Design and National Identity

Description

This important study introduces the key theories of national identity, and relates them to the broad fields of product, graphic and fashion design. Javier Gimeno-Martinez approaches the inter-relationship between national identity and cultural production from two perspectives: the distinctive characteristics of a nation's output, and the consumption of design products within a country as a means of generating a national design landscape. Using case studies ranging from stamps in nineteenth century Russian-occupied Finland, to Coca-Cola as an 'American' drink in modern Trinidad and Tobago, he addresses concepts of essentialism, constructivism, geography and multiculturality, and considers the works of key theorists, including Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm and Doreen Massey. This illuminating book offers the first comprehensive account of how national identity and cultural policy have shaped design, while suggesting that traditional formations of the 'national' are increasingly unsustainable in an age of globalisation, migration and cultural diversity. Javier Gimeno-Martinez is Lecturer in Design Cultures at the VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Javier Gimeno-Martinez is an assistant professor at the VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His work has been published in various jounals including 'Interiors' and 'Design and Culture', and he has contributed chapters to several edited volumes.

A great starting point for further research of the importance of national identity, a topic that seems to dominate our lives more than ever. * Journal of Design History * This book is a rare treat. Gimeno-Martinez offers a wealth of interesting and well-chosen cultural detail, grounded in broad-based theoretical finesse; his presentation is illuminating and effortlessly readable. Design and National Identity will make us see and read our public spaces and material environment with different eyes. * Joep Leerssen, Professor of European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands * Design and National Identity is a much-needed book that comprehensively elucidates the complexity, historicity and evolution of the relation between design and the nation. Gimeno-Martinez does not take for granted a world divided into nations. He convincingly shows that the subnational, the diasporic, the cosmopolitan and the global are equally important frameworks that configure collective allegiance, and that design plays a crucial role in disputing, shaping, and claiming the recognition of established and emerging identities. * Jilly Traganou, Associate Professor of Spatial Design Studies at Parsons School of Design, USA * In this book the focus is on the discourse on nationalism and national identity. This is dissected and extensively illustrated for design historians. As an overview of the various discussions, opinions and interpretations, it is an extremely valuable contribution to our discipline (translated from Dutch). * Frederike Huygen, chair of the Dutch Design History Society *