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ETMU Conference 2024

Panel discussion: Manifestations of (neo)nationalism in contemporary societies

This panel is organized by TRANSIT – Research Centre on Transnational and Transformation hosted by the Faculty of Education and Culture.

The panelist are: Professor Jouni Häkli, doctoral researcher Attila Kustán Magyari and professor Zsuzsa Millei.

The discussion will be chaired by Professor Nelli Piattoeva – academic leader of TRANSIT.

In this multidisciplinary panel researchers will discuss the manifestations of (neo)nationalism in contemporary societies. They will also pose critical questions about research on (neo)nationalism.
Professor Jouni Häkli will look at the critiques of methodological nationalism and whether or not these remain justified. Whereas national societies have become more porous, it is timely to explore how to study nationalism in ways that acknowledge the complex de- and re-nationalizing tendencies. Attila Kustán Magyari will consider the differences and similarities between (neo)nationalism and populism related to the hierarchical and antagonistic understandings of ‘the people’ and the political/economic ‘elite’. Moreover, there is a specific form of decolonial argument that is deployed by right-wing populists and conspiracy theorists in the name of national sovereignty. While the link between nation-building and (post)colonial sentiments is not new, the right-wing branch of the political elite in Hungary uses decoloniality to justify nationalistic policies in the media. Another important arena where (neo)nationalism is reproduced is education and early childhood policies. Professor Zsuzsa Millei will address the shift from welfare state’s values of solidarity and equality as the glue of national societies in the Nordics to virulent forms of exclusionary nationalism. Nationalism is on the rise and is taking spectacular forms often supported by the misinterpretation of scientific evidence. Welfare policies including early childhood education are enlisted to react to the growing diversity of societies as a threat to normative cultural homogeneity and associated status quo – a product of nation-building processes itself. These policies may take spectacular, virulent forms.

Chair Nelli Piattoeva and panelists Jouni Häkli, Zsuza Millei and Attila Kustan-Magyari

A picture of professor Nelli Piattoeva. Dark hair, white clothes and a light background with a plant.

Nelli Piattoeva is Professor of Sociology of Education at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University. Her research is motivated by the broad questions about what education does and is asked to do for society, leading to a focus on how education governs, and thence to enquiry into the actors and technologies that are implicated in governing. Nelli’s ongoing research examines how the historical role of education as a conduit of national socialisation is reenacted today through discourses of digitalization and digital applications constituting contemporary school education. Nelli’s primary geographical focus of research is Russia and the post-Soviet space.

Picture of Professor Jouni Häkli. Short dark hair, white shirt, glasses and a purple blouse on the shuolders. The background is a green forest

Jouni Häkli is Professor of Regional Studies and leader of the Space and Political Agency Research Group (SPARG) at Tampere University. His research lies at the intersection of political geography and global and transnational sociology, with a focus on the study of political subjectivity and agency, lived citizenship, forced migration, and borders and national identities. He is currently leading a four-year research project, the Politics of Embodied Encounters in Asylum Seeking (POEMS), funded by the Academy of Finland. 

Picture of Professor Zsuza Millei; ,short gray hair, glasses

Zsuzsa Millei is a Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University. Her research addresses child politics by exploring how politics (power, government, nationalism, and ideology) intertwine with childhood and children’s everyday life. Her comparative studies of nationalism and explorations of childhood memories of (post)socialist societies use post/qualitative and artistic methods and reveal complex matrices of power and seek to decolonize the research imagination and knowledge production.

Picture of Attila Kustan-Magyari. Yellow jacket, dark blouse, a cap, relaxed pose. In the background is Näsijärvi and Näsinneula.

Attila Kustán Magyari is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University. His research focuses on conspiracy theories, populism and radical/far-right movements, political parties in Hungary.

Väinö Linna Hall, Linna Building

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