Cultural Identities

‘Britishness’

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National Identity

Aims:– Understanding the origin of national identity and

the role of concepts and theories in doing so– Understanding what is meant by culture and

exploring how national identities are constructed through culture

– Applying those understandings to a study of representations of British identity in South East Asian film

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Nation and Identity

Tony Parker 1991 Identity and its relation to

– place (different parts of Belfast)– nation (Ireland and Britain)– religious tradition (Catholic and Protestant)– politics (Nationalist and Unionist)

Which identity is primary … and in 1991?

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Nation and Identity

Tony Parker 1991– What issues of identity are being signalled

by the speakers?– What is the connection being drawn

between identity and place in West Belfast?

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Where do you come from?

What is specific about the place you come from?– Language– Sports– Landscape– Monuments– Music– Weather– Qualities that characterise the place– Icons

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Culture & Identity

CULTURES IDENTITIES

language

beliefs/values

signs/symbolsart

religion

can be markers of them and us, origins of sameness and difference

can create narratives and rituals that historically define identities

can provide core sense of self and community

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Nations and Nation-States

Which of the following are nations and which are nation-states?– Britain– England– Ireland– The Republic of Ireland– Scotland– Wales– The United Kingdom

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Borders: Europe 1000 AD

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Borders: Europe 1999 AD

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Definitions

Nation state– A state which possesses external fixed, known, demarcated

borders, and possesses an internal uniformity of rule. Nation

– A named people who acknowledge a shared solidarity and identity by virtue of a shared culture, history and territorial homeland.

Nationalism– An emotive identification with a nation and a political project

to secure and independent nation-state for a nation.

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British National Identity

What role has culture played in the formation of British national identity?

Articles: Times Higher September 3 20041. Bernard Crick: There’s a Scot, an Irishman and

a man who is confused.2. Tariq Modood: Defined by some distinct

hyphenated Britishness3. Keith Ward: We love a drop of sherry, but can’t

take the strong stuff4. Keith Hart: It’s falling apart at the seams

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Approaches: Gellner

Ernest Gellner– Nations are a modern invention that fit the

functional requirements of modern societies.– Nations have come into being through

modernisation in general and industrialisation in particular.

– Modernisation requires the development of a common culture and common language.

– This requires mass education, centrally determined and homogonous which can impose a single language and single culture.

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Approaches: Anderson

Benedict Anderson– Concerned with the informal systems of literacy in the

process of modernisation. His starting point is the idea of the nation as an imagined community.

• It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them. (1983: 15)

– It is imagined as a limited community in a sea of other such communities.

– It imagined itself as a community of self-rule, as sovereign.– Shared literacy + shared language + shared culture = the

conditions for the emergence of shared national identity.– It needs to be fought for and defended.

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Approaches: Smith

Anthony D. Smith– Starts with the concept of an ethnic community. In Europe these

communities began to take shape in the Middle Ages.– Before nations we find elements of ethnic communities (the Welsh

with a shared language: the Scots with their allegiance to a feudal state distinct from the English) which were the raw materials for the creation of the modern nation.

– The difference between ethnic community and nation is the possession of:1. An historic territory, or homeland;2. Common myths and historical memories;3. A common mass, public culture;4. Common legal rights and duties for all members;5. A common economy with territorial mobility for all members. (1986)

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SummaryKey Concepts Key Theories

State Gellner

Nation Anderson

Nation-state Smith

Nationalism

How might you represent their interrelationships diagrammatically?

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NATIONS ANDNATIONALIDENTITIES

STATES

NATION-STATES

NATIONALISM

POLITICAL CULTURAL

national identitiescan develop toproduce nationalism

Political nationalism can leadTo the creation of nation-states

Summary

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NATIONS ANDNATIONALIDENTITIES

STATES

NATION-STATES

NATIONALISM

POLITICAL CULTURAL

national identitiescan develop toproduce nationalism

Political nationalism can leadTo the creation of nation-states

1.

2.

3. ?

?

?

Summary

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SummaryTheorist Origins of

nation-states

Key claims

Origins of nations

Key claims

Fate of other cultures

Key claims

Gellner

Anderson

Smith

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SummaryTheorist Origins of

nation-states

Key claims

Origins of nations

Key claims

Fate of other cultures

Key claims

Gellner Imposed from above, by

nation-building state

elites

Peripheral cultures

quashed. Folk cultures

eradicated

Anderson War and inter-state

system

Imagined by elites and

new mass literate

politics

Can lead to peripheral

nationalism

Smith War and inter-state

system

Must begin from pre-

modern ethnic cores or

ethnies

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Culture & Identity

CULTURES IDENTITIES

language

beliefs/values

signs/symbolsart

religion

can be markers of them and us, origins of sameness and difference

can create narratives and rituals that historically define identities

can provide core sense of self and community

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What is Britain?

What changed the map and demanded the invention of Britain and Britishness was the 1707 Act of Union. Passed by Westminster it linked Scotland to England and Wales and announced there would be ‘one United Kingdom by the name of Great Britain’.

So, there was an embryonic British nation state but no British nation.

It was invented around five key pillars. Look at these pillars and try to unpack their importance.

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What is Britain?

Five pillars on which British national identity was invented.

Geography Religion War Empire, land and commerce Monarchy

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Summary

The British nation-state created by the 1707 Act of Union, preceded the creation of the a British nation.

Prior to the 19th century, Britishness was contructed around the pillars of geography, protestantism, war, Empire, and monarchy

Britishness was initially an elite identity, dominated by Englishness

Britishness became a more secure national identity with the advent of industrialisation and mass literacy

Pre-existing ethnic allegiances never completely disappeared.