Moderni kansakunta ja puuttuvat sukupuolet

Authors

• Eira Juntti

Abstract

Most studies of nationalism in the social sciences during the last twenty years have used a structuralist approach, which is based on a Marxist analysis of the development of modern society. There are two major flaws in the approach: firstly, the focus is on “economic structures”, and “culture” and “ideology” are omitted. Secondly, gender as a theoretical concept is entirely missing from the analysis, and as a result, so is most of women’s history. Even if the analysis operates with the concept of “universal subject”, the subject is really male, and more weight is given to activities and areas of life dominated by men. These omissions are partially due to inherent problems in Marxist theory. Those interested in studying both the “insides” of people and “economic structures”, and those who seek to include gender in their analysis, have sought answers from elsewhere, for example post-structuralism and discourse analysis.