Wednesday 13 October 2010

'America'

Attempting to define the term 'America' is an incredibly difficult task.
As Grueszs keyword definition paper makes evident. When attempting to define America it is necessary to consider all the notable uses of the term including, geographical, cultural, social and ideological.

Geographically as mentioned in Grueszs paper there are many debates surrounding this use of the term and it is interesting that originally 'settlers' did not refer to themselves as 'American' preferring to name settlements after their native countries, it wasn't until later, and arguably until the formation of the United States, that, as Walt Whitman states, the 'race of races' became a unified nation and a notable geographical space. This directly ties into the cultural consideration as both 'America' and the United States are areas of diverse cultural heritage from native inhabitants and from the wealth of immigrants that populate the 'Americas' which is highlighted within Grueszs paper with the mention of the debate that describes 'America' as ultimately possessing a 'narrative of shared origins'. It is social and ideological consideration that present the most debate about 'America' as a term, the United States present a very dominant image over the rest of the nation and due to its global influence and power it is easy for the United States to over shadow the rest of the 'Americas' and this can be seen in the writings of activists such as W.E.B Debois. and C.L.R. James who as mentioned in Grueszs paper criticize the United States interventionist and influential tendencies.

Essentially Grueszs paper highlights the difficulty in attempting to define 'America' as a term, as there is so many contributing and conflicting factors to take into account.

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