Since the paradigmatic shift towards constructivism and modernism in the 1980s and 1990s, research on nations and nationalism has been undeniably innovated, but at the same time it has lost much of its original drive. Conceptual debates, like those on the constructedness and antiquity of nations, mimic older polemics, while many case studies tend to be repetitive. This collaborative project wants to innovate nations and nationalism research ‘from three margins’:

1. Thematically: studying groups that are not part of national(ist) movements, have resisted national integration and/or have been neglected by scholars. 
2. Methodologically and heuristically: reframing nations and nationalism from outside nationalism studies (e.g. urban history, ethnomethodology), bringing together scholars from diverse fields (e.g. history, political science, sociology, anthropology, literary studies, etc.), using original or underused sources. 
3. Geographically: integrating and comparing ‘marginal’ cases that are often neglected because most research focuses on the well-known larger cases.

This project is coordinated by the POHIS-Centre for Political History of Antwerp University and funded by the ‘International Scientific Research’ program of the Research Foundation of Flanders.