“In the study of nationalism today, Eritrea presents us with an intriguing case, both because of its intensity and because of its grounding in a spatially dispersed but digitally networked diaspora. Nation as Network offers an insightful analysis of this case, documenting in fascinating ways both emerging new forms of citizenship and the changing contours of the Eritrean public sphere.  This book is an impressive contribution to our understanding of a vitally important contemporary topic.”

James Ferguson, Stanford University

“Bernal insightfully delves into the role the new media—especially the internet—has been playing in the precipitation of transformations of the meanings of nation, citizenship, and sovereignty in an age of transnational migration and globalization. Unlike most other studies that conceive of the internet as a technological product, she conceptualizes the internet as a cultural one, and, more important, she underscores the transformative power with which it facilitates social change.”

Gaim Kibreab, London South Bank University

“Nation as Network is as fine an ethnography as has been written on the contemporary shaping of a diasporic public sphere by participation in digital media. Such web communities are everywhere today, but Eritreans were among the first and the most venturesome, and Bernal follows them with a keen sense of their imagination, as well as their realities, from the very beginning.”

George Marcus, University of California, Irvine

“In her ethnographic study of Eritrean diaspora politics, anthropologist Bernal makes valuable contributions to current scholarship in communication technology and diaspora politics as they jointly create a new definition of citizenship in the emerging reality of globalism.”  

Choice