a Corsican nation by French government officials has been centred on this task. At the same time, this article draws attention to the fundamentally similar dynamics that are shared by all forms of contentious politics.