Nationalism theorist Rogers Brubaker proposed as an object of scholarly analysis “the modern state’s efforts to inscribe its subjects onto a classificatory grid: to identify and categorize people,” and generally drawing attention to historical actors who acquire “power to name, to identify, to categorize, to state what is what and who is who.” Pierre Bourdieu has also urged scholars to examine classification as a struggle "over the monopoly of power to make people see and believe, to get them to know and recognize, to impose the legitimate definition of the divisions of the social world and, thereby, to make and unmake groups." This conference explores classification and taxonomy as they affect nationality and nationalism. Who classifies nations, how, and why? How are taxonomies imposed or resisted? How do national taxonomies interact with racial, linguistic, civilizational, or other taxonomies? We are interested both comparative analyses of nationalist taxonomies or case studies of individual taxonomizers.

A conference will take place at the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.The conference will have no registration fee, and will be open to the public. We regret that we have no budget for travel expenses, but it may be possible for us to cover accomodation. Prospective applications should contact us as soon as possible, but before June 2016. Send an abstract by 6 June 2016 to: Alexander Maxwell: alexander.maxwell@vuw.ac.nz

We also intend to publish selected papers in a scholarly journal. Potential contributors may contribute to the themed issue of the journal without attending the conference. The editor of the journal Nationalities Papers has provisionally expressed interest in publishing selected papers. Nationalities Papers has been ranked Q1 for history in the “SCImago” journal rankings every year since 1999. We are open to papers from anywhere in the world, but take a particular interest in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.