CONCEPT OF NATIONALISM IN CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY   2481W

To what extent is the concept of nationalism useful for understanding contemporary political geography? Use examples to illustrate your answer.

In order to analyse to what extent the concept of nationalism is useful for understating contemporary political geography, it is important to define what is meant by the concepts. Nationalism can be defined as an ‘identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests.’ (Dictionaries, 2018) However, the concept of nationalism is much more complexed and I intend to expand on this during the course of the essay.  When discussing political geography it refers to ‘the branch of geography that deals with the boundaries, divisions, and possessions of states.’ (Dictionaries, 2018) With the key concepts defined it allows us to examine the question in depth. In this essay I intend to demonstrate, using a variety of examples that the concept of nationalism forms a core foundation in several contemporary debates in political geography and thus it can be useful to understanding it.

One of the main reasons that nationalism has become present in contemporary political geography is due to geographical reasons.It can be concluded that those countries with a stronger sense of national identity have a more isolationist approach and place the benefits of their own countries above that of everything else. It is evident that geographical location plays a large part in a countries sense of national identity. Britain has already acquired a strong sense of national identity