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In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson (2006) made what would become a foundational argument for the study of nations. Basing his work on the development of post‐colonial nation‐states, Anderson pushed for an understanding of nations as imagined communities. In using the word “imagined,” he did not intend to dismiss the importance of nations, but rather to emphasize that nations are created rather than discovered, and that they have far‐reaching political and social effects. For Anderson, key features of the nation are that it is both inclusive and exclusive – that is, it must have limits to membership, it is imagined because the members of this community do not have personal relationships with one another but feel that they do and it is imagined to be sovereign – that is, to be able to determine its own affairs. These characteristics enable people even to be ready to die for the sake of the nation. In Anderson’s (2006, p.6) words, the nation is “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” While Anderson drew on many place‐based examples in his book, Indonesia, the country that was the focus of his research career, is a startling example of his premise. An archipelago in Southeast Asia made of more than thirteen thousand islands with approximately 700 spoken languages, the idea of Indonesia as a nation emerged during the twentieth century and was the results of concerted efforts by nationalists to develop a common sense of belonging in opposition to Dutch and in the wake of the Japanese occupation during World War II. Though it is complicated by contradictions and the subsequent treatment of minorities by the Javanese, the official ideology of Indonesia, Pancasila (five principles), was developed as a means to unify this diverse collection of places and people by bringing together ideas from the nationalist movement.