Membership news
The NISE membership is constantly growing. This was also the case over the last few months, with new entrants for the Network, the Partnership, the Scientific Council and the IAB.
The NISE Network membership has increased to thirthy-three with the following new entrants:
- Nazioni e Regioni – Studi e Ricerche sulla comunità immaginata [Nations and Regions – Studies and Researches on Imagined Communities] – NeRe, is a six-monthly Italian online journal devoted to theoretical questions related to nationalism and regionalism, esp. to case studies and concrete aspects of national construction analysed from different scientific angles. For more information, read their presentation in English.
- Rolde de Estudios Aragoneses – REA is a cultural association since 1977, with an important collection related to Aragonese history, society, politics, identity, language and culture and many publications, activities, courses, expositions etc. on the same to its name. Among its working groups is the Archivo de Aragonesismo ContemporAneo.
As reported in NISELetter 8, with the Partnership a new tier of the organisational structure of NISE has been introduced. The following organisations have already now entered the scheme:
- Consello da Cultura Galega (Council of Galician Culture) was created in 1983 by law of the Galician Parliament as the representative, independent body for Galician culture. Its manyfold activities and institutes also relate to historiographical, archival and bibliographical issues as well as covering issues of nationalism, identity etc.
- Power in History. Centre for Political History was established by the Political History Research Group (°2004) at University Antwerp (Belgium). It carries out interdisciplinary research on political institutions, theories and ideologies, political culture and international relations, mainly from the Modern and Contemporary era.
- Institut für Soziale Bewegungen – ISB (Institute for Social Movements) is a central research unit of the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany). Although research on workers’ movements has continued to play an important part since its establishment in 1980, research and teaching in the field of modern social movements increasingly shape its activities. The institute is located at the Haus der Geschichte des Ruhrgebietes (House for the History of the Ruhr) together with the Bibliothek des Ruhrgebietes (Library of the Ruhr) and the Archiv für Soziale Bewegungen (Archive for Social Movements).
- Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization – UNPO is an international organisation established in 1991 at the Peace Palace in The Hague (the Netherlands). It acts as conduit to United Nations, European Parliament and other international forums for indigenous peoples, minorities and occupied or unrecognised territories. It now represents over 150 million people, former members being Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, Georgia etc. while current members are Somaliland, Kosovo, Zanzibar but also the Hmong, Circassians etc. The general secretariat, as well as the study centre, is in The Hague, the ‘advocacy office’ in Brussels. UNPO is funded by governments, foundations, NGO’s and individuals as well as membership fees. It produces reports, advises its members, organises conferences and is represented in various international UN and other bodies.
Ludger Mees of the Department of Contemporary History of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao (Spain), became member of the Scientific Council. He is a well-known specialist of a.o. the history and theory of nationalism, in particular of the Basque and by extension the Spanish cases.
The NISE International Advisory Board (IAB) was joined by Louis Vos, prof. em. of history at the KULeuven and chairman of NISE. He will be reinforcing the operational link of the board with the editorial staff of Studies on National Movements (SNM).
Finally, NISE has evolved exponentially since the start back in 2007. That has also been the case with its organisational structure. This is for the time being more or less settled, so providing the occasion for producing an organisation chart of NISE as of September 2013.