In today’s political life, nations are unquestionably legitimate. The nation is immutable, it has always existed and its members must impede its violation and ensure its future existence by putting it at the top of their priorities. Using critical geography theories, this paper questions the necessity of one of today’s most unquestioned assumption. To begin, the three components of the nation—the people, the territory or homeland, and a mystical bond between the people and the territory—will be examined separately in order to illustrate the construction of the nation, its need for state-like representational structure and its identity. Secondly, through the Canada-Quebec nexus, the pitfalls of national identity will be identified. Exclusion, romanticized history, limited membership and restricted identity are widespread strategies of nations in order to turn the multitude into a synthetic homogeneity. Although it seems clear that the geography of nation-states themselves must be challenged, this façade of unity is maintained. The last section demonstrates that the nation is sustained not for its people, but rather to retain control of them by the sovereign.

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Rachel Ariey-Jouglard
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