More Things Than Dreamt of in Your Philosophy
Extra-territorial micronations challenge our conceptions of sovereignty and power.
I want to step outside of the domain of international relations today to think a bit broader.
One subset of micronational projects stands out among the many purely ideational aspirants to national-identity status. These are the somewhat quirky non-territorial and even extraterrestrial micronations. That is, aspirations to something like state identity for communities that claim no earthly territory at all.
Such micronations base themselves in abstract spaces as a challenge to the limits of what we may understand as community sovereignty.
Here are some examples:
- KonungaRikena Elgaland-Vargaland (KREV) — A conceptual art project started in 1992 by Swedish artists Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren, Elgaland-Vargaland is a state comprised of liminal spaces. In their words, it incorporates “all boundaries between other nations as well as Digital Territory and other states of existence. Every time you travel somewhere, and every time you enter another form, such as the dream state, you visit Elgaland-Vargaland.”
- The Nation of Celestial Space — Celestia claims all of outer space as its domain. Started by Jame Thomas Mangan in 1948, the Celestia project aimed to “secure for sympathetic people, wherever they may live, the beauties and benefits of a vast domain yet unclaimed by any state or nation.” Mangan died in 1970. Nothing of note has been done with this project by his children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren since.
- The NSK State — Established by the Slovene political art collective, Neue Slowenische Kunst — made internationally famous by the band Laibach — the NSK state was established in 1991. This “state without a state” has framed its worldly manifestation through member artwork, several semi-permanent consulates, and by issuing passports and postage stamps internationally.
These micronational projects will probably never gain too much importance in terms of their geopolitical import or any broad cultural influence across large populations. Still, they perform a function that is interesting in the present era, when matters of state sovereignty are at the core of the most troubling crises of our day. They urge us to question not only the bases of our systems of social organization but the power relationships which underlie them.
As the late American anthropologist David Graeber succinctly said, “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”
Just how differently can be a fascinating question to explore.
Originally published at https://davidnwaeze.substack.com on July 12, 2022.
