26 Introduction
local and the national. Amir-Ebrahimi furthermore shows the linkages
between different forms of media, the press, satellite TV and the Internet,
and how one means of communication helps compensate for the restric-
tions imposed by the state on the other.
Weblogistan” is a highly diverse territory differentiated along gen-“
der, age, geographical and ideological lines; it is national and transna-
tional at the same time; and it is first and foremost a site of resistance with
bloggers and their readers using all technological and discursive skills at
their disposal to expand their autonomy and to claim cyberspace as their
own. The state’s continued attempts to regulate, control and censor this
virtual space is an attestation of its power.^9 For “Weblogistan” is also a
“communal” space, which has evolved its own norms and styles of inter-
action. Finally, it is an “intimate” space, a “mirror,” enabling both self-
representation but also self-discovery. Inner and outer spaces, public and
private, once again intersect and realize themselves most fully through
their opposites.
ontinuing on many of the same themes, the fourth section of the C
volume, Resisting Publics, shows how conflict (and post-conflict recon-
struction) and resistance can be generative forces in the production of
national publics. Nationalism, national identity and the relationship
between the state and its constitutive groups are the issues raised by these
chapters. The construction of national publics entails discourses about self
and other and the complex relationship between the existence of multiple
and competing public spheres on the one hand and democratization pro-
cesses on the other. Here, particularly, historical research illustrates not
only how particular groups and publics are formed and transformed over
time, but also how the transnational is always present in the formation of
the national. The role of religion and political groups mobilized around
religion also reminds us not to neglect the inflections of the religious and
the national in each other.
Noor-Aiman Khan’s chapter examines the ways in which the public
sphere in European imperial metropoles provided the space and means
for the simultaneous production of the national, the international and the
transnational. The networks formed between students from the different
colonies of the British Empire and specifically the friendships and collab-
orations between students and activists from India and Egypt enabled the