South Korea.”In some cases, however, a regional or local affiliation can outweigh
nationality. Texans, for instance, are noted for identifying themselves as being from
Texasratherthanfrom“the United States.”Strong and sometimes emotional dis-
plays of national identity are common at international sporting events, such as the
World Cup or the Olympics.
As indicated earlier, identity is dynamic and can change contextually over time.
A particularly interesting example of this dynamism is ongoing in the European
Union (EU) where younger generations are moving away from the national identity
of their parents and adopting what might be termed a “transnational”identity.
According to Reid, many young adults from the EU tend to“think of‘Europe’as
their native land.”^30 A particularly prominent display of this emerging attitude came
from Anne (Ana) Hidalgo, the first woman to be elected mayor of Paris, France.
Ms. Hidalgo was born in Spain, immigrated to France with her parents, and subse-
quently took French citizenship. When asked during an interview in 2014 if she felt
Spanish or French, Ms. Hidalgo responded,“I feel European.”^31
Most nations are home to a number of different cultural groups, but one group usually
exercises the most power and is often referred to as the dominant culture because its mem-
bers maintain control of economic, governmental, and institutional organizations. This
control leads to the establishment of a“national character,”as defined by Allport:
“‘National character’implies that members of a nation, despite ethnic, racial, religious,
or individual differences among them, do resemble one another in certain fundamental
matters of belief and conduct, more than they resemble members of other nations.”^32
In the United States the dominant culture is considered to be people with Western
European ethnicity, and the cultural traits arising from that heritage are ascribed to
the nation as a whole and referred to as the“national character.”The advent of glob-
alization, however, has brought challenges to the primacy of U.S. dominant cultural
values as people of different nationalities, ethnicities, and varied beliefs and values
increasingly come into contact with each other. The“transnationalism”promoted by
globalization has also given rise to growing numbers of individuals with dual citizen-
ship who carry two passports.^33
National identity often plays a central role in contemporary geopolitics. In some
instances national identity is seen as a panacea for overcoming divisions created by
tribal ethnicities. For example, in an effort to heal the wounds of the 1994 conflict
between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, a struggle that claimed over 800,000 lives, the
Rwandan government has outlawed references to tribal ethnicity and is seeking to
have new generations see themselves only as Rwandans.^34 A similar effort was under-
taken in Afghanistan, where U.S. military trainers worked to create a sense of national-
ity among Afghan soldiers that would transcend culturally instilled tribal loyalities.^35
The crisis in Ukraine, which resulted in a commercial airliner being shot down in
2014, has its basis in a question of national identity—the Ukrainians see themselves
being more oriented toward Europe, but the nation’s Russian-speaking minority main-
tain allegiance to Moscow.^36 And political divisions resulting from war have imposed
different national identities on residents of North and South Korea.Regional Identity
With the exception of very small nations like Lichtenstein, Monaco, or San Marino,
every country can be divided into a number of different geographical regions, that are252 CHAPTER 7•Culture and Identity: Situating the Individual
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).