Introduction: Photographs, Archives and the Discourse of Nation

The book aims to focus on the relation between photography and the idea of nation, yet without focusing on single symbolic icons and instead considering the archival dimension. It is here, in the photographic archive, that the critical mass of photographic documents able to furnish a variety of representations and interpretations has been accumulated. In this way it functions strategically as a device able to influence cultural orientations. One of main issue that we shall address, starting with a critical approach to the postulate of the truth of photography, archive and national identity, is the establishment of photographic archives. And their history: their evolution and transformation, their neglect or their rediscovery, in relation to the ways in which they are exploited for nationalistic purposes, or for purposes of creating national identity or collective memory