States, Nations and Societies. The Valencian Case

Abstract

Political action of contemporary western societies has been structured based on a definition of territorial units of action, which we call states. This westerns political structure has been legitimized from linking each state a collective holder of sovereignty, which we call nation. Social life develops in relationship fields linked to different areas of community life, such as production, consumption, distribution of work, etc., involving also the discursive structures talking about the practices. The experience of social practices occurs in the complex interaction between all these fields of relations, which we call social structure. Each of these collective forms (states, nations, social structure) outlined several geographic and social areas, to facilitate or/and hinder the construction of certain collective identities and, therefore, facilitate or/and hinder the production of certain collective actions.
In the first part, this article proposes a discussion on the relationship between the concepts of state, nation and social structure. Later, the article tries an empirical application of the theoretical discussion in the Valencian case, to reveal the mechanisms that have worked in the construction of their collective identity.