Thirty years after his Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, Neruda’s three books of “elemental odes” (1954–57) refocused his poetry into the everyday things and the everyday life of the common people. This new type of poetry responded to an invitation by Miguel Otero Silva, the director of the Caracas journal El Nacional, for a weekly collaboration, which the poet envisioned as an opportunity to offer a chronicle of the daily life of his time, his people, and the everyday objects that surrounded them. This anecdote led the way for Neruda’s “impure” poetry to challenge the assumed range of topics for poetic discourse, beyond his reputation as a poet of love and politics, earned from his previous poetry collections. He began to write in a simpler way, as the “invisible man” who walks the streets talking to common people about their daily experience.

This chapter examines the rise of U.S. interest in the Nicaragua Canal in the context of the Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century as well as the beginning of a transatlantic rivalry between Great Britain and the United States over control of the canal route. This chapter illuminates how the status of the Mosquito Kingdom as an Indigenous polity became the crucial fulcrum around which this transatlantic rivalry operated so that the Mosquito question became inextricably linked to the Canal question at a time when the canal also became central to Nicaragua’s nationalist project and regional aspirations.

By asking how political communities are constructed and with what boundaries, this book has explored different conceptualizations of nation, different perceptions of territory and dynamics of unity and division. It has presented alternative notions of political community outside of the nation-state paradigm, in communities smaller than the state and going beyond the boundaries of the state. My work has devoted attention to the beginnings of political communities or to their reshaping processes. By establishing boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, these communities defined themselves at different levels: the local, regional, transnational and national levels. In the border region between Ghana and Togo, these political communities were built on top of each other, like a palimpsest, and intersected with the Ghanaian and Togolese states that used these dynamics to their advantage. This book endeavours to make us rethink the notion of the nation-state and its associated concepts in light of these dynamics: citizenship, elections, border and nation-state.

This chapter examines Pablo Neruda’s deep and complex relationship with the Soviet Union, as reflected in his memoirs Confieso que he vivido: Memorias (I Confess That I Have Lived: Memoirs, 1974). It explores the poet’s encounters, reflections, and evolving perceptions of the country, its people, and their connections to Chile. It analyzes Neruda’s initial fascination with Soviet socialism and communism and his gradual disillusionment with certain aspects of the regime under Stalin’s leadership. The chapter delves into the complexities of the poet’s political and personal allegiances reflected in his encounters with the prominent figures of the Soviet intelligentsia, such as Ilya Ehrenburg. The comparative analysis of Neruda’s memoirs and poetry allows us to shed light on the intertwined histories of Chile and the Soviet Union, highlighting the enduring impact of Neruda’s Soviet odyssey on his literary work and political convictions.

Chapter Two examines the notions of “becoming” and “being” Qizilbash, contextualizing the Ottoman Qizilbash within the broader literature on belonging while revealing the multitude of factors influencing this choice of adherence, as perceived by both the ruler and the ruled. More specifically it examines the motivations behind Qizilbash belonging in Ottoman lands through a framework that scrutinizes their lived experience under two major modes: belonging rooted in spiritual conviction and belonging driven by social, economic, and political compulsion. Within this framework, the chapter aims to illustrate that belonging took on diverse forms and that a shift in sectarian affiliation did not always entail the complete abandonment of previously held beliefs; instead, it often occurred within a larger interplay of politics and morality, as well as personal and material needs.

In this chapter, the book is introduced by interrogating how a political community is constructed and with what membership boundaries, especially when it lies across borders, or at another level than the nation-state. I argue that the political belonging found at the local level and based on ideas of ‘indigeneity’ – whereby the individual is bound to a particular community and has access to a bundle of rights by virtue of the ‘first-comer’ or ‘early-comer rule’– informs and contributes to the making of other types of political belonging at different levels.

The opening chapter provides a historical overview of Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM), tracing its development through the convergence of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects. It introduces the subsequent chapters, each dedicated to specific phonological aspects: vowels, consonants, tones, syllable structure, segmental and tonal mutations, tonal domains, rhythm, and the evolving accent patterns of younger speakers, particularly the iGeneration Taiwanese Southern Min (iTSM), which represents a distinctive phonological profile.

The chapter also introduces the Taiwanese Romanization notation system alongside the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the framework for data presentation throughout the study. Three robust TSM corpora, synthesized from earlier National Science Council research, provide the empirical foundation for the analysis. Statistical evaluations of the corpora support investigations into segmental transformations, tonal evolution, and prosodic patterns.

This introduction sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of TSM phonology, encouraging readers to critically engage with the evidence and form independent interpretations. It prepares readers for a nuanced journey into the complexities of TSM phonology in the chapters ahead.

This chapter examines how the 2011 uprising disrupted the authoritative intellectual model, leading to an ideal of radical embeddedness – a position of unconditional solidarity with the people. Intellectuals, once expected to enlighten and guide, increasingly deferred to public sentiment, sometimes at the expense of critical intervention. Two intellectual orientations co-existed: a Bourdieusian model, which maintained analytical distance, and a Boltanskian model, which embraced radical egalitarianism. However, exile fostered self-perceptions of epistemic inferiority, particularly in trauma work aimed at global solidarity. While radical embeddedness strengthened solidarity narratives, it also weakened political influence, leading intellectuals to avoid institutional politics and produce politically hesitant interventions. The chapter argues that this shift neutralised secular democratic currents, leaving the movement vulnerable to competing ideological forces. Ultimately, while embedded intellectuals sought praxis, their deference to public sentiment limited their impact.