According to Benedict Anderson (2007), a community is formed through people coming together and imagining that they are one group. Primarily, societies are created as a result of several factors, which he explains in the first four chapters of his book. Notably, the identification of communities started rising during the industrial revolution due to the increase in the use of local dialects in most functions as opposed to the more general ones, like Latin. The local dialects were used in publications and other print products (Anderson, 2007). The concept resonates well with the theory of imagined communities because when people identify with particular vernacular languages, they imagine being one group, and therefore come together. In other words, they choose to overlook the inequalities that exist amongst them, including poverty levels, education levels, and discrimination.
Benedict also explains that the concept of nationalism is an imagined political community (Anderson, 2007). In essence, this is imagined because most people in a particular country do not know the other people who live in the same country. They just live within the same nation but have no other connections. However, each one of them imagines that they are together as a community. They believe of their bond when they see their nation getting involved in major world affairs like competitions and conferences. As a result of the imagining, the members of a particular society do things in the name of the country. They identify with the nation in their activities. In essence, nations exist as a way of safeguarding interests of the members of the country. The people imagine that they have similar interests like racial, religious, or mostly political. Therefore, they form the nations and the structures that would enable them to run the nation.
Benedict states that a community is formed by people identifying with certain attributes and coming together. He defines a nation as an imagined community because of the same reason. People who have common interests form a society and define themselves according to the nation.
References
Anderson, B. (2007). Imagined communities: Nationalism's cultural roots. London: Verso.
