Introduction

Since Michael Herzfeld's Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nationstate was first published in 1997, the concept of cultural intimacy has entered the anthropological lexicon and emerged as a key analytical tool for the study of the nation-state and the making of collective identities. Drawing upon his own extensive fieldwork in Greece, and also upon a rich body of work that other scholars have undertaken in countries around the world, Herzfeld defines cultural intimacy as "the recognition of those aspects of a cultural identity that are considered a source of external embarrassment but that nevertheless provide insiders with their assurance of common sociality, the familiarity with the bases of power that may at one moment assure the disenfranchised a degree of creative irreverence and at the next moment reinforce the effectiveness of intimidation" (1997:3). In its original formulation, the model rests on the following three basic premises: 1) the nation-state plays a critical role in the construction and presentation of collective identity in private and public life; 2) widespread ideas about " the West" shape the operation of cultural intimacy; and 3) embarrassment is inextricably intertwined with the airing of the nation-state's dirty laundry for the world to see.

Subsequent elaborations of the concept have aimed to build upon Herzfeld's seminal insights and propose new directions of scholarly investigation. A collection of essays edited by Andrew Shryock in 2004 is perhaps the most comprehensive attempt made thus far to enhance our understanding of cultural intimacy, by expanding the geographical scope of the concept beyond Greece and Europe and elucidating the production of social identities in public and within the context of an increasingly interconnected, mass-mediated world. Herzfeld responds to the pronouncements of the contributors to the above volume both in the volume itself (2004:317-35) and in the second edition of Cultural Intimacy, published in 2005 (especially in the entirely new Chapter Two). His refined formulation of the original model emerges within a conceptual framework for the comparative ethnographic analysis of the refractions and manifestations of nationalism in countries where he has conducted research, namely Greece, Italy, and most recently Thailand.

Our understanding of cultural intimacy has thus been significantly broadened. The model's liability to change has been brought to light; that is to say, the...