Postcolonialism as a paradigm vehemently contests yet paradoxically survives upon the differentiation between the self and the other; the satellite and the metropolis; the periphery and the center; and the colonized and the colonizer. The nation-state is the physical unit of this dualistic model. Nation-state, the hyphenated taxonomy, includes both the territorial and the idealistic aspects in its definition. ‘State’ connotes the geopolitical dimensions and the ‘nation’ as Anderson (1991, pp. 6-7) conceptualizes is an ‘imagined community’—‘limited’ and ‘sovereign’. Although the current globalization forces have not greatly threatened the sovereignty of nation-states in political terms (however, it has destabilized the political conceptually) yet it has disturbed their cultural sovereignty beyond repair. Globalization has ensured that the communal boundaries are not ‘limited’, especially to those on the maps and those functional for geopolitical purposes.

The essentialized identity of the nation-state is central to the political purpose of postcolonialism. Paradoxically, the concept of the nation-state has been severely critiqued by the postcolonial theorists themselves. Ashcroft (2009, p. 12), commenting upon the status of the nation-state in the post globalization period, says that transnation offers utopian comforts to the postcolonial critics because it allows “utopian vision of identity beyond the boundaries of nation, ethnicity and race”. However in this progressive and timely analysis, Ashcroft fails to see the radical break between the nation-state and the transnation.

English Studies Journal, Interstices Outgrowing, Ashcroft, World Bank, IMF, WTO, Hyperspace, Transnationalism, Postcolonialism, .