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National Identity, Popular Culture and

Everyday Life

Tim Edensor

Oxford • New York

First published in 2002 by

Berg

Editorial offices:

150 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JJ, UK

838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812, USA

© Tim Edensor 2002

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form

or by any means without the written permission of Berg.

Berg is an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1 85973 514 2 (Cloth)

ISBN 1 85973 519 3 (Paper)

Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.

Printed in the United Kingdom by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Contents

Acknowledgements v

Preface vi

1 Popular Culture, Everyday Life and the Matrix of National

Identity 1

Theories of nationalism: reductive cultural perspectives 1

Popular culture and national identity 12

Everyday life and national identity 17

Conceptualising identity 23

The redistribution of national identity 30

2 Geography and Landscape: National Places and Spaces 37

The nation as bounded space 37

Ideological rural national landscapes 39

Iconic sites 45

Sites of popular culture and assembly 48

Familiar, quotidian landscapes 50

Dwellingscapes 54

Homely space 57

Conclusion 64

3 Performing National Identity 69

Formal rituals and invented ceremonies 72

Popular rituals: sport and carnival 78

Staging the nation 84

Everyday performances: popular competencies, embodied habits

and synchronised enactions 88

Conclusion 99

4 Material Culture and National Identity 103

Social relations and object worlds 103

Commodities and national identity 109

Material culture and semiotics 113

– iii –

Things in place and out of place 114

The biographies of objects 115

Automobiles and national car cultures 118

Conclusion 136

5 Representing the Nation: Scottishness and Braveheart 139

Introducing Braveheart 144

Scotland in film 146

Battles over Braveheart 150

Recycling images: the tourist industry, heritage and film in

Scotland 157

Geographies of William Wallace 160

Other representations of Wallace 160

Performances and rituals: re-presenting Wallace 164

The reception of Braveheart outside Scotland 166

Conclusion 168

6 Exhibiting National Identity at the Turn of the Millennium 171

'Self-Portrait' at the Millennium Dome 171

The ' Andscape' 175

Interpretation of the ' Andscape' 186

Bibliography 191

Index 209

Contents

–iv –

Acknowledgements

This book has gradually taken shape over several years of reading and teaching,

and has been encouraged by the influences and support of far too many people to

mention here. However, special thanks must go to Euan Hague, Andrew Samuel,

Viv Kinnaird and Kevin Hannam who have organised conferences and seminars,

where I have presented papers on some of the themes featured here. Also, several

colleagues have helped by sharing work in progress with me, including Helen

Watkins, Rhys Jones, Dan Knox and notably Julie Nugent. Stimulating conversat-

ions and correspondences with a range of colleagues, including Cameron McCarthy,

Mick Smith and John Urry have also fuelled the project. I want to extend particular

appreciation to Wendy Hamilton and Ed Williams who helped my research into

the ' Self - Portrait' zone of the Millennium Dome, the subject of Chapter 6, and

likewise to Elspeth King and Steven Paterson who provided gratefully received

assistance in my examination of William Wallace and his legacy. Respect is due to

the staff at Berg who encouraged me with the project and efficiently facilitated

the production of this book. And I' d also like to thank Malcolm Henson and Zhang

Pinggong for their valuable help. First and foremost, the book would not have

been possible without the contribution of the many cultural studies students whom

I have taught over the past few years, and the support of colleagues at Staffordshire

University. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their patience and encour-

agement: Rosemary, Jim, Lopa, Ji, Jay and Kim – ta very much. And most of all I

must pay tribute to Uma Kothari for her intelligent and stimulating contribution

to the project and for acting as a check on excessive academic pomposity.

–v –

Preface

National identity persists in a globalising world, and perhaps the nation remains

the pre-eminent entity around which identity is shaped. In this book, I want to

explore the relationship of national identity to popular culture and everyday life.

For although there have been numerous studies of nationalism, few have examined

the more mundane aspects of national identity. Dominant theories of the nation

are concerned with political economy and history, and the national cultural elements

they refer to are either in the realm of high culture, are the ' invented traditions'

and ceremonies concocted many years ago, or are versions of folk culture. These

are reified notions of culture, which, while certainly still relevant, are only a small

part of the cultural matrix which surrounds the nation. Curiously, despite the rise

of Cultural Studies as an academic discipline, few have attempted to address the

more dynamic, ephemeral and grounded ways in which nation is experienced and

understood through popular culture. And similarly under-explored, the habitual,

unreflexive routines of everyday life also provide fertile ground for the development

of national identity. Thus the cultural expression and experience of national identity

is usually neither spectacular nor remarkable, but is generated in mundane,

quotidian forms and practices. As Bennett asserts, Cultural Studies is concerned

with ' practices, institutions and systems of classification through which there are

inculcated in a population particular values, beliefs, competences, routines of life

and habitual forms of conduct' (1998: 28). And yet these concerns have rarely

focused upon national identity.

The existing literature on national identity provides little guidance in exploring

this dense and murky cultural realm and so it is necessary to utilise a different set

of theoretical tools. I have chosen a range of ideas that have recently emerged in

social and cultural theory to try and suggest that the national is still a powerful

constituent of identity precisely because it is grounded in the popular and the

everyday. I have thus drawn upon contemporary theoretical insights from studies

into identity, space, performance, material culture and representation. The book is

organised around these key themes, and, while I do not want to claim that these

are evidently the most appropriate foci for the exploration of national identity, I

believe that they provide a useful range of interrelated contexts which suggest

that national identity is dynamic, contested, multiple and fluid. This might suggest

that if it is so protean then it must be weakening. I want to emphasise that this is

far from the case, and that this diversity, the multitudinous cultural effects, and

the flexible symbols of the national produce an enormous cultural resource that is

–vi –

not a monolithic set of ideas adhered to by everybody but a seething mass of

cultural elements. Accordingly, I consider national identity to be constituted out

of a huge cultural matrix which provides innumerable points of connection, nodal

points where authorities try to fix meaning, and constellations around which cultural

elements cohere. Culture, according to this conception, is constantly in a process

of becoming, of emerging out of the dynamism of popular culture and everyday

life whereby people make and remake connections between the local and the

national, between the national and the global, between the everyday and the

extraordinary. For as Cubitt remarks, ' however institutionalised [nations] become,

and however well established the symbolism that denotes them, nations remain

elusive and indeterminate, perpetually open to context, to elaboration and to

imaginative reconstruction' (1998: 3).

The focus in this book, then, is on the dense spatial, material, performative,

embodied and representative expressions and experiences of national identity

which are inextricably interlinked with each other, which constitute a shared

compendia of resources, akin to a vast matrix into which individuals can tap to

actualise a sense of national belonging. By using the metaphor of the matrix, I

can emphasise the complexity of the cultures of national identity, and highlight

the multiple connections which exist between cultural spheres. I can also account

for the innumerable routes towards expressing identity that exist within this

matrix, a matrix within which some branches wither, are renewed, transplanted or

emerge.

These ongoing processes all feed back into each other, consolidating the

apparent naturalness of modes of understanding and enacting national identity.

These dense series of associations between spaces, acts, things and forms of

representation form the ground for epistemological and ontological notions about

the nation: to unpick and unpack the threads of such a densely grounded identity

is thus difficult. But the fact remains that those who attempt to fix the meanings of

nationalism cannot incorporate the whole matrix, they must necessarily concentrate

on a few selective, symbolic dimensions to suit their purposes.

However, because national identity is not only a matter of will and strategy, but

is enmeshed in the embodied, material ways in which we live – in the rich realm

of ' thick description' (Geertz, 1993) – it is in many ways inaccessible to the

politicians and campaigners and their circumscribing manoeuvres. This is, of

course, not to say that such appeals are not effective in mobilising people to fight

for causes – recent history suggests otherwise – but that the sheer complexity of

these associations offers hope that the increasing ambivalence of national identity

might militate against exclusive and reified versions.

Chapter 1 develops the theoretical framework for this study, critiquing previous

conceptions of national culture, proposing an approach to the key concepts of

popular culture, everyday life and identity, and explicating my argument that

national identity is being redistributed in a cultural matrix.

–vii –

Preface

Chapter 2 examines the different levels through which the nation is spatialised.

I first look at symbolic and ideological landscapes, moving on to consider iconic

sites. These two spatial constructs have admittedly been the subject of much

analysis but I then go on to consider a range of other spaces intimately concerned

with national identity – namely, places of congregation, ' taskscapes' and familiar,

everyday landscapes, and more homely spaces. I emphasise the sensual and

unreflexive forms of dwelling within national space in contradistinction to the

iconic and the spectacular.

Chapter 3 focuses on modes of performance. Commencing with an assessment

of the contemporary effect of large formal ceremonies and invented traditions, I

move on to examine more popular forms of overtly national performance, notably

in sport, dance and carnival. I then investigate the ways in which the nation is

increasingly dramatised and staged through tourist productions, before exploring

the everyday performances which often unreflexively consolidate national identity.

By identifying popular competencies, embodied enactions and synchronised habits,

I show how national identity is grounded in quotidian practices.

Chapter 4 considers how we might conceive of the material culture of the nation.

After a theoretical outline of the ways in which objects can contribute to the

constitution of social relations through their affordances, commodification, habitual

emplacement, semiotic meaning and biographies, I will develop an exemplary

analysis of the automobile and the ways in which it is loaded with national

significance. Primarily concentrating on British and American car cultures, I will

look at their iconic importance to national industry, the ' motorscapes' they produce,

the practices which centre upon them, the sensual experiences they afford, and

the ways in which they are represented.

Chapter 5 investigates the ways in which nations are represented. Taking the

example of Braveheart , the Hollywood blockbuster which tells the story of

medieval Scottish hero William Wallace' s battle against the occupying English, I

consider how this global product was received in Scotland. My argument critiques

those who suggest that the disembedding of cultural production necessarily

reproduces stereotypical forms of national identity, for I show the diverse affective

and political responses that the film stimulated in Scotland. In fact the film is

merely the latest retelling of an important myth, which has been appropriated and

utilised by different groups, represented in numerous ways, and fed back into

complex debates about contemporary Scottish identity.

Chapter 6 acts as a conclusion by summarising the points I have made through-

out the book by assessing the representation of Britishness in the Self-Portrait

zone at the Millennium Dome in London. Particularly concentrating upon the

Andscape feature of the zone, I show how a dynamic British identity is enmeshed

in the popular and the everyday, continually domesticates the nation by making

links between the local and the national, is highly contested and variable, and

suggests a host of interconnections and constellations.

–viii –

Preface

The Matrix of National Identity

–1–

–1–

Popular Culture, Everyday Life and the

Matrix of National Identity

Theories of Nationalism: Reductive Cultural Perspectives

The literature on nationalism and national identity has been dominated by a focus

on the historical origins of the nation and its political lineaments. Nevertheless, so

powerful is the allure of the nation that is has proved to be 'an imaginative field

on to which different sets of concerns may be projected, and upon which

connections may be forged between different aspects of social, political and cultural

experience' (Cubitt, 1998: 1). Strangely, however, the nation has been subject to

very little critical analysis in terms of how it is represented and experienced through

popular culture and in everyday life. This absence masks a supposition that 'nation'

is equivalent to 'society', a popular assumption that also afflicts social scientists

and cultural theorists. For as James avers, 'the concepts of the nation, this society,

and this community are often used as coterminous' (1996: 123). Accordingly,

notions of society remain 'embedded within notions of nation-state, citizenship

and national society' (Urry, 2000: 6) and, as Billig further elaborates, 'the "society"

which lies at the heart of sociology's self-definition is created in the image of the

nation-state' (1995: 53). Thus despite appearances to the contrary, not least at the

level of common sense, the nation persists as a pre-eminent constituent of identity

and society at theoretical and popular levels. Despite the globalisation of economies,

cultures and social processes, the scalar model of identity is believed to be primarily

anchored in national space. Partly, then, the space in which culture and everyday

life operates is conceived to be indisputably the nation, and this has resulted from

a lack of enquiry into how such cultures are (re)produced and experienced, how

they are sustained to succour the illusion that the nation is somehow a natural

entity, rather than a social and cultural construct.

At the level of culture, then, there is a reification of the nation, as if different

cultures can be identified, ticked off according to a preconceived set of national

characteristics. Bounded and self-evident, a nationally rooted culture is not

imagined as 'the outcome of material and symbolic processes but instead as the

cause of those practices – a hidden essence lying behind the surface of behaviour'

(Crang, 1998: 162). For instance, in a recent account of national identity, the

–2 –

National Identity

contention was advanced that the nation ' represents the socio-historical context

within which culture is embedded and the means by which culture is produced,

transmitted and received' (Guibernau, 1996: 79) This, of course, considers culture

(and national identity which expresses it) to be singular and fixed instead of multiple

and dynamic. But as Clifford declares culture is not ' a rooted body that grows,

lives, dies' , but is rather a site of ' displacement, interference and interaction' (1992:

101).

Thus whilst there are many studies of particular ' national' cultural forms and

practices (many to which I will be referring), at a general theoretical level, the

idea of popular culture seems to be mysteriously absent. And paradoxically,

although it is believed that discrete national cultures exist, a sophisticated account

of how popular culture is manifest and expressed as national has not been attempted.

As I will shortly discuss however, there are the stirrings of a more considered

approach, and there have been several highly suggestive accounts that have not

yet been utilised.

The aim of this first section is to explore the ways in which some of the best-

known writers on nationalism and national identity, namely Ernest Gellner, Eric

Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, Anthony Smith and John Hutchinson, have

considered the cultural and its relationship with the national. I will argue that these

accounts are seriously distorted in their consideration of ' high' , ' official ' and

'traditional ' culture to the exclusion of popular and everyday cultural expression,

and that their conception of culture is rather undynamic.

Ernest Gellner

Ernest Gellner' s work on nationalism has been enormously influential. Yet his

emphasis on the essentially modern origins of nations utilises a particular

perspective towards culture. He maintains that the institutionalisation of cultural

norms shared over a large geographical area, and the dissemination of national

ideologies, can only occur in modern, mass societies. Thus the nineteenth-century

bureaucratisation of education, hygiene and medicine, the rise of organised, rational

recreation, and the rise of centralised institutions of scientific knowledge which

classified criminals, insanity and nature are part of a wider reorganisation of

social and cultural life (Lloyd and Thomas, 1998). Primarily, the authority for

organising this transformation is national, and responsibility for establishing

common adherence to centralised policies, structures and norms devolves to

regional and local authorities to reinforce the cultural homogeneity demanded by

the centre to facilitate nation building. Gellner' s account of this drive towards the

modern formation of national identity focuses upon the establishment of what he

terms ' high cultures' , defined as ' a school-mediated, academy supervised idiom,

codified for the requirements of reasonably precise bureaucratic and technological

The Matrix of National Identity

–3 –

communication' (1983: 57). More specifically, these are referred to as ' garden

cultures' (ibid.: 7), which are presumably surveyed, tended and codified by spec-

ialist experts. Thus a mass education system binds state and culture together, canons

are devised, museums are established, official histories written, scientific bodies

set up to subtend the propagation of ' official' knowledge, so that specific bodies

of knowledge, values and norms are ingested by all educated citizens.

Crucially, for Gellner, the extension of an authoritative knowledge to all denizens

of the nation marks a break from the cultural differentiation in medieval worlds,

where, for instance, it was not imperative for the inhabitants of regions to

communicate with each other, or for the peasantry to share the language of the

elite; indeed, distinct courtly cultures were designed to differentiate elites from

masses. Instead, with 'standardised'

homogeneous, centrally sustained high cultures, pervading entire populations and not

just elite minorities, a situation occurs in which well-defined educationally sanctioned

and unified cultures constitute very nearly the only kind of unit with which men [sic]

willingly and often ardently identify. (ibid.: 55)

For Gellner, nationalism is a function of modernity and the process of modern-

isation, where education, technologies of communication and bureaucracy, the

very structure of the modern state, are driven by rationalist, administrative

imperatives rather than any manipulating caste. Nations are thus the forms which

are best suited to carry these modernising imperatives. Whilst plausible, the account

tends to focus on the Appollonian features of modernity – the rational elements –

whilst ignoring other dimensions such as the continual change and fluidity which

challenges the ordering processes that nations, amongst other agents of rationality,

attempt to reinforce. This incessant transformation of economic, social and cultural

life means that bodies of thought and knowledge are inherently unstable, open to

challenge as new adaptations are sought by individuals and institutions. Therefore,

national organisations must keep pace with change whilst simultaneously rein-

forcing authoritative cultural delineations if they are to retain their authority. I am

suggesting that Gellner' s account overemphasises the rigidity of (national) cultures

– and indeed, processes of modernity.

This also raises the issue as to whether all subjects willingly give up their cultural

values in the face of the nation? Perhaps, as Smith argues as part of his argument

that nations are based on pre-existing ethnies , in certain cases, selective ancestral

cultures have been adopted as official cultures by nations (1998: 42). The position

of the state towards already existing cultures is complex, for certain cultures may

be eradicated (especially in the case of ethnic or religious particularity), or they

may be adopted and adapted by the cultural establishment. Questions are also

raised about who is left out of the national culture, how are ethnicity, religion,

–4 –

National Identity

language and region accommodated by the state and who is marginalised or rejected

as unsuitably national. Gellner' s assertions seem to suggest that subjects passively

accept knowledge and identities, are effectively interpellated by all-powerful

national cultural organisations. However, the struggle for inclusion is an ongoing

battle which cultural guardians cannot always control. For example, the British

state permits freedom of worship but has insisted upon the provision of compulsory

teaching of Christianity in primary and secondary education. Nevertheless, heter-

odox and dissenting religious cultures have abounded and church attendance has

dwindled despite the preferential conditions provided for this official cultural

consolidation.

Moreover, we must be careful that we do not assume that the educationalists,

academic bodies and arts organisations are composed of an homogeneous member-

ship. For instance, as Smith argues, many national education policies are shaped

by a desire to transmit cultural diversity via multicultural education strategies (ibid.:

41) rather than reinforcing rigid cultural norms.

Most serious in my opinion, however, is Gellner' s focus on 'high ' cultures as

those which contrast with the ' low' cultures of the majority – what Gellner refers

to as 'wild ' cultures, local, spontaneous and unreflexive. There is no doubt that

historically, in the first instance, there were attempts to formulate a nationally

codified body of knowledge which foregrounded 'high ' culture. However, once

the nation is established as a common-sense entity, under conditions of modernity,

the mass media and the means to develop and transmit popular culture expands

dramatically, and largely escapes the grip of the state, being transmitted through

commercial and more informal networks. The rise of popular forms of entertain-

ment, leisure pursuits, political organisations and a host of vernacular common-

alities is not generated by national elites but is facilitated through the mobilities

engendered by advances in transport and communication technologies. Whilst I

concede that Gellner' s account has historical salience, it is important that strong

contemporary parallels are not drawn, for a cultural elite propagating high culture

is but one aspect of the production of national identity.

In fact, the ' wild' , vernacular, ' traditional' and regional cultural elements,

ignored or reviled by national cultural elites, have returned as repressed knowledge

and have been reconstructed as part of alternative kinds of national identity. Cast

into what has been called the 'cultic milieu', a resource into which rejected ideas

are deposited, they have been reclaimed by ' alternative' groups, partly because

the rational, establishment organisations against which such groups react disdained

their utility. In some cases, these cultural elements have been curiously re-enchanted

with a nationalist slant. Goddess and tree worship, druidic rites and pagan sites

are celebrated as epitomising the spirit of a pre-Christian Britain, as containing

alternative origins of a national spirit in contrast to ' official' Christian and over-

rationalist constructions of national identity.

The Matrix of National Identity

–5 –

Eric Hobsbawm

In The Invention of Tradition, Eric Hobsbawm and co-editor Terence Ranger also

contend that the nation is essentially a modern construct. They focus upon the

ways in which the powerful ' invent' traditions to create the illusion of primordiality

and continuity, to mask the fact that nations are invariably of recent vintage, to

'inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically

implies continuity with the past' (1983: 2). The traditions they and their contributors

discuss focus particularly upon the large-scale pageants and rituals devised in the

nineteenth century by European elites for a range of purposes: to symbolise a

cohesive sense of belonging; to legitimise the power vested in institutions, elites

and ruling authorities; to transmit ideologies which sustain common values and

beliefs.

I will discuss these rituals in greater length in Chapter 3, but here I want to take

issue with some of the implicit cultural assumptions in Hobsbawm and Ranger's

account. The identification of a historical process whereby national elites try to

construct culturally an ancient national lineage is undoubtedly valuable. The

(re)staging of ceremonies, and attempts to encode selective cultural forms and

practices as evidence of primeval traditions, remains an important theme, and

persists in the contemporary cultural constructions of national identity (for instance,

see Vlastos, 1998).

However, the cultural assumptions of Hobsbawm and Ranger reveal a Frank-

furtian understanding that the masses are drawn together by such ceremonies, and

are powerless to resist the overwhelming appeal that they impart, passively ingesting

ideological messages. Rather than the culture industries, it is the cultural elite who

bewitch them with their designs. And these elites are always assumed to be

concerned with developing fiendish tactics to control the masses, to bend them to

their will. Thus, too much credence is given to the idea that they are primarily

concerned with ideological manipulation rather than issues of authenticity and

spectacle, to control rather than notions about protocol. Again, there is a conspic-

uous dearth of cultural dynamism in the assertion that these cultural productions

achieve elite objectives in pacifying the masses and coercing them into line with

the national project. The popular seems to be collapsed into the ceremonial

traditions they discuss, for these cultural expressions are foregrounded as key to

the formation of national identity and the vernacular and the everyday is conspic-

uously absent from their analysis

However, a theme of this book is that the meaning of symbolic cultural elements

cannot be determined or fixed. In fact, particularly powerful symbols need to be

flexible in order to retain their relevance over time and their appeal amongst diverse

groups. As Guibernau says, ' symbols not only stand for or represent something

else, they also allow those who employ them to supply part of their meaning' ;

–6 –

National Identity

they do not impose upon people ' the constraints of uniform meaning' (1996: 81).

For instance, she discusses how the Catalan flag is wielded for different purposes

by a range of groups, socialist, nationalist, republican and right wing. Individuals

are required constantly to reproduce established symbols in accordance with

changing circumstances. This is a dynamic process whereby the identification with

such symbols needs to be continually worked upon to safeguard meaning.

The idea of the invention of tradition also overemphasises the novelty of national

cultures by failing to identify earlier cultural continuities. For instance, Morgan' s

chapter on the nineteenth-century revival of the Welsh eisteddfod in Hobsbawm

and Ranger' s (1983) volume undercuts the idea that such traditions were new, but

reveals their small-scale popularity across Wales before they were revamped. The

basis for their co-option by the state already existed because they were grounded

in popular culture. While vernacular and popular elements may have been codified

by national folklorists, dragooned into anthologies and given ceremonial status, it

hardly means that they have not had enduring popular appeal, merely that they

are restaged on a larger scale. More crucially, a focus on large-scale spectaculars

and easily identifiable traditions ignores a host of other ' traditions' which are

grounded in everyday life; in leisure pursuits, work practices, families and

communities, as I will show.

There is an implicit assumption that a dynamic modernity repackages aspects

of a reified tradition. This misconceives tradition contra modernity. For rather

than being ossified and archaic, traditions are continually reinvented in a range of

different contexts. As Pickering argues, ' when vibrant, traditions are always in

the process of being recreated . . . and subject to evaluation in terms of what they

bring to a contemporary situation' (2001: 105). For instance, as Thompson remarks,

tradition has become ' deritualised' but is re-installed in contemporary societies in

the media, which 'provides a form of temporal continuity which diminishes the

need for re-enactment' of the ceremonial kind Hobsbawm and Ranger discuss

(1995: 195). As I will discuss in greater detail in Chapter 3, although large-scale

ceremonies frequently aim for fixity, this can be difficult to attain given that each

performance needs to mimic exactly the previous, minutely detailed sequence of

actions. Thus tradition can be dynamic, contested and claimed by different groups

at different moments in time. And this has always been the case: to conceive of

societies which precede modernity as ' traditional' is to reify the past, as if traditional

rituals were endlessly replicated for centuries, denying improvisation, change

and contestation. Given that tradition was not recorded in oral societies, it is

hard to imagine that locally rooted tradition progressed without change (Giddens,

1994).

The Matrix of National Identity

–7 –

Benedict Anderson

Benedict Anderson also adopts a set of assumptions about culture in his famous

notion that the nation can be considered an 'imagined community', united by a

'deep, horizontal comradeship' (1983: 7) whereby national co-fellows are believed

to constitute a bounded, ' natural' entity. While some have complained that

Anderson' s focus on the imagined seems to ignore the socio-political realities of

power and the organisational structures of the state, perhaps a more nuanced

understanding is to consider that nations emerge out of contexts of social and

cultural experience which are imaginatively conceived.

The key to Anderson' s argument is the invention of the printing press and the

subsequent rise of print media, which provided a technological means for the

widespread dissemination of the idea of the nation. Anderson remarks that the

regular, synchronic shared reading of the daily or weekly newspaper produced

the idea that readers shared a set of interests – the content and focus of the news

for instance – in which they were explicitly and implicitly addressed as co-nationals.

The experience of the nation is rooted in the quotidian, for, as he pronounces, the

newspaper bolsters the assumption that ' the imagined world is visibly rooted in

everyday life' (ibid.: 36). This is very suggestive. Rather than the periodic displays

of spectacle, the staging of tradition and the academic urge to classify races,

customs and nature, this cultural process operates at a more mundane level. For

the idea of what constitutes the 'national' interest is part of that which grounds

national identity in unreflexive forms of 'common sense '.

I am much persuaded by Anderson' s idea of the nation as imagined community.

However, his excessive focus on literacy and printed media proffers a reductive

view of culture. Whilst the historical importance of print is important, it is curious

that there is no reference to the multiple ways in which the nation is imagined in,

for instance, music hall and theatre, popular music, festivities, architecture, fashion,

spaces of congregation, and in a plenitude of embodied habits and performances,

not to mention more parallel cultural forms such as television, film, radio and

information technology. For instance, as Barker says, ' imagining " us" as " one" is

part of the process of nation building and there is no medium which has been able

to speak to as many people in pursuit of that goal as television' . Citing a list of

sporting events, political and royal ceremonies and soap operas, he argues that

'they all address me in my living room as part of a nation and situate me in the

rhythms of a national calendar' (Barker, 1999: 5– 6). Anderson' s focus on the idea

that the nation is reproduced and represented textually tends to efface the spatial,

material and embodied production of communal identities. Although there is a

tacit recognition that national culture is both popular and everyday, his analysis

remains rooted in a historical perspective which reifies the sources (literature)

–8 –

National Identity

through which the nation is (re)produced and thereby reduces the rich complexity

of cultural production to one field.

Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith has been particularly critical of Hobsbawm' s and Gellner' s

insistence on the modernity of nations. His argument is chiefly based upon the

idea that nations are founded on, and emerge out of, pre-existing ' ethnies ' – ethnic

communities or groups – which shape the nation. This thesis is clearly based upon

Barth' s notion of ethnicity as a mode of distinguishing self from other, an ascription

integral to the formation of boundaries. Ethnic symbols provide evidence which

distinguishes 'us' from 'them' .

There is much that is useful in Smith' s approach. He does not make the mistake

of homogenising elites, acknowledging that the selection of national symbols is

frequently the source of much conflict between different powerful groups.

Furthermore, he maintains that there is no blueprint for constructing an official

culture. For instance, he distinguishes between ' national' intellectuals organising

a ' vernacular mobilisation' or an aristocratic elite perpetrating ' bureaucratic

incorporation' as different forms of national cultural construction. There is also

some subtlety in Smith' s acknowledgement that where no common set of symbols

seem apparent, it may be imperative to select ' multiple' symbols so that diverse

groups may be encouraged to confirm their allegiance to the national project (Smith,

1998: 155). Thus certain nations must draw on a diverse selection of cultural

resources to construct cultural 'common denominators' (Eriksen, 1998) whereas

others are able to draw on a more generally shared set of resources. He also points

out the historical inconsistencies where different ethnic traditions are brought

together, and others are neglected or expunged. Yet importantly, he recognises

that such cultural elements must be credible, must speak to common sense, if they

are to be accepted by national subjects. There is, then, a suggestion that a national

cultural hegemony must be achieved , must offer plausible points of identification,

rather than being enforced by a cultural elite to whom a helpless mass is in thrall.

Rather, such elites (re)construct ' a conceptual language within which members of

pre-existing ethnic, linguistic or political communities could express a sense of

their collective being' (Cubitt, 1998: 2).

Smith is explicit in his understanding of culture as 'both an inter-generational

repository and heritage, or set of traditions, and an active shaping repertoire of

meanings and images, embodied in values, myths and symbols that serve to unite

a group of people with shared experiences and memories and differentiate them

from outsiders' (1998: 187). It is useful that culture here is presented as dynamic.

Although Smith perhaps downplays invention and the malleability of cultural

symbols, he offers a version of national identity in which he identifies practical

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and discursive connections rather than primordial ancestry and enduring cultural

commonalities.

Nevertheless, despite these virtues, the overwhelming focus on myths of

common ancestry, shared historical memories, religious beliefs, customs and

languages postulates a reductive view of culture. The huge emphasis placed on

the ways in which language, traditions, emblems, festivals and sacred places

epitomise continuity offers an overly historical approach which may well capture

the processes undergone in some cases, but cannot account for the extremely

dynamic and ambiguous contemporary constructions of national identity.

Smith almost seems to acknowledge this deficit, for he refers to a ' common,

mass public culture' (1991: 14), more explicitly identifying a range of cultural

elements such as capital cities, oaths, passports, national recreations, the country-

side, popular heroes and heroines, forms of etiquette and ' all those distinctive

customs, mores, styles and ways of acting and feeling that are shared by the

members of a community' (ibid.: 77). This is a suggestive passage where, besides

the official, customary and traditional collective symbols and practices, Smith refers

to the popular and the everyday. Yet the emphasis in his work continues to be on

the historical and the traditional and official. For instance, he asserts that ' national

symbols, customs and ceremonies are the most potent and durable aspects of

nationalism. They embody its basic concepts, making them visible and distinct

for every member' (ibid.). This stress on the obviously identifiable, tangible,

spectacular cultural effects obfuscates the everyday, taken for granted, cultural

commonsensical practices as well as the popular forms circulated in a mass culture.

This distortion also becomes clear when Smith talks of the key role of intellectuals

in forging national cultures: they have a ' seminal position in generating and

analysing the concepts, myths, symbols and ideology of nationalism' (ibid.: 94).

These writers, classifiers, artists, historians and scholars and folklorists have no

doubt contributed to official and high culture, to education systems and public

exhibitions. But again, this over-stresses the role of high cultural arbiters. Partic-

ularly in contemporary times, any identification of national cultures would have

to include a range of other cultural producers – pop stars, advertisers, tabloid hacks,

marketers, fashion-designers, film and television producers and sporting heroes –

as well as a host of popular cultural practices including dancing, sports-spectatorship,

common pastimes, holidaying and touring.

The cultural ingredients Smith recites certainly remain important elements in

the constitution of national identities. But notions about forms of 'national genius',

the indivisibility of the nation, and its authenticity, are now under stress as nations

become more complex, mobile and culturally hybrid. The traditions now hold

less weight. They have become part of popular mediascapes, are commodified, or

become more diffused amongst competing groups.

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National Identity

John Hutchinson

Finally, I want to consider a more specific account of the relationship between

culture and national identity in the work of John Hutchinson, who, partly to counter

excessive political definitions of nationalism which often purvey an image of an

instrumental, bureaucratic state elite, has put forward the contrary idea of cultural

nationalism. Cultural nationalists, according to this formulation, generally seek a

'moral regeneration ' (1994), although he links the emergence of such a movement

as a tactical response to the thwarted aspirations of political nationalists – as a

strategy to continue the battle by other means. The leaders of cultural nationalist

movements are typically ' historical scholars and artists' rather than 'politicians or

legislators' (1992: 110). He describes them as ' moral innovators' who rely on

national media to spread their message, which typically stresses primordial myths,

histories, traditions and rituals, geographies, natural histories and folksongs, to

raise national sentiment and bring the diverse cultural parts of the nation together.

Again, history is over-stressed: nations are ' creative personalities continually

evolving in time, and it is to history that its members must return to discover the

triumphs and tragedies that have formed them' (ibid.).

His most recent formulations draw a distinction between ' modernists' and

'ethno-symbolists '. The former espouse the idea that the creation of a (homo-

geneous) national culture is the work of an elite, instrumentally delineated and

controlled, whilst the latter focus on the nation as historically constructed,

'embodied in myths, symbols and culture' (Hutchinson, 2001: 76). Ethno-

symbolists – among which Hutchinson includes himself – again insist on the

pre-modern, ethnic basis of the nation. The contrast is useful in that it provides a

model (contra the ' modernists' ) which questions top-down versions of national

cultural identity. However, Hutchinson' s account again essentialises culture by

foregrounding the historical elements. Moreover, culture is inferred to be used

entirely for instrumental reasons, to overcome blocked political advancement and

further the aims of nationalists.

Whilst all the writers discussed above have made significant contributions to

the understanding of national identity, they are all guilty of several reductive

assumptions about culture and its relationship with national identity. First of all,

culture cannot be subsumed by that which is consciously wielded as symbolic,

for it is ingrained in unreflexive patterns of social life, stitched into the experience

and the assumptions of the everyday. There is an overwhelming emphasis on the

spectacular and the historic. Secondly, the only kind of popular culture discussed

is that identified as ' folk' culture – that is, pre-modern – and often considered as

worthy in contradistinction to mass culture. Instead, 'high' and ' official' culture is

assumed to be triumphant, and is uncritically absorbed by the masses. These

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national cultural values organised by a national elite, cultural guardians who alone

delineate what is national, propose a top-down view of culture and wholly ignore

popular and vernacular cultural forms and practices. There is little sense of

contestation, alternative constructions and cultural dynamism. Thirdly, the accounts

are far too historicist, generalising about national identity and disregarding

contemporary formulations. Hobsbawm and Gellner overemphasise the modern

cultural origins of nations, and Hobsbawm compounds this by misconceiving

tradition as reified. Anderson' s insights are never applied to contemporary forms

of identification and Hutchinson understands cultural nationalism as a purely

instrumental movement. However, there have recently been a number of accounts

which have suggested that any contemporary analysis of national identity needs

to address a different set of issues which are grounded in popular culture and the

everyday. Most important amongst these has been Michael Billig' s work, Banal

Nationalism (1995).

Billig suggests that the ' whole complex of beliefs, assumptions, habits,

representations and practices' (ibid.: 6) which (re)produce national identity are

reproduced in the banal realm of the everyday as part of the ' endemic condition'

of nations. Critiquing the obsession to comprehend national identity as only evident

in spectacular displays, and at times of national crises like war – or that it is an

'extremist' , 'irrational ' manifestation of less ' civilised' places' – Billig maintains

that ' the concept of nationalism has been restricted to passionate and exotic

exemplars' (ibid.: 8), overlooking its routine and mundane reproduction. As a

metaphor to conjure up this unspectacular reproduction, he refers to the ' unwaved

flag' of the nation, to suggest the numerous signifiers and reminders of the nation

that form part of everyday spaces, routines and practices, as opposed to that which

is wielded during overt displays of nationalism. Crucially, this routine flagging is

'mindless ' rather than consciously engaged in (ibid.: 41).

The reproduction of national identity, according to Billig, is grounded in the

habitual assumptions about belonging that permeate the media, where the term

'we ' is unreflexively used as a signifier of 'us ' as members of the nation, by

politicians, sports writers and broadcasters, and even academics. No qualification

is needed in this routine deixis. It is assumed that we – the readers or viewers –

are part of the nation – 'the ' economy, government, countryside is our economy,

government, countryside. This constitutes part of the way in which nations are

'naturalised ', absorbed into a common-sense view about the way the world is , and

invested with moral values, which elevate the national over other social groupings.

Moreover, it produces an unquestioned and unreflexive understanding that we live

in a world of nations, which although it ' has been divided up into a hotchpotch of

bizarrely shaped and sized entities' (ibid.: 23), and diverse political, ethnic and

cultural forms which defy any classificatory logic, is considered to be part of the

natural order of things, a ' universal code of particularity' (ibid.: 72– 73). Yet it is

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National Identity

surprising, given the rich suggestions he offers, that so few have taken up the

invitation to explore nationalism and national identity in its mundane manifest-

ations. Billig admits that his work is a preliminary study, and his focus on

unreflexive linguistic practice in media, politics and academia neglects the material,

spatial and performative dimensions of the everyday. This work has partly been

undertaken to explore in more detail the characteristics of banal nationalism that

Billig sketches.

I have been critical of seminal theories about nationalism and national identity

because whilst they implicitly assert its importance, they marshal extremely

reductive notions about culture. What is missing from the above accounts is a

sense of the unspectacular, contemporary production of national identity through

popular culture and in everyday life. The next two sections are intended to provide

a grounding and an elaboration of these far from unproblematic terms, to anchor

the themes I will later discuss.

Popular Culture and National Identity

'Traditional ' cultural forms and practices of the nation are supplemented, and

increasingly replaced in their affective power, by meanings, images and activities

drawn from popular culture. I do not want to suggest that the tradition-bound

ceremonies and other cultural ingredients which most analysts of national identity

have concentrated on are now irrelevant, but that their power is now largely

sustained by their (re)distribution through popular culture, where they mingle with

innumerable other iconic cultural elements which signify the nation in multiple

and contested ways. In order to shift the focus to an exploration of national identity

as expressed and experienced through popular culture, we firstly need to define

popular culture.

Discussions about culture have been bedevilled by an inability for theorists to

agree on a common definition, for it has remained a fluid term. Culture continues

to suggest a host of overlapping meanings: being ' cultured' in a sophisticated and

knowledgeable fashion; a collective noun to describe to works of recognised artistic

and intellectual endeavour hierarchically adjudged to have attained a particular

level of value; a range of practical orientations in relatively circumscribed social

spheres (for example, corporate culture, particular youth sub-cultures); and a

common, particular way of life (Giles and Middleton, 1999: 10).

Cultural Studies emerged as a discipline to counter class-ridden assumptions

that what was worthy of study was ' high culture' – in Matthew Arnold' s (1960)

terms, ' to make the best that has been known and thought in the world current

everywhere' , an aim motivated by the ' study of perfection' . Arnold' s baton was

taken up by F.R. Leavis, a huge influence in the early years of Cultural Studies,

whose arguments have provoked much reaction. Despite his championing of ' high'

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culture, Leavis insisted on the necessity of studying ' mass' , ' popular ' culture in

order to ascertain the harm he believed it was doing to the British nation.

Advertisements, films, pulp fiction and other popular cultural forms needed to be

interrogated to tease out the damaging hypnotic receptivity they perpetrated. These

elements of mass culture were distinguished from an idealised 'folk' culture, which

was conceived as embodying a spirit that kindled a sense of belonging, of knowing

one' s place in an organic world, a pre-urban gemeinschaft where one' s identity

was part of an ingrained and unquestioned way of being. The arguments of Leavis

imply a necessity of a national guardianship over culture, and mobilise a particular

view of England still familiar in nostalgic productions and ideologies.

Since Leavis' s campaign on behalf of 'high ' culture, the notion of popular

culture has attracted a range of meanings – from that which is ' widely favoured or

well liked by many people' (Storey, 1993: 7), to those inferior cultural forms and

practices which are left over after 'high' culture has been identified, reinforcing

the Leavisite boundary between ' good' and ' bad' . It has also been vilified as ' mass

culture' , invariably commercial and homogeneous, and carrying suggestions of

the harmful hypnotic, addictive qualities identified by Leavis, but instead such

critiques have come from the left, notably in the arguments of Adorno, Horkheimer

and other members of the Frankfurt School. Briefly, the mechanised rhythms of

pop music and the addictive qualities of popular fiction and film are seen as

homologous to the patterns of work and leisure required under industrial capitalism.

Furthermore, this mass culture further subdues the spirit and intelligence of the

'people ' by the ideological messages it transmits, shaped around values which

assert the benefits of materialism, glamour and individualism. Such culture, then,

is devised to pacify the masses and accommodate them to the needs of capital.

Whilst it seems foolish to deny the powerful impact of certain heavily promoted

images, ideals and themes, such accounts reify and homogenise popular culture

as inherently harmful. This completely ignores the changing and dynamic nature

of popular culture, its protean characteristics, and recognises its production only

in what are disparagingly called the 'culture industries', the commercial enterprises

that sell culture to the masses. There is no sense of the vernacular production of

culture, no notion that culture alters as it circulates through daily life. In the fluid

network of the everyday, cultural meaning cannot be pinned down but is negotiated

over, applied in wildly different contexts. New forms evolve, meanings are

challenged, alternative uses are found for apparently hegemonic cultural material,

and scraps are combined and reassembled. In a seminal paper, Hall (1980)

highlights the ways in which culture is encoded and decoded, and subject to

'preferred', ' negotiated ' and 'contesting ' meanings. Yet even this is insufficient,

for it suggest a rather instrumental use of cultural forms and practices which are

often consumed in unreflexive or distracted fashion, which also, nevertheless, may

confound the purposes to which they were intended.

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National Identity

As I have mentioned, in another formulation especially pertinent to the

construction of national identity, popular has been considered to be that culture

which is prevalent amongst the ' people' . Prominent here is the nostalgic celebration

of folk cultures – a more valorised, seemingly ' authentic' collection of cultural

forms and practices which are being erased by modern mass culture. Whether

such ideas emanate from a conservative or radical milieu, the argument is laid

down that such rooted, traditional culture reflects the true nature of the national or

regional context in which it is set; it grows out of the area and reflects the cultural

mores of its people, and is located firmly ' in place'. The idea of uncommercial,

ritualised and time-honoured folk practices, as argued above, is largely mythical

and fails to recognise the dynamism and syncretic nature of culture. And it also

reifies it as historic so that the notion of folk tends to exclude new vernacular

practices and styles of gardening, knitting, cooking, joking and telling stories.

Generally, these ideas about popular culture construct cultural producers as

invariably motivated by commercial greed and a common ideological mission, an

assumption which elides the varied motives and ideals of those involved in the

culture industries, and their artistic independence. Moreover, rather than a

conspiratorial science where producers plot how to conquer markets by persuading

the masses to consume their products, making and marketing culture is an inexact

science. For instance, record companies are unable to second-guess the tastes of

consumers, as is indicated by the numerous failed investments which are made in

unsuccessful artists and musical products. The ' hit record' remains an elusive prize.

It should be clear that the view I am criticising here resonates in the conceptions

offered by Gellner, Hobsbawm, Hutchinson and Smith discussed above. To

reiterate, the view of culture offered in most theories of national identity, though

central to the debates, has almost completely concentrated on 'high' and ' official'

cultures, presumably because popular culture has been considered to be trivial

and shallow, or at least unconnected with questions of national identity. However,

the threat to national identity by 'mass' culture has been a frequently aired concern

in other accounts, where all too often ' mass culture is synonymous with American

culture. The colonising power of ' Americanisation' and the belief that it is

displacing authentic folk culture or communally oriented ' working class' culture

(for instance, as argued by Richard Hoggart in his famous The Uses Of Literacy ,

1971) conceives of American popular culture as inherently colonising. Of course,

studies since have shown the picture to be far more complex, including those which

have explored how the TV series Dallas , a programme seemingly indelibly marked

by American mores, fantasies and style, has been domesticated and utilised

according to widely varying contexts of reception and consumption (Ang, 1995;

Liebes and Katz, 1990). Without lurching into a rather uncritical, cultural populist

celebration of the everyday subversions perpetrated by the weak, as in the work

of writers such as Fiske (1989) and Willis (1990), it is important to consider the

The Matrix of National Identity

–15 –

cultural contexts which constrain and enable interpretations and uses of particular

cultural products.

National elites, governments and patricians continue to perpetrate the idea that

'high' culture is something that the nation must be associated with, as a form of

international prestige. The national badges of high culture – national galleries,

opera houses and international concert halls, national theatres, learned societies

and high cultural institutions – remain marks of status. Governments are often

happy to lavish funds on such cultural flagships. Yet whilst such institutions remain

at the heart of statist versions of national self-image, they have been unable to

retain their hierarchical pre-eminence. For the decentring of high cultures has

resulted from the ' endowing of an increasing range of activities and cultural fields

with national significance' (Cubitt, 1998: 14). The international success of popular

writers, film-makers, television stars and sporting heroes has ensured their place

in the pantheon of nationally important achievers. As I write, the British tabloid

press have been celebrating the success of Anne Robinson, presenter of television

quiz show The Weakest Link, in fronting an exported version of the programme in

the USA. Other examples include pride at the international acclaim bestowed on

Indian novelist Arundhati Roy, and the fame brought to Croatia by their football

team and tennis champion Goran Ivanisevic.

In fact, many nations now are riven with debates over the relevance of high

culture and the cultural guardians who support and represent it. For instance, in

the UK and the USA there are ongoing disputes over the content of national

education curricula concerning whether there can be anything resembling a national

literary canon. In the UK, a furore broke out over a recent decision to grant a huge

governmental subsidy to the Royal Opera House yet the Labour government also

allied itself with the pop phenomena known as ' Cool Britannia' . Such challenges

to high culture are countered by the widespread fear that there is a cultural 'dumbing

down' . The argument is too complex and multifaceted to go into here, but the

controversies over cultural and educational policy highlight the insecurity of the

bastions of high culture resulting from the challenge to the notion that the treasures

they elevate and guard epitomise cultural quality and authority. In fact, as

Featherstone (1991) has written, the values expressed by the old cultural guardians

have been challenged by what he terms the ' new cultural intermediaries' , a con-

temporary fraction of the middle class who possess knowledge of pop music, film,

and other manifestations of popular culture, and claim status on the basis of this

expertise. Thus the national-cultural terrain is now characterised by a plethora of

interest groups, ' experts' and aficionados who champion a bewildering range of

cultural forms and practices

In this cultural contestation, where the formerly despised has been reconceived

as valuable, what is important, as McGuigan points out, is not the rarefied aesthetic

debates about quality and cultural values of certain cultural forms vis-à -vis others,

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National Identity

but ' the sociality of value' (1997: 146). Whereas previously assertions about the

superiority of 'high ' over ' low' culture might have persisted, now popular culture

itself has become a prime site for contestations of value embedded deep within

fields such as television and film criticism, popular music and ' modern' art. There

are constant attempts to achieve a hierarchical status through battles for distinction

between ' pop' and ' rock' fans, or viewers of ' quality' drama and soap opera

enthusiasts. A further complicating factor has been the increasing commercial-

isation of culture, formerly assumed to be rampant in the vilified realm of the

popular but now extended across cultural fields. Frow goes as far as to argue that

high culture is no longer the dominant culture but ' is rather a pocket within

commodity culture' (1995: 86). It seems unlikely that the British television series

Civilisation, made and presented by patrician Kenneth Clark, would be able to

make the kind of uncontested claims about the irrefutable cultural superiority of

the classical art works he chose, or indeed that such a programme espousing cultural

authority whilst addressing the nation would be made. For forms of cultural

authority have multiplied and fragmented, and can no longer masquerade as being

of national importance.

At the level of the nation, the debate becomes even more intense. A national(ist)

imperative has been to bring together different regional and ethnic differences by

identifying national high cultural points as common denominators, relying on elite

cultural arbiters to make these selections and distinctions. However, increasingly,

the state must arbitrate between different lobbyists and adherents of education

strategy, of artistic movements, of sporting provision and of festivals and decide

where funds should be provided. In doing so, it must rank the tastes and desires of

particular classes, ethnic groups, regions and so on – all in contradiction of the

spirit that the nation is best imagined as a composite or the notion that valuable

('high' ) culture is clearly identifiable.

Perhaps we might assess cultural value by the utility of cultural forms, especially

those which lend themselves to a multitude of different uses in a pluralistic,

multicultural society. This emphasises the practical application of particular forms,

and the ways in which they can be used in the ongoing construction of meaning.

While perhaps this suggests an undue degree of instrumentality, it captures the

multiple uses and ever-changing notions which centre upon certain cultural forms,

and testify to their symbolic flexibility. The ambivalence which emerges out of

the dialogue and contestation over such cultural forms stresses that the power of

such symbols lies not in any fixed meaning they may carry but in the fact that they

are widely shared. However, as I will continually emphasise, the very production

of ambivalence leads to a counter tendency to fix the meaning of time-honoured,

popular symbols and thus cultural identity.

It might seem that if I am arguing that there is no longer any dividing line

between popular/low/folk culture and high culture, that I am negating the very

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notion of popular culture. I do not want to reinforce any dichotomy between high

and low culture but rather focus upon those cultural forms and practices which

have commonly been regarded as ' popular' . However, I want to draw out certain

features that the term ' popular' conveys to show how the cultural ingredients of

national identity are increasingly mediated, polysemic, contested and subject to

change. If we concentrate on those cultural elements commonly ascribed as popular,

it will be clear that formations of national identity utilise a huge and proliferating

resource that has emerged with the decentring of official, 'high ' culture, so that

cultural guardianship is no longer such an important feature of national culture

(and it was never as important as has been claimed). For culture is not fixed but

negotiated, the subject of dialogue and creativity, influenced by the contexts in

which it is produced and used. A sense of national identity then is not a once and

for all thing, but is dynamic and dialogic, found in the constellations of a huge

cultural matrix of images, ideas, spaces, things, discourses and practices

The multiple, changing and contesting meanings that surround popular cultural

forms and practices contrasts with a national identity that is commonly presented

as ' weighted towards " heritage" and the " common past" rather than to the " common

future" , or...even...the " common present"' (Roche, 2000: 75). This temporal

cul-de-sac has bedevilled accounts of national identity which have ignored the

things we watch and read, the places we visit, the things we buy and the pictures

we display. Popular culture, then, has subsumed and represented, reformulated

and reproduced cultural forms in a process of ' de-differentiation' (Lash, 1990) so

that forms of national cultural authority are no longer clearly identifiable.

Everyday Life and National Identity

Thus far, I have argued that writers and researchers on national identity tend to

draw attention to the spectacular, the ' traditional' and the official. However, it is

part of my contention in this book, following Billig' s notion of ' banal nationalism',

that besides these overt displays and self-conscious cultural assertions, national

identity is grounded in the everyday, in the mundane details of social interaction,

habits, routines and practical knowledge. It is startling how, more generally,

theorists of identity have neglected the quotidian realms experienced most of the

time by most people, since it is here that identity is continually reproduced in

unreflexive fashion (although recently, a few attempts to theorise the mundane

reproduction of national identity have been published; for instance, see Palmer,

1998; Thompson, 2001). The everyday basis of national identity is aptly drawn

out by Mary Chamberlain, in discussing Caribbean migrants to Britain:

migrant lives were prosaic, concerned with the daily round of work, home and family.

Perhaps it is precisely in the mundane that the culture of migration can be observed for

it is within the everyday, within the family and the workplace, the home or the street,

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National Identity

that family values and cultural practices are transmitted, contested, transformed and

where identities evolve. (1999: 260)

Perhaps part of the problem in defining the everyday is that it is too apparent;

by virtue of its 'second nature' it does not readily lend itself to analysis, and is

commonly assumed to be uninteresting by social theorists. Perhaps this is precisely

why we might consider the everyday to be important and interesting, since it reflects

a widespread understanding, no less shared by academics, that we can take the

quotidian much for granted. Apparently, its low-key, humdrum passage does not

contain the exciting moments in which decisions are made, identities enacted and

displayed. Because the everyday tends to be contrasted with the time of celebrity,

of holidays, of exceptional and symbolic events, it is believed to be static: little

changes during the playing out of repetitive acts necessary to sustain reproduction.

Change occurs on a grander stage. However, I argue that the everyday is far more

dynamic than this complacent view suggests, whilst at the same time it also contains

enduring consistencies through which identity is grounded.

When we consider that there have been several important accounts of the

importance of temporal schemes to the construction of national identity, it is all

the more curious that the everyday has not been considered. In the era of romantic

nationalism, the idea that national origins are lost in the mists of time was proposed,

constructing nations as primordial. On the other hand, modernist national projects

also adopt temporal notions which assert that nations are constantly in the process

of becoming, whether construed as industrial, technological or social progress.

Indeed, the process of identification whereby boundaries are drawn and ' others'

constructed can be seen to strike these modernising chords. For instance, colonising

nations frequently compared themselves with the places they colonised. Because

they were asserted to be both rooted in history and in the process of developing

modern characteristics, colonial missions and colonising adventures could be

justified. For those being colonised were conceived to be suffering from a historical

lack and therefore were bereft of any hope for the future. They were ' the people

without history' (Wolf, 1982) who dwelt in 'the time of the other ' (Fabian, 1983).

Such representations continue to resonate through Western popular culture as well

as in debates within development studies, anthropology and political economy,

whilst previously colonised nations aim to recapture pre-colonial glories through

modernisation policies.

Thus the primordial origins of nations and their future orientation, the idea of

being and becoming, are neatly brought together by the idea that nations may

become that which they once were in some mythical ' golden age' . Tom Nairn

(1977) talks of the ' janus face' of the nation, simultaneously looking backwards

and forwards, and Homi Bhabha (1990) similarly proffers the national(ist) sense

of ' double time' in the focus on the past and the future. As is abundantly clear,

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–19 –

these temporal conceptions ignore the present; most specifically, they neglect the

everyday, which I will show is equally important in establishing a sense of national

identity. We need to supplement ideas about the time of the nation with a renewed

focus on cyclical time – that which reproduces identity and sustains ' our way of

life' . The flux of life, the speed of change, particularly in contemporary times,

means that a need for stability is sought, a degree of fixity and sense of belonging,

that enables some purchase on the world to be gained. This terra firma is achieved

and established in the realm of the everyday as much as in the appeals of ideologues

to the immemorial traditions that national subjects supposedly share.

Despite the lack of attention towards the everyday, certain theoretical insights

enable us to develop a critical approach to the ways in which identities are

reproduced, mutate and are challenged. Raymond Williams' s assertion, ' culture

is ordinary' , is often approvingly quoted by cultural theorists. Williams develops

this assertion, reasoning that ' culture' describes a particular way of life ' which

expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in

institutions and ordinary behaviour' (1961: 57, my italics). Ordinary, everyday

life is perhaps most appositely captured in Williams' s notion of the ' structure of

feeling' , a potentially rich concept, if rather vague. Williams describes the structure

of feeling as ' firm and definite as " structure" suggests, yet it operates in the most

delicate and least tangible parts of our activity' (ibid.: 63). In one sense, this

structure of feeling is the culture of a period: it is ' the particular living result of all

the elements in the general organisation' . The emphasis on the ' least tangible' is

important here, as I have inferred.

A structure of feeling seems to suggest a communal way of seeing the world in

consistent terms, sharing a host of reference points which provide the basis for

everyday discourse and action. This resonates with Hall' s definition of culture as

partly ' the contradictory forms of common sense which have taken root in and

helped to shape popular life' (1996a: 439). When people share similar habits,

assumptions and routines, and when a reflexive sense evolves that this is a

recognisable shared pattern and is intersubjectively communicated, this the

'beginning of institutionalisation ' (Jenkins, 1996: 128). Institutionalisation can be

understood in two senses: firstly, as the property of particular organisations;

secondly, as the organisation of everyday life, and the solidification of everyday

practical knowledge and value. In both cases, predictability is installed and bodies,

things and spaces become subject to ordering processes. And the small everyday

orderings can be subsumed under larger national orderings, merging the local with

the national. Moreover, the persistence of such common patterns over time

underpins a common sense that this is how things are and this is how we do things .

There is thus an interweaving of conscious and unreflexive thought which typifies

everyday practice and communication. Most actions are habitually (re)enacted

without reflection, but occasionally they are subject to surveillance from community

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National Identity

members, or to self-monitoring to ensure consistency and the upholding of values

and practical norms.

The notion of structure may be somewhat problematic – perhaps a more

processual noun is required – as is Williams' s emphasis on class – one might also

talk about gendered, ethnic or sexual structures of feeling. Another useful dimension

of Williams' s argument is that he allows for change and contestation, although as

Swingewood (1998: 81) notes, this competition is generationally oriented – that

is, the general cultural pattern changes as younger generations react against parent

cultures. Williams also offers a dynamic reading of culture where ' dominant' ,

'residual' and ' emergent' cultures co-exist and compete (1981: 204– 205), although

the interpenetration of such categories might be more fluid than he surmises.

Moreover, as I will continue to stress, a shared sense of feeling need not mean

that there is common accord, rather that certain objects, concepts and symbols are

shared but used and interpreted in different ways. Nevertheless, we can identify

shared meanings, habits, rituals and ways of speaking which comprise resources

that facilitate communication and establish a sense of national belonging. Such

resources combine affective and cognitive appeal, are grounded in spatial, material,

performative and representational dimensions of everyday life. I will explore this

in Chapter 3 by considering whether there are identifiable forms of national habitus.

I want to consider how there might be national structures of feeling. Thus I

argue that the national is constituted and reproduced, contested and reaffirmed in

everyday life, and each chapter will focus on these often unreflexive identifications.

In a very practical sense, national identity is facilitated by the state' s legislative

framework, which delimits and regulates the practices in which people can partake,

the spaces in which they are permitted to move, and in many other ways provides

a framework for quotidian experience. The state lays down broadcast regulations,

employment rights, environmental measures, the paying of taxes, parking laws,

the national education curriculum, and so on. The state is thus responsible for

enforcing and prioritising specific forms of conduct, of inducing particular kinds

of learning experiences, and regulating certain ' good' habits amongst its citizens.

But in addition to this legal, bureaucratic framework there are familiar places and

generic landscapes, which I will turn to in Chapter 2; there are a multitude of

shared conventions, habits and enactions, which I will look at in Chapter 3; there

are a plethora of familiar commonly used objects in households, communal spaces

and in the world of commodities which constitute material commonplaces amongst

national subjects, which I focus on in Chapter 4; and there are shared narratives

and representations which circulate throughout quotidian life, in the media, in

convivial talk and in politics, as I will show in Chapter 5. These numerous cultural

forms and practices provide an epistemological and ontological basis which

foregrounds the nation as a hegemonic, common-sense entity.

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Of course, one could equally focus on the reproduction of locality, gender,

ethnicity, class and sexuality in everyday realms, which may predominate according

to time and place. Here the focus is on national identity, and yet other modes of

quotidian identification are invariably imbricated within routine ways of being

national. For instance, as Felski (1999) has pointed out, the everyday tends to be

associated more with women then men. Men go out into the world to adventure,

to engage in what Featherstone terms ' the heroic life' (1992). Women are entrusted

with the more mundane responsibility of the daily upkeep of the household,

and, moreover, are (in a biologically determinist assumption) related more to

'natural ' cyclical temporalities through menstruation. In terms of the nation, these

suppositions mesh with the reproductive roles assigned to women in rearing future

national subjects (the national 'race') and also as transmitters of culture via their

everyday expertise in imparting values to children, cooking and housekeeping.

As far as local quotidian worlds are concerned, it is necessary to connect them

with nationally shaped cultures, to recognise the ways in which national identity

is differently scaled . Local rhythms are often co-ordinated and synchronised with

national rhythms, local customs may be considered part of a national cultural

mosaic, national institutions penetrate local worlds, and national news systems

collect information from the localities which make up the nation. There are multiple,

overlapping networks of experience, and the interpenetration of domestic, local

and national processes produces moments of dissonance, also occasioning mutual

reinforcement where domestic life slides into the local, which in turn merges with

the national. This interrelational process shapes shared sentiments and sensations,

forms of common sense, and widely disseminated representations to provide a

matrix of dense signification.

Throughout this book I will elucidate the unreflexive construction of national

identity, its embeddedness in the everyday, by looking at how reflexive awareness

can result from disruption – either by forms of common sense being interrogated

by strangers or migrants, by familiar spaces, things and practices coming under

threat from social and economic change, and most graphically by the habituated,

embodied national subject being displaced or situated in an unfamiliar context.

The following anecdote hopefully introduces the disorientations that testify to the

power of ingrained, embodied, unreflexive nationally constituted identity.

During my first visit to India some years ago I stayed at a small village in

Gujarat for six weeks. Having no experience of travelling outside Europe at this

time, I was continually struck by what seemed like the radical difference of

everything at an everyday level. The sounds of the buffalo, unfamiliar birdsong,

agricultural machinery, and other unidentifiable noises provided a completely

different soundscape to any that I recognised. The rich smellscape combining dung,

dust and incense and other powerful unidentifiable aromas was similarly strange.

And the taste and texture of the food, the heat and the ' atmosphere' added to the

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National Identity

sense of unreality. Domestic arrangements were equally unfathomable. The house's

interior was undecorated and functional to my eyes, and it served as a thoroughfare

for the family who lived in a dwelling behind, as well as for anyone else who

happened to be passing. For instance, my sense of private space was confounded

by the grandmother from next door coming to sleep on the bed whenever she

wanted to in order to seek refuge from her family. Many social interactions were

impossible for me to read, even to make assumptions about. The familiar caste

structures in the village were a mystery, although they formed part of the everyday

understanding of the villagers. Forms of know-how I wielded comfortably and

unreflexively at home were out of place here and were subject to mocking laughter

from village children. To cook, wash and shop required a certain amount of

coaching and advice. How should I eat, make small talk, laugh and sit? I could

extend this account, but I have tried to indicate the levels of unfamiliarity and

how virtually all my everyday, unreflexive enactions and assumptions, habits and

sensations were rendered out of place in the everyday world of others.

Now it might seem as if I have just written a rather conservative account of

otherness, of my intrepid adventures in a spectacularly different and indelibly

inaccessible realm. But the point I want to draw out is how habituated are an

enormous range of understandings, practical actions, sensations and embodied

habits which are grounded in familiar milieus. In such situations, what is usually

unreflexive is dramatically brought to the surface, is rendered irrelevant or

impractical. And potentially this has the effect of revealing the fixtures and contexts

of identity, its cultural and spatial location. The familiar settings, the cornerstones

of everyday situatedness, are realised as not so much natural as cultural, raising

questions about what is the normal way of being and doing. Part of what constitutes

this difference, and what enables us to distinguish it from our way of life, is the

national context – in the case cited above, the Indianness, as well as village-ness,

of the situation. For there is a continuum of familiarity which stretches from the

local to the national, so that even if such rural settings are unfamiliar to Indian

city dwellers, for instance, they will probably be partly cognisant of modes of

social interaction, will have seen a great number of representations of rural settings

in a range of cultural forms, will probably be familiar with tales of village life and

have met rural compatriots.

Nevertheless, I should add that what initially appeared intensely peculiar about

the village became embodied and enmeshed in a new sense of everyday-ness, so

that the reflexivity engendered by unfamiliarity dissipated to be replaced by

modified habits and procedures. This is well exemplified by the ways in which

the disruption to the familiar habits of everyday life caused by migration can lead

to their reinstatement, often in ' purified' form, in new national contexts, as I will

discuss in Chapter 2. Similarly, attempts to exclude incomers or ethnic groups

from sharing national identity also often hinge on the threats perceived by habits:

The Matrix of National Identity

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ways of cooking, clothing, working, talking, moving, as well as the fears dramatised

by unfamiliar forms of popular culture such as music and films.

To conclude this section, I want to question the suggestion that everyday life is

inherently conservative and inimical to (revolutionary) change. Marxist writers

have argued that the everyday realm suffers from the institutionalisation of human

degradation under industrial capitalism, enforcing rhythms which pacify subjects,

who thereby organise their lives around regressive forms of common sense. Like-

wise, modernist art has often attempted to jolt people out of what is often regarded

as hypnotic drudgery and uncritical attitudes installed by habits. Another manifest-

ation of the critique of everyday life is exemplified in the current academic

celebration of nomadism and fluidity which can potentially disrupt an established

domestic and routinised life.

However, everyday life is not merely full of robotic and rigid praxes but contains

a multitude of other potentialities. According to Gardiner, the everyday is also

'polydimensional: fluid, ambivalent and labile' (2000: 6). Citing Lefebvre, Bakhtin

and de Certeau, and the actions and manifestos of surrealists and situationists, he

shows that the everyday contains ' redemptive moments that point towards

transfigured and liberated social existence' , and it possesses ' transgressive, sensual

and incandescent qualities' (ibid.: 208). Likewise, Harrison says that ' in the

everyday enactment of the world there is always immanent potential for new

possibilities of life' (2000: 498). This emergent quotidian process is open-ended,

fluid and generative, concerns becoming rather than being, and is a sensual form

of experiencing and understanding that is ' constantly attaching, weaving and

disconnecting; constantly mutating and creating' (ibid.: 502). Thus the immanent

experience of the everyday – daydreams, disruptions and sensual intrusions –

constantly threatens to undermine the structure laid down by habit. According to

Gardiner, we should be attuned to ' the transgressive, sensual and incandescent

qualities of everyday existence, whereby the entire fabric of daily life can take

on a festive hue and be considered akin to a " work of art"' (2000: 208). Clearly,

we need to recognise the patterns laid down in the everyday without forming a

restrictive view concerning the potential for change, for the contemporary

dynamism of national identity is embedded in everyday life, changing subtly as

well as dramatically.

Conceptualising Identity

Having discussed popular culture and everyday life, it is now time to focus on the

notion of identity, particularly insofar as it is articulated with ideas about national

belonging. The focus on identity in this book stresses the ways in which it is shaped

through shared points of commonality in popular culture and in its grounding in

everyday life, but it is necessary to briefly cover some pertinent theoretical issues

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National Identity

that have emerged in recent years in order to establish a stronger foundation for

the forthcoming chapters. There has been an outpouring of writing on the concept

of identity in recent sociological and cultural studies publications (for example,

Giddens, 1991; Hall and du Gay, 1996; Sarup, 1996; du Gay et al. , 2000). The

term has proved to be a potent tool through which to explore diverse social and

cultural transformations across political, economic, gendered, ethnic, work and

leisure, sexual and local spheres. Yet national identity has remained rather immune

from these explorations, testifying to its assumed naturalness even amongst social

and cultural theorists. This is despite the fact that, as Cubitt emphasises, ' we live

in a nationalised world. The concept of the nation is central to the dominant

understandings both of political community and of personal identity' (1998: 1).

Drawing Boundaries: Inclusive and Exclusive National Identities

We distinguish between ourselves and others at a collective and individual level,

and express, feel and embody a sense of national identity. In modern times, the

nation has been a focus for identification and a sense of belonging, and persists as

such. Here I want to argue that the dichotomy between social and individual

identities is not helpful, and rather than being understood as distinctive entities

should be conceived as utterly entangled, for individual identity depends on

thinking with social tools and acting in social ways, whether reflexively or

unreflexively. This also helps to understand that identity is a process, not an essence,

which is continually being remade in consistent ways, through an ' internal– external

dialectic' involving a simultaneous synthesis of internal self-definition and one' s

ascription by others (Jenkins, 1996: 20). As I have already inferred, the dynamic

process of identity formation, or identification, occurs in mundane life as well as

in more spectacular collective gatherings, in the enaction of practical knowledge

as much as in the overt assertion or celebration of communal values and character-

istics, which are equally part of a larger social dimension of experience, thought

and action. Identity, as Sarup asserts, is a ' mediating concept between the external

and the internal, the individual and society . . . a convenient tool through which to

understand many aspects – personal, philosophical, political – of our lives' (1996:

28). Crucially then, national identity, like other identities, is about using 'resources

of history, language and culture in the process of becoming rather than being: not

"who we are " or " where we came from ", so much as what we might become '

(Hall, 1996b: 4). Nevertheless, essentialised notions about who ' we' are as opposed

to 'them ' can proffer exclusive national identities in contrast to more ambiguous

inclusive formulations.

A key element of the process of identification – especially in the case of national

identity – which will be recurrently exemplified throughout this book, is the

drawing of boundaries between self and ' other' . For identity is conceivable through

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–25 –

identifying difference, but, again, this is an ongoing process of identification

rather then the reified continuation of absolute antipathy, even if it involves the

same others continuously being distinguished from the self. Unlike recent

formations of identity which engender a more contingent, reflexive approach to

the construction of subjectivity – such as New Social Movements and New Age

groups with their emphasis on self-actualisation and the promotion of reflexive

tools – national identity is often sought to protect oneself from the anxiety of

uncertainty, as Craib puts it, by ' closing down internal space' (1998: 170– 171).

This can involve an overdetermination of the other which clearly reflects how it is

constitutive of the self – of the expulsion of that which it fears and the suppression

of that which it desires. It is worth exploring, then, the boundary-making processes

which operate within national identities, ways of delineating who and who does

not belong to the nation, for battles over exclusion and inclusion are always

ongoing.

Authoritative, exclusive versions of identity have been perpetrated by the

selection of national 'high ' cultures in assertions about cultural value. And as I

have inferred above, a common way of defining who belongs is by drawing

attention to what are often asserted to be ' key' cultural similarities and differences,

notably by distinguishing habits and everyday practices, and tastes in popular

culture. But sometimes the treatment of ' difference' involves the selective

incorporation of local, regional and other differences within the nation, a process

whereby difference is represented as the variety inherent in unity. What is admitted

into national belonging varies enormously, but it seems as if Western secular nations

are increasingly required to stretch notions of cultural inclusion to incorporate

those previously regarded as other. Thus national identity is in reality ' cross-cut

by deep internal divisions differences, and " unified" only though the exercise of

different forms of cultural power' (Hall, 1992: 68) to provide an illusion of

commonality. Thus religion, ethnicity and culture are utilised to assign in-group

similarities and the differences of others.

Attempts to draw boundaries may mobilise reified notions of history and roots,

cultural traditions, and often exploit popular symbolic images, rituals, sites and

objects. In a world of multiple others boundary drawing becomes difficult, and

must reify difference, essentialise and fix it as rooted in space and for all time.

Sarup argues that this has increasingly produced an 'entropic' obsession with the

past and fixed cultural aspects (1996: 98). But the mobilisation of such symbols is

usually fraught with complexity, for they increasingly tend to be highly adaptable,

can stand for competing identities and meanings. Thus attempts to exclude by

brandishing particular cultural symbols can coincide with more inclusive manifest-

ations which use those same symbols. For instance, the British flag (Union Jack)

has been brandished by unthinking patriots as a symbol which connotes imperial

power, tradition and national pride, most evidently by the far right groups, the

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National Identity

British National Party and the National Front in the assertion of exclusionist, racist

policies. But it has also been adopted by anti-authoritarian youth subcultures,

notably mods, and was wielded in the 1960s to convey progressive modishness,

an iconic practice rehashed by the late 1990s Britpop music scene. Thus the Union

Jack has become both traditional and fashionable, spanning contrary desires

to keep things the same and transcend tradition. Racist England football fans

waved it as they sang ' Stand up if you won the war' during the 2000 World Cup

defeat by Germany, but the flag was also waved at the recent Sydney Olympics by

victorious black British athletes. This display of patriotism perhaps partly echoes

Roland Barthes famous description of a ' negro' soldier saluting the French flag,

ideologically signifying a supposedly non-racist France (1993: 116–117). Some

commentators argue that the flag is irredeemably tainted by this exclusive

nationalism, but I would argue that it is a mythic, polysemic symbol which is used

to transmit very diverse meanings and qualities. I will point out similar condensation

symbols throughout this book; iconic places, objects, rituals and heroes which are

used to establish national(ist) boundaries but are liable to be claimed and employed

by other groups. Herein lies the power of such cultural symbols – ideas about

their import may be shared, but they can be claimed by a multitude of different

identities for various purposes.

In some cases, it seems as if essentialist attempts to draw cultural boundaries

between inhabitants of different nations have never been more tenuous. This

fragility is particularly evident in the drawing up of national cultural policies. An

interesting development in this area has been a series of recent debates around the

idea of ' cultural citizenship' and ' cultural rights' . As Stevenson asserts, it has been

the ' remit of cultural racism to argue that access to citizenship criteria depends

upon particular cultural persuasions' (2001a: 1). To counter this, it is envisaged

that cultural rights could be legally identified. The right to cultural difference and

its parameters within a national context raises the right to carry out non-majoritarian

cultural practices and the necessity of respecting those of others. Here, then, the

codes of cultural and civic normality are being challenged by more inclusive

versions of cultural belonging which ' seek to rework images, assumptions and

representations that are seen to be exclusive as well as marginalising' (ibid.: 3).

Stevenson fleshes out the notion of cultural rights by citing inclusive policies

designed to facilitate equal access to cultural resources, via public education and

media (ibid.). In such instances, the state provides spheres of communication such

as public spaces, public events, media forums, educational and experimental spaces,

and generates the dialogic conditions necessary to mutual respect for difference

and opportunities for creative initiatives.

The proliferation of claims for inclusion within a cultural rights and citizenship

agenda by disability groups, gays and lesbians, ethnic groups, women, third-age

organisations and youths (all in Stevenson, 2001b) resounds with the advances

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made through identity politics which challenge the centrality of exclusive national

identities. In an interesting example, Roche argues that in the case of Britain

membership of the European Community has the potential to erode defensive

cultural nationalism, particularly through an interweaving of popular culture at a

European level. He argues that this is already happening through the development

of particular forms of media, constructions of a common European heritage

(through shared experience of world wars, for example), and especially through

sport, notably football. European football competitions threaten the centrality of

national contests, large numbers of professional players increasingly hail from

outside the nation in which they play, and media enterprises extend their coverage

of these European games. Each of these processes is subject to defensive reactions

which lament the dilution of national characteristics of football and the disembed-

ding of the game from localities and nations (Roche, 2000: 89– 90). Even the British

government has ensured that certain national symbolic events must remain

broadcast by terrestrial television (ibid.: 92), flagging up and safeguarding that

which is 'traditionally' consumed within a national sphere. Lifestyles seem to be

evolving which are based on a wider notion of sociality and consumer choice and

taste than can be confined by the national, so that the formation of ' multiple forms

of identity within Europe' (Urry, 1995: 165) is potentially encouraged.

National Identity in the Global Cultural Matrix

Theories concerned with accounting for the changing conditions generated by

globalisation, or those heralding a postmodern epoch, have focused on the

decentring of identity, in contradistinction to previously bounded, coherent modern

identities – like national identity – which are being superseded. Greater social and

actual mobility, the fragmentation of classes, the growing importance of con-

sumption and the rise of ' identity politics' have increasingly influenced identity

formation. This has been accompanied by theoretical frameworks which emphasise

linguistic, Foucauldian, psychoanalytical, feminist and deconstructive approaches

which decentre assumptions about the formation of subjectivity (Hall, 1992).

Moreover, supposedly mobile identities increasingly move promiscuously across

various sites, amongst different people, and in diverse cultural contexts. Thus

identities are ' increasingly fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply

constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses,

practices and positions' (Hall, 1996b: 4). Old notions about identities being

embedded in place or self-evidently belonging to particular (national) cultures

and societies seem to be repudiated by vast, expanding cultural networks. Group

and individual identifications are thus becoming stretched out in proliferating

locations in diasporic, political, and cyber networks. Thus identity is becoming

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National Identity

nationally deterritorialised, and locally and globally, even virtually, reterritorialised.

Such fluidity seems to be mirrored in popular culture, where iconic figures such

as Madonna and Michael Jackson apparently possess mutable identities. Moreover,

television becomes more the site of multiple channels originating from local,

national and global sources, far different from the days when a limited number of

national channels were on offer (Barker, 1999: 7).

It may appear, then, that national identity is a waning force. Yet there are several

reasons why this is not quite so. Firstly, the apparent fluidity of identity and the

lack of spatial and cultural fixity can provide a discursive and affective focus for

reclaiming a sense of situatedness. Any sense of uncertainty requires that terra

firma be sought, and national identity provides an already existing point of

anchorage. Fears like these provide fertile ground for recursive political nationalists

to capitalise upon, for the threat of fully decentred identities might seem to lead to

epistemological chaos. Thus regularities and consistencies help to secure a sense

of social belonging. Yet if we accept that we also live in an era where subjects are

endowed with enhanced reflexivity (Giddens, 1991), then perhaps such awareness

means that identity has to be recreated continuously to achieve what Gilroy calls

the ' changing same' (1994). This interweaves with wider socio-economic processes,

where, for instance, in a globalising world, it is imperative for states to attract

capital (as it is for regions, cities and localities) by broadcasting their specialisms,

by advertising their specific national wares on the global market. Cultural identity

is also reconstituted in global consumer culture, where the exchange of com-

modities and information about them all ' draw on and add to existing imageries

of people and places' (Cook and Crang, 1996).

Secondly, and importantly for the argument advanced in this book, identity is

not necessarily, or even mainly, shaped by reflexive, self-conscious identification,

but, as I emphasised earlier, by ' second nature' , the barely conscious set of assump-

tions about the way 'we' think and act. There is a theoretical overemphasis on

strategic instrumental jockeying for position in a continual battle to express identity.

This is akin to what Craib describes as the ways in which sociologists have

neglected ' experience' . In these sociological conceptions, ' cognition dominates

people' s lives, that we only have ideas, and those ideas come to us from outside,

from the social world' (Craib, 1998: 1). Instead, there is the ' unthought known' ,

'the precognitive and extra-cognitive knowledge' which is partly affect, the feel

of things, embodied sensual experience, and which when it enters into conscious-

ness, often ' comes as a surprise' (ibid.: 10) but is nevertheless part of a fundamental

emotional subjectivity which grounds identity in shared, unreflexive feelings. As

I have argued, and will exemplify throughout this book, these unreflexive bases

of identity are often realised only in conditions of disruption or dislocation.

Thirdly, in their endeavours to construct the postmodern condition, many

theorists have tended to neglect the continuities which tether identities in time

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and space, continuities which paradoxically mutate and hybridise but can never-

theless be identified by discursive themes and practical consistencies. In everyday

life looms the national, a common-sense framework which provides a certain

ontological and epistemological security, a geographical and historical mooring,

and a legal, political and institutional complex which incorporates (and excludes)

individuals as national subjects. A wealth of shared cultural resources complement

this array of consistencies. In fact, this framework supplies a highly flexible

resource which can accommodate multiple national identifications, so that

proliferating identities can be contained within, as well as outside the nation – an

obvious point but an important one. National identity does not equate with

homogeneity; nor is it inherently defensive, conservative or tradition-bound. There

are a multitude of social and political investments in the nation, across political

spectra, ethnicity and class, for as a process, identity may weave cultural resources

into its constitution according to contingency, as I will show.

Globalisation promotes the mutation of national identity resulting from 'the

imposition of the conceptual grid of nationality on exchanges and interactions in

the global arena' (Cubitt, 1998: 14). For instance, I will discuss in Chapter 5 how

images and narratives of nations circulate globally but can be reclaimed and worked

over anew. It is also apparent that national identity has become detached from the

nation-state, proliferates in diasporic settings far from its original home, appears

in syncretic cultural forms and practices and exists in ' hyphenated' identities. Thus

globalisation and national identity should not be conceived in binary terms but as

two inextricably interlinked processes. Global processes might diminish a sense

of national identity or reinforce it. However, as global cultural flows become more

extensive, they facilitate the expansion of national identities and also provide

cultural resources which can be domesticated, enfolded within popular and

everyday national cultures.

Identity is always in process, is always being reconstituted in a process of

becoming and by virtue of location in social, material, temporal and spatial contexts.

The fluidity of identity does not mean that there is no coherence, but rather that

this has to be continually reproduced to ensure fixity. As Renan says, the continued

existence of the nation depends on ' a daily plebiscite' (1990: 19). In the next section

I want to explore how points of identification continuously move through different

nexuses, and how in the contemporary world these nexuses have proliferated

through the propagation of points of contact, cultural influences and mobilities.

In a world of others, there remain numerous points of convergence.

Rorty considers that rather than being centred, we should conceive of identity

as ' a centreless and contingent web' (1991: 193) constituted by ' networks of beliefs

and desires' (ibid.: 191) and multiple other points of association. As I will now

elaborate, identity is best conceived as a process of continually weaving together

fragments of discourse and images, enactions, spaces and times, things and people

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National Identity

into a vast matrix, in which complex systems of relationality between elements

constellate around common-sense themes – one such being the national.

The Redistribution of National Identity

In order to reconsider sociological understandings of national identity, I want to

disembed the common-sense idea that the nation is the fundamental basis of society,

and therefore self-evidently the organising principle around which sociology is

organised. This I will do by taking up some recent work which possibly suggests

the lineaments of a reformulated sociology. In such work, attention is being directed

to flows, processes, mobilities and ' horizontal' interconnections, rather than to

vertical, hierarchical structures, and metaphors such as rhizomes and networks

are being utilised to look at the complicated, uneven relationships between places,

people, things and discourses. Recognising the intricacies of the social world

requires that it be conceived as ' a complex, heterogeneous nexus of entities and

flows' (Michael, 2000: 1), where power and identity are simultaneously transformed

and reproduced, where new connections are made, and old constellations solidified.

Such processes thus produce both heterogeneity and homogeneity, a host of

disjunctions and ruptures as well as reifications and continuities. I want to suggest

that national identity is now situated within an ever-shifting matrix, a multi-

dimensional, dynamic composite of networks. Such a metaphor emphasises the

relationality of the social without subjecting it to an overarching, systemic order,

and insists on an ever-increasing multitude of connections and chains of relation-

ality. Within such a matrix, national identity is being continually redistributed.

For emphatically, the evolution of multiple connections does not necessarily

dissipate the power of national identity, although it undoubtedly decentres the

authoritative formations consolidating around high culture, official political power

and national meta-narratives. Rather, points of identification with the nation are

increasingly manifold and contested, are situated within dense networks which

provide multiple points of contact.

Castells (1996) has put forward the notion of a ' network society' emerging

from processes of globalisation, comprising economic, political and technological

flows, and Appadurai (1990) has offered a highly influential scheme which suggests

that globalisation is characterised by disjunctive flows of people ('ethnoscapes ' ),

technology ('technoscapes'), information ('mediascapes'), ideas and ideologies

(' ideoscapes ' ) and money (' financescapes' ) which undercut nationally organised

modes of distribution and control. Such ideas challenge bounded notions of society,

since a host of interconnected flows and pathways impact in uneven ways in varied

contexts. Barker proposes that these flows ' should not necessarily be understood

in terms of a set of neat, linear determinations' , but instead viewed as a series of

The Matrix of National Identity

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'overlapping, overdetermined, complex and " chaotic" conditions which, at best,

can be seen to cluster around key " nodal points"' (1999: 41).

Other interesting work on networks has come out of actor-network theory, whose

proponents have attempted to show how meanings and practical actions are secured

through the relational arrangements of people and 'non-humans', such as animals

and plants, objects and representations. The crucial element of such studies is that

they emphasise the relationality of the elements in the network, which produces

agency as an effect, ' distributed through an heterogeneous arrangement of

materials' (Hetherington and Law, 2000: 127). A problem with most of the work

which has been carried out within actor-network theory is that it has remained

somewhat parochial. In the desire to identify particular actor networks, there has

been a tendency to somehow seal these off, as is they are self-contained systems.

As Lee and Brown (1994) have argued, all too often nothing stands outside the

network. However, each element within any one network is inevitably connected,

or potentially connected, to other epistemological and practical networks. This

raises problems regarding agency, for instance, in that it may be inspired by a

whole set of influences from outside the network under study. Despite this system-

atism, most actor-network theorists have usefully acknowledged the instability of

networks. Vitally, they have to be constantly activated in order to secure their

epistemological and practical stability, although this might downplay the ways in

which they can be contaminated or destabilised by external influences. Another

difficulty is that there is little sense that ambivalent objects and people are

incorporated into networks; that there is ambiguity, discontinuity and disjuncture

(see Hetherington and Law, 2000). More seriously, questions of power have been

conspicuous by their absence. Which actors have greater leverage within these

networks? Are more able to sustain them? And for what purposes? The more

complex notion of the matrix is required, an intersecting network, with multiple

points of connection and constellation, is certainly better suited to my aims, for

through an evermore complex matrix we can identify multiple connections which

reaffirm and decentre the idea of national identity.

At one level, the extension of matrical relationships is paradoxically under-

mining forms of identity formation based around the nation. In a number of ways

it is true, as Urry claims, that ' flows across societal borders make it less easy for

states to mobilise clearly separate and coherent nations in pursuits of goals based

upon society as a region' (2000: 36). Flows and networks of technologies,

mobilities, information, money, commodities, ideas and images advance the ability

of many to make connections, form groups and communities which are inter-

nationally organised. Travel insinuates a familiarity with forms of supposed

otherness, and ' exotic' commodities are routinely traded in everyday worlds. The

ability to sustain ' invisible networks' is crucial to the tactics of many internationally

constituted new social movements (Melucci, 1989), and a host of affective

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National Identity

groupings, collectivities organised around ' identity politics' , and fan cultures

keep in touch via globalising technologies, including, of course, in cyberspace,

where 'virtual ' communities are established. Likewise, Massey observes that

youth cultures are increasingly 'a particular articulation of contacts and influences

drawn from a variety of places scattered, according to power relations, fashion

and habit, across many different parts of the globe' (1998: 124). These youthful

forms of social and cultural relations cut across many of the hierarchies of scale –

such as the local, the national and the global – which are held to identify spatial

particularities, and are organised into ' constellations of temporary coherence' (ibid.:

124–125).

In one sense, time is increasingly desynchronised, challenging the consolidation

of shared national routines and habits. ' Time space compression' (Harvey, 1989)

brings the world closer, ameliorating the separate experience of nations, their

emplacement in a distinct temporal scale. Television schedules and the keying in

to global events undercut the mass national experience of time, and cybertime – a

temporal system which takes no cognisance of national time systems – connects

global users of the internet. But in another sense, there is a multiplication of time,

so that the range of different lifestyles, shopping plans, work schedules becomes

more complex, and also decentres a commonly experienced national time (see

Adam, 1995; Nowotny, 1994). We might also refer to the speeding up of ephemeral

culture, where novelties, fashions, crazes and commodities attain obsolescence

evermore rapidly.

As far as space is concerned, notions about fragmented spaces, ' third' spaces

or ' spaces on the margins' put forward ideas about postmodern geographies which

challenge the primacy of national space. Important amongst these is Doreen

Massey' s (1993) conception of a ' progressive sense of place' in which places are

characterised by their multiple connections – do not intrinsically locally or

nationally reflect some essential character, a genius loci, so to speak – but are

constituted by the processes and flows which centre upon them in myriad and

differently scaled ways. Moreover, romantic metaphorical figures such as the

nomad, who moves through space but belongs nowhere, have been tendered as

epitomising contemporary forms of spatial identity, are part of a general root-

lessness which effaces the old, reified links between space and identity. Such

de-nationalised identities are perhaps best explored in diasporic modes of dwelling.

Paul Gilroy (1994) has notably put forward the idea of the ' Black Atlantic' , a

spatial imaginary which bears no allegiance to any nation, but is constituted

by the historical migrancy of Black people between the Caribbean, Africa, America

and Britain, as well as by contemporary cultural circulations between these spaces.

Such diasporic spaces are, of course, also made up of practical and familial

networks, summarised by Brah as specifying ' a matrix of economic, political and

cultural inter-relationships which construct the commonality of a dispersed group'

The Matrix of National Identity

–33 –

(1996: 196). These syncretic, creolising and diasporic identities thus contest

national spaces, add to the profusion of connections which are consolidated in

everyday life and the complexity of the life-world, rendering old dichotomies of

'self ' and 'other ' more ambivalent.

There is, then, a multiplicity of routes and roots available to us, which can

simultaneously open up the possibilities of connection, or a foreclosing on diversity

through a search for stability to banish the ambiguity of the unfixed and the

multiple. However, I contend that national identity, rather than standing as the

opposite of these fluid modes of connection, is similarly heterogeneous, is

constituted by innumerable pathways, connections and sources. In the contemp-

orary network of identity formation, the national is found in a bewilderingly dense

profusion of signifiers, objects, practices and spaces. Although globalisation has

produced a complexification of flows and networks, there remains an abundance

of nodes, events, and situations which foreground national identity. In a globalising

world, national identity continually reconstitutes itself, becomes re-embedded,

reterritorialises spaces, cultural forms and practices. Thus, like other identities,

nationhood is ' constituted through powerful and intersecting temporal regimes

and modes of dwelling and travelling' (Urry, 2000: 18). For instance, as national

and local territories become increasingly permeable, so iconic representations are

peddled across the world as markers of national identity. What may be useful as

marketing shorthand for tourists, entrepreneurs and television audiences may also

be re-enchanted back home, repatriated to serve national(ist) interests, as we will

see when I discuss the Hollywood film, Braveheart , in Chapter 5. National identity

has become decentred but has also been recentred, and is continually being

redistributed in matrices which extend from the local to the global. And just as

there is an infinite range of possibilities for the creation of alternative networks of

identity, so there is an ever-expanding range of resources through which to construct

national identity.

I do not want to deny the global potentialities for rhizomic movement, as

Deleuze and Guattari have it, to acknowledge the ways in which people can make

lines of flight out of normative cultural arrangements. But a matrix exists in

conjunction with rhizomic connections; indeed, it facilitates the making of

horizontal connections. Crucially, though, it allows us to identify the cultural

constellations forged out of the huge catalogue of intertextual reference points

concerned with national identity. I do not want to perpetuate the illusion of fixed

identities, for all cultural elements contain elements of ambiguity, and yet by virtue

of their relationality to other elements within a wider matrix of meaning and

practice, certain meanings attach to them which are hard to disestablish. Never-

theless, the expansion of networks brings with it a potential for the destabilisation

of meaning and for the possibilities for new connections to be made whereby

objects become connected into other, different networks. Thus cultural elements

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National Identity

may become increasingly fluid, contested and mobile. In everyday life, for instance,

mundane technologies instantiate a sense of order by combining people, objects,

places and discourses. But whilst they mediate and reflect everyday life, they may

also produce disorder, may undermine habitual routines, because they are inevitably

the site of ambiguities and disruptions. Because of this polysemy, new meanings

and uses are apt to erupt out of everyday life, as elements intrude to interrogate

long-held relationships. Previously unimaginable connections are made as global

flows produce unexpected juxtapositions and assemblages of things, people and

places.

Thus heterogeneous elements are distributed by different global flows, are

variously ordered or disordered, fixed or fluid. New connections are made or

remade, or elements become disconnected. Accordingly, constellations may exist

in a state of flux or stability, may persist in ' freezing up' relations or be in a continual

process of becoming. As Michael stresses (2000: 38), the metaphor of the network

and the rhizome are not mutually incompatible. At certain points, identities

territorialise and assume recognisable characteristics, can establish consistencies

through time, become embodied in habit, and constellate in places. In other

circumstances they are dynamic and fluid. Identity and ' common sense' results

where things, processes and flows are domesticated and tamed, adopted and adapted

through complex modes of 'integration through symbolic, social and practical

reordering and routinisation' (ibid.: 10). This incorporation of otherness into

everyday life generates an intersubjective understanding of the linkages between

people, spaces and things, though not one that is always articulated through

discourse and representation. It acts to epistemologically and ontologically install

things and people in place.

Of course, here we must acknowledge the effect of power to consolidate and

reify relationships, and, further, to argue that certain assemblages and linkages

pertain more than others. In a matrix, power is unevenly distributed, and reflects a

distinct global ' power-geometry' where certain locales and nations are attached to

networks, generate flows, and are the centre of numerous constellations of power

and effect within these global matrices. Thus economic success may be assisted

by being situated in key nodal points of production, marketing, distribution and

consumption networks which extend the operational reach of local and national

economies. Large corporations institute a global McDonaldisation of provision to

ensure predictability and control (Ritzer, 1993). Some institutions facilitate certain

connections and points of intersection whilst curtailing other links. We must

therefore interrogate who is able to tap into networks, get connected, and who is

not.

However, whilst recognising that the ways in which certain networks establish

modes of control are accessible only to particular groups, we must equally be

aware that national identity doesn' t necessarily require fixity for its survival. Indeed,

The Matrix of National Identity

–35 –

over-reified culture may be inimical to its survival. For national identity relies

more on condensation symbols, flexible ways of making sense of shared resources.

Nations and national identity are protean and promiscuous in their form. For like

all cultural forms, practices and expressions, they are invariably syncretic. As Crang

asserts, cultures ' are not " holistic" ways of life – but instead are composed of

people assembling and reassembling fragments from around them' (1998: 175).

A contemporary national identity makes use of the proliferating cultural forms

and practices and meanings that are available. Throughout this book I will attempt

to highlight the range of intertextual, inter-practical connections between cultural

resources which give sustenance to national identity, and in the final chapter will

attempt to illustrate the density of such multiple interconnections.

Crucially, the historical weight of national identity means that it is hard to shift

as the pre-eminent source of belonging, able to draw into its orbit other points of

identification whether regional, ethnic, gendered or class-based. As Calhoun asserts,

national identity acts as a ' trump card in the game of identity' (1997: 46), overriding

more supposedly ' parochial' or particularistic identities even as it allows their

diversity to persist (national identity is, of course, another form of parochialism

and particularism). Whilst the historical formation of ' national' culture has been

transformed, this legacy still exerts power on the ways in which contemporary

formations of culture – much expanded and fragmented – are subsumed by a

common-sense notion that the nation remains pre-eminent. The complexification

of identity has entailed the expansion of cultural resources and repertoires, and

yet constellations of interrelated cultural indices coagulate around national identity,

not in any fixed or essentialist sense, but in the multiple ways in which they can

be assembled and connected around key themes.

Finally, I want to return to the importance of identifying scaling processes in

the constitution of national identity. The metaphor of the matrix enables us to

identify connections between localities with nation, performances in parochial

settings with a larger stage, the everyday domestic and the national quotidian, the

mundane with the spectacular, the location of places within larger spatial frame-

works, and representations and discursive fragments within larger texts and image

banks. The forthcoming chapters will exemplify this in greater detail.

National Places and Spaces

–37–

–2–

Geography and Landscape: National Places

and Spaces

To conceive the nation in spatial terms is a complex matter that brings together

a number of processes and theoretical approaches. For the relationship between

space and national identity is variegated and multi-scaled, producing a complex

geography that is constituted by borders, symbolic areas and sites, constellations,

pathways, dwelling places and everyday fixtures. And the national is evident not

only in widely recognised grand landscapes and famous sites, but also in the

mundane spaces of everyday life. My approach here is to look at a range of different

national forms of spatialisation which interweave with each other to consolidate a

strong cognitive, sensual, habitual and affective sense of national identity, providing

a common-sense spatial matrix which draws people and places together in spec-

tacular and banal ways. Accordingly I will look at spatial boundaries, preferred

ideological landscapes, iconic sites, sites of popular assembly, generic everyday

landscape, and the notion of 'home'.

The Nation as Bounded Space

The nation continues to be the pre-eminent spatial construct in a world in which

space is divided up into national portions. The nation is spatially distinguished as

a bounded entity, possessing borders which mark it as separate from other nations.

Borders enclose a definable population subject to a hegemonic administration in

the form of a discrete political system holding sway over the whole of this space

but which, in a world of nations, is expected to respect the sovereignty of other

nations. These borders are also imagined to enclose a particular and separate culture,

a notion which is articulated by hegemonic ways of differentiating and classifying

cultural differences. It is not that different cultures cannot exist within any nation,

but that they are subordinate to the nation, and conceived as part of national cultural

variety.

Smith remarks that nations 'define a definite social space within which members

must live and work, and demarcate an historic territory that locates a community

in time and space' (Smith, 1991: 16). The nation masquerades as a historical entity,

its borders giving it a common-sense existence. Yet despite the appearance of fixity,

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National Identity

nations continually change. They dissemble, emerge, conjoin with each other,

lose parts and expand as any glance at a sequence of political maps throughout

the twentieth century will show. In fact there has been a proliferation of nation-

states throughout the twentieth century. For instance, the United Nations had 51

founder-members in 1945; by the end of the century it had 192 member states. As

a power-container, the nation is always under threat of being decentred as the

'obvious ' space of sovereignty and identity. Perhaps this threat is presently greater

than ever before. In order to contextualise the forthcoming discussion, I will briefly

identify three ways in which this is so.

Firstly, the nation-state seems to be threatened by large, supra-national

federations which organise around trade, social legislation and law (for instance,

as with the European Community). Control over national economy and government

is undoubtedly altered by such federations, and widespread fears about the demise

of national political autonomy and culture arise. There is no room for a sustained

analysis here, but I want to point out that it seems as if the spatial container of

power here is expanding to transcend the national. In Europe, the fears in certain

nations, especially the UK, to this supra-national extension of politics and culture

have led to highly defensive reifications in which essentialised cultural markers

have been utilised to denote a treasured uniqueness which is imperilled by foreign

cultural infection. Thus fears about spatial transformation are accompanied by

cultural responses which imply that culture is contained and bounded by national

borders. Notably, a host of interest groups have mobilised rather archaic cultural

symbols to protest about the erosion of sovereignty. These have focused on

'traditional ' farming practices, the appearance of money (the desire to keep the

monarch' s head on coins) and, as we will shortly see, appeals to essentialist

constructions of particular symbolic landscapes. Whether the development of the

EC will lead to a decline in national identity is difficult to guess, but the defensive

reactions which have challenged these federalist processes perhaps indicate that

this might not be so, for the nation has been reasserted as the pre-eminent container

of culture and identity, both amongst ' pro-Europeans' and their opponents.

The second spatial entity that jeopardises the ' integrity' of national space is

that of the autonomy-seeking region or ' stateless nation' contained within its

borders which mobilises opinion or arms against the larger entity. There are many

such nationalist movements throughout the world which continually test national

borders, sometimes forcing nations to divide into smaller parts. The success of

such movements since 1945 testifies to the fluidity of the nation, despite its

continual reification as a ' natural' space which contains a commonality of interests

and culture amongst its inhabitants. What is interesting about such processes from

a cultural perspective are attempts to delineate cultural identity within alternative

(national) spaces which assert a cultural distinction from the larger entities which

incorporate them. Strategies to resist secession likewise highlight the cultural

National Places and Spaces

–39 –

integrity of the threatened nation, and point out the historical and cultural common

denominators which outweigh any differences. I explore strategies to elicit cultural

difference in Chapter 5, where I discuss the responses to the film Braveheart in

Scotland and the contesting ways in which it is used to distinguish Scots from the

English but also to assert common points of Britishness.

The third process endangering the bounded space of the nation is globalisation,

which I have discussed in the previous chapter and will address in the following

chapters. The global challenge to nation-states comes from many sources, ranging

from the global flows which bring goods, information, images and people from

elsewhere, to the creation of supra-national spaces such as the much-vaunted

cyberspace, and the development of planetary consciousness or global awareness,

prompted by greater knowledge of challenges and threats to the world as a whole.

This identifies the commonalities which enjoin all people, such as the potential

for environmental devastation and the importance of human rights and world peace,

which are believed to take priority over the relatively parochial concerns of national

self-interest.

Although we continue to live in world of nations Ascherson (2001) argues that

'self-creating, hardwalled, homogeneous cells ' which assert defensive forms of

national identity are increasingly obsolete, since nations now need to have more

permeable borders to admit the financial, informational, commodity and cultural

flows which circulate the globe. Indeed, he further argues that globalisation

provides an ' ideal environment for microstates as long as their cell walls are porous'

(ibid.), and we might further add that the proliferation of diasporic identities generate

alternative, more tentacular forms of spatial organisation which are constituted by

these flows. Despite these undoubtedly powerful processes, claims that the nation

as space of primary belonging is in decline are exaggerated. For national identity

can be reconstituted in diaspora, can forge new cultural constructions of difference

out of the confrontation with otherness, and not only in a recursive fashion. But

still, at a practical and imaginary level, national geographies continue to predom-

inate over other forms of spatial entity, as the following sections will underline.

Ideological Rural National Landscapes

It is difficult to mention a nation without conjuring up a particular rural landscape

(often with particular kinds of people carrying out certain actions). Ireland has

become synonymous with its West Coast (see Nash, 1993). Argentina is inevitably

linked with images of the pampas: gauchos riding across the grasslands. Morocco

is associated with palm trees, oases and shapely dunescapes, and the Netherlands

with a flat patchwork of polders and drainage ditches. Of course, the deserts,

swamps and mountains of Argentina tend to be overlooked, as do the highlands of

Morocco and Holland. These specific landscapes are selective shorthand for these

–40 –

National Identity

nations, synedoches through which they are recognised globally. But they are also

loaded with symbolic values and stand for national virtues, for the forging of the

nation out of adversity, or the shaping of its geography out of nature whether

conceived as beneficent, tamed or harnessed. Specific geographical features may

provide symbolic and political boundaries, natural borders formed by seas, rivers

and mountains, that forestall invasion and contain culture and history, sustaining

mythical continuities. Out of the transformation of raw nature has emerged the

most treasured national attributes, and the agricultural means by which the nation

has been nourished. Moreover, landscapes come to stand as symbols of continuity,

the product of land worked over and produced, etched with the past, so that ' history

runs through geography' (Cubitt, 1998: 13). Nations possess, then, what Short

has termed ' national landscape ideologies' (1991) charged with affective and

symbolic meaning. So ideologically charged are they, that they are apt to act upon

our sense of belonging so that to dwell within them, even if for a short time, can

be to achieve a kind of national self-realisation, to return to 'our ' roots where the

self, freed from its inauthentic – usually urban – existence, is re-authenticated.

These spatial ideologies are indelibly stamped with the modern construction of

separate urban and rural realms, where the gesellschaft of the city is contrasted

with a highly romanticised rural gemeinschaft (Kasinitz, 1995). European nations,

whose emergence is in many cases coterminous with the development of modern

romanticism, are clothed in this rhetoric of the rural, a rural which most frequently

encapsulates the genius loci of the nation, the place from which we have sprung,

where our essential national spirit resides. Moreover, they are the locale of a

mythical (and commonly racialised) class of forebears, the peasants, yeoman or

pioneers who battled against, tamed and were nurtured by these natural realms.

These iconic, privileged landscapes are continually recirculated through popular

culture. They form the basis of tourist campaigns to foreign visitors, and frequently

come under environmental pressure from large numbers of pilgrims who wish to

experience their symbolic power, so that often preservation movements have ensured

that they are conserved as national parks. They thus become conceived primarily

as spectacular landscapes and hence become part of a different economy of identity,

valued for their visual and romantic affordances rather than their fertility or

agricultural productiveness. The conversion from productive to tourist landscapes

is telling in terms of the marketing of national identity and the way that increased

mobility has renewed such locales as pilgrimage sites. Yet myths about agricultural

values persist, often as part of heritage interpretation. For instance, in France the

rural is envisaged as the source of varied and distinct products, such as cheese and

wine, is conceived as producing infinite geographic and gastronomic variety

(Lowenthal, 1994: 19; Claval, 1994).

To exemplify the ideological power of such landscapes, I want to consider rural

England as supreme marker of national identity. Lowenthal (1994) has identified

National Places and Spaces

–41 –

four imagined attributes which epitomise the English countryside. Firstly, he cites

'insularity ' – in the sense that the countryside had been wrought by the English

alone. Free of the influence of invading forces, the island of Britain forms a natural

barrier which means it is untainted by ' continental' influence. Secondly, the land

has been carefully crafted and adorned, domesticated by the stewards who inhabit

it, who have created the hedgerows, coppices, and drainage systems that testify

to an enhancing of nature over centuries. This contrasts with those national

landscapes which are celebrated for their primeval naturalness, the mountains,

forests and deserts that have not been tamed and yet have induced a hardiness in

their inhabitants. Thirdly, Lowenthal points to the imagined stability which rural

Englishness is believed to embody, the continuities which responsible rural steward-

ship has retained (in contrast to the ever-changing towns and cities), materialising

a memory of historical England in space. Finally, there is the sense of order which

is found in the rural realm, the product of a mythical era when stability apparently

ensured an enduring sense of one' s place in the world. This situatedness involved

the acceptance of distinct paternal and peasant roles and responsibilities to produce

a supposedly harmonious world. Such ideological currents run through much

heritage industry in rural England; for instance, in the celebration of the country

house by the National Trust (Hewison, 1987), not only evident in the historical

accounts which surround such sites but also in the desire for ' tidiness' as a preferred

aesthetic.

The rural scenes that are held to epitomise Englishness are highly selective.

They are quite geographically specific, confined to the South, particularly the areas

surrounding London known as the Home Counties, though sometimes extending

to the Cotswolds and more western areas, and marked by history – rarely do modern

buildings intrude into these scenes. Typically, the visually and verbally recorded

elements comprise a rather fixed signifying system. Parish churches, lych-gates,

haystacks, thatched or half-timbered cottages, rose-laden gardens, village greens,

games of cricket, country pubs, rural customs, hedgerows, golden fields of grain,

plough and horses, hunting scenes, and a host of characters including vicars,

squires, farmers, gamekeepers, are part of a series of interlinked cues which are

widely shared at home and abroad.

It is difficult to overstress the rigidity of this version of rural England, which

has been the focus of many well-worn accounts which celebrate its qualities (see

Middleton and Giles, 1995: 73– 109). Accompanying the rise of romantic aesthetics,

and perhaps culminating in the first half of the twentieth century, artists, photo-

graphers, novelists and poets foregrounded these ' modern systems of visiting,

telling and repeating' which have ' allowed England to be known in its imaginary

and idealised aspect' (Taylor, 1994: 29). The sheer density of references to this

rural realm have been updated by the more contemporary technologies of

representation across popular culture, which endlessly recycle images in films,

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National Identity

television programmes and tourist campaigns, not to mention more mundane

artefacts such as postcards and chocolate boxes. And the widely available tech-

nology of photography enables such images to be sought out and (re)produced by

visitors to the countryside.

Claiming to be Britain' s best-selling quarterly magazine, the glossy This

England, subtitled ' England ' s loveliest magazine' , is one of the most remarkable

expressions of a particular vision of English rurality and the ways in which it may

be used ideologically to reinforce specific national(ist) values. This publication

fortifies an exclusive geography by endlessly recycling photographs and sketches

featuring a countryside that contains little or no signs of modernity (no 'modern'

buildings, hardly any cars and even television aerials are strangely absent). No

youths are present in any picture, certainly no non-white locals or visitors are

depicted, and the urban is kept at bay. This England is located in the distant past,

with little evidence of any post-war development. Typically, each issue commences

with a picture essay, supported by nostalgic, patriotic poetry, which combines the

rural images of country cottages, village greens, parish churches, pastoral and

vernal scenery, with iconic photographs such as the White Cliffs of Dover, Royal

personages and Big Ben, together with a range of more humble signifiers of

Englishness including steam railways, windmills, war memorials and stately homes.

All these elements constantly recur throughout the rest of the magazine. Although

this obsessively selective approach carries a particularly powerful affective charge,

it is in the combination of these images with a medley of other features that the

full ideological power of This England becomes apparent. The historical suggestive-

ness of a pre-war era is bolstered by the numerous articles, poems and pictures of

the Second World War (never the First) which is celebrated as a defining moment

of Englishness (specifically foregrounding sacrifice, national bonding of classes,

the closeness of the people to royalty, the repulsion of totalitarian powers). A strong

emphasis on Christianity, old-fashioned methods of policing, country customs,

archetypal rural characters, nostalgia for music and variety personalities, and

hobbies further condenses this imaginary Englishness. Most tellingly, a section of

the magazine is entitled ' Don' t let Europe rule Britannia' , including numerous

polemics from readers and contributors about the dangers of a ' European superstate'

to the British way of life, and featuring lampoons of European bureaucrats and

essentialised portraits of 'sensible' British folk being betrayed by politicians. Other

political issues such as the ordination of women Anglican priests, the decline of

the ' traditional' family, and the demise of Christianity and ' authority ' also feature.

It is clear that the landscape here is utilised to enhance the appeal of a complex of

other political issues. The suggestion is clear: as Britain changes, the fixity of

rurality is a bulwark and a resource which can be mobilised in the contest over

national identity. In rurality inhere timeless values which speak back to distasteful

modern developments.

National Places and Spaces

–43 –

Despite the enormous changes that have taken place in rural England, or perhaps

because of them, these dominant images retain an affective and cognitive power

that serves exclusive variants of nationalism. The prevalence of agribusiness,

housing estates and commuter communities, large fields without hedgerows, vast

tracts of larch and spruce forest, leisure practices such as action sports, factory

farming and rural unemployment, means that the elements which This England

features are now rare. It is worth speculating about what photographs exclude

through the selection of angles and frames, for there are no pylons, mobile phone

masts, new buildings or telegraph poles to be seen. These more recent features of

the countryside co-exist in the palimpsest of Englishness, but are edited out of the

picture. This bespeaks of an extraordinary will to prove a purity which does not

exist, and probably never has, but lodges somewhere in half-remembered trips to

the countryside and is enhanced by the contemporary desire for nostalgia.

The effect of this ideological perpetration is to produce a ' purified space' (Sibley,

1988) in which anything ' out of place' stands out as un-English. This includes

kinds of people, who thereby cannot be considered proper denizens of the country

(and therefore are excluded from Englishness), as I will shortly discuss, but also

signs of otherness in architectural features, garden styles, non-Christian places of

worship, signs of modernity in non-traditional pubs and houses. This desire for

rural purity is also manifest in responses to the perceived threat of change. One

remarkable expression of this is in responses to changes in natural history, notably

where ' invasive' and ' alien' flora and fauna 'colonise ' the countryside. English

ruralists have lamented the appearance of the muntjac deer, the collared dove and

the coypu – indeed the latter has now been exterminated – and the spread of non-

English plants like Himalayan balsam, rhododendron and eucalyptus trees, not

only for environmental reasons but because they affront the ' natural' landscape.

As Wolschke-Bulmahn details, ' the doctrinaire plea for " native" plants is often

accompanied by the condemnation of " foreign" or " exotic plants" as alien invaders

or aggressive intruders, thus suggesting that native plants would be peaceful and

non-invasive' (1996: 65). He provides a spectacular example in the nationalistic

desires of German Nazis to celebrate native plants, despite the paucity of species

identified as German, culminating in the Reich Landscape Law which devised

policies to exterminate botanical ' invaders' . With regard to the proposed exterm-

ination of one small forest plant, impatiens parviflora, he quotes the following

declaration by Nazi botanists: '" As with the fight against Bolshevism, our entire

occidental culture is at stake, so with the fight against this Mongolian invader, an

essential element of this culture, namely, the beauty of our home forest is at stake"'

(ibid.: 67).

Yet as a national landscape ideology, these images serve particular political

agendas, as is evidenced by the rise in support for the Countryside Alliance in

Britain – essentially a pro-hunting lobby – who have capitalised on popular myths

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about the countryside to foster notions of an urban–rural divide where a metro-

politan elite are constructed as the antithesis to countryfolk and are immune to the

'traditional ' needs of the countryside. The internet web pages of this organisation

makes use of stereotypical rural imagery to generate patriotic sentiments, as does

the homepage of the Conservative Party (www.conservatives.com) which at this

moment (July 2001) presents an image of a large oak tree bearing the legend ' Under

Threat' , which alternates with an image of a blighted tree stump, a bulldozer and

a row of new houses accompanied by the title 'Under Labour: Labour plan to

build millions of homes on our green land. Is this what you voted for?' The party

tends to position itself as the defender of patriotism and rural order and has recently

campaigned against a ban on hunting with hounds. This association is persistently

reproduced. During the 1998 party conference, the visual backdrops used during

party leader William Hague' s speech could have come straight out of the pages of

This England.

The regimes of signification which construct this rural idyll as a manifestation

of Englishness mask the underlying undecidability of the countryside and the

nation, their ambivalence and multiplicity. This mythic England flies in the face

of rural development, for while traces of its former hegemonic power remain, the

vast transformations that have overtaken rural life have decentred its authority.

Increasingly, the rural, as the opposite of the urban, is positioned as ' backward',

the realm of recursive superstition, aberrant sexual behaviour and class subserv-

ience, full of hidden poverty and the harmful effects of farming (see Bell, 1997).

Several writers and groups have taken issue with these glorified representations.

Rose (1993) has pointed out the gendered construction of representations of the

rural landscape – typically represented in female terms, and protected by male

guardians from invasion and ' rape'. The construction of English rurality also

marginalises or demonises other ' out-of-place' groups such as gypsies (Sibley,

1988) New Age Travellers (Sibley, 1997), the rural poor (Cloke, 1997), and gay

men and lesbians (Valentine, 1997). The urban– rural dichotomy also perpetrates

the notion that the urban is black or ethnically mixed, whereas the countryside is

imagined as a wholly white space, marking the invisibility of white ethnicity, and

fostering a myth of the historical purity and immemorial presence of a (white)

English racial stock (Agyeman and Spooner, 1997). The work of the Black

Environment Network, and of photographers like Ingrid Pollard who place them-

selves in the English rural landscape, has attempted to reclaim it as a multicultural

space by physically and artistically putting themselves in the picture. The

possibilities opened up by visual technologies of deconstructing the mythical

English countryside are considered by Taylor, who includes a number of photo-

graphic works which reveal environmental despoilage, the reign of private property,

the presence of Indian Muslim and black people in the rural to jar expectations

(1994: 240–283).

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In the USA, alternative attempts to reinterpret landscape ideologies have also

been recently undertaken. The great American ideological landscape is undoubtedly

the West, and the prevalence of a masculinised, conquered landscape, a landscape

in which rugged individuals could achieve their destiny and create a new Eden,

has circulated through popular film and fiction, and been espoused by ideologues

to evoke patriotic sentiment. Yet such a myth has gained prominence by effacing

other stories and contrasting understandings of the West, the stories of the Mexicans

and the Native Americans who formerly worked and lived on the land until their

displacement, and the experiences of women as part of the westward adventure.

Campbell and Keane detail how these marginalised voices are now putting them-

selves back into the story of the West, fracturing its hegemonic geographies and

histories with their alternative iconographies (1997: 125– 139). In the same way,

particular spaces are marginalised within the nation, often on regional or ' racial'

grounds. For instance, Westwood (in Westwood and Phizacklea, 2000: 46) suggests

that the coastal area of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, a region primarily inhabited by

black Ecuadorians, has been invisibilised by its neglect in official representations

of national geography.

Iconic Sites

Besides his assertion that nations are distinguished by spatial demarcations, Smith

also refers to how nations ' provide individuals with " sacred centres" , objects of

spiritual and historic pilgrimage, that reveal the uniqueness of their nation' s " moral

geography"' (1991: 16). As with the ideologically loaded landscapes discussed

above, these iconic sites are highly selective, synedochal features which are held

to embody specific kinds of characteristics. Typically these spatial symbols connote

historical events, are either evidence of past cultures, providing evidence of a

'glorious ' past of 'golden age ' and antecedence (Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids,

the Taj Mahal), or they are monuments erected – often within larger memoryscapes

– to commemorate significant episodes in an often retrospectively reconstructed

national history (Statue of Liberty, Arc de Triomphe, Nelson' s Column). They

also frequently celebrate the modernity of the nation, are symbols of its progress

(Empire State Building, Petronas Towers, Sydney Opera House). As such, the

destruction of the ' twin towers' of the World Trade Centre proved to be a potent

attack on the idea of ' America' . In addition, there are a host of sites which symbolise

official power: the royal palaces, halls of justice, military edifices, presidents'

houses, parliamentary buildings, and so on, which provide the materialised spaces

of national rule.

These spatial attractors often occur in an ensemble of related sites, to constitute

ceremonial points of reference. As Johnson says, they are 'points of physical and

ideological orientation' often around which ' circuits of memory' are organised

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(1995: 63). For instance, a tourist trip to Paris involves gazing upon a number of

emblematic places, including the Eiffel Tower, the Place de Concord, Notre Dame

Cathedral, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs É lysé es and the Louvre. These are

significant both as signifiers of France for outsiders and as ideological statements

about Frenchness and the republic within France. Marina Warner (1993) has

shown in her discussion of statuary along the Champs É lysées in Paris, how a

post-revolutionary elite wanted to convey particular attributes and ideals which

emerged out of the Revolution. Unfortunately, the classical allusions upon which

such monoliths depends for their meaning are now no longer familiar to us and

cannot be read in the hoped-for manner. The obsolescence of such inscriptions is

also evident in recent times by large programmes to remove statues in Eastern

Europe after the crumbling of communism and the Eastern bloc, and, often, their

replacement by an earlier generation of national heroes sculpted in stone. This is

a vital point for it illustrates that despite the desires of the powerful to imprint

meaning upon the landscape so that it can be read by witnesses, such aims are

often thwarted by the changing basis of knowledge and aesthetic convention. The

projects of cultural nationalists to imprint meaning on space for all time, like other

attempts to fix national meaning, are doomed to failure. In any case, such symbolic

sites are usually claimed by competing groups, who invest them with meanings

which are attuned to their political project or identity. This is particularly apparent

in the old stone signifiers of national identity which unproblematically represent

male military heroes, philanthropists and statesmen in ennobling poses in central

locations, and tend to erect feminine statues as metaphors for abstract qualities

such as ' Liberty' , ' Victory' and signs of the nation (Edensor and Kothari, 1996).

This hugely gendered process has now been revealed by feminists as having

'typically sprung from masculinised memory, masculinised humiliation and

masculinised hope' (Enloe, 1989: 44).

I have previously carried out research at the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh,

India, one of the most widely recognised global tourist landmarks, and commonly

understood as a synecdoche and symbol of India, by foreign tourists and Indians

alike (Edensor, 1998a). The Taj is a tomb dedicated to Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of

the seventeenth-century Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, set in a garden bounded

with walls which contain sundry other buildings including a mosque. First and

foremost then, the Taj, as a globally renowned icon of beauty, has become a symbol

of India, yet the building is invested with differently symbolic attributes by different

groups. For most foreign tourists, the building is the prime reason for their visit to

India, for it has been constructed for the past 150 years as a signifier of the ' exotic

East' . Descriptions of the Taj in contemporary guidebooks almost exactly match

those in the accounts of British colonial tourists and administrators of empire who

concocted travel stories recounting their visits, not to mention nineteenth-century

guidebooks. Such themes focus on the unparalleled magnificence of the building,

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detail the (untrue) story of how the emperor cut off the hands of the workers who

built the Taj, inevitably discuss at what time of day the building is best viewed

(moonlight, mid-day, dawn, dusk), include some comment about the tomb's

ethereality and frequently allude to some fantasy of 'Oriental' despotism or the

pleasures of the flesh. For most Indian visitors, on the other hand, the site represents

national pride, most particularly concerning the interweaving of the diverse

ethnic, religious and cultural traditions which are believed to signify the Indian

'genius ' for cultural synthesis; in addition, the Taj is commonly acknowledged as

a place which brings visitors from all over the sub-continent and is a great place

to meet fellow Indians. For many Muslim visitors, the presence of the mosque

and the Koranic calligraphy carved into the walls and buildings mean that it is

primarily conceived as a sacred site, where worship and religious contemplation

is appropriate. Formerly free admission was available on Fridays, when the mosque

was frequented by local worshippers. However, the introduction of prohibitive

admission charges on all days to maximise revenue has made this unfeasible,

stirring up controversy amongst Indian Muslims who claim their right to worship

is being infringed. In addition to this religious function, the building also connotes

a powerful sense of loss in that under Islamic (Moghul) rule, Indian Muslims were

in a more advantageous position that today, especially now that India is ruled by

an expressly Hindu government. Finally, for ' fundamentalist' Hindus, the Taj is

another example of how the sacred Hindu sites of India were destroyed by the

Moghuls, for it is alleged that it is the site of a former temple dedicated to Shiva.

It is claimed that these apparently numerous wrongs ought to be righted, as in the

notorious demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodyha in 1992. These contentions

either express the belief that the Taj is actually a Hindu temple which has been

appropriated by Muslims, and therefore reflects Hindu genius, or see no merit in

the building at all because it is a symbol of Moghul disrespect for Hindus.

These widely varying interpretations of the site testify to the ways in which

such places become freighted with different identities, and are the locations for

competing identity claims which assert a specific relationship between site and

narrator/ performer. Thus contestation over the Taj Mahal is an exemplary instance

of the ways in which symbolic sites have a mythical function, in that they can

be widely shared as a cultural resource, there is a consensus that they are of

importance, and yet the values which inhere in this status can be contested.

The ongoing (re)interpretation of iconic national sites has particular resonances

in those nations which were subject to European colonial rule. In a fascinating

discussion which catalogues changes in the dominant meanings of a particularly

symbolic space, Duncan focuses upon Kandy, in Sri Lanka (1989: 185– 200).

Firstly, he elaborates upon the cosmological design of pre-colonial, pre-national

Kandy, the sacred ceremonies that took place there and the hierarchy of power

enshrined in the temples and palace which sacralised the power of the rulers as of

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divine origin. Thus the power of the ' God-king' was deeply inscribed upon the

landscape. But with the onset of colonial rule, by both co-opting and replacing

the symbols of kingly power with their own, the British re-inscribed the symbolic

import of this landscape. The government agent was installed in the palace, streets

were renamed after British figures, and a huge pavilion which dwarfed the king' s

palace was erected. The central areas of symbolic power were colonised by a jail,

a church, police courts, a Protestant school, statues and sports facilities. Other areas

were left to decay. Moreover, the town was redesigned to resemble ' a romanticised

image of pre-industrial England' (ibid.: 192). Thus was Kandy reshaped to facilitate

British movement, cater to British tastes, and reflect British power. With Sri Lankan

independence, the effaced symbols of Singhalese power became revitalised. Statues

were removed, street names changed once more, and the palace was turned into a

museum which celebrates the pre-colonial grandeur of Singhalese civilisation. What

is more, as a place of national(ist) resistance that held out against colonial power

long after most other areas had succumbed, Kandy was recharged as a site of

national significance. Similarly, the site of Great Zimbabwe, formerly assessed

by European colonisers as indisputable evidence of the existence of a European

civilisation in Africa – since ' primitive' Africans were incapable of erecting such

a sophisticated complex – has become symbolic of independent Zimbabwe. It

was reconstructed as a site that testifies to a pre-colonial ' advanced' African society

showing that (national) history predated colonial ' development' .

Sites of Popular Culture and Assembly

In addition to iconic sites are nationally popular sites of assembly and congregation,

not tightly regulated and sanctioned by the state but places where large numbers

of people gather to carry out communal endeavours such as festivals, demon-

strations and informal gathering. Such sites, as at the Taj Mahal, can be places of

proximity, where people go to look at and meet others. Certain spaces of assembly

inevitably associated with national identity, such as Times Square in New York

City, Trafalgar Square in London, the Djma-el-Fna in Marrakesh, India Gate in

Bombay, and the Zocalo in Mexico City, are venues for seething motion and a

multiplicity of activities, identities and sights. In contrast to the rather purified,

single-purpose spaces of state power, they are more inclusive realms which allow

for the play of cultural diversity. They provide an unfixed space in which tourists

and inhabitants mingle, people picnic and protest, gaze and perform music or magic,

sell goods and services, and simply ' hang out' . Amongst such symbolic spaces,

we might also include sports stadia, popular parks, promenades, show grounds,

bohemian quarters, religious sites and a host of well-patronised urban areas which

are thick with diverse people and activities, and are well-known within the nation,

and outside it, as popular centres.

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Irrespective of the form of spatial regulation imposed upon these popular

national spaces, they are invariably subject to contestation about what values they

signify, and which activities are appropriate. Often, a historical perspective is

mobilised which romanticises about how they used to be used. For instance, Game

(1991) has shown how Bondi Beach, as a site of national significance, is subject

to strategic claims which rhetorically attempt to specify the ' real' Bondi. An

ideological trope has insisted upon the democracy of the beach – its equalising

function – as all are reduced to bodies on the sand, and this is also partly reflected

in the identification of the carnivalesque manners and activities which assert a

version of the ' true' Australian character and undercut un-Australian attempts to

refine or gentrify the scene. Moreover, Bondi serves to fuel the Australian myth

of sporting prowess in the performance of surfers and swimmers. This energetic,

outdoor co-existence with nature is also a key theme of Australian identity, and a

primordial, dangerous nature, albeit within an urban context, is mapped onto Bondi

by the threat of sharks and waves (but also by the more recent perils of sewage

and drug abusers). The lurking danger inherent in the power of nature is contrasted

with the danger posed to nature by humans – as polluters and despoilers. The beach

as a venue in which resplendent equality amongst the unclothed masses persists is

also feared to be threatened by it being turned into an over-commodified attraction,

a money-spinner for tourist developers. Thus Bondi has become a focus for those

who express concern about changes which are conceived as interrupting a historic,

Australian tendency to celebrate unceremonious behaviour, sporting ability and

the authentic encounter with nature. Game further asserts that the power of Bondi

also emerges from a sensory apprehension of the beach. A way of being-in-place

emerges from the kinaesthetic experience in a context in which bodies meet sand

and sea and other bodies. She considers that this shared sensual experience escapes

the fixings of representation, and strengthens its affective hold over Australians.

The beach is also germane to the spatial construction of Englishness, at turns

nostalgic and ironic, which can encompass class-inflected stereotypes of English

gentility and more carnivalesque ' sauciness' . Despite the changes to seaside holiday

resorts over the twentieth century, the beach retains its affection for the English as

a site of shared activity and sensation, and one which still looms large in popular

films and children' s and adult literature (Walton, 2000).

To show the ways in which national landscape ideologies and popular sites of

assembly and activity can be merged, I want to explore a particularly pertinent

essay by Eduardo Archetti about the relationship between symbolic Argentinian

space and football. As I have described, landscape can be a particularly affective

signifier of national identity because it can ' combine geographical belonging with

complex narratives of human exploits, extraordinary characters and cultural-

historical heroes' (Archetti, 1998: 189). The founding landscape in Argentina is

the pampa , regarded as a rich ecosystem that is nostalgically imagined as an

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'antidote to the poisons of modernity, capitalism and industrialism ' (ibid.: 190).

However, although the pampa became gradually domesticated by private estates,

remnants of the original grasslands persist in the portreros. The portrero is the

realm of the gaucho , a rebellious free spirit who roams across the grasslands on

horseback watching over livestock, and is typically conceived as being neither

Indian nor Spanish, but of mixed blood, appropriately moving beyond a purely

European or ' native' ethnicity. These liminal figures and the spaces they inhabit

have been transposed onto the topography of the city, in the shape of the pibe –

a young boy, immune to the authority structures of school and police – and the

baldio – an empty space in the city, akin to the unregulated rural potreros. The

pibe is the archetypal symbol of the spontaneous, agile Argentinian footballer, a

young boy playing on the baldio , unhindered by the discipline of teachers and

football coaches, who has been 'placed in a mythical territory that inherently

empowers those that belong to it' (ibid.: 197). This unfettered, improvisatory pibe ,

with his dribbling and ball-juggling skills, is contrasted with the disciplined,

machine-like football teams and players who characterised the English originators

of Argentinian football. The pibe is believed to be perfectly incarnated in Diego

Maradona, the rebellious footballing genius who led Argentina to victory in the

1986 World Cup Final. Here we can see the magical potency of landscape, its

power to endow national subjects with almost supernatural powers, a popular

blending of masculinity, anti-colonialism, sport and space.

In contradistinction to idealised landscapes and iconic sites, the values assoc-

iated with popular sites of assembly and pleasure tend to be non-exclusive in their

celebrations of lower-class activities and social mixing. Such spaces are often

described as authentic, where class and social distinction is levelled and national

communality prevails. These values are not generally passed down by cultural

authorities but emerge from familiar interaction with such spaces in conditions

of co-presence with fellow nationals, and, again, they are represented in innumer-

able films, novels, tourist guidebooks and television programmes.

Familiar, Quotidian Landscapes

Most accounts of the relationship between space and national identity have focused

on the kinds of grand symbolic landscapes and famous sites discussed above,

concentrating on the textual meanings of these spaces. However, there have been

few depictions which have explored the more mundane spatial features of everyday

experience which are equally important in constructing and sustaining national

identity. I now concentrate on these quotidian worlds, examining how they absorb

localities into the nation.

Despite the effects of globalisation, and despite what some of the more excessive

postmodernist accounts of contemporary space assert, most of us live in recognisable

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worlds, distinguished by distinct material structures, distribution of objects and

institutional arrangements. Within these inhabited realms, surrounded by familiar

things, routes and fixtures, we make our home by the accretion of habitual

enactions, by our familiar engagement with the physical space in which we live.

Whilst these spaces may be considered as the agglomeration of regional or ethnic

synchronicity, shared understandings and collective enactions through which places

are known and dwelt within, I want to consider the ways in which places are sewn

together to constitute a powerful sense of national spatialisation.

First of all, the semiotic imprint of familiar features constitutes a sense of being

in place in most locations within the nation. These fixtures are not only read as

signs, though, but are also felt and sensed in unreflexive fashion. I am referring

here to the plethora of everyday, mundane signifiers which are noticeably not

present when we go abroad. These institutions, vernacular features and everyday

fixtures are embedded in local contexts but recur throughout the nation as serial

features. To return to the British landscape, irrespective of how symbolically

important particular landscapes may be, they contain a host of unremarkable items.

The institutional matrix of everyday life is signified by familiar commercial and

bureaucratic notices which indicate where services can be procured or commodities

purchased. Likewise, service provision is marked by (red) telephone boxes and

postboxes, distinctly designed equipment for conveying flows of power and water,

including grids, fire hydrants, street lighting, guttering, telegraph poles and pylons.

Also prevalent are conspicuously identifiable signs and artefacts belonging to

roadscapes, as will be discussed in Chapter 4. In terms of domestic architecture,

styles of fencing, garden ornamentation and home dé cor generally fall within a

recognisable vernacular range. Such elements do not generally confound expect-

ations of what we will see and what kinds of space will feel like, and when they

do, they stand out in relief against this normative spatial context.

The landscape is pervaded with familiarity by the distribution of numerous

other elements: the style and materiality of suburban and working-class housing,

the design of parks, the prevalence of leisure facilities such as football and rugby

pitches, pubs and the mundane codes reinforced by street names. This regular

pattern of spatial distribution means that little jars us out of our accustomed

habituation of such landscapes. However, when familiar features are missing

or threatened, or when new or foreign features encroach, they are immediately

noticeable and can result in disorientation and discomfort. For instance, in the UK

there was a minor campaign to retain the red telephone box as newly privatised

utilities replaced them with a less distinguished transparent booth. In France, the

plane trees which line roads in the south of the country have been described as

'anomalous lateral obstacles' by politicians, and local motoring groups campaigned

for their wholesale removal because of their contribution to the high death toll in

traffic accidents. For the many defenders of the trees, however, they are ancient

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National Identity

features of the nation. According to a spokesperson, they are ' a fundamental, living

part of our national heritage' , a visual marker and a sensually cooling space that

is part of everyday motoring (The Guardian, 6 July 2001).

These mundane signifiers are also accompanied by the recognisable forms of

flora and fauna which recur throughout most environments. The circling black

kites throughout India, and a plethora of other unspectacular animals and plants,

are also part of these everyday landscapes, rarely commented upon except when

they are no longer so common. For instance, in the UK there have been a number

of articles in the national press which express alarm at the drastically reduced

number of the common house sparrow, a formerly ubiquitous presence. In addition

to these living moving elements, quotidian landscapes also produce distinct

soundscapes, sonic geographies that provide a backdrop to everyday life. The

distinctive sounds of traffic, muezzins or church bells, birdsong and music also

install people in place (an evocation of English sounds was produced for the ' Self-

Portrait' zone in the Millennium Dome in London, which I will discuss in the

final chapter).

The comfort of spatial identity is partly provided by the thick intertextuality

of these vernacular landscapes across the nation. For instance, English churches

are a familiar feature of rural and urban landscapes, their steeples and towers

inscribe a faithscape across the land, and the various styles of regional architecture

and the historical forms of churches provide points of contrast which are assembled

under the master category of English church. Not only do such features surround

us in our domestic environments but they are part of familiar mediascapes,

unheralded props in television dramas and documentaries. Besides the replication

of ecclesiastical scenes in artistic, touristic and filmic productions, they also are

settings for familiar kinds of characters. For instance, the figure of the harassed

urban vicar or the eccentric, amiable rural cleric are stalwarts of film, television

and literature, regular fictional actors within this familiar landscape. As Silverstone

says in his discussion of English suburbia, television, especially in talk shows,

sitcoms and soap operas, continually recycles the themes and anxieties of everyday

suburban life. This is evident in the settings and the characters who populate these

televisual forms but also by the discourses which guide the themes and topics of

concern, which is ' grounded in suburban, bourgeois experience' and contained in

'the experiential structures of everyday life ' (Silverstone, 1997: 10).

However, certain fixtures are occasionally more overtly celebrated as quotidian

features of national identity. Billig provides an apt example of how these familiar

settings are reinforced by media commentary, by highlighting the Daily Mirror' s

'British Pub Week' which celebrated pubs as national icons, as ' the bastion

of British social life', including their products (beer), routines shaped around

them and their geography (pub signs) (Billig, 1995: 114). This kind of campaign

is devised to reproduce the idea of national readership and to consolidate the

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relationship between newspapers and their readers by referring to common denom-

inators. It is also possible that a more reflexive awareness of the qualities of pubs

has been stimulated by the recent proliferation of 'continental' style café bars in

the UK which provide a competitive attraction.

As with the ideological landscapes discussed above, these more mundane spatial

signifiers acquire a national significance. Again, certain well-known features

become more ideologically charged than others, so that there is selectivity in the

identification of distinctive spatial markers, which may become manifest in the

national popularity of certain regional styles and their nationwide distribution.

For instance, Meinig (1979) identifies ' New England villages' , ' Main Street of

Middle America' and ' California suburbs' as the pre-eminent symbolic landscapes

of America. These idealised spaces resound through literature, cinema, magazines,

advertisements, comic books, calendars and greetings cards and a host of other

popular cultural forms, but they are also being built across the USA as preferred

spaces in contexts beyond their geographic origins. In a related discussion,

Rybczynski shows how Ralph Lauren fashions clothes that are based on ' recognis-

able home-grown images: the Western ranch, the prairie farm, the Newport

mansion, the Ivy League college' (1988: 2), which are born out of a ' desire for

custom and routine' (ibid.: 9), utilising these generic landscapes to reinforce the

American-ness of the clothes and their prospective wearers by situating them in

symbolic national space.

Whilst familiar spatial characteristic features provide anchors for spatial identity,

they should not be imagined as testifying to a static landscape. As the production

of space goes through dynamic cycles, inhabitants must also accommodate

themselves to new generic developments. In an innovative account, Clay has

attempted to distinguish a huge range of generic landscapes in the USA – not the

easily identifiable tourist sights nor those areas subject to the designations of

official, bureaucratic knowledge, but what he calls ' epitome districts' which are

'crammed with clues which trigger our awareness of the larger scene ' (1994: xi).

These generic places continually change and require that a flexible grammar is

used to relabel them so that a shared geographical knowledge is retained which is

relevant to lived experience. The awareness of change, and growing familiarity

with the new, creates a complex spatial network. As people adapt to transformation

they domesticate and narrativise changing space, identifying the growth of new

particular landscapes such as 'gentrifying neighbourhoods' , ' drug scenes' and

'cultural arts districts'.

The most important point about the generic landscapes described above is that

they stitch the local and the national together through their serial reproduction

across nations. These features are generally taken for granted, but they may

become more expressly symbolic of the nation if they are perceived as being under

threat.

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Dwellingscapes

I now want to emphasise the routine experience of space, the ways in which

particular actions recreate space and the modes of habituation which render it

familiar, homely. After all, despite the geographical focus of space as text, as

representation or as evidence of power (of capital), the most common spatial

experience is that in everyday life, where familiar space forms an unquestioned

backdrop to daily tasks, pleasures and routine movement. It is thus the terrain on

which quotidian manoeuvres and modes of dwelling are unreflexively carried out,

a habitat organised to enable continuity and stability, and which is recreated by

these regular existential practices. As Charlesworth says, a place ' exists through

the realisable projects and availabilities, patterns of use and users, all of which

are practically negotiated daily' . This ' unnoticed framework of practices and

concerns is something in which we dwell' as 'habituated body subjects' (2000:

90– 91). Thus there exist spatial constraints and opportunities which inhere in the

organisation and affordances of places and these mesh with the bodily dispositions

emerging out of the routine practices of its inhabitants that become embedded

over time. The semiotic meanings of space must be separated for analytical

purposes, for space is not only understood and experienced cognitively. Rather it

is approached with what Crouch (1999a) calls ' lay geographical knowledge' , a

participatory disposition in which the influences of representations and semiotics

are melded with sensual, practical and unreflexive knowledge.

Time geographer Hagerstrand provided an influential reading of how time–

space paths become marked upon familiar space. Collectively, places in which

shared work and recreation are carried out link the individual time– space paths

which Hagerstrand sketches out. Whatever the limitations of this kind of geography,

it usefully identifies points of spatial and temporal intersection and alerts us to the

routinisation of action in space (see Gren, 2001). As well as being signifiers of

identity as discussed above, local shops, bars, café s, garages and so forth are points

of intersection where individual paths congregate; they become sedimented in the

landscape and in the habit-body, providing a geography of communality and

continuity. Linked by the roads down which people drive and the paths which

they walk along, places which accumulate venues for shopping, services, relaxation

and entertainment are particularly obvious examples of what Massey (1995) calls

'activity spaces', spaces of circulation in which people co-ordinate and synchronise

activities. Such spaces stabilise social relations in time– space (Gren, 2001: 217).

These are small-scale congregational sites, the ' crossroads, street corners and open

squares where people meet, shop, chatter, tell stories, fight at night' (Kayser Nielsen,

1999: 282). Mapping enactions in everyday spaces would comprise the inscription

of paths, constellations of co-presence, fixtures, meeting points and intersections.

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To elaborate upon this skein of purposive and unreflexive action in unrepresented

space, I want to draw on the notion of the ' taskscape' which foregrounds unreflexive

modes of dwelling, of ' being-in-the-world, of mundanely organising and sensing

the environment of familiar space. Ingold and Kurttila (2000) explore the ways in

which the Sami people of northern Finland understand the weather they confront.

Unlike the more abstract, quantifiable and scientific approach of climatologists

who record climate, the Sami experience weather. As a sensuous form of knowing,

weather is intimately related to patterns of work and important events, is recalled

in cherished memories – and as such forms ' part of the ongoing construction of

those familiar places, along with their surroundings, that people call " home"' (ibid.:

187). Weather is also part of the everyday experience of work and play and is part

of a practical knowing of familiar space. Accordingly, some Sami develop great

skill at reading and anticipating weather, daily and seasonally, although this changes

along with perceptions generated by changing technology – for instance, new forms

of transport such as the snowmobile and motorbikes require different forms of

knowing weather, of feeling forms of snow and manoeuvring vehicles appropriately.

The apprehension of weather is, for the Sami, a multi-sensory awareness which

facilitates spatial orientation and co-ordinates activity, an immersed, space-making

practice which embeds identity.

In drawing a distinction between their apparently modern way of knowing and

the embodied, sensual, improvisational knowledge of the Sami, the bureaucrats

and scientists label the latter as 'traditional', a notion which is conceptualised as

having been handed down for generations, typically as a fixed set of ideas, and

thus as a form of cognitive knowing. Instead, reiterating my points about tradition

in the previous chapter, Ingold and Kurttila insist that this misunderstands tradition,

which should be properly understood not as a reified set of endlessly repeated

practices, passed on as cultural heritage, but as knowledge acquired through flexible

practice. Tradition thus ' undergoes continual generation and regeneration within

the contexts of people' s practical engagement with significant components of the

environment' (ibid.: 192).

This kind of tradition is not a matter of common descent, but is inseparable

from a situated, sensuous engagement with the environment, and thus can be

'continuous without taking any fixed form ' (ibid.). In conclusion, Ingold and

Kurttila regard this knowing as a skill, understood as a quality inhering within the

relations between people, and between people and things in a particular space, as

an unfixed and improvisatory disposition, which is influenced by ' the presence

and activities of predecessors' (ibid.: 193). Thus such knowledgeable practices

make space, are part of the ways in which people inhabit space and come to belong

in it.

The ' taskscape' is space to which inhabitants have an everyday practical

orientation. The land does not determine action, but the materiality of the

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environment, its surfaces, contours and the elements in it, offer affordances that

foster a range of actions, delimiting some and enabling others. This insistence on

the practical use of inhabited space resounds in how people ' dwell' in place,

sensuously adapting everyday practices and assumptions from the past. The relat-

ionship we have to places, rather than being conceived solely as representative

and cognitive, is embodied, sensual, bound up in what we do in space, in how we

co-ordinate our movements and organise routes and nodes around which we

orientate ourselves, in how we feel and sense them, in what we focus on and ignore.

This collective sense of inhabiting is also shaped around the technologies we

employ, and how we contest their use and meaning with fellow inhabitants. This

is emphatically, then, not a static spatial reification but an ongoing process through

which space is (re)produced.

Primarily, these ways of inhabiting are unreflexive and constitute part of the

'common sense ' of dwelling within space. Yet again, when they are subject to

contestation from without, or when rapid change seems to threaten the continuity

in ways of doing things, when enduring fixtures, familiar pathways, characteristic

features and landscapes are removed or radically altered, a sense of disorientation

can result. Suddenly, what was a taken-for-granted aspect of the object-world can

symbolise resistance to change.

Space is produced by inhabitants through habit, through a constant engagement

with the world which relies on familiar routines, which constructs an ongoing

spatial mapping through the enaction of everyday mobilities: the daily commute

to work, or the drive to the shop, or walking the dog in the local park – and the

quotidian points of congregation, interaction, rest and relaxation. Out of this mobile

mapping of space evolves an embodied rhythm which sews time and space together.

As an immersed practice, the accumulation of repetitive events becomes sedimented

in the body to condense an unreflexive sense of being in place. This sense of place

is consolidated at an individual level, where the same rituals are enacted at a daily

level, enactions which become part of a biographical career in traversing space–

time constituted by following regular routes along which an accumulating sequence

of distinct events are experienced. And this is further sustained by a collective

sense of place which is grounded through a sharing of the spatial and temporal

constellations where a host of individual paths and routines coincide. Meaning

becomes sedimented in time as successive social and cultural contexts are mater-

ialised, remembered, projected and performed upon space. In this poetics of

ordinary spatial life, bodies and places become intertwined, much as in Jacobs's

(1961) depiction of the ' intricate sidewalk ballets' which local pedestrians perform

to constitute regular choreographies on New York streets, weaving territory over

and over again. The congruence of cognitive, affective, sensual and embodied

effects which inhere in these dense relationships between people and space serves

to strengthen the power of place.

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Whilst the notion of taskscape is extremely rewarding in highlighting the

unreflexive constitution of spatial belonging, it suggests a certain active engagement

with the world which appositely renders the relationship between work and space

but tends to downplay modes of inhabiting space which are not task-driven, such

as relaxing, resting and dwelling in the world. Referring to the kinds of (southern)

English landscapes cited above, Kayser Nielsen avers that they are not merely

part of a symbolic realm but also involve a ' bodily action-dimension' in the ' bodily

pleasure in partaking in a landscape together with other people' (1999: 281). Thus

we might summon up the smell of freshly mown grass, the shade of a deciduous

tree and the noises experienced whilst watching a match on a village cricket green.

Perhaps the collective impact of the various ways in which people apprehend and

understand familiar space is captured by Tuan' s notion of ' topophilia' (1974). The

acquisition of this topophilia can be facilitated by engaging with space, in the

sense that Kayser Nielsen says that 'physical activity in the open air seems to be a

way to acquire " Norway"' (1999: 286). Developing his remarks, he argues that to

move physically in a landscape, to get out into the open air, to use the body,

becomes a work of identity that we undertake with the national popular purpose

of self-understanding' (ibid.). Such topophilia perhaps turns into 'topophobia' when

transformations in agricultural production, for instance, render the landscape

unfamiliar, such as the swathing of land with coniferous trees or the erasure of

hedges as field size is increased.

Homely Space

I want to develop the above discussion by changing focus to explore the emotional

notion of ' home' , often synonymous with nation. 'Home' is a vitally important

spatial concept which echoes in much of what I have described above. As Sopher

has observed, home can equally refer to ' house, land, village, city, district, country,

or, indeed, the world' , transmitting the sentimental associations of one scale to

others (1979: 130). As a way of making spatial sense of the nation then, home is

able to link these spatial levels together, from the small-scale domestic to the large-

scale space. ' Home' conjoins a myriad of affective realms and contains a wealth

of transposable imagery. For instance, ' good housekeeping' can be applied to the

family finances and to the policies of the state treasury, monarchs are often referred

to as the head of the national family, the national football team plays ' at home'

and ' away' . The centrality of home to constructions of identity partly testifies to

the desire to achieve fixity amidst ceaseless flow, and metaphorically is used to

proffer a unified, identifiable culture within a specified space, being ' drenched in

the longing for wholeness, unity, integrity' (Morley and Robins, 1995: 6).

The construction of home, like the nation, is integral to the boundaries of space-

making, specifying the enclosed realm of the ' private' in contradistinction to the

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'public ' , and the national as distinct from the space of the 'other'. This notion of

privacy is perhaps best expressed in the idea of home as a place of comfort :

'convenience, efficiency, leisure, ease, pleasure, domesticity, intimacy and privacy '

(Rybczynski, 1988: 231), where the body is relaxed and unselfconscious – although

such modes of bodily relaxation are not ' natural' but culturally variable, as I will

discuss in Chapter 4. The term ' home-making' pinpoints the ways in which we

'make ourselves at home' in the world according to social and aesthetic conventions

about conviviality, domesticity and furnishing and decorating space. There are

recognised codes of dé cor and aesthetic regulation which are passed across

generations and between locals and fellow nationals: the colour codes of interior

domestic spaces, the styles of furniture, the range of artefacts and ornaments, the

modes of demarcating domestic territorial boundaries.

Home-making includes the domestication of things and experiences from the

external world, and of otherness, so that a kind of vernacular curation takes place

whereby items are assigned to places in the home. The distribution of ' foreign-

ness' within domesticity is usually contained, rarely takes over the home, and

is contextualised as style . The importation of exotic and unfamiliar objects and

aesthetics is thereby incorporated to mark out difference, and operates as a form

of distinction. And such aesthetic codes gradually become normative and recognis-

able as dimensions of national home-making. For example, English suburbia has

experienced crazes whereby ' exotic' plants signify superior taste. The whole idea

of English suburbia might be said to concern the domestication of a sentimental

version of (English) rurality into the urban. Bringing things from the wider world

into the home establishes connections with other places and times, but the home

remains the hub of such relations.

Once more, it is important to remember that the home is the site of a wealth of

unreflexive, habitual practice, where the norms of reproduction, housework and

maintenance are entrenched. The competence of householders with regard to the

often unspoken codes about household reproduction raises again the idea of the

'taskscape '. Home is where we know how the appliances work, and which tele-

vision programmes will distract the children. These unreflexive dimensions are

also inherent in the spatial organisation of home. As Young argues, the home is

the arrangement of things in space ' in a way that supports the bodily habits and

routines of those who dwell there' (1997: 136). Modes of communal dwelling are

shaped by such knowledge regarding what particular activities should be carried

out in which spaces – where we should eat, cook, watch television – and where

the inhabitants of the house should be located in terms of bedrooms and so on.

Such conventions are part of routine life and yet become glaringly apparent when

we enter domestic spaces in which inhere different codes. For instance, I have

already mentioned how in the Gujarati village I stayed in some years ago the

grandmother from next door would enter the house in which I resided to relax on

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the couch or bed, seemingly possessing no notion that this transgressed any (British)

idea about privacy.

To exemplify these distinct modes of space-making at home, Chevalier (1998)

shows how for the French the kitchen is the most affective, symbolic space for the

interaction with nature, for the transformation of natural products (foods) into

cultural products. This necessitates an expertise in cooking and preparing food, as

part of a particular (gendered) taskscape, which, she argues, has its parallel in the

English passion for gardening. Both produce an intimate relationship with space,

and generate particular modes of conviviality and routine which constitute distinct

forms of domesticity. It is interesting that these domestic practices of gardening

and cooking, together with ideas about DIY and interior decoration, have long

been subject to the supervision of public ' experts' who mediate innovations, and

the influence of commercial interests who capitalise on new trends. In fact,

Chevalier argues that these spheres of activity are increasingly mediated and

reflected upon by television programmes in both nations. This certainly acts to

introduce new ideas which promiscuously borrow from other cultural traditions

of home-making. But rather than being wholly influenced by this mediatised

information, the domestic gardener negotiates with these contexts, accommodating

and adapting elements within the context of his/her own garden. Moreover, a core

of convention remains in the revalorisation of ' traditional' approaches and the

recentring of national forms of domestic production in such media forms.

However, above all perhaps, home is most affectively charged through the way

it is sensually apprehended, producing a kinaesthetic experience of place which

is embedded in memory. Bachelard particularly focuses on the ' felicitous' and

'eulogised' areas within domestic space, such as bedrooms, attics and parlours,

and the smaller spaces they contain, the dens, niches and favoured spots in which

the sensual experience of texture and micro-atmosphere are absorbed through child-

hood imagination. Bachelard maintains that in this sense, memory is spatialised

so that by remembering these special realms ' we learn to abide within ourselves'

(1969: xxxiii), for these ' corners of our world' are the fundamental basis of ' home'

and provide a lingering sense of place. In the house of remembered childhood,

'each one of its nooks and corners was a resting-place for daydreams ' (ibid.: 15).

The power of these reveries is revealed as ' our memories of former dwelling-

places are relived as daydreams' and persist during our lifetime (ibid.: 5– 6).

Besides the application of Bachelard' s ideas to the house, we can extend them

to explore a wider sense of the local felicitous spaces in the immediate locality.

The nooks and crannies of derelict buildings, bus shelters, dens, benches and groves,

the back streets, the forbidden zones, the routes of childish adventure, the fields

and woods, places of gathering and parks are the sensual theatres of childhood

performance and can likewise provide a rich source of memory. The adventurous

child concocts a map of familiar routes and sites of play which constitute an

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imagined geography that precedes the more pragmatic adult spatial networks. But

these later practical frameworks can be continually invaded by dreams and reveries

stimulated by the earlier map. Passing or sighting the sites of childhood sport can

disrupt the business-like progression towards a destination with the sensual memory

of an indefinable childish experience. For instance, walking around the environs

of childhood I am reminded of how I used to collect cocoons under the ledges of

walls, and form loops out of privet stems and collect hundreds of spider webs

from the garden hedges during the morning walk to school. I can identify where

me and my friends would choose apt places from which to ask passers-by if they

would give us a penny for the guy, and can remember the grassy slopes which

were used to sledge down in the winter. I do not mean to be sentimental; rather,

my intention is to raise the deep embeddedness of place and its links with biography

and the wider world which constitute how we come to ' know' places, understanding

their textures.

For familiar spaces are commonly the instigators of involuntary memories of

earlier sensual experiences. As Lippard comments, 'If one has been raised in a

place, its textures and sensations, its smells and sounds, are recalled as they felt to

child' s, adolescent ' s adult' s body' (1997: 34). Margaret Morse writes that home

may be conjured up by a 'fortuitous and fleeting smell, a spidery touch, a motion,

a bitter taste . . . almost beyond our conscious ability to bid or concoct or recreate'

(1999: 63). This sense of home is ' chanced upon, cached in secret places safe

from language' (ibid.: 68). Thus the texture of the world, the feel of familiar spaces

underfoot, the barely perceptible subtleties of climate, the vegetation of the

everyday places: the feel of grass, crops in fields, woodlands, the grids and curbs

familiar to roadside childhood games are all part of a sense of place which extends

from home and garden to the wider locality and beyond. The structure of feeling

of place is not simply a matter of subjective experience, for the affordances of

fixtures, textures and climate link places together as knowable, sensual spaces,

impressions that can be hinted at in fiction and film. Laurie Lee' s novel about a

Cotswold childhood, Cider With Rosie, draws on sensual experiences that also

pertain to other areas of England, and Terence Davies' s memorable film, The Long

Day Closes, set in 1950s Liverpool, resonates with other historical experiences of

British urban life in its brilliant reproduction of the sounds and textures of the

director' s childhood. The home and its hinterland is the realm for ' a specific

materialisation of the body and the self; things and spaces become layered with

meaning, value and memory' (Tacchi, 1998: 26). Here Tacchi is addressing the

domestic soundscapes whereby ' radio sound creates a textured " soundscape" in

the home, within which people move around and live their daily lives'. Thus the

home is also a smellscape and soundscape, a space of tactile sensation which can

be deeply embedded in everyday life and in memory.

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The home, though, as I have emphasised, is not a static realm but is continually

reproduced by domestic work and by social and cultural activities. A sense of

home can be threatened by the presence of otherness and in this sense is linked to

national constructions of ' us' and ' them ' . It is, as I have argued, concerned with

erecting boundaries between spheres of activity and exerts powerful conventions

about what belongs in domestic space. There is always a lurking sense of the

uncanny or the dangerous in contrast to the safety of the home: the stranger who

comes too close, the wild beasts – pests and other people' s pets – and invasive

flora which can undo the domestic ordering of space. This can be illustrated by

referring back to The Long Day Closes , where the sudden appearance of a black

man at the family door generates a combination of panic and hostility to an

unfamiliar face in this parochial context. Home is thus the subject of other kinds

of exclusion, a purified space into which species of otherness must not enter, or

at least not stay very long. For Rapport and Dawson, the notion of heimat is an

'attempt publicly and collectively to impose home as a social fact and a cultural

norm to which some must belong and from which others must be excluded. Hence,

"exiles" and "refugees"; and hence, too, "tramps" and "bag-people" expelled from

the ranks of those felt deserving of combining house and home' (1998: 8– 9). These

defensive operations act to debar the unwelcome from entering the ' homeland'

at an official level, and are also mobilised at a smaller scale where cultural, ethnic

and ' racial' difference is subject to communal prejudices in housing markets and

rented accommodation, in employment and in social services, and of course, by

routine insults ensuring that 'outsiders' are 'not welcome'. Homely areas are thus

protected against those who are unable to masquerade as national and often they

are consigned to special areas by edict or to achieve safety in numbers. These

'places on the margin ' (Shields, 1991), ' ethnic areas' or 'ghettos' are typically

distinguished from other spaces within the nation as enclaves within which

difference can be contained (and desired).

I have discussed the imaginary home as an idealised refuge but, as Watkins

(2001) details, home is a multiple site, a place of both oppression and liberty, it

can restore and stifle, it can be a place of nightmarish rigidity and regulation or a

site for the transcendence of the mundane. This raises the highly gendered nature

of most forms of domestic space, a division whereby gendered spaces and spheres

of activity are arranged in diverse cultural ways. Regressive notions of dasein can

persist wherein home is a fixed kind of being as opposed to a process of becoming.

This is strikingly borne out in Clifford' s announcement, ' to theorise, one leaves

home' (1989: 177), which certainly recognises the unreflexive comfort of home

but seems to propose a masculine pioneer, paying his adieus and setting off into

unchartered territory. The home is a (feminised) place in which to dwell and must

be left in order to engage with the wider world, after which it is returned to once

more. This is certainly a well-worn trope in national myth, in masculinist and

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colonial fiction (Shurmer-Smith and Hannam, 1994: 17– 28; also see Dawson, 1994;

Low, 1993). It is to preserve and enrich home that men go out to confront monsters,

raw nature and other perils. For the women to whom they return, home can be a

prison rather than a refuge. By contrast, Young argues that the gendering of space

may not be entirely negative, arguing that the ' feminine' domestic practices of

'arranging, ordering, protecting, cleaning and caring ' (Young, 1997: 135) are

important because they produce value and meaning in space, and provide a realm

of sustenance and self-expression, since ' dwelling in the world means we are

located among objects, artefacts, rituals and practices that configure who we are

in our particularity' (ibid.: 153).

Increasingly, despite the apparent fixity of home, a sense of homeliness may

not only be achieved by a situatedness in particular physical space but may also

be reached via homely networks of people and information. By means of a phone

call, an e-mail, by tuning into a radio or TV station which broadcasts national

programmes, home can become a set of regular links and contacts. It is possible,

indeed is increasingly common, for there to be several simultaneous senses of

home as social and cultural networks become more complex. Yet familiar reference

points are sought. This is nowhere clearer than in the kinds of homes-from-home

that are established in expatriate communities. The attempts of the British in India

to develop cantonments which were utterly distinguished from the ' native quarters'

of cities is a useful example. Creating a landscape full of well-watered parks,

gardens, sports grounds and even English flora which did not prosper in Indian

climates, the colonial administrators and residents of these spaces tried to recreate

an Englishness in the midst of unfamiliarity. Interior dé cor, forms of familiar

architecture such as English churches, and the infrastructure of clubs and rituals

reproduced an imaginary England around which routines and habits could be re-

enacted. Similarly, Lippard refers to the ways in which Japanese migrants to the

USA, identified as suspiciously ' other' and incarcerated during the Second World

War, created ' memory landscapes in miniature, making small ponds, gardens, parks,

vistas and dioramas in the arid wastes' as a form of identity sustenance and cultural

resistance (1997: 68).

This making of home is also evident in more contemporary situations. Wilson

describes how British expatriates working on a water supply scheme in Nigeria

in the 1980s dwelt within a strictly demarcated, fenced-off compound. Attempts

to recreate a homely Britishness in the realm of the unfamiliar extended to the

establishment of several fixtures and practices. British styles and ornaments were

imported to decorate homes, children were encouraged to join clubs such as the

Brownies and attend Sunday School, English bank holidays and common festivals

such as Shrove Tuesday and Bonfire Night were fastidiously observed, World

service broadcasts (described by one inhabitant as a 'lifeline') and recorded sporting

occasions were regularly listened to and viewed. The consolidation of identity

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was a deeply gendered process where men – usually the workers on the project –

established sporting routines, whilst the women took up the replication of a form

of British domesticity. Perhaps the most significant element of this home-making

and the recreation of a taskscape was in the provision of food. One expatriate wife

described the lengths she went to make sausage rolls, making pastry and mincing

a side of pork into sausage meat. In Britain, such foods are available from bakers

and in frozen form, yet the necessity of maintaining a specific diet and lifestyle

was imperative. This was further reinforced by the propensity of women residents

to greet new wives to the enclave with an array of pies and flans to establish a

feminised British commonality and to prove that they could cope in the realm of

otherness (A. Wilson, 1997). Another interesting, more ambivalent, account of a

British expatriate community (in Spain) is provided by O' Reilly (2000), who shows

how dense networks of associations and activities consolidate a shared Britishness

in the space of otherness. Yet Spain is also articulated in more positive ways as a

space which enables greater self-expression and a better lifestyle in marked contrast

to Britain, where the weather and social conventions can be restrictive.

This reveals how one kind of home is re-established in a world of greater

movement. Yet although such attempts to remake home may tend towards the

recursive, writers such as Gilroy (1994) have described how a mobile sense

of home is possible, where the focus is on ' routes' rather than 'roots' and where

the nomadic home-from-home is a feasible counter-construction. The ways in

which people increasingly set up home in different places over a lifetime does

not necessarily mean that a sense of home becomes dissipated; rather, a form of

domestic seriality is achieved, where familiar routines are reintegrated with place,

familiar reference points are sought, and well-known networks are plugged into

once more. In this more mobile context, home may become less rooted in a single

place and be constituted by the connections between places, as memories, practical

and decorative artefacts, and knowledge are serially recreated. Watkins, explaining

her own experience of different domestic locations, maintains that the process

does not ' represent a linear progression or hierarchy of periods that were lived

and somehow " completed" : this was not a succession whereby one home fully

replaced another, but rather an accumulation of lifeworlds, or of space-times, with

each addition reconfiguring the interconnections between the others' (2001: 10).

Points of similarity between places are woven together, the spatialisation of habit

ensures that recognisable pathways and fixtures are sought around which to orient

practical action; the domestic sphere becomes enlarged in space and time but is

no less effective as an emotional and cognitive constituent of identity, as common

frames of reference are set up. For instance, in discussing her move from the UK

to Vancouver, Watkins describes how she filled her new space with music and

movement, establishing a soundscape and a rhythm that simultaneously consol-

idated a feeling of home and announced her arrival (ibid.: 13). In the networks

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established by such travelling, ' proximity is a relational effect constituted by

similarity, or ...f amiliarity, and " distance" becomes a case of contrast rather than

kilometres' (ibid.: 11), and so identity and a sense of home can be simultaneously

grounded and mobile. Emphatically then, home is not only a matter of place but

exists ' in words, jokes, opinions, gestures, actions, even the way one wears a hat'

as part of a life ' lived in movement' (Berger, 1984: 64).

So it is that nationals living abroad retain a sense of national identity, irrespective

of the multiple sources of home they experience. This is nowhere more obvious

than in the diasporic spaces inhabited by migrants who retain links with the

homeland which can allow for a sense of identity which switches between the

physical location dwelt in and one sustained virtually. For instance, Gillespie has

showed how young Asians living in the South extend their viewing practices by

watching British television programmes along with the products of satellite

broadcasts, video and cable television produced for Asian diasporas (1995).

Conclusion

In recent years there have been several accounts that point to the increasing

placelessness wrought by globalisation. Through global processes, it is asserted,

the national, regional and local specificities of place are erased in the production

of homogeneity and ' serial monotony' (Harvey, 1989). They become ' non-places'

(Auge, 1995). Inhabitants who formerly possessed an easy understanding of

what their homely spaces meant and what could be practised therein are now, it

is claimed, faced with ' illegible landscapes' (Allon, 2000: 275). Whilst these

descriptions appear to relate to certain spaces such as international airports and

certain kinds of shopping centres, global processes are more typically context-

ualised within a local setting. Rather than overwhelming local space, they are

inserted into it through various codes of spatial ordering, where over time they

become domesticated additions to a familiar spatial palimpsest. Responses to these

processes have been described as defensive and essentialist rearticulations

of national identity, and yet it would also seem that such developments foster

the making of innumerable potential connections and opportunities for dialogue

across space. At another level, the stability of spatial belonging is also threatened

by other kinds of identifications. With an increase in the potential for mobility,

particular kinds of identity are forged through a familiarity with otherness –

for instance, in the creation of a 'cosmopolitan' as opposed to a 'local' identity

(Hannerz, 1990). Moreover, there has been a proliferation of ' third spaces' or

'spaces on the margins' (Shields, 1991) where alternative identities are established

(or to where outsiders are despatched). The nomad has been a popular metaphor

to account for the growth in international migration and to describe the rhizomatic

movements of those subversively undercutting the reifications imposed by spatial

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fixity. Such movement promulgates the possibility that spatial referents become

stretched across space rather than being situated in local or national settings. It is

my contention here, though, that whilst these are all pertinent descriptions of

contemporary spatial processes and processes of identification, the nation remains

the paramount space within which identity is located. At cognitive, affective and

habitual levels, the national space provides a common-sense context for situating

identity. Indeed, it is worth mentioning that diasporic communities are apt to

constitute dense networks of association which are based upon national identity,

as Nugent (2001) details in her study of diasporic Irish communities, producing

an evermore dynamic and contested Irishness which is no longer located solely in

Ireland.

I have tried to show that the ways in which the nation is spatialised are complex

and fold into each other. The complicated geographies of national identity depend

on a range of institutional and everyday practices, from the drawing of boundaries

between countries and at home, to convivial collective celebrations at places of

congregation to the habits of the home, from the representation and ideological

use of particular landscapes to the inured enactions grounded in taskscapes. To

engage with the deep ways in which the nation is embedded in notions of space, it

is vital to conceive of space as multifaceted: as evidence of (political, capital)

power, as symbolically and semiotically loaded, as aesthetically interpreted and

fashioned, as sensually apprehended and part of embodied identity, and as a setting

for reflexive and unreflexive practices.

For national space to retain its power, it must be domesticated, replicated in

local contexts and be understood as part of everyday life. The diverse spaces I

have discussed here are of different geographical scales and, as I have mentioned,

the power of national geography gains its power from the linkages which pertain

between these spaces. This spatial scaling of the nation operates at a variety of

levels. It is present in the televisual space (in the space of the home) which is

beamed to a (national) community of viewers, which transmits a host of spatial

images, including national ideological landscapes, iconic sites and sites of popular

congregation, everyday spatial fixtures and the mundane landscapes of quotidian

life. It is facilitated by technologies of mobility which enable people to travel

across the nation and experience national signs and the regional distinctions which

are identified as being incorporated into the nation. It is present in the structure

of feeling engendered by a complex of everyday living, personal and collective

memory, common topics of shared discussion, shared and synchronic activities,

and the affective and sensual experience of place. These spatial experiences are

located in well-known habitats, in taskscapes and leisure spaces, and in institution-

alised settings in which ordinary activity is pursued, at shared events in collective

space, from watching the big football match in the pub to partaking in national

ceremonies in local contexts. And the exclusions established at national level

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concerning who belongs where according to race and ethnicity and political belief

can also be monitored at local levels. I have shown how the spatial metaphor of

'home ' operates across a variety of spaces, and how the strength of its association

with nation means that other, smaller-scale meanings can be absorbed or elided

with the national.

An interesting dimension of this spatialisation is that each of the modes I suggest

also conjures up forms of temporality which characterise national identity. The

national landscape ideologies are imagined as enduring spaces, spaces forged over

millennia through the sacrifice of blood and toil. They are in some cases tied to

earlier eras of nation-formation, such as the Argentinian pampa or the American

Rockies, or are believed to have been an essential part of national identity from

time immemorial. Iconic sites and places of congregation are sites visited as part

of biographical imperatives – worthy of a visit during a lifetime – or they are

associated with commemorative occasions or special national events. They thus

might annually mark rituals or form part of the national history. Quotidian

landscapes and everyday spaces are associated with cyclical time, the ongoing

reproduction of place-bound lives and local and national space (for a more

developed discussion concerning the temporality of national identity, see Johnson,

2001). As Crang contends, temporal patterns ' can encompass the dialectic of life

course and daily life with different scales of projects intersecting, and thus meshing

longer-term power relations and positions within society with small-scale events'

(2001: 193).

Modern nation-building has entailed the incorporation of all internal differences,

so that whatever regional and ethnic differences may pre-date the nation' s formation

they all become subservient to, and part of, the greater national entity. Region,

city, village all remain tied to the nation as a larger ontological and practical

framework within which local activities take place. Local differences are absorbed

into a ' code of larger significance' (Sopher, 1979: 158). Such differences are not

erased; far from it. For the modern classifying imperatives which accompany the

formation of national identity (re)construct regions and localities as integral

constituents of national variety. Accordingly, distinct customs, dialects, costumes

and diets, natural history, sites of interest, styles of architecture and historical

episodes are all catalogued and disseminated as part of an imagined, internally

complex national geography. Thus the English countryside has been intensively

mapped, demarcated and described in the compilation of a national geographical

treasury, as regional difference has been commuted into the national by an army

of academic experts. These celebrations of regional diversity have been more widely

propagated by the publication of popular books such as H.V. Morton' s In Search

of England and the more contemporary multitude of coffee table books, road guides

and atlases which detail the ornithological, archaeological, historical and arch-

itectural curiosities of regions. Thus the outpouring of popular volumes about

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'England ' is backed up by institutionalised modes of knowing the nation. They

accompany and fuel the imperative, since the early years of motoring, to tour

the nation. As Crang reports of the champions of motor touring in Sweden: ' to

really know Sweden meant to get out there amongst it' (2000: 91). Through these

classificatory programmes, Lowenthal (1994) points out how the ' traditional

objectivism' of geography ignores the complexity of lived spaces, for the bounded

realms containing these local particularities were formerly not apparent. The

continuities of experience which characterised pre-modern travel between areas

meant that such distinctions were far more ambivalent and geographically

indeterminate than they are now believed to be. For instance, Billig describes the

distinct, pre-national regions of France, where accents, food, produce and language

were not properties of identifiable regions but changed incrementally through space,

according to the testimony of contemporary travellers (1995: 30– 31).

Yet the compendium of regional distinction is commonly organised in hier-

archical fashion. As is apparent in my discussion of national landscape ideologies,

certain landscapes and regions are assigned heightened status as markers of national

identity than others. Taylor (1994: 22) discusses the prevalence of the southern

'Home Counties ' in the English geographic imagination. He shows how the

nineteenth-century British Association for the Advancement of Science aimed to

investigate – through photography – the distinct regional, ' racial' characteristics

that existed throughout the United Kingdom. Yet these were defined against the

norm, namely those inhabitants imagined as ' Anglo-Saxon' or ' Teuton' who lived

in the Home Counties and London. This early example of the hierarchical coding

of regions is part of a selective approach to the varied spaces within a nation which

has generated the association of specific regions with national identity, so that

Southern rurality serves as the prime exemplar of Englishness. This partiality

persists in television, film, advertising and tourist marketing and is evident in the

popular books about the English countryside which I have mentioned, where there

is a preponderance of Southern scenes, histories and attractions. Crang describes

how the particular Swedish vision of ' the folk' becomes particularised around the

key region of Dalarna (Crang, 2000).

The elements of national space are linked together to constitute practical and

symbolic imaginary geographies which confirm the nation as the pre-eminent

spatial entity. At the level of representation and in their semiotic design, places –

links in this chain of national signifiers – reproduce meanings because they are

intertextual: ' various texts and discursive practices based on previous texts are

deeply inscribed in their landscapes and institutions' (Barnes and Duncan, 1992:

8). And at many levels – in the embodied experience of space, the affective

responses to familiar and spectacular sites, and the consumption of familiar spatial

representations – our experience is apt to carry echoes of other places which are

part of a national geographic knowledge. This is well exemplified by the article

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by Archetti cited above where urban and rural symbolic spaces (the pampa ,

potrero and baldio), symbolic national activities (horse-rearing and football), and

symbolic characters (gauchos and Diego Maradona) are combined to produce a

(masculinised) geography. This linking of spaces occurs in various ways. For

instance, in the same way that visitors link the famous landmarks that are visible

from the top of the Eiffel Tower in an attempt to categorise what they see (Barthes,

1984: 9), tourist organisers and tourists link together spaces of national significance

in itineraries, and also search for samples and signs of everyday national identity.

This geographical matrix is further associated with symbolic institutions,

performances and practices, objects, people, times and other cultural elements of

national identity. Imagined communities are solidified and naturalised by the

density of such bonds. These chains of national signifiers frame identity and tend

to delimit other ways of conceiving and feeling, and making connections between

places. Constituting a shared set of symbolic geographical resources, they make

possible the continual reassembly of the nation. The nation as space, like a force

field, supersedes other forms of identity and incorporates them, adding to an

ontological and epistemological weight which is difficult to shift.

Massey' s notion of a progressive sense of place does much to decentre essent-

ialist notions of place. Places can be considered as ' knots in networks of meaning'

(Shurmer-Smith and Hannam, 1994: 15) through which a host of cultural, econ-

omic, social and material flows ceaselessly occur. Places are becoming increasingly

stretched out to include points of origination and destination from further afield.

However, despite the vast increase in international flows, most journeys at daily,

monthly, annual levels, and over the life-course, are most densely accumulated at

local and national level. While people increasingly choose foreign holidays, their

weekend jaunts are within the nation. They largely shop, work and travel in national

contexts, linking up symbolic and familiar features and places through their family

networks and television-viewing habits over time. Constellations of symbolic,

practical and everyday space primarily continue to be organised in national contexts.

To illustrate this, Lippard writes of the 'dialectic between centre and movement,

home and restlessness, that every American understands – even if s/he has never

budged, has only watched road movies, read the novels of restlessness, listened to

the plaintive ballads of loss [in country music]' (1997: 41).

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–3–

Performing National Identity

In this chapter, I focus on the ways in which national identities are (re)produced

by using the metaphor of performance in order to explore how forms of national

dramas are organised and enacted, and how the nation – and selective qualities

associated with it – are staged and broadcast. I will look at both 'official' and

popular dramas, but also will examine the ways in which people act in national

contexts by performing everyday routines, habits and duties. This allows me to

further explore the differently scaled ways in which the nation is (re)produced,

from state-sanctioned ceremony and popular spectacle, to the quotidian, unreflexive

acts by which people inscribe themselves in place.

Performance is a useful metaphor since it allows us to look at the ways in which

identities are enacted and reproduced, informing and (re)constructing a sense of

collectivity. The notion of performance also foregrounds identity as dynamic; as

always in the process of production. Performance continually reconstitutes identity

by rehearsing and transmitting meanings. To fix an exact meaning of identity

through enaction is almost impossible for action always takes place in different

spatio-temporal contexts, yet it is necessary to transmit a sense of continuity and

coherence. By extending the analysis to other theatrical concepts we can further

explore the meaningful contexts within which such action takes place. Extending

the spatial analysis from the previous chapter, by conceiving of symbolic sites

as stages , we can explore where identity is dramatised, broadcast, shared and

reproduced, how these spaces are shaped to permit particular performances, and

how contesting performances orient around both spectacular and everyday sites.

Moreover, by looking further at ideas about scripts and roles, stage management,

choreography, directing, improvisation and reflexivity, we can investigate the

parameters of performing national identity.

The previous chapter has identified some of the symbolic stages upon which

national identities are played out. To reiterate, these spaces include national land-

scapes, particular symbolic sites (monuments, historic centres and institutions),

points of assembly, and the everyday landscapes of domestic and routine life.

Symbolic spaces are (re)produced by performers as sites of importance, even

though they may reproduce diverse meanings about them and follow different

ideas about the kinds of activities that should take place. And enaction in places

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frequently expresses people' s relationship to space, dramatising themselves and

place, often mapping out identities which are situated in wider symbolic, imagined

geographies of which the particular stage may be part.

Different performances are carried out on beaches and mountains, in cities,

heritage sites, museums and theme parks. These settings are distinguished by

boundedness, whether physical or symbolic, and are often organised – or stage-

managed – to provide and sustain common-sense understandings about what

kinds of activities should take place within them. Indeed, the coherence of such

performances depends on their being performed in specific ' theatres' . Following

the continuities suggested by performative conventions, enactions are carried

out that reinscribe who belongs to place and, crucially, who does not. For particular

performances – and particular actors – might seem out of place, revealing the

operations of exclusive identities. Whilst the organisation of space cannot always

determine the kinds of performance which occur, normative performative con-

ventions that persist through processes of commodification, regulation and

representation ensure that regular kinds of performance can be identified at most

sites. Nevertheless, competing ideas about what particular sites symbolise may

generate contrasting performances, as we will see.

Performances are socially and spatially regulated to varying extents. Stages

might be carefully managed, and the enactions of performers can be tightly

choreographed or closely directed. Moreover, performances might be scrutinised

by fellow performers to minimise any diversions from the usual performative

code. Alternatively, the stage' s boundary might be blurred, be cluttered with other

actors playing different roles, be full of shifting scenes and random events or

juxtapositions, and able to be crossed from a range of angles, facilitating improv-

isatory performances. However, whilst the organisation, materiality and aesthetic

and sensual qualities of stages may influence actors, they rarely determine the

kinds of performances undertaken. For there is a two-way relationship between

performers and stage, for the nature of the stage is equally dependent on the kinds

of performance enacted upon it. A space that may seem carefully stage-managed

may be transformed by the presence of actors who adhere to different norms. Again,

this emphasises how stages can change continually, can expand and contract, and

how different performances can undermine attempts to fix meaning and action.

Probably the most influential theorist of performance – ' performativity' as she

likes to distinguish it – is Judith Butler. Butler has most famously used the metaphor

of performativity to identify how gender categories are reproduced by actions which

are imagined to be pre-discursive, ' natural' effects of sex . By playing with dolls,

wearing gendered clothes, and generally adopting the gamut of attributes assigned

as ' feminine' , girls and women continually ' perform' gender. Through this

repetitive iteration, performativity materialises gendered bodies as unambiguously

fixed and bounded (Butler, 1993: 9). Interestingly, Weber (1998) has considered

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the nation-state as a performative body, particularly in its institutional effects, and

moreover has conceived of this corpus as one that is sexed and gendered.

Butler' s discussion is particularly enlightening in discrediting essentialist ideas

about gender and, by implication, wider processes of identity formation. It is also

valuable that she highlights identity as an ongoing performance, continually in

process – and that it is this reiteration which gives it its ontological power,

naturalising categories of gender and sex. Butler also considers enactions which

use the selfsame normative codes of performativity to challenge and subvert the

endless cycle of iteration. However, I am not convinced of the separation Butler

makes between performance and performativity , where performance is character-

ised as self-conscious and deliberate whereas performativity is understood as

reiterative, citational and unreflexive. This unfortunate dualism does not reflect

the blurred boundaries between purposive and unreflexive actions. For instance,

apparently reflexive performances may become unreflexive ' second nature' to the

habituated actor, and unfamiliar surroundings may provoke acute self-awareness

of iterative performances where none had previously been experienced. Moreover,

it is a misconception to describe habitual acts as unreflexive, for the habitus is

formed by a practical reflexivity in which embodied know-how modulates

unforeseen events.

Addressing the division between reflexivity and non-reflection, Merleau-Ponty

argues that intellectual faculties are secondary attributes which are ' rooted in

practical and pre-reflective habits and skills' (Crossley, 2001: 62). To illustrate

this argument, Crossley describes how Merleau-Ponty used the metaphor of football

to explain that much action is practical and engaged rather than contemplative

(ibid.: 74– 79). Such performance depends on a knowledge of the game, a contextual

awareness which for the player incorporates ' the schemas, skills and know-how

which dispose her to read and play the game' (ibid.: 76) within the relational space

of the player' s interactions. This common-sense knowledge utilised whilst playing

is not a self-aware consciousness, which would surely minimise one' s effectiveness

as player, but nevertheless the player' s shared assumptions, skill and use of space

epitomises a practical reflexive performance. This, of course, is akin to Bourdieu's

notion of habitus, which functions below consciousness and ' produces individual

and collective practices, and hence history, in accordance with the schemas

engendered by history' (1977: 82). Such dispositions are incomprehensible to

outsiders who cannot immediately immerse themselves in an unfamiliar field.

Throughout this chapter I will be pointing out the different modes of reflexivity

which inhere in particular kinds of performance, ranging from the overt rituals of

grand national ceremony to everyday habits.

The above discussion also emphasises the relevance of thinking about the body

when considering performance, and the need to move away from archaic mind–

body dualisms so that we may conceive of ' the lived, experiential body – an active,

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expressive, " mindful" form of embodiment that serves not only as the existential

basis of culture and self, but also of society and institutions more generally'

(Williams and Bendelow, 1998: 208; italics in original). Consciousness is embedded

in the body, not separate from it. Thus the body is a carrier of culture and identity,

not merely as embodied representation but through performance – what it does,

how it moves, speaks, stands and sits. This notion is developed by Thrift, who

includes performance in a category of what he describes a ' non-representational

theory' ; that is, theory that is concerned not with representation and meaning but

'presentations ' and 'manifestations ' of everyday life (Thrift, 1997). Performance

in this sense, is concerned with becoming a subject through embodied, affective

and relational (to other people, to spaces and to objects) practices in a world-in-

process (Nash, 2000: 655). Yet the body image which people have of themselves

also reflexively acts back to shape the ways in which they ' locate themselves in

space, how they carry themselves, how they experience bodily sensations, how

they conceive of identity' (Lupton, 1998: 85). For instance, in some cultural

contexts, modes of disporting the body are considered grotesque whereas in others

they may be acceptable modes of relaxation. This complex relationship between

the body and performance, in which reflexivity vanishes and reappears, is partic-

ularly evident when we start to consider the ways in which identity is performed.

There are roles which we are conscious of at certain times and not others, and we

undertake actions which are not governed by consciousness but which might give

rise to intense self-awareness in unfamiliar contexts. Certainly, particular kinds of

performance are intended to draw attention to the self, are a vehicle for transmitting

identity, and others are decoded by others as denoting identity irrespective of the

actor' s intentions.

These themes of spatial specificity, regulation and reflexivity re-emerge in the

following attempt to distinguish the kinds of performance which express and

transmit national identity, and the ways in which the enaction of national identity

might be changing. I look at grand formal rituals, popular rituals, touristic staging

of the nation, and everyday performances. Whilst these are identifiable modes of

performance and distinguishable settings and events, there is considerable overlap,

especially with regard to the everyday, mundane performances discussed in the

final section.

Formal Rituals and Invented Ceremonies

Still the most obvious and recognisable ways in which national identity is performed

are at those national(ist) ceremonies with which we are familiar, the grand, often

stately occasions when the nation and its symbolic attributes are elevated in public

display. In highly specified, disciplinary performances, the cast of actors during

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these events – the soldiers, police, marching bands, commanders of horses,

government ministers, honorary officials, members of royalty and functionaries

carry out specified, pre-ordained manoeuvres, which have often been rehearsed

and minutely detailed to ensure the effective conveyance of efficiency and majesty.

Such ceremonies are played out to legitimate the power, historical grandeur, military

might, legal process, and institutional apparatus of the nation-state.

Most of these rituals have been devised to appear time-honoured but they are,

as Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) have pointed out, ' invented traditions' , primarily

emerging during the era of nineteenth-century Romantic nationalism – especially

between 1870 and 1914 – along with the erection of national monuments, the

establishment of museums, the devising of ' scientific' schemes for classifying

cultures and races, collections of folklore and canons of national literature, and

the instalment of public holidays. Despite their recent origins, claims about their

immemoriality are usually an integral part of their appeal for they are normally

'governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature,

which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which

automatically implies continuity with the past' (ibid.: 1). By circumscribing the

use of specific costumes, imposing a rigid order of events, including pseudo-antique

carriages and artefacts to form a pageantry that is saturated with the gravitas

commonly accorded to ancient rituals, such events perform timelessness, grounding

nation in history, symbolising community and legitimising authority. These

invented ceremonies, aptly exemplified in the volumes edited by Hobsbawm and

Ranger (1983) and Gillis (1994b), seem to have been devised by almost all nations.

Across the world, independence day celebrations, presidential inaugurations,

flag-raisings, anthem singing, religious occasions, funerals of important figures,

military parades and ' archaic customs' tend to follow the same format year upon

year, inscribing history on space. Yet these rituals often ape the trappings of

antiquity even if of contemporary origin. For instance, as Crang (1998: 166)

explains, the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969, a ceremony which was

widely celebrated across the British national media, was played out through

'antiquated ' rituals specifically designed for the event.

I have discussed elsewhere that certain modes of social performance are subject

to a control which minimises the potential for improvisation and attempts to erad-

icate ambiguity (Edensor, 2000a, 2001). Thus the key personnel in the organisation

of large-scale national rituals – the stage-managers, choreographers and directors

of the event, along with the costume designers and stage-hands – co-ordinate the

sequence of events and train the participants in how to perform appropriately. They

manage the stage upon which these actors will perform, providing cues and advice

to facilitate, guide and organise performances in accordance with normative

conventions, which are, of course, the ' goals, constraints, resources, conventions

and technologies of particular culture-producing groups and their audiences'

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National Identity

(Spillman, 1997: 8). The ' correct' enaction of these rituals often achieves the

illusion of fixity and common purpose, although the participants are not necessarily

homogeneous but may represent various interest groups. Nevertheless, the

imperative to accomplish the proper performance affects them all. Failure to carry

out the necessary manoeuvres, or to adopt the correct disposition or attire, can

result in harsh censure. In 1982, Michael Foot, the then leader of the British Labour

Party, attended the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall,

Central London, for those killed fighting for the nation. Much media coverage of

the event focused on Foot' s dress, which was said to resemble a ' donkey jacket' ,

and, as such, showed how little the politician respected the seriousness of the

occasion, bringing into question his patriotism and his competence as a potential

future Prime Minister. The issue was gleefully capitalised upon by the ruling

Conservative Party and their right-wing media allies.

According to Geertz (1993), communal rituals often articulate a 'meta-social

commentary' which celebrates and reproduces social ideals and conventions – or

at least provides a context for discussions around shared performative conventions

and values. The transmission of national identity and ideology is typically achieved

through these grandiloquent pageants which through their solemn and precise

formations of movement are laden with high production values. But besides offering

spectacle, these nationalist ceremonial dramas also inculcate specifiable forms of

bodily conduct and comportment, constituting what Connerton (1989) describes

as ' incorporating rituals' (contrasted to ' inscriptive' rituals, such as photography

and writing) by which groups transmit ideals and reproduce memory through

disciplined performance. According to Connerton, by demanding stylised and

repetitive performances from the participants, memory and identity become

inscribed into the body. Since there is no scope for interpretation or improvisation

in these enactions, they become part of ' social habit memory' . This mnemonic

effect, embodied within the (national) subject, bestows an affective yet disciplined

sense of belonging, a sense that one can successfully perform, that one possesses

a competence to enact the ritual and may be called upon to ensure its continued

specificity in the future. Memory and identity are thus incorporated into the

performer. Moreover, such rituals specify the relationship between performers,

and between the performers and the symbolic site (and the wider national symbolic

space into which it is incorporated). Such rituals thus constitute powerful pro-

grammes for the enaction of collective remembering (and systematic forgetting)

(Chaney, 1993: 20). Connerton argues that they require no further questioning,

providing ' insurance against the process of cumulative questioning entailed in all

discursive practices' (1989: 102). This suggests that contra Geertz, such rituals

are performed in an unreflexive manner, and do not create an intersubjective arena

for mutual purposive acts to maintain solidarity, for such rituals are not discursively

(re)constituted but performed through embodied memory.

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A recent example of a small invented ceremony devised (in 1982) to imprint a

relationship between site and group, and broadcast this nexus by promoting the

event as a tourist attraction, is the ritual of the Knights Templar at Bannockburn

Heritage Centre, near Stirling. This occurs on the morning of the anniversary of

the Battle of Bannockburn of 1314, where a Scottish army under the leadership of

Robert Bruce defeated a larger English force and paved the way for political

independence. The group' s disciplined and stately manoeuvres around the site,

and the militaristic specifications of its ordered enaction, are characterised by

dramatic costumes, specified movements and script, and rigorous timing (Edensor,

1997). Although of recent vintage, the play derives its coherence from the

willingness of the audience to respectfully record the proceedings and consent to

the masculinist, military ideals being presented. The claim for a part in the national

story, and the inscription of the participants as Scots and as Templars, depends

upon the efficacy of the show to persuade the audience of its ancient character.

Tellingly, in the era of national commemoration that Hobsbawm and Ranger

describe, the lack of any existing national ceremonies led cultural nationalists to

search for scraps of local rituals to adopt and rebrand as national ceremonies.

Thus selective local cultural repertoires became reconceptualised as national

(Spillman, 1997: 5). Of course, as discussed before, this leads to the privileging

of certain rituals as 'national' and the consignment of the majority of other rituals

to the sphere of the 'local' . And yet this latter move is also an integral part of the

nation-building project, as the diverse cultures of regions become incorporated

within the nation, the container of diversity. Another way of conceptualising these

incorporating rituals is to consider them as part of a systematic attempt to channel

the energies of popular carnivalesque customs into a more ' civilised' form. The

adherence people felt to carnival could be transferred to allegiance to the state.

Through creating spectacular rituals, where reason and morality triumph over

sensuality, the state could project ' the paradigm of an ethical citizenry' (Lloyd

and Thomas, 1998: 53). The effects of these attempts can be to reduce meaning,

as Guss argues, for situating carnival and selective local rituals in a national frame

'has required that the hallmark of festive behaviour, its superabundance of symbols

and meanings, be shrunk as much as possible to a handful of quickly and easily

understood ideas . . . a borrowed image of difference made to stand for the nation

as a whole' (2000: 13). Of course, such stagings, in aestheticising and regulating

performances, are likely to erase any reference to conflict and oppression, masking

the issues of power and domination which may inhere in their local performance

and participation. But they are imprinted with different traces of power. The inscrip-

tion of national identity by disciplined bodily performance has not only been limited

to ceremonial events but has been a part of the inculcation of military values onto

conscripts, and has also been a feature of national schooling systems, where forms

of physical exercise and drill have aimed to create ' correct' comportment. There

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is thus a continuum between grand national spectacle and the everyday enaction

of disciplined movement in national institutions.

In imposing disciplined ritual, stage managers' and directors' attempts to fix

meaning by organising the stage and the framework for performance are generally

sufficiently rigid to minimise the deconstruction of such acts by questioning,

contestation and mockery. However, such subversions must be continually held at

bay by the enaction of precise and repetitive movements. Thus the retention of

meaning is an ongoing struggle which requires re-enaction to keep at bay alternative

interpretations and the claims of contesting identities.

In contemporary times, many of the large-scale commemorations that celebrate

national identity are increasingly being performed on a global stage. Large sporting

exhibitions such as the Olympic Games provide an opportunity for national stagings

in the opening ceremony, and recent bicentennial commemorations of the USA

and Australia were projected across the world. In an interesting discussion, Spillman

draws a contrast between the American and Australian celebrations. While both

events were ' culturally dense and relatively inclusive' (1997: 9), they were also

both highly contested. This highlights a general point about how large-scale

rituals and ceremonies are less shaped by a cultural elite who delimit the partic-

ipation of others, and have been opened up by the clamour for inclusion from

those not previously represented. In other ways, however, the priorities of the

commemorations differed. Australia was more concerned with projecting its

image externally, to the rest of the world, whereas American organisers were

more concerned with symbolising internal integration – perhaps, because of

the persistence of sharp class, racial and ethnic cleavages in the USA, this was

not surprising (Spillman, 1997: 13– 14). Also, the search for common cultural

denominators and shared symbols around which (most) groups could mobilise

were different. For Americans, much focus was directed towards the ' founding

fathers' , who are acknowledged as key figures in American history by many groups

but whose value is contested across political lines. Moreover, shared political values

and institutions loomed large in America around condensation symbols such as

'Freedom ' and 'Democracy ' – which again are concepts which can be interpreted

in multiple ways. Australia, by contrast, placed great emphasis on the importance

of the land, while in both nations the importance of cultural diversity was contin-

ually alluded to. Both nations arranged large and precisely organised showpiece

events during these celebrations.

These global stagings also testify to the increasing mediatisation of grand

national ceremonies (Thompson, 1995: 179–206). Commentators refer to the tele-

vised broadcast of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 as an event that

heralded a national communion via the media. Likewise, the monarch' s Christmas

speech, instituted in 1932, was a way for the monarch to reach her subjects over

the airwaves, firstly by radio and latterly by television. The Royal Tournament,

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the Trooping of the Colour, and Royal weddings and funerals have been a

staple of the British television diet in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Becoming merely part of the annual television timetable has removed much of

the mystique and gravity of such events, which join the sequence of numerous

television spectaculars. While the screening of these rituals has not necessarily

led to any diminution in the rigidity of performance, such televised events are

also accompanied by other, looser, more informal spectacular dramas, ranging

from international sporting events to Royal Command Performance and charity

telethons. Such events offer more affective and convivial shared theatricals.

This mediatisation has also been accompanied by the commodification of

identity, often through the tourist industry (discussed on pp. 133– 140), and also

the ways in which these grand rituals have promoted the selling of nostalgia. The

flow of global images of selfhood and otherness partially engenders the need to

'record, preserve and collect ' (Gillis, 1994a: 14) as the pace of change seems to

speed up. For within global culture there has been a proliferation of memories

on offer, including global events such as the assassination of American president

J.F. Kennedy, the moon landings and events such as Live Aid. This abundance of

memories decentres official, national forms of remembrance and ' challenges the

status of memory as knowable object' (ibid.: 16). We can choose from an ever-

expanding range of memories according to the diverse contexts of identification

in which we find ourselves. This possibly indicates the increasing externalisation

of memory, as it becomes commodified and enmeshed in mediascapes.

Although Connerton has insisted on the effectiveness of formal ceremony in

transmitting and consolidating memory and identity by virtue of the incorporating

functions of such performances, recent developments in staging the nation show

that there is no need to privilege such events. Indeed, Gillis argues that such

performances are less likely to promote memory, for ' traditional memory sites

actually discourage engagement with the past and induce forgetting rather than

remembering' (ibid.). Especially in an era of detraditionalisation and informal-

isation, remembering is an engaged process which does not merely involve the

passing down of ' official' knowledge but also the creative, sensual, expressive

arts of narrating and staging improvisations. This is well exemplified in the case

of the Welsh Eisteddfod, which, in its modern incarnation, was devised as a

spectacular display of Welshness primarily for English people. Having been

repatriated as an occasion of Welsh national belonging, it was initially circum-

scribed by formal poetry reading and musical performance. More recently, however,

it has become an event containing many more performances, ranging from pop

concerts and raves to political demonstrations and displays of politically informed

art. This process whereby ' official' and ' high' culture becomes decentred is

furthered by the television transmission of these contested and heterogeneous

enactions (Davies, 1998).

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Gillis maintains that by 'the end of the 1960s, the era of national commemoration

was clearly drawing to a close, but not before bequeathing to later generations a

plethora of monuments, holidays, cemeteries, museums and archives' (1994a: 14).

Thus, these rituals retain some of their power but are merely part of a wider range

of ceremonies which are devised to express identity. Modes, places and occasions

for remembering are proliferating and we are now as likely to remember at times

and places which we choose ourselves.

Popular Rituals: Sport and Carnival

What is useful about Connerton' s account of disciplined, incorporating ritual is

that it draws attention to somatic involvement, but such embodied action is also

apparent during more convivial, pleasurable and playful ceremonies which may

be equally memorable and significant for participants. Moreover, the topophilia

engendered by collective engagement in popular symbolic spaces is not only found

in official and sober performances but is also evident in a host of popular sites

where less formal, directed rituals occur, places of public congregation such as

sports stadia, parks and civic squares. I am also referring to more quotidian, homely

spaces where national festivities are carried out, including independence day

celebrations involving family feasts, and communal rituals, such as Bonfire Night,

Burns Night and Thanksgiving (see Susskind, 1992). I suggest that the power of

disciplinary incorporating rituals is matched by the affective qualities of these

more carnivalesque celebrations, where looser, more improvisatory performances

are enacted. In this section, I will look at sport and popular carnivals to explore

occasions where bodily expression and emotional participation manifest highly

charged expressions of national identity.

Probably the most currently powerful form of popular national performance is

that found in sport, progressively more a global spectacle: ' an embodied practice

in which meanings are generated and whose representation and interpretation are

open to negotiation and contest' (MacClancy, 1996: 4). Sport is increasingly situated

in the mediatised matrix of national life, is institutionalised in schools, widely

represented in a host of cultural forms and is an everyday practice for millions of

national subjects. These everyday and spectacular contexts provide one of the most

popular ways in which national identity is grounded.

Famously, shortly after its inception as an organised pursuit, sport was used in

the English public schools to train pupils to reinforce national superiority and

develop the characteristics of moral manliness deemed necessary to rule in the

colonies. Prepared to endure pain stoically, concerned with ' fair play' and team

spirit, these middle-class schoolboy exemplars were mythicised as future heroic

colonialists, and their deeds were interwoven with imperial conquest and war in

poetic and ideological accounts which mapped sport onto empire (Mangan, 1996).

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Likewise the idealised English batsman in the game of cricket was utilised to

transmit ideas about class and nation. Such characters were exemplary ' gentlemen',

where as ' noble and leisured amateurs, they were ' elevated into a new civic idea

of vigour, integrity and flair' (Holt, 1996: 53) through their conduct on the field,

their immaculate white garb. Later, they were iconic suburban paragons, ' modest,

reserved and thoroughly respectable' (ibid.: 68) in another form of idealised

Englishness.

These performances of national identity on the sporting field are no less

persistent today, for national sporting styles are commonly recognisable in sports

as varied as tennis, rugby, cricket and football. In football, French, German, Italian,

Brazilian, English and Cameroonian national teams are easily identifiable by fans

and journalists. These performances of ' traditional' national style are expected,

even demanded, often irrespective of success on the field, and express particular

national qualities that extend far beyond the sporting arena. Such national attributes

are not usually open to question: they form a common global understanding of

where particular sports stars and teams originate, and they are, of course, well

suited to propagating stereotypes about self-identity and otherness. Whilst these

identifiable styles certainly nourish such preconceptions, they also emerge from

cultural contexts – ideas about training regimes, the respective values accorded

to hard work, teamwork and individual skill, and flamboyance. (For the origins

and historical development of national styles, see Lanfranchi and Taylor, 2001:

191– 211.) They are therefore part of a habitus, expressing shared dispositions to

bodily endeavour, and so conventions of play are shaped by unreflexive perform-

ance and habits echoing Merleau-Ponty' s notion concerning a ' feel for the game'

discussed above. Where these ' natural' approaches to sport seem to be threatened,

trainers and fans may protest if the national style is not evident. For instance,

Kuper (1996) writes about the reign of Bobby Robson, the former manager of the

England national team, as manager of Dutch side, PSV Eindhoven. Despite the

team' s success, winning the Dutch league in consecutive seasons, he was disliked

by the fans for altering the style in which the team played, apparently introducing

the less artful ' English style' instead of the elegant ' total football' for which Dutch

football is renowned.

National stereotypes of sporting styles circulate amongst fans, and are prop-

agated in the media. Besides the routine deixis whereby readers are assumed to

share in support for (' our' ) teams which Billig (1995) discusses, newspapers and

television commentators seek recourse in fairly repetitive stereotypes. In the case

of Boris Becker and Michael Stich, successful German tennis players in the 1980s

and 1990s, English tabloid sports pages were full of comments about their German

'efficiency ' and their likeness to ' ruthless' German ' machines' . Descriptions

abounded about their ' armoury' , for instance – their ' howitzer' serves. These

comments are widely understood in a post-war English context in which German

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economic performance outperformed the British economy. Similarly, Swedish

tennis champion Bjorn Borg was routinely referred to as ' Ice-Borg' , denoting a

mythical Nordic coolness, even lack of humanity (Blain and O' Donnell, 1994).

Press coverage of international football tournaments has similarly abounded

with such stereotypical comments about national identity (McGuire and Poulton,

1999).

Sport is frequently used in a metaphorical sense, where sporting performance

expresses particular forms of embodied capital valued by particular groups.

Showing how sport embodies forms of cultural values and social knowledge, Stokes

discusses the symbolic importance of wrestling in Turkey as a hegemonic assertion

of masculine values. Grounded in Turkish history as a ' theatrical enactment of the

struggles and contests of everyday life' (1996: 24), wrestling also allows for a

subversive acknowledgement that craftiness and deceit, rather than merely brute

force, are also part of the constitution of keeping face and maintaining a masculine

status. Tellingly, Stokes compares enthusiasm for wrestling with that for football.

Whereas wrestling is seen as definitively and traditionally Turkish, football is

conceived of as progressive, modern and European, again highlighting the janus-

faced nature of national identity which both asserts tradition and modernity.

These metaphorical codes are most pertinent where representatives of different

nations meet in sporting competition. Rauch (1996) shows how for the supporters

of French boxer Georges Carpentier, his bout with the American World Heavy-

weight Champion Jack Dempsey theatricalised the supposed qualities of each

nation, the brutish American against the skilful, cultivated French boxer. The French

fighter was endowed with various attributes, epitomising family values, rurality,

honour and sophistication, and this was conceived as being embodied in his

distinctive boxing style which was distinguished from the purely brutal style of

Dempsey. Such metaphorical contests are particularly dramatic when they involve

teams or individuals representing previously colonised nations in contest with

opponents from the previously colonising powers. The cricketing competitions

between India or the West Indies and England have particular resonances as

symbolic re-enactments of colonial struggles.

Despite the facility of sport to provide an occasion for the parading of nation-

al(ist) antagonisms, it is important to acknowledge how it can stoke up rivalries

between groups within the nation, whether ethnic or regional. I have argued (in

Edensor and Augustin, 2001) that club football in Mauritius has been a potent

vehicle for the parading of ethnic identity, whereas the victories and defeats of the

Mauritian national team are of little interest to fans. Here sport seems to undercut

any attempt to establish a national identity, foregrounding ethnic rivalries which

continue to be more affective sources of identity than the Mauritian nation. The

enmity which emerged in Mauritian club football released violent communal

conflict, and accordingly those clubs which were traditionally owned, played for

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and supported by particular ethnic groups have been disbanded in favour of new

clubs which are regionally, rather than ethnically, based. Such rivalries within

nations are far from unusual, as Armstrong and Guilianotti (2001) catalogue.

There are other threats to the nation from sporting participants who do not

perform ' properly' as national representatives. In international sporting endeavour,

national identity is sine qua non , the uppermost identity on display. This is

graphically illustrated by an event during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.

Two Black American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, after winning the

gold and bronze medals respectively in the 200 metres athletics final, performed a

protest against American racism: in support of the radical Black Power movement

they raised black-gloved fists as the US flag was raised and the anthem played.

This astonishing performance was televised across the world, interjecting racial

protest 'into a ceremonial system that quite literally had no place for representing

non-national collective identities such as race, class, religion or ethnicity'

(Hartmann, 1996: 550– 551). So far beyond the pale was the act believed to be,

that it resulted in harsh censure from the American media and effectively ended

the athletic careers of the two protesters who were debarred from future contests

in the USA.

In the same way as sports journalists and commentators ' present the style of

the German or Brazilian football teams as " evidence" of their respective national

character' and ' Wimbledon is promoted as " proof" of the historical continuities

of British life' (MacClancy, 1996: 13), sports fans are equally labelled as manifest-

ations of national character. The performances in stadia of fans, their use of song

and music, the clothes they wear and the flags they wave, their responses to sporting

action, defeat and victory, and their propensity to fight all signify what are believed

to be identifiable national characteristics. For instance, MacClancy shows how

the ' public theatrical antics' of few drunken British football fans in a provincial

Spanish city supporting their team in a European competition provided an ' easy

symbol for the decline of British society' (ibid.: 14) for Spanish onlookers and

press.

Like sport, dance is a form of popular embodied performance where particular

styles are believed to embody national characteristics. Through dance, Desmond

suggests that social identities are ' signalled, formed and negotiated through bodily

movement' (1994: 34). Grounded in located ways of using the body, dance is

akin to a language in that ' every dance exists in a complex network of relationships

to other dances and other non-dance ways of using the body' (ibid.: 36). Through

modes of participation on the dance floor, the collective creation of distinctive

atmospheres, the kinds of bodily movements linked to specific styles of music,

the acquisition of status through skilled performance, and the combining of

individual and collective identity and pleasure, dancing is invariably culturally

located as a specific affective expression of identity. These normative embodied

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performances are evident in the ways in which boundaries around identity may be

drawn by identifying national styles – for instance, through the articulation of the

Anglo-American conception that Latin dance styles evince a primitive and

dangerous sexuality in contrast to the refined movement of European dances (ibid.:

47– 50). And despite the promiscuity of dance styles in a global context, where

they are exported and adapted, certain symbolic dances are performed to reinstate

a sense of identity, varying from the continuous re-domestication of the tango

by Argentinians (Savigliana, 1995), to the weekend performance of the Sardana

in Catalonian towns and cities as a marker of Catalan identity. In a similar vein,

Matless describes the ways in which morris dancing was used to ideologically

enchant English rurality with the timeless values of stability and organicism whilst

performing a particular kind of English masculinity (Matless, 1998).

These dancing performances are especially evident during carnivals where

bodies are displayed in expressive ceremonies that tend to be more fluid and

concerned with a politics of pleasure than the stately manoeuvres described in the

first section. Festivals range from local pageants to larger-scale national gatherings,

and are increasingly likely to be penetrated by other forms of popular culture,

promiscuously borrowing from film, popular song and fashion. Thus familiar

cultural points of reference are recycled through these performances in an informal,

carnivalesque atmosphere. Above I have discussed the stolid ceremony of the

Knights Templar at Bannockburn Heritage Centre. On the same day, Nationalist

Scots descend in their hundreds at the culmination of a procession from Stirling,

including pipe bands, banners, and more recently, participants clothed in the kind

of designer-Celt garb that featured in the movie Braveheart . Whilst the rituals of

wreath-laying and the speeches of politicians observe the formalities, the occasion

is permeated by a party atmosphere where old friends meet up, kids play on the

grass, literature is sold and people drink alcohol. The chance for participants to

imprint their identities on the site in more emotional, convivial fashion contrasts

with the sober playlet performed earlier in the day (see Edensor, 1997).

Rather than fixing identity through rigorous stage management and disciplined

acting, these popular festivals are more protean, adaptable and contested, can be

the site of divergent performances and change from year to year. David Guss' s

marvellous study of popular festivals in Venezuela highlights the multiple ways in

which festivals may be interpreted and contested, varying from global, nationalistic,

religious, ethnic and local celebrations. Since the 1950s, many Venezuelan festivals

have been drastically transformed by their adoption by the state, which has

resituated local traditions in national contexts, through the setting up of a state-

funded infrastructure central to the project of establishing a shared national identity.

These desires to record and curate performative rituals highlight a nostalgic

disposition towards the elsewhere of tradition which becomes manifest in their

incorporation into national(ist) projects. No longer merely expressed in local

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contexts, they are ' suspended between the worlds of ritual obligation and national

spectacle' (Guss, 2000: 20).

Most strikingly, Guss points to the continuing role of Cigarrera Bigott, the

Venezuelan subsidiary of the multinational company British American Tobacco,

in promoting popular culture, notably at a time when the corporation was being

integrated into popular consciousness and state policy. The corporation has set up

a foundation, producing publications, providing grants to cultural groups, funding

workshops and organising TV programmes devoted to Venezuelan popular culture,

especially musical and dance forms. The autonomy claimed by artists sponsored

by the Bigott Foundation has been compromised by greater company control to

ensure that the avowedly populist, leftist ideas they broadcast on TV and in work-

shops did not jeopardise the commercial aims of the company. The company has

established greater control over the elements and the selection of cultural forms,

and the cultural campaigns have been evermore closely allied with the Foundation

through more overt sponsorship. This has promoted their goal of attaching the

image of their products to national culture and thus inculcating a patriotic desire

to purchase amongst consumers, to make the company synonymous with the nation

(ibid.: 90–128).

As Guss argues, ' anthropologists and folklorists have ignored the pluralistic

nature of cultural forms, preferring to characterise them as the uniform expression

of a collective consciousness' (ibid.: 3). Functionally described as rites devised to

maintain social solidarity or articulate shared cultural norms, such views proffer

static conception of culture and erase agency. There has been little sense, then, of

the reappropriation or resignification of such popular festivals by various actors,

their linkages in networks of identity which vary from the local to the global, and

an expansion of festive forms which are increasingly mobile as they physically

and virtually move across space. Yet Guss convincingly shows that the development

of Venezuelan festivals has placed them within wider matrices of signification.

Now, they are contested by ' local factions, political parties, commercial interests,

government, church, media and tourism all tearing at the meaning of these events'

(ibid.: 21), not to mention ethnic groups of pre-colonial Venezuelans and Black

groups. In a similar fashion, Nurse (1999) shows how the Trinidad carnival has

been exported, being variously adapted within a range of cultural contexts. The

carnival has always been contested, most typically around the lines of ethnicity

and in terms of how cross-class participation has been manifest and represented,

but increasingly issues surrounding the commercial content of the carnival, between

tourist agencies and other Trinidadians, and between diverse political groups, have

emerged. These controversies result out of the globalisation of the carnival,

surfacing outside Trinidad, and in the domestication by Trinidadians of themes

derived from elsewhere.

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There is clearly a global process whereby festivals are increasingly used as a

means to advertise commodities through sponsorship. For instance, the Notting

Hill Carnival in London – originally an occasion for the celebration of diasporic

Caribbean identity – became the Lilt Notting Carnival in 1995 (Nurse, 1999: 677).

In addition, there seems to be a further trend to discipline the more carnivalesque

elements of such rituals. Handelman (1997: 396) argues that many festivals have

been ' re-taxonomised, reorganised and disciplined through bureaucratic logic' ,

generated by opponents of ' bacchanalian' aspects. Even at the world famous Rio

carnival – signifier of Brazilian national identity – 'rhythm, spontaneity and satire

are being controlled and constricted' by bureaucratic power (ibid.: 395). Although

the carnival remains an occasion at which normally concealed social tensions are

revealed and dramatised, and utopian displays of equality and the body are

celebrated, Handelman discusses the forms of regulation that are imposed upon

the participating 'samba schools' in the climactic great parade, in accordance with

the political imperatives of unity and order. The themes chosen by the dancers

must not be satirical or critical of national government, and marks are deducted

by the judges if strict conventions of time allotment, and musical and disciplined

rhythmic performance are flouted. Seemingly, highly synchronised, spectacular

mass dances are replacing improvisational and innovatory forms in an increasingly

controlled carnival, which is organised as a spectacle for visual consumption as

opposed to an occasion for physical experimentation and immersion. Like the

performances discussed in the following section, carnivals are being tamed for

tourist markets and to ensure that a ' positive' spectacle of the nation is transmitted.

Yet the mediatisation and spectacularisation of such events may also contribute

to increasing contestation over participation and meaning. Guss gives the example

of the St Patrick' s Day Parade in New York, an occasion for the parading and

celebration of American-Irish identity. Yet the festival has been accused of welcom-

ing only certain kinds of Irish-American due to the widely reported protracted

legal battle about the right of the organisers to debar a gay and lesbian contingent

from marching (2000: 10– 11). The drama of such contestations is potentially

expanded by their widespread transmission and the politics of exclusion which

concerns them. Yet the example also serves to highlight the impossibility of fixing

meaning through commercialisation, regulation and incorporation, and it fore-

grounds the politics of inclusion and exclusion which continue to surround these

mutable, open-ended forms of collective performance.

Staging the Nation

In theatrical terms, tourism encourages the production of distinct kinds of stage

and is an activity which sustains a host of competing performative norms (see

Edensor, 2000a, 2001). As tourism becomes the world' s largest industry, national

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tourism strategies increasingly seek to compete in this global market by advertising

their distinct charms; trying to carve out a unique niche that might attract the

'golden hordes'. This depends on both advertising generic landscapes and attract-

ions, and promoting particular symbolic sites and events. Part of this imperative

to entice tourists and to reward their choice of destination with memorable

experiences involves the staging of the nation.

The staging of the nation for education and entertainment is a long-standing

feature of national culture, but it has primarily been devised to appeal to and instruct

domestic visitors. For instance, large showpieces such as the Great Exhibition in

1851 were designed to inspire a patriotic pride about the British Empire from the

mainly domestic audience that witnessed this spectacle. Here, the world was staged

for British consumption. Other, more formal attractions, such as the museum, were

equally contrived to convey particular attributes and inculcate a specific kind of

regulated performance from the museum' s visitors. Bennett demonstrates how the

organisation of these spaces of knowledge were devised to attain ' new norms of

public conduct' (1995: 24). Performative conventions and normative choreographies

were co-ordinated by attendants and spatially guided by the layout of display cases,

information boards and room plans. Thus visitors performed a unidirectional

passage along devised routes ' to comply with a programme of organised walking

which transformed any tendency to gaze into a highly directed and sequentialised

practice of looking' (ibid.: 186– 187). Thus the stagings of officially sanctioned

forms of knowledge demanded a particular kind of audience participation.

The stage management of symbolic national spaces and events is now principally

directed to less didactic forms of instruction, where affective, sensual and mediat-

ised stagings combine with a culture of instruction to produce a synthetic form often

termed 'edutainment' . In particular tourist settings, and indeed across the urban

spaces of the West, there is an ongoing proliferation of what Gottdiener (1997)

calls ' themed' spaces in specialised tourist enclaves and in more quotidian spaces.

Highly encoded shopping malls, festival marketplaces, heritage sites, cultural

quarters and waterfront attractions comprise an expanding sector of tourist space.

The extension of these themed spaces into shopping centres and high streets include

such institutionalised theatrical settings as themed pubs and restaurants. The most

(economically) successful form of the over-coded pub is, of course, the Irish theme

pub, which has been exported to many areas of the world. The staging here involves

the creation of a dramatic space in which Irishness is constructed by the inclusion

of actual and simulated artefacts and designs which accord with media represent-

ations. Such productions have been accused of manufacturing an ' inauthentic'

Irishness. Nevertheless different kinds of ' Irishness' are produced. The Celtic

Dragon Pub Company offer three ' Irish' themed design packages; namely, an ' Irish

country look' , the ' city pub' and the upmarket 'castle and manor house ' theme

where ' all guests will feel like lords and ladies' (http://www.celticdragonpubco.com).

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The 'English ' pub is also a fixture of many European and American cities, as are

Indian and Chinese restaurants replete with many signifiers and symbols of

Indianness and Chineseness. These shorthand signs proliferate across cities and

so expressions of national identity becomes more promiscuous, colonising spaces

beyond the nation from which they originate.

In such encoded spaces, stage managers attempt to 'create and control a cultural

as well as a physical environment' (Freitag, 1994: 541), where strict environmental

and aesthetic monitoring produces a landscape abounding with clear visual

and sonic cues. Through the use of such ' sceneography' (Gottdiener, 1997: 73),

the gaze is directed to particular attractions and commodities and away from

'extraneous chaotic elements ', reducing 'visual and functional forms to a few key

images' (Rojek, 1995: 62). These stagings often feature a limited range of

mediatised motifs, or else a few key exoticisms which, like many commodity

landscapes, promise infinite variety and ' unconstrained social differences' , whilst

delivering a controlled, stereotyped ' otherness' (Mitchell, 1995: 119). Here, the

imagery and ambience of the carnival – the exotic, erotic and chaotic – are used to

commodify selective differences, based on ethnicity and national identity.

These new technologies of entertainment are a feature of everyday, mundane

settings as well as touristic ' honeypots' , as selling culture becomes part of growth

strategies. Very often, the sheer intertextuality of these themed spaces, the innum-

erable links with other commodities, media and other spaces, consolidates a string

of associations that solidify their affective and epistemological power. However,

it is important to avoid overdetermining the effect of such powerful commercial

strategies on visitors to, and inhabitants of, such themed spaces. In a sense, the

very regulated nature of such spaces, their carefully rendered surfaces and removal

of clutter might act against the ' otherness' that is aimed for, for there is, as David

Harvey (1989) has remarked, the production of a ' serial monotony' in the design

strategies such stagings purvey. In other words, the aim of selling the ' exotic' is

contradicted by the homogeneous ways in which it is fashioned.

Nevertheless, although Chaney exaggerates in claiming that as tourists ' we are

above all else performers in our own dramas on stages the industry has provided'

(1993: 64), at the more information-saturated and carefully themed tourist sites,

where national identity is on display, it can be difficult to avoid being drawn to

information boards, staged spectacles and evident pathways. In addition to these

signs in space, guidebooks are also replete with cues about what to look at, what

information to consider. As condensed suggestions to familiarise visitors with

cultures and spaces – and as shorthand cues for performance – such directions

inevitably omit infinite other ways of looking at and understanding sites. Thus

there is a discursive and regulatory order in place to sustain practical norms,

supporting common-sense understandings about how to behave, what to look at,

where to go and what to hear. For instance, visual performances may be cued by

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the instructions of guides or by notices which recommend that photographs be

taken at particular spots. As Chaney remarks, ' framed by implicit theatrical

conventions . . . within a particular dramaturgical landscape' (ibid.: 86), we

photographically compose different stagings of selves, places and groups.

In addition to these spectacular and mundane themed spaces of national identity,

the tourist industry more overtly stages identity in the production of ' indigenous',

'folkloric' customs where tourists may collect signs of local or national distinctive-

ness. Typically, tours and hotels organise displays of ' native' dancing and music,

selecting, for instance, which aspects of ritual are likely to be accessible to tourists

and which should be edited out. By charting a course between ' exoticism' and

comprehensibility, performances are typically devised to titillate tourists without

alienating them by sticking too closely to complicated cultural meanings. In non-

Western locations where such dramas are produced for Western tourists, the colonial

origins of much tourism become acutely highlighted as, for instance, smiling

dancing girls posture for the camera. This cultural staging inevitably raises problems

about the reproduction of stereotypes associated with primitivism, exoticism and

eroticism

To discuss how these performances can be fraught with controversy, I want to

focus on the display of sega dancing for tourists staying in large hotels in Mauritius.

The ' traditional' dance of the Creole population of the island, sega dancing

accompanies a folk percussive music which has recently developed to embrace an

electronic pop musical form. The dance is widely performed on beaches by Creole

groups during holidays and at weekends, and is understood as a symbolic form of

resistance to the brutalities of the slave plantation system which their antecedents

suffered, through which East African and Madagascan people were enslaved and

imported to work on Mauritian sugar plantations. Since the 1980s, a large and

lucrative tourist industry has generated enormous economic development in

Mauritius. Aiming at the exclusive end of the market, large ' international standard'

hotels cater for wealthy Western tourists, forming enclaves that minimise contact

with Mauritian people and non-tourist space. Because of the dearth of evident

Mauritian culture in these self-contained holiday venues, music and dance shows

have been imported into hotels to provide a 'taste of Mauritius ' . Inevitably, tourist

managers have alighted on sega as filling this gap in the tourist experience.

According to many Mauritians, the erotic nature of the dance has been adapted

so that instead of a celebration of virility and vitality the performance of sega has

become a spectacle designed to titillate. Compressed into floor shows, glamorously

aestheticised and accompanied by Westernised versions of sega music, locals com-

plain that the meaning of the dance has become cheapened and diluted for tourists,

so that Mauritians are now sexualised objects rather than convivial participants in

their own dance. In addition, it has been necessary for sega musicians to be flexible

and learn a range of Western ' standards' to induce a sense of semi-domestic comfort

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for hotel guests. Thus they have become skilled in shifting between sega and

Western pop performances. Whilst concerns about the lack of authenticity are

widely shared by Mauritians, the employment and skilling of musicians has

regenerated sega. Supplementing the folk performances which concentrate on the

traditional music – based solely on percussion – the musical form has developed

with the integration of Western instruments such as guitars and keyboards, and

has become popular amongst Mauritian youth. Various forms blend sega with

African, jazz and reggae musical styles, serving as contemporary expressions of

Mauritian and Creole identity.

Although the staging of forms of ' traditional' or 'folk' national culture for

tourists may be presented in ' inauthentic' and spectacular fashion, ' reconstructing'

ethnicity and national identity, it also has the potential to replenish moribund

traditions and thus feed into new expressions of identity (Wood, 1998). For there

is frequently a tension between the effects of staged national identity for outsiders

– for tourists, business travellers or audiences consuming a media product far

away – and the reception and performance of the same festive elements amongst

participants and national consumers. Again this provides evidence of the complex

ways in which commodified culture can be reappropriated in dynamic ways by

national subjects.

Everyday Performances: Popular Competencies, Embodied Habits

and Synchronised Enactions

Having discussed the consciously collective, official, popular, commodified and

touristic forms of national theatricality, I now turn to the ways in which national

identity depends for its power upon the habitual performances of everyday life.

For unlike these more evident displays, national identity 'flavours everyday life in

familiar ways, and a commonsense rhetoric of nationalist talk makes an unnoticed

backdrop to public life' (Spillman, 1997: 2). Accordingly, a focus on quotidian

enactions can develop Billig' s point that much national identity inheres in the

'banal' and the everyday. And it is also apparent that Anderson' s notion of ' imagined

communities' is insufficiently grounded in the details of everyday life, those shared

practices, notions and convenient resources which Herzfeld terms 'cultural

intimacy' (1997: 6). The continuity and reliability of familiar enactions contribute

to a sense of security ' grounded in our experiences of predictable routines in time

and space' (Silverstone, 1994: 7). Mundane continuities generally persist despite

the changes and disruptions. Perhaps if they did not, shared forms of identity would

break down more easily

Such performances are shaped by unreflexive assumptions and dispositions as

often as they display calculated intentionality, revealing kinds of habitus that evolve

within a national field. Usually, discussions about culturally coded patterns of

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behaviour focus upon dispositions that evolve around class, gender, ethnicity and

sexuality, for instance. These distinctive forms of praxis are grounded in our specific

habitus, distinct, ' common-sense' ways of being (Bourdieu, 1984), the 'second

nature' which enables us to perform unreflexive and conscious actions in everyday

life. In a national context, Billig usefully refers to these customary performances

as 'enhabitation' where 'thoughts, reactions and symbols become turned into

routine habits' (1995: 42). Yet notions of national forms of habitus have barely

been discussed. I certainly do not want to minimise the centrality of class, ethnic

and gendered forms of habitus, but rather to argue that they intersect with national

dispositions. For instance, there are distinctive forms of playing and watching sport,

drinking alcohol, cooking, child-rearing and home-making that are inflected by

class, ethnicity and gender as well as by national identity.

In the introduction to this chapter I argued that rather than distinguishing

between a self-aware performance and an iterative performativity as Butler does,

it is better to conceive the two modes as imbricated in each other. This is especially

pertinent with regard to the unreflexive performances I will discuss here. For

instance, a theatrical performer may be so used to playing out the same role that it

becomes ' second nature' – so sedimented in the habitual bodily enactions required

that reflexivity and self-monitoring is no longer necessary. Equally, habitual

performances which have been performed unreflexively for a lifetime may suddenly

be revealed to those performing them as social constructions. A confrontation with

different cultural codes – perhaps by being misunderstood in unfamiliar contexts

or being challenged by those from outside one' s everyday community – can reveal

that others act differently, inducing a heightened sense of awareness towards what

seemed common-sense enactions. Reflexivity and unreflexivity are not properties

that are associated with particular kinds of enaction, but depend upon contexts

and the conditions which shape the frequency of performance.

When discussing the everyday as a realm of performance, it is necessary to

cite Erving Goffman, who insists that social life is inherently dramatic, and that

we invariably play particular roles. Goffman (1959) contends that such roles are

particularly evident in ' front-stage' situations where, driven by an urge for

'impression management', we strategically enact performances which are devised

to achieve particular goals. However, we are apt to remove our mask only in

informal, domestic ' backstage' regions. The suggestion that there is a backstage

region infers that this is more concerned with reproductive functions of everyday

life, and is therefore typical of the realms I am exploring in this section. The

dichotomy is not helpful, however, for self-consciousness is a state moved in and

out of according to far more varied and complicated contexts than the simple

division suggests. In order that such performances are convincing – that they

transmit the meanings we intend – Goffman usefully suggests that we acquire

competence; that we reproduce performative conventions which are recognisable.

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However, this insistence on the instrumentality of role-playing – especially on the

front stage – conjures up a continually self-reflexive individual, intentionally

communicating values to an audience. This captures some modes of performance

but does not consider the host of unreflexive, habitual, unintentional enactions

which occur in both ' public' and 'private ' situations.

Everyday, habitual performances are constituted by an array of techniques and

technologies, practical, embodied codes which guide what to do in particular

settings. Where these are communally shared, they help to achieve a working

consensus about what are appropriate and inappropriate enactions. Here then,

performance is a 'discrete concretisation of cultural assumptions' (Carlson 1996:

16). Culturally bound procedures are enmeshed in diverse embodied dispositions,

organised, for instance, around which clothes, styles of movement, modes of look-

ing, photographing and recording, expressing delight, communicating meaning,

and sharing experiences are ' proper' in particular contexts. As Goffman suggests,

all enactions need to be learnt so as to achieve a degree of competence. The efficacy

of the impression made may depend upon the level of rehearsal and practice.

Moreover, in particular social contexts, actors monitor their performances and they

are also subject to the disciplinary gaze of co-participants and onlookers, who

read the meaning the actor hopes to transmit, and must share the values transmitted

if the performance is to be successful. This internal and external surveillance

restricts the scope of performances and underscores communal conventions about

'appropriate ' ways of behaving. Such shared norms thus instantiate a way of being

a national subject. But while they need to be learnt, often in youth, they typically

become unreflexive, habitual, second nature. This is why it is so difficult for those

unfamiliar with national cultures to simply learn them and ' pass' as national subjects

unproblematically.

The everyday can partly be captured by habit, unreflexive, inscribed on the

body, a normative unquestioned way of being in the world: ' from the embodiment

of habit a consistency is given to the self which allows for the end of doubt'

(Harrison, 2000: 503). The repetition of daily, weekly and annual routines, how

and when to eat, wash, move, work and play, constitutes a realm of ' common

sense' , offering a deep understanding of the link between culture and identity.

Thus ' interspersed with cultural quotations and imitations of other people'

(Frykman and Löfgren, 1996: 9), habit is internalised, ingrained through interaction

with others. Habits organise life for individuals, linking them to groups so that

'cultural community is often established by people together tackling the world

around them with familiar manoeuvres' (ibid.: 10–11). These shared habits

strengthen affective and cognitive links, consolidate a sense of shared action and

doxa to constitute a habitus, including acquired skills which minimise unnecessary

reflection every time a decision is required. Habits are ' a way to economise on

life' (ibid.: 10).

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There is then a synchronicity between participants' actions and a shared range

of practical enactions and assumptions which constitute mundane choreographies,

everyday knowledge and embodied approaches to quotidian problems. These are

forged by doing things rather than thinking about them. Although focusing on

distinctions afforded by class, Bourdieu refers to the routine social performances,

including ' automatic gestures or the apparently insignificant techniques of the body

– ways of walking or blowing one' s nose, ways of eating or talking' , which ' engage

the most fundamental principles of construction and evaluation of the social world'

(1984: 466). Crucially though, these and other habits are not static. The habitus is

the practical basis for action, but consists of ' forms of competence, skill and multi-

track dispositions' rather than 'fixed and mechanical blueprints ' (Crossley, 2001:

110). Nevertheless, the popular saying, ' old habits die hard', is also partly accurate,

since the familiar social world consists of enduring contexts and habits which

depend upon each other. These contexts, or ' fields' as Bourdieu describes them,

are replete with rules and conventions, and are complemented by the ways in which

their habitués practically mobilise and draw upon knowledge which has emerged

out of their sensual, embodied interaction with the world. Habits are therefore full

of flexible skills which can operate in an improvisatory fashion within a known

field but may flounder outside it.

Whilst the shared norms of actors help to consolidate norms of everyday

performance, so does the regulatory framework of the state. Through its modes

of surveillance, laws, broadcasting policies and economic management through

measures such as taxation, the state provides a regulatory apparatus which informs

many quotidian actions. The nation is thus partly sustained by the mundane

machinery of the state. And yet while this is a powerful ingredient in shaping

the ' way we are' , daily routines and habits may be at variance to governmental

preferences; indeed, there may be a tension between codes of conduct preferred

by the state. Herzfeld illustrates this by citing the example of smashing plates in

Greece, a practice which was banned by the military dictatorship and is still deemed

demeaning by certain national authorities. However, it is regarded by participants

as a 'performance of high spirits and unconstrained independence' which articulates

a disregard for authority (1997: 1– 2). This exemplifies the tension which exists

between popular practices within a group and the way in which such performances

are used to portray the nation from without, often by the state. It is also significant

that the state, or certain reform-oriented sections of the middle class, are apt to

identify ' bad habits' that are degrading the ' fabric' of the nation. For instance, late

nineteenth- and early twentieth-century bourgeois campaigns tried to prevent the

enfeeblement of ' racial' populations through promoting manly endeavour (such

as the boy scout movement), anti-drink campaigns and a widespread concern to

inculcate improving activities – especially to create ' respectable' pursuits amongst

working-class populations who threatened national order by following ' bad' habits

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of gambling, drinking, brawling and so on. Contemporary government campaigns,

shaped around health concerns, parenting skills, hygiene, diet, financial manage-

ment and driving may also attempt to champion ' good habits' amongst citizens

(see Frykman and Lö fgren, 1996: 7– 9). Widespread conceptions articulated in

the media and amongst citizens about 'workshy' youth, drug abuse and single-

parenting are similarly inflected with surveillant impulses to maintain national

order via the monitoring of habit. These processes of ' self-observation, moderation

and style' – for instance, through the enforcement of table manners (Nordström,

1996: 83) – constitute a form of ' civilising process' (Elias, 1978) which (re)con-

structs national subjectivisation.

Yet it is significant that the contesting practices cited by Herzfeld are also

labelled Greek , indicating the ways in which everyday practices, grounded in

what we might call a 'local' or 'domestic' habitus (Nugent, 2001), ranging from

expressive pursuits – such as plate-smashing – to the performance of mundane

tasks and duties, are identified in common-sense understandings as national.

This highlights how the ontological force of the national persistently absorbs or

contextualises local action and meaning, testifying to the abstract power of national

identity. In order to claim a sense of belonging to this large and vague entity, it

must be domesticated, localised and personalised. For as cultural nationalists have

asserted, an impersonal allegiance to the state is severely limited in cultural appeal.

Thus, people use ' the familiar building blocks of body, family and kinship in order

to make sense of larger entities' (Herzfeld, 1997: 5).

It is likely that friends and family share this practical knowledge, so that it may

rarely be challenged, but everyday ways of doing things are also conveyed through

popular representations of everyday life, in soap operas, magazines and other forms

of popular fiction. These familiar worlds – often informed by conventions of realist

representation – entrench such rituals and routines in national worlds. So dense

are these intertextual references to habitual, everyday performances in the fictional

worlds of television and media, and so repetitive are their enactions by one's

intimates, that they acquire a force which mitigates against deconstruction.

In order to convey the entrenched nature of such performances, I want to discuss

three forms of quotidian, habitual performances which consolidate a sense of

national identity.

First of all, I want to refer to what might be described as popular competencies ,

everyday practical knowledge which enables people to accomplish mundane tasks.

In a sense, the ability of citizens to carry out the formal requirements necessary to

get things done is part of the everyday bureaucratisation imposed by local and

national governments to ensure a smooth running of the state, or what Habermas

refers to as the ' colonisation of the lifeworld'. Therefore, this form of national

knowledge is partly inculcated by the infrastructural requirements of the modern

state, which simultaneously imposes conditions on how citizenship should be

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performed and provides people with the skills necessary to negotiate these

conditions. For instance, as I will discuss in the next chapter, the state requires

that people learn how to drive, and determines the range of specific skills required

of drivers and car owners: what side of the road to drive on, how to license, tax

and service the car, where to park (and avoid fines), how fast one can drive and

where particular speed limits pertain. Likewise, the citizen must learn how to pay

bills to the appropriate agencies, know how and where to post letters, vote, dump

rubbish, apply for welfare benefits and register with the health services.

In addition, there are a host of other popular competencies that facilitate the

running of one' s life. For instance, it is necessary to know where to take public

transport from and how the driver or conductor is paid. It is a part of popular

(gendered) competence to know where to buy certain things, where to seek

particular bargains, how to buy theatre tickets, where to enrol at local libraries,

where to go to and how to worship. As well as demanding intimate geographical

knowledge, these tasks also require a practical ability to carry out these tasks

with a minimum of fuss. Such competence embraces a knowledge of locality,

a geography of practical action which suggests the ' taskscapes' discussed in the

previous chapter. But as well as constituting part of local knowledge such compet-

encies tend to be duplicated across the nation since an infrastructure of recognisable

venues and institutionalised settings provides shared sites in which to perform

familiar actions. These everyday forms of practical knowledge are rarely the subject

of any reflection, for they constitute part of the normal competencies required to

sustain a livelihood and a social life. So instilled are many of these habits that

they form part of a national habitus. Whilst it is assumed that we know how to

carry out these things by our co-nationals, we generally know where to seek advice

from others if we are thwarted in the accomplishment of tasks. This is not only

limited to practical tasks but also inheres in leisure pursuits, as in the case of the

Finns. In their leisure activities, ' such as sauna bathing, hunting or fishing they

express Finnishness, not as an idea but as a competence acquired through activity

and outdoor life' (Kayser Nielsen, 1999: 286).

The extent to which this is grounded in a national habitus becomes clear when

we move to another country and are dumbfounded by the range of everyday

competencies which we do not possess, where we come across a culture full of

people who do not do things the way we do them, who draw on different practical

resources to accomplish everyday tasks. Our limitations as practically competent

human beings in these settings require a rapid retraining in how to get things done,

how to understand the new practical codes. The effect can be similar when we

meet visitors from other nations and try to explain how to accomplish missions

when such explanation has rarely been required before. We might struggle for

terms to explain the ' obvious' , for this is a non-discursive form of popular under-

standing that we ' just know' . As Guibernau comments, ' individuals do not enter a

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foreign culture merely by learning the language of that culture. They have the

necessary tools, but it takes a long time before they are able to capture the meaning

implicit in words, expressions or rituals' (1996: 79). To acquire the second nature

embodied in practical habit is difficult to achieve purely by cognitive application

but instead requires a sustained immersion in everyday life so that common-sense

enactions become ingrained and unreflexive. Habitual security is akin to what

Ruth Holliday has called the 'comfort of identity' (1999), generated by the ease

with which familiar actions are competently and unreflexively performed.

The second kind of everyday performance I want to discuss are embodied habits .

These are the forms of bodily hexis and social interaction, often criss-crossed with

class, gender, ethnicity and age, which are closest to Bourdieu' s notion of habitus

as practical, embodied knowledge. I am referring here to normative kinds of

manners or etiquette which instantiate what forms of conduct are appropriate in

particular contexts, but also the embodied habits evident in ways of walking, sitting,

conversing with friends and other modes of conviviality which constitute shared

worlds of meaning and action. As I have discussed above, it is significant that

states have used the education system to instil shared – and often highly gendered

– ways of bodily enaction and demeanour through training children to march,

carry out drills and specific exercises. In the early years of the twentieth century,

it might be suggested that these regimes aimed to mark the national body with

disciplined collectivity, since fears about ' racial' degeneration and the enfeeblement

of the nation, with the rise of urbanism and industrialism were perceived as grave

threats. Accordingly, a kind of moral embodiment was signified, conjoining national

pride and self-respect.

Such embodied habits have become secularised, but, nevertheless, ways of

walking, carrying one' s body and sitting continue to be infused with resonances

about appropriate comportment. Craib (1998: 173) points out the (enormously

culturally varied) forms of unconscious emotional communication – gestures,

smiles and body language – which are often ignored by cultural and social theorists.

Integral to the unconscious ways in which identity is performed, these culturally

located unreflexive enactions help to constitute a sense of belonging. Again, an

unfamiliarity with cultural contexts can reveal the situated nature of such forms

of embodied knowledge. We can identify 'the small differences in style, of speech

or behaviour, of someone who has learned our ways yet but was not bred in them'

(Williams, 1961: 42). In unfamiliar settings, ways of talking to other people may

seem too loud or direct, too self-effacing or timid. Alsmark observes how conflicts

around everyday habits arise in ethnically mixed Swedish housing estates around

'how green space should be used, how peace and quiet at night should be observed,

how rubbish should be disposed of, how stairs should be cleaned' (1996: 90).

Likewise, modes of walking might appear inappropriate. For instance, I recall

feeling large and ungainly as I walked through a small Indian town where local

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pedestrians appeared to me to move across the terrain with a great deal more grace

than I could manage, a self-aware state that was induced by the contrast in

performing walking. The same applies to ways of wearing clothes, the kind of

small talk to engage in, how loud to laugh, the gestures one uses to convey irritation,

welcome or a host of other intentions, and all the small gestures within a repertoire

of what we might describe as expressive competence . As Spillman considers, in

unfamiliar contexts, inhabitants' ' easy way of dealing with shop assistants may be

a puzzle' , or ' the proper tone of debate amongst friends' may be baffling and

difficult to achieve, so that a sense of being apart is difficult to ameliorate (1997:

6). Again, the influence of official forms of embodiment continue to linger – for

instance in the much-vaunted English ' stiff-upper lip' . And yet such codes of

habitual embodiment intermingle with more informal modes of comportment and

verbal encounter, and are also distributed by codes embraced by other social

formations – for instance by youth cultures and members of sports clubs.

These forms of habitus are invariably inflected with a range of power relations.

In an interesting discussion concerning the diasporic habitus of British Chinese,

Parker (2000) analyses the contrasting dispositions between young, male British

customers at Chinese takeaways and those of the workers, who need to adopt

habitual strategies to minimise conflict and limit the potential for racist insult

and attack. Mobilising what he calls the endowment of ' imperial capital' , Parker

describes the forms of comportment and deployment through which customers

brusquely order food, lounge on the counter, scrutinise workers and so forth. Here

we have the enactment of a habitus grounded in history which often subconsciously

reiterates a racialised form of national belonging.

Furthermore, there are a host of everyday practices that are concerned with the

(re)production of social spaces in the kinds of spectacular, generic and domestic

landscapes to which I referred in the previous chapter. These kinds of space-making

practices merge with the popular competencies discussed above and include ways

of gardening, cooking, eating, drinking, dancing, courting, having sex. Thus there

are proper ways to behave in public spaces such as café s, gardens, parks and bars,

and domestic spaces like kitchens, meeting rooms and bedrooms. There are, of

course, national stereotypes which are formed around these spaces and activities

– Italians are 'good lovers ', French are ' excellent cooks ' and English have a skill

in gardening. This not only testifies to the easy constructions of others as a means

of drawing ethnic and national boundaries but also identifies how certain activities

are valued more highly than others. Such cultural codes not only reconstruct these

sites as theatres for specified forms of behaviour but also train bodies to adopt

dispositions and actions ' in keeping' with such venues. The proper forms of conduct

are also exported where expatriate communities are established and where groups

of foreign tourists congregate, and do not necessarily confront the embodied habits

and competencies of others, instead asserting a defensive articulation of what is

'proper '.

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To illustrate this I want to refer to an account I have discussed elsewhere (1998a),

where I argue that rather than being an exceptional and spectacular activity, tourist

practice is frequently imbricated with quotidian assumptions and is replete with

its own forms of habitus and convention. Tourist sites are thus locations at which

different embodied habits clash, or are carried out synonymously by different

groups. A young British tourist at the Taj Mahal had wandered around the site,

stopping every now and then to take a photograph, or make a jotting in her note-

book, and now spellbound in silent contemplation she sat on a bench gazing upon

the monument. After joining her and after a brief chat, she became suddenly agitated

by the behaviour of a group of nearby domestic tourists. With exasperation she

exclaimed to me, ' I think Indians are really crap tourists. They just don' t know

how to be tourists, rushing around, talking all the time and never stopping to look

at anything – even here at the Taj Mahal!'

Finally I want to discuss quotidian rituals and routines, the synchronised

enactions of everyday life. I have already mentioned that the complicated

construction of national time includes the important element of cyclical time, the

enduring repetition of daily, weekly and annual routines, and entrenched notions

about when particular actions should be carried out. More broadly, repetition is

essential to a sense of identity, for without recurrent experiences and unreflexive

habits there would be no consistency given to experience, no temporal framework

within which to make sense of the world. Daily experience comprises simultaneous

performances in the pursuit of work, leisure and reproduction, which compose

distinct kinds of cultural rhythm or social pulse. At an institutional level, this takes

the form of attending school between particular hours, shopping and drinking at

certain times, and working according to a schedule. Thus state regulation ensures

that there are conventions about when a whole variety of activities are carried out.

And this is supplemented by an assortment of other popular practices not subject

to official regulation but which follow conventions about when and where specific

performances should occur, during circadian, weekly, monthly, annual and life

cycles, constructing forms of collective temporality. For instance, in Morocco and

in certain other Mediterranean countries, large numbers of people congregate on

the streets between 5 and 7 p.m. to shop, socialise and walk. This time of public

sociability is far removed from a British context when these hours tend to be filled

with travelling home from work and the carrying out of home-centred tasks.

In the sphere of leisure there are many allotments of routinised time when,

for instance, sporting or theatrical occasions can form part of weekly or monthly

timetables: football matches are apt to take place at particular times, as are bull-

fights, and likewise, a multitude of political and social meetings are stitched into

collective schedules. These rhythms vary enormously according to different

national customs. Times to work, eat and drink are very different in Spain and

Britain, for instance. Typically the urban Spanish worker will commence work at

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8 a.m. and have a long break in the middle of the day for a siesta and to enable

lunch to remain a communal affair, restart work at 4 p.m. and finish at 8 p.m. The

typical evening hours of leisure are accordingly stretched out well beyond midnight,

when, in large Spanish cities, central streets containing restaurants and bars are

still busy. In the UK, 9 a.m. is a more typical starting time for work, lunch usually

lasts no more than an hour, and the working day generally ends between 5 and

5.30 p.m. The curtailment of the evening' s leisure time is usually heralded by

'closing time ', after which bars are not permitted to serve alcohol to customers.

This choreography of banal and familiar movements is part of the afore-

mentioned ' time-geographies' , the ways in which people' s trajectories separate

and intersect in regular ways. There is no doubt that, to a great extent, the fixity of

diurnal social patterns has become detraditionalised, with the fragmentation of

time and the decentring of timetables controlled by state and capital. The rise of

night-time economies and the diversification of work schedules means that

identifiable national routines are less obvious than they were. Yet these develop-

ments can be rather overstressed, ignoring the temporal regularities of experience

which persist.

Anderson' s emphasis on the rise of printing and the subsequent distribution of

national newspapers in the construction of the ' imagined community' identifies

the extent to which national routines are enmeshed in the media. Daily newspapers

are consumed by large sections of most national populations, and, even more, the

synchronicity of television-viewing habits ensures that particular schedules are

followed by vast numbers. Moores has described this mediatised timetabling as

the ' domestication of national standard time' (1988: 67), and Barker considers

that ' television sustains routines which are significant aspects of the reproduction

of social life . . . [it] organises and co-ordinates a national public social world'

(1999: 66). Silverstone elaborates by pointing to the ways in which television

schedules reproduce the structure of the household' s day, how the temporal shape

of narrative patterns offered by television programmes acts to reconfirm the

essential narrativity of subjective experience, focusing on the ways in which

calendrical events are televisually reported, and how we organise our routines

around technologies of information and entertainment (1994: 20). Importantly, it

is primarily through daily routines that time ' is felt, lived and secured' , and so the

repetitive enactions of viewing are experiences which are ' themselves embedded

in the times of biography and the life-cycle, and in the times of institutions and

societies themselves' (ibid.). Television is, therefore, a means by which viewers in

local contexts can feel part of a shared national experience which chimes with

their own routines. It links ' the national public into the private lives of its citizens,

through the creation of both sacred and quotidian moments of national communion'

(Morley, 2000: 107). Martin-Barbero has pointed out that amongst Latin American

nations, a sense of national identity was developed by the translation of the abstract

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idea of the nation ' into lived experience, into sentiment and into the quotidian' via

television (1988: 455).

This temporal structure is divided up into daily routines, annual events and

special events. And despite the advance of satellite and cable television, most

television schedules remain organised on a national basis, and the most popular

programmes are still those which are shared by huge numbers of the national

viewing public. This is especially the case with soap operas, typically the most

popular programmes scheduled by national broadcasting systems, which consol-

idate synchronised viewing habits. But there are numerous other regular television

events which form an everyday topic of conversation amongst viewers and shape

their timetables. Where certain programmes may derive from is often irrelevant

in constituting these shared synchronised experiences. In India, currently the

most popular programme is Crorepati, hosted by movie icon Amita Bachan, which

is an Indian version of the successful British quiz show, Who Wants to be a

Millionaire? Despite its origins, the programme has been domesticated to form

an essential part of many Indians' viewing schedules, an occasion for shared

domestic participation, and a prominent topic of conversation. Lö fgren (1996: 107)

ironically – but faithfully – describes the ' very Swedish Christmas tradition' of

singing along to the televised Swedish voice-over of Jiminy Cricket' s "When You

Wish Upon a Star" , from the Disney film Pinocchio. Likewise, the immense

popularity of watching English Premier League football matches broadcast on

Mauritian national television constitutes a shared experience irrespective of the

games' location.

These examples are not intended to imply that such cultural forms are consumed

and experienced by audiences in a homogeneous way. Instead the diversity of

viewing contexts and kinds of decoding work utilise the polysemy of the product.

Nevertheless, participation in familiar broadcast schedules informs an under-

standing of what it is to be a member of the nation, and those unfamiliar with such

experiential, shared routines can experience an outsidedness that excludes them

from national belonging. Linking this once more with personal biography, the

density of shared television references over a viewing career can be identified in

currently popular nostalgic quiz shows in the UK, such as Telly Addicts, It' s Only

TV ... But I Like It, and I Love TV, which test contestants' detailed knowledge of

the retrospectively kitsch and low-grade programmes of yesteryear. Of course,

such programmes depend for their success on the shared knowledge of the viewers

and their nostalgia for television experiences that formed a part of their personal

history. The potency of the ways in which television and other media forms shape

space and order time is evident when familiar schedules and rituals are disrupted

– for instance, when programmes are cancelled or the daily newspaper is not

delivered.

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Conclusion

In order to retain their power, performative norms need to be continually enacted,

whether these are the spectacular disciplinary performances of national identity

or the unreflexive habits of everyday life. And prescriptive conventions and

common-sense values are rarely disrupted if they are performed unreflexively and

uncritically. The continuance of normative performances reveals the ways in which

power can define and inscribe meaning and action on bodies. Yet the world is

increasingly full of diverse performances which spark competing notions about

what actions are 'appropriate' , 'competent' and 'normal', and also may produce a

reflexive awareness of the habitual performances which are so integral to individual

and group identities.

This continual re-enaction means that rather than being fixed, performance is

an interactive and contingent process which succeeds according to the skill of the

actors, the context within which it is performed and the way in which it is interpreted

by an audience. Even the most delineated social performance must be re-enacted

in (even slightly) different conditions and its reception may be unpredictable. Thus

each performance can never be exactly reproduced and fixity of meaning must be

continually strived for (Schieffelin, 1998: 196– 199). Moreover, Schutz maintains

that whilst social performance does have its codes, ' clear and distinct experiences

are intermingled with vague conjectures; suppositions and prejudices cross well-

proven evidences; motives, means and ends, as well as causes and effects, are

strung together without clear understanding of their real connections. There are

everywhere, gaps, intermissions, discontinuities' (1964: 72– 73). In addition, despite

the prevalence of codes and norms, conventions can be destabilised by rebellious

performances, or by multiple, simultaneous enactions on the same stage. As Schutz

declares, ' social performances may bypass or negotiate with normative rituals, by

organising a patchwork or bricolage of meanings and actions to generate new

dramatic configurations' (ibid.). Judith Butler has pointed out that knowing the

codes of performance via ' forced reiteration of norms' (1993: 94), besides fixing

meaning, also provides a template from which to deviate and offers an opportunity

to mark subjectivity by rebelling against these conventions. There are a range of

performative deviations which arise out of a reflexive awareness that these norms

exist. In the UK, there was a widespread response of this sort to the collective

ritual grieving which accompanied the death and subsequent funeral of Princess

Diana, a response which did not protest against the outpouring of communal

patriotic emotion which quickly asserted itself as an 'appropriate' performance,

but quietly and cynically ignored the roles expected by a temporary hegemonic

code of action. Also we might consider cynical performances – akin to what Feifer

(1985) calls ' post-tourism' – which stop short of rebellion, and are typified by a

'role-distance ' engendered by an awareness of the constructed nature of a role but

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an unwillingness to confront it directly. Rather than enacting an overt challenge,

enjoyment is gained from a knowing participation in the artifice of identity.

During popular festivals, whilst certain norms may pertain, the imperative to

entrench meaning is weaker, for where performances are more amorphous and

open-ended, and scripts and actions are not tightly managed, 'there is scope for

lying, creative ambiguity, deliberate misdirection . . . improvised codings of

subversive messages' (Palmer and Jankowiak, 1996: 236). The remnants of a

carnivalesque spirit which permeate such occasions permit a certain licence in

behaviour which includes critical enactions. Nevertheless, there are collective

understandings that it is precisely these occasions which permit wider licence for

subversion, that these are shared national spaces and events where such enactions

can take place.

The prevalence of anchoring performative norms becomes clearer when

habituated actors are plunged into unfamiliar settings. While there may be pleasure

in the challenge of constant mental and physical disruption, a sensory and social

overload means that reflexive performances may be denied by the immanence of

experience, and, in any case, rehearsed roles have little coherence in these settings.

This situation evokes the ' vertigo' described by Caillois (1961: 13) wherein

perception is temporarily destabilised by a ' foregrounding of physical sensation,

an awareness of the body set free from the normal structures of control and

meaning' , and entry into an unregulated and indefinable space. This is also akin

to what Schechner calls ' dark play' , full of ' unsteadiness, slipperiness, porosity,

unreliability and ontological riskiness' (1993: 39). There are opportunities for

people to escape the constraints of national identity inherent in identifiable,

embodied roles, for everyday performances can be easily read back home but are

not easily translated by those who are not fellow nationals. However, more likely

is a recourse to the known, to the acting out of familiar routines to encompass

otherness, or an escape from such terra incognito . Thus, as I have described,

expatriate communities frequently recreate familiar stages which reinstate a sense

of belonging, both participating in spectacular communal events and performing

everyday routines to tether national identity in unfamiliar surroundings.

The everyday appears to be a realm of repetition, in which cultural norms get

played out and common sense provides a bulwark against questioning conventions.

Yet this is not all it is. Writings on everyday life have argued that it is paradoxically

constraining and potentially liberating; that it is not merely full of rigid praxes but

contains a multitude of other possibilities. The everyday is ' polydimensional: fluid,

ambivalent and labile' , according to Gardiner (2000: 6). Using the works of writers

such as Lefebvre, Bakhtin and de Certeau, and the actions and manifestos of

surrealists and situationists, he shows that the everyday contains ' redemptive

moments that point towards transfigured and liberated social existence' , and it

possesses ' transgressive, sensual and incandescent qualities' (ibid.: 208). Likewise,

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Harrison says that ' in the everyday enactment of the world there is always immanent

potential for new possibilities of life' (2000: 498). This emergent quotidian process

is open-ended, fluid and generative, concerns becoming rather than being, is a

sensual form of experiencing and understanding that is 'constantly attaching,

weaving and disconnecting; constantly mutating and creating' (ibid.: 502). Thus

the immanent experience of the everyday – the daydreams, disruptions and sensual

intrusions – constantly threatens to undermine the structure laid down by habit.

In an increasingly informalised world, previously tenacious traditions, rituals

and everyday routines can be contested, as Frykman demonstrates in a comparison

of the practices and attitudes of the generations of the 1920s and 1960s towards

Swedish festivities and quotidian routines. The younger generation challenged

the rigidities of their seniors, placing new emphases on corporeal expressiveness,

affect and the erasure of boundaries between private and public realms, to construct

a ' different country in which to live' (Frykman, 1996: 34). As disciplined ceremonies

are becoming less sustainable and more heterogeneous expressions of (national)

identity are emerging, so it becomes increasingly difficult to extend the life of

formal behaviour and supposedly ' good' habits. Indeed, where such codes of

enaction are over-prescriptive they are potentially subject to challenge. Frykman

and Lö fgren declare that ' regulation calls incessantly for freedom' (1996: 12).

And habits provide an identifiable code against which younger generations can

react. Again, however, these generational conflicts usually take place in a national

frame, where, for instance, the old are pilloried for their fixed moralities and codes

of conduct, whilst the elders rebuke the young for failing to consider the sacrifices

they have made for the country. Indeed, these situated ' structures of feeling' become

apparent ' when we notice the contrasts between generations, who never talk quite

the same " language"' (Williams, 1961: 42).

In contemporary times, in addition to these generational conflicts, global

processes increasingly penetrate everyday life ' through the objects we use, the

activities and routines we enact, the places we inhabit, the relations we have and/

or seek' . Accordingly, as Frykman and Lö fgren assert,

in a mobile culture where people constantly meet otherness, habits are brought to

the surface, becoming manifest and thereby challenged. It is precisely because people

in their everyday lives meet different habits that they are forced to verbalise and make

conscious the things that are otherwise taken for granted and thus invisible. Once a

habit has been described, it has also become something on which one must take up a

stance, whether to kick the habit or to stick tenaciously to it (1996: 14).

The prevalence of global ' mediascapes' , ' ideoscapes' and ' ethnoscapes' (Appadurai,

1990) engenders a reflexivity fostered by confronting difference, by coming across

people who carry out practices, from the ostensibly spectacular to everyday habits,

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which contradict and challenge cherished, embodied and unreflexive ways of doing

things. Clifford has written of how people increasingly produce creolised practices

through their use of an expanded range of cultural resources. They ' improvise

local performances from (re)collected pasts, drawing on foreign media, symbols

and languages' (1988: 15), yet these improvisations take place in local and national

contexts. Nevertheless, patterns of performance are undoubtedly becoming more

'varied, differentiated and de-differentiated' (Rojek, 2000: 9) and ' performative

and counter performative cultures abound' (ibid.: 17) and stages multiply, including

'mundane' sites.

Theorists of the performative tend to either stress ' reinforcing cultural givens'

or consider performance to be ' potentially subversive' (Tulloch, 1999: 3). However,

performance can be conceived in more ambivalent and contradictory terms, can

be understood as intentional and unintentional, can be concerned with both being

and becoming, can be strategic and unreflexively embodied. As Jackson says,

performance ' encompasses both the rage for order and the impulses that drive

us to confound the fixed order of things' (cited in Carlson, 1996: 192). Thus

performance can both renew the conventions of the existing order and also provide

an opportunity to challenge established meanings and practices. Thus, modish

theories about the 'transience or replaceability of cultural identity' (Frykman and

Lö fgren, 1996: 11) can be rather hyperbolic. It is true that a more flexible (national)

habitus may be called for, but, as Crossley argues, ' the past is always carried into

the present by the body in the form of habitus (2001: 130). Although forms of

performance may be increasingly diverse, and ambiguities always exist, I have

tried to show that there are identifiable ways of performing national identity. These

range from the old disciplinary (usually invented) ' traditional' rituals which marked

the birth of modern nations, to looser, more popular events such as sport and

carnival; and from carefully constructed enactions and staging of the nation in

the tourist industry, to the innumerable habits and unreflexive rituals of everyday

life which secure us in place and provide a temporal structure for (imagined)

collectivities and individuals. And because so many of the performative elements

I have discussed are outside the channels of consciousness, they constitute doxic

beliefs, being sedimented in embodied dispositions, manifest in everyday and

spectacular actions, giving a temporal and affective order to life. The totality of

these performances of national identity still sustains a common-sense understanding

that the nation is important and central to belonging, and provides a practical

orientation to the nation as the contextualising field which bounds these actions.

Material Culture and National Identity

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–4–

Material Culture and National Identity

Like space, the material worlds of objects seem to provide evidence of the common-

sense obviousness of the everyday. By their ubiquitous presence, things provide

material proof of shared ways of living and common habits. By their physical

presence in the world, and in specific times and places, things sustain identity by

constituting part of a matrix of relational cultural elements including practices,

representations, and spaces which gather around objects and minimise the potential

for interrogation.

In this chapter, I want to follow on from the previous two chapters by exploring

the ways in which things are organised and distributed in familiar and symbolic

object worlds to constitute cultural, spatial and performative contexts. A focus on

national material culture is not meant to occlude the numerous ways which we

might use to identify distinctive object worlds (by gender, ethnicity, class, region,

etc.) but to suggest again that epistemologically and ontologically, things are partly

understood as belonging to nations.

There is no doubt that in sociology until recently, objects have been relegated

to a position of insignificance. Despite the fact that all human societies surround

themselves with instrumental, decorative, religious and symbolic objects, dominant

sociological theories have tended to conceive them as either associated with their

relation to labour – in Marxist readings – or as vehicles for status (Knorr Cetina,

1997: 11). Yet people grow up relating to things – some more familiar than others

– in changing but identifiable object worlds. The sheer extent of the material

world ranges from the distribution of things at home, work and in public space.

An introduction will address the multiple cultural dimensions of things insofar as

they relate to the expression and experience of national identity, before moving

on to look at how cars, those most symbolic modern objects, materialise national

identity.

Social Relations and Object Worlds

Human societies are invariably supported by a material infrastructure. Social

interaction is partly enabled and characterised by the things which pass between

people in the mundane material transactions of their everyday lives. People collect-

ively come to (temporary) arrangements about the value of particular things, what

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they symbolically mean, how they should be used, and about who should own

them and why. Rarely subject to reflexive assessment, familiar objects endure in

everyday lifeworlds, are part of the way things are , discreetly contributing to forms

of shared solidarity. Situated in familiar spaces, they provide orientations for

movement and action. Although they may appear to be innocent bystanders, ' the

things that we relate to have embodied within them the social relations that gave

rise to them through their design, the work of producing them, their prior use, the

intention to communicate through them and their place within an existing cultural

system of objects' (Dant, 1999: 2). Thus things emerge out of and mediate social

relationships. Human interactions with things are integral to cultures: the complex

and varied specificities of the ways in which things are used, understood, made,

shared, owned, domesticated, recycled, given as gifts, utilised in ritual, altered,

discarded, talked about, used to transmit particular values, curated and represented.

One of the most profitable avenues for exploring the meanings and uses of

objects has been via actor network theory , important because it identifies the

relational nature of objects. They carry meaning because of their contextual

emplacement in a network with other elements. They are produced, sold, bought

and used and shared in ways which ensure that they interrelate with other people

and non-humans within the network. The networks within which objects are

situated may include places, technologies, industries, retail outlets and services,

and representations of things. The metaphor of the network is useful in that it

identifies an enduring set of connections within which the relationality of the

elements is institutionalised. Of course, the symbolic meanings of objects – as

well as the unreflexive uses to which they are put – can be fixed by the maintenance

of such networks. The desires of cultural nationalists and sellers of nostalgia to

fix the meanings of symbolic things can be assisted by the assignment of stable

meanings by virtue of a network' s longevity. Yet as I have already mentioned, the

metaphor of the network has been criticised because it suggests a somewhat

inflexible structure which cannot account for the multiple and contested uses and

meanings which surround objects, and their inherent ambivalence. It downplays

the changing uses and meanings of things over time and across space.

Although silent, things have communicative potentialities; they are associated

with a host of meanings: 'things are often the topic of talk or the focus of action

and they often facilitate interaction or mediate by providing a form of interaction

rather like language' (Dant, 1999: 2). For the historical and geographical location

of objects, the conventions of their usage, the aesthetic evaluations which they

attract, means that they can embody particular values, promote certain activities

and chime with forms of identification. For instance, particular forms of jewellery

serve as statements of status, whether signifying marital status or wealth. Conventions

about what items are worth keeping, restoring and displaying are part of collective

histories.

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The ways in which familiar objects are manufactured emerge out of historic

systems of production and expertise, and although things – notably in the form of

commodities – increasingly extend across the world, certain forms of object-centred

expertise persist as practices passed down over time so that particular skills are

sedimented in particular cultures. These include the production of everyday

domestic objects, especially food, garments, crafts and other objects for the home

(and garden). The intimate relationships between people and the things which they

make (or used to make) become important signifiers of identity for national com-

munities, and also for tourists and consumers who seek out and collect symbolic

items. Besides items of everyday domestic production, mass manufactured commod-

ities are associated with particular nations, also often carrying mythic associations

that connote particular qualities and forms of expertise. For instance, the virtues

of inventiveness and engineering skills are connected with certain British cars, as

we will see.

We live with things in the home, and part of living with objects requires that

we domesticate, customise and situate them. Objects then are included in numerous

routine, everyday practices. Everyday action is facilitated by the organisation of

things into systematic, habitual procedures. The organisation of mundane house-

work tasks, for example, involves the collection of particular cleaning materials

and implements, and the subsequent re-enactment of a cleaning schedule which

sequentially focuses on the restoration and upkeep of particular objects and spaces.

The ways in which these tools are used will be passed on, usually to girls, so that

our ways of doing things persist. It is the habitual relationships between things

and people, and the ways in which objects are installed in familiar space and

organise the relationships between people, that structure distinct material cultures.

In the UK, where an uncarpeted floor needs to be swept an upright broom with a

long handle is likely to be used, whereas in India the implement is likely to be a

jaru, a much shorter tool, which requires a horizontally sweeping action across

the floor. Of course, labour-saving tools may replace these implements, but these

in turn will become domesticated within the household, for things are continually

appropriated, incorporated and converted so that they are adapted and accom-

modated into the value system and routines of households. Objects tend to be

gradually domesticated, for a sense of home must be maintained, and thus an

element of familiarity. Ingold (2000) uses the metaphor of ' weaving' to account

for the ways in which people interact with the object world in an ongoing fashion,

maybe adopting handed-down techniques for making things, but inevitably

adapting through an interaction with the contingent affordances of the material at

hand. The development of a skill in making something involves a dextrous, careful

engagement rather than a repetitive, mechanical technique.

The ways in which things are used is characteristic of the performances I have

referred to as ' popular competencies' . Training to ensure the correct use of objects

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occurs in early childhood where children are taught how to use things 'properly',

in accordance with social norms. They are taught how to use a knife and fork, or

chopsticks, or eat food off an Indian thali , so that the feel of objects and the practices

they facilitate become embodied in 'second nature' (Williams and Costall, 2000:

98). The mystery of objects in unfamiliar settings is evident when we try to use

electrical appliances abroad and must confront different plugs. It is this habitual

aptitude with things which fuses object and person so that they seem as if they are

one. Particular objects often feel as if they are extensions of the body – for instance,

the human-spade ' hybrid' , the photographer, the sweeper and the car-driver (Sheller

and Urry, 2000). They make thought possible and doable (Thrift, 2000: 38). This

notion of the hybrid is another useful aspect of actor-network theory. In the

insistence on the social ubiquity of human– object relationships, it is argued that

part of what it is to be human is to interact with things in distinct object worlds. It

is further maintained that objects have a certain agency, by virtue of their physical

and technical properties and by their ' role' in a network. Accordingly, to remove

humans from their central relationship with objects is to suggest an illusory indep-

endence which they do not possess. Thus humans and objects combine to constitute

hybrids. To talk of a car driver as an autonomous human makes little sense, and I

will shortly consider how this hybrid is situated within different networks which

can be partly characterised as national.

In order to accomplish most tasks, objects which have been delegated an

intermediary status within networks are utilised in ways that are limited by their

qualities, or affordances , in the same way that the spaces referred to in Chapter 2

afford a range of opportunities and constraints. The competencies to which I have

referred, the commonplace abilities to manipulate and operate objects and tools,

are accompanied by the bodily, sensual experience of using particular things. This

experiential history of interacting with things is shaped by the physical qualities

of objects and the ways in which they are sensually apprehended. The everyday

circulation of things between people, the ways in which they are handled, and the

experiences of their form and texture sensualise the world. As I have emphasised,

there are different ways of knowing besides the cognitive and it is important to

acknowledge the embodied, habitual, unreflexive way of knowing one' s place and

the things which belong within it.

Objects structure sense and sensuality, since they are situated in relationships

with environments and bodies. Their properties do not determine how they are

used and experienced by the humans who interact with them but they afford part-

icular possibilities and constraints through their technical and tactile attributes.

Accordingly, being-in-the-world is experienced, and places are constituted by the

kinaesthetic experience of things and the ways in which they facilitate and extend

action (see Macnaghten and Urry, 1998). And such affordances are sustained by

the conventions and iterations that are carried out by those co-present, to render

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things in place and comprehensible. Things have ' a physical presence in the world

which has material consequences' (Dant, 1999: 2) in that they possess qualities

which are smelled, felt, weighed, heard and looked at, although such sensory

mediation is always culturally specific, located in traditions of sensual apprehension

(Claessen, 1993) but also constituted by enduring interaction with familiar things

which the body remembers. There is, then, a grounded and habitual non-cognitive

understanding of familiar objects. They have particular properties and potentialities,

can be used in competing ways, but their weight, shape and mechanical aptitudes

define the range of contexts in which they are used. The ways in which objects

enable and extend action and thought, for instance, about how to eat, make things

and travel, are part of a milieu which literally makes sense of the world, cognitively,

sensually, affectively and instinctively.

Anticipation of what ought to be and can be done with things (Thrift, 2000:

37) through continuous interaction with objects engages the senses and makes

the body remember. This sensual and practical interaction thus constitutes part of

the quotidian realm, so that ways of eating, bathing, playing and moving engage

the body with particular things. An interesting example is the uniquely designed

Berlin key described by Latour (2000), which he situates in a local network com-

prising other objects, technologies, dwellings and people. The presence of the key

and the everyday ability to use it reproduces distinctive local social practices, such

as approaches to home security, and habituates bodies to a particular way of opening

doors, whereas non-residents are nonplussed by the operation required. Ethnic,

gendered, regional and local competencies of interacting with material are evident,

and so are nationally constituted experiences of dealing with things. The overlap

between national identity and gender is particularly pertinent here, notably the

ways in which familiarity and competence with certain objects (re)produces

specifically national expressions of gendered identity. This is clear in Kirkham's

edited collection, The Gendered Object (1996), where mundane, everyday items

including bicycles, guns, dolls and other toys, and clothing, such as ties and trousers

and suits, are assigned importance in common-sense forms of gender performance.

Each of these human–object relationships is set in a specific cultural context –

central amongst these is the national context – and produce specific sensual

experiences which relate to the affordances of things. As Kirkham and Attfield

point out, objects (in this case, children' s clothes) cannot be considered without

exploring ' parenting, grandparenting, conspicuous consumption, disposable

income, social class, fashion merchandising, wider representations of feminin-

ities and masculinities' and the whole matrix into which objects are situated

(1996: 5).

It is important that not only tools are considered as species of objects which

engender familiar practical and sensual capacities. The everyday things which

surround us convey familiar kinds of comfort. Comfort is not a ' natural' experience

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but can be understood as the accommodation of the body to particular settings

over time, comprising habituation and bodily disposition to respond to the

affordances which inhere in the object. For objects coerce bodies into particular

physical performances. For instance, particular ways of relaxing rely on specific

forms of furniture which accommodate bodies and produce familiar sensations.

In most Western nations it has become commonplace to relax on a sofa or armchair

within the home, whereas rural Indians prefer to disport their bodies on charpoys

(rope beds) or hitchkas (communal swings) which are situated both inside and

outside the house, and North Africans lounge on banquettes , wooden benches

adjacent to the four walls of a room or courtyard. The ability to be comfortable on

specific people-containing things is grounded in the habitual experience of the

everyday.

When we consider the ways in which things contribute to our comfort, shape

our competencies and produce familiar sensations, it becomes apparent that every-

day life is replete with such objects; things which facilitate eating, cooking,

cultivating, moving, packing, holding other things, decorating and adorning bodies

and spaces, worshipping and grooming ourselves (Schiffer and Miller, 1999: 3).

And clearly these objects are associated with and circulate within particular nations

– which is not to imply that they are unfamiliar in other contexts. Nevertheless,

the density of familiar object worlds, the everyday ways in which objects relate to

each other and to their users, and the ways in which they produce habituated bodies

and forms of unreflexive knowledge, are densely grounded in everyday national

experience, divided as it is by region, class and ethnicity.

The most obvious material form in this regard, and that most closely associated

with national identity, is clothing. Clothing is, of course, highly symbolic as an

expression of national identity. In ceremonies, folk dancing, tourist displays and

official engagements, clothing becomes an important marker of national identity.

It is important also to note how frequently gendered is this nationalisation of bodies.

The male suit, with its jacket, trousers, collared shirt and tie, has become a

ubiquitous marker of global business and officialdom, connoting modernity and

progress. Yet despite the universality of this outfit, it is very often the responsibility

of women to carry national culture on their bodies by wearing national or

'traditional ' clothing. As repositories of culture, and as transmitters of modes of

cooking, dressing, dressmaking and child-rearing, women' s responsibilities

frequently reside in the home. The domestic sphere is frequently construed as

national, whilst men go out into the world to do (universal) business. A further

symbolic function occurs in the world of fashion where haute couture and design

is a badge of innovative modernity and national prestige – and often retains a

specifically national character where ' traditional' elements are fused with modern

designs. Here national identity is expressed as style , most obviously by the

dominance of French and Italian fashion houses throughout the twentieth century

Material Culture and National Identity

–109 –

so that both Frenchness and Italianness have become associated with 'stylishness '

and ' sophistication' (as also in food and film). Design here is a badge of becoming

'modern', and yet ' traditional' clothing is also nationally emblematic and fosters

a sense of historical identity. Certain items of clothing also signify a more ideo-

logical national belonging, such as Chinese Zhongshan uniforms (often referred to

as Chairman Mao suits, which were popular between 1948 and 1978 and which

expressed Chinese collectivity), Indian Nehru jackets (Indian anti-colonialism)

and American jeans (the democracy of informality and freedom). Yet these iconic,

traditional and fashionable items are also apt to be combined through vernacular

and subcultural styles. For instance, Teddy boys recycled British Edwardian styles,

and punks and Britpop bands have made ironic and celebratory use of older fashions.

Irrespective of fashion, there remain widespread assumptions about which

clothes are appropriate to particular contexts and which seem out of place, although

global fashions can displace a sense of national identity. For these meanings to be

transmitted convincingly, clothes have to be worn in a specific fashion and clothed

bodies must perform according to particular conventions. In addition to their symbolic

purpose, clothes are, along with jewellery and medical prostheses, those items which

are most evidently inhabited . They are next to the body and enclose (parts of) it.

This enhabitation is performed not only through self-conscious enactions – it also

depends on the affordances of clothes. For clothes produce sensual experiences,

ways of moving and feeling, sitting and fiddling, by their ' textility' (Attfield, 2000).

More functionally, they are appropriate garb for carrying out particular tasks or

actions and afford specific ways of protecting the body. Moreover, clothes implicate

the body clothed in them, facilitating the comfort of identity. They bear the imprint

of use, and similarly our bodies bear the imprint of wearing them. This sensual

relationship between clothes and their wearers exemplifies ' how we make sense

of shapes, colours, textures, strengths and channelling of energy and so determines

how we make use of and live with things' (Dant, 1999: 13). In a shared biographical

sense, clothes may also signify particular times, 'putting people in touch with

their age, peer group, generation, with rites of passage, badges of office and

countless other significant life experiences' (Attfield, 2000: 83– 84).

Commodities and National Identity

Consumption has proved a vexed terrain for academics, where it has stood as both

the materialisation of false consciousness – buying goods we don' t need – and the

tactical appropriation of power so as to constitute a rebellious self-expression in

the face of the overarching power of capital (Fiske, 1989). It should be clear that

neither of these perspectives has much relevance to the approach adopted here,

which is to consider consumption as part of everyday life, located in particular

contexts and concerned with social relationships with particular kinds of things:

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commodities. The problem with discussing commodities is that they tend to assume

a reified form which depends on their exchange value as goods which are bought

and sold. However, as Appadurai (1986) has commented, things may only pass

through a stage where they are assigned commodity status, for frequently they

change their meanings and cannot be solely understood as materialising exchange

value. Neither are commodities empty signifiers in some postmodern sci-fi world.

This is not to minimise questions of power and control, and the limits which

consumption can impose on commodity-things, but I want to recast this in a national

context. For the meanings of commodities are partly shaped by the criteria through

which they are assigned (monetary) value, and these notions of value vary enorm-

ously between cultural contexts, notably between and within countries (ibid.: 57).

Distinct modes of transmitting different expressions of status are perpetrated

through the possession and display of commodities and other things; they are class-

coded, regionally and nationally variable, and shaped by different gender relations,

and these social distinctions feed into the determination of value.

Shopping for things is most frequently a familiar, mundane activity, necessary

for the reproduction of self and household, as well as a means of experiencing

pleasure, marking status, and expressing identity. In most parts of the world, the

world of commodities is becoming increasingly diverse. Nevertheless, the most

commonly purchased items are the 'necessities' bought during the weekly or daily

shop: cleaning materials, basic foodstuffs, newspapers, lottery tickets, cigarettes

and snacks. Decisions to buy these items are rarely the subject of great reflection or

planning but are enabled by the consistent act of purchase over time, so that locating

them on shop or supermarket shelves is second nature. The routine consumption

of these regular goods may be interrupted by shortages or decisions to experiment

with apparently more ' exotic' or ' new' products, but they give a consistency to

the material world which is not only individually experienced but is echoed in the

shopping patterns of neighbours and friends. Even if the shopping baskets of

intimates are markedly different in content, they tend to be knowable, being bought

from familiar retail outlets. There is thus a familiar retail geography around which

consumption is organised. For instance, if I desire to buy a particular bar of choc-

olate in the UK, I can enter a variety of shops and I will know how to locate it,

whereas if I am abroad, the item is usually either not stocked or difficult to find.

Irrespective of their origins then, such commodities are part of everyday, nationwide

retail and household worlds, and again are consumed through a popular competence

in shopping.

These familiar goods are the subject of everyday knowledge, and persist over

time. The anxiety that results from their disappearance testifies to this reproduction

of everyday life. Similarly, any rebranding of particular well-known commodities

is subject to close inspection by consumers, as manufacturers are well aware. For

instance, the wrapper of the most popular British chocolate bar, KitKat, has recently

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been redesigned, yet the designers have been careful to only slightly modify the

'traditional ' design lest customers become alienated, for as a marketing director

admitted, ' we know KitKat is a much-loved brand, part of the fabric of daily life

in this country' (Hilton, 2001: 2). Echoing my points about familiar affordances,

the decision to retain a ' tear-off strip' between two of the fingers of the KitKat

confection means that the ' tactile joy of opening a packet – running a fingernail

along between the wafers and snapping off the foil clad chocolate' will be retained

in modified form (ibid.). This also illustrates the continual balancing act between

tradition and modernity where updating a product' s image may require a complete

makeover so as to appear contemporary, or may be only slight so as not to alienate

consumers. However, for economic reasons, advertising and marketing campaigns

increasingly feel the need to establish globally homogeneous advertising and

packaging.

Certain commodities are altogether more symbolic of national identity, and

buying or using them might constitute a patriotic duty. The rebranding of British

Airways planes to convey a more global image so as to attract more overseas

customers depended upon replacing the Union Jack motif of the aeroplane tail

fins with a series of globally derived designs. They had not, however, bargained

with the response of Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, who upon

seeing the new designs, disdainfully draped a handkerchief over a model tail fin

in protest at what she regarded as the erasure of British identity (Hilton, 2001: 2).

Foster argues that national material culture has been subsumed under a

movement from political ritual to commercial ritual, where the market rather than

the state has become the key reference point for national identity. He predicts

that the result will be that ' nationality will live on as an idiom for some weak

form of collective identity, one identity amongst others available in the global

marketplace' (Foster, 1999: 279). This overstates the all-encompassing power of

the market to generate meanings, but nevertheless highlights how citizenship has

been complemented by the rights of people as consumers. A politics inspired by

free market ideology has raised the profile of the rights of the consumer (notably

in the UK since the 1980s when various services have been turned into com-

modities, and clients are now routinely referred to as customers). The realm of

choice has been politically elevated and often articulated in national economic

policies whereby owning things is foregrounded as a noble ideal. For instance,

the American individual ' right' to possess cars has been postulated as sacrosanct,

must not be threatened by 'green' high fuel prices and transcends other rights (to

a clean environment, to the preservation of fuel reserves).

The circulation of commodities is increasingly dense, ever-changing and

generated by a global speed-up of production and consumption, though this is

highly uneven. Certain cities and nations are centres of an ever-complex flow of

goods circulating within an increasing diversity of retail spaces. It is commonly

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assumed that these globalising processes are diminishing a sense of national

identity, and that commodities are increasingly free-floating, detached from any

geographical context and divorced from the conditions of their production.

Particular products, which seem to have achieved global hegemony and saturate

nearly all parts of the world, are held up as exemplars of Capitalism, Imperialism

or Americanisation. However, as Miller (1998b) brilliantly shows in his exploration

of the complex meanings of Coca- Cola in Trinidad, such generalised assumptions

ignore the manifold specificities of the ways in which commodities acquire

symbolic significance. Miller illustrates how Coca- Cola is part of a complex array

of soft drink products, and their production and consumption. The identity of the

drink has been conceptualised in various ways; for instance, as indicative of an

exploitative relationship between US forces and Trinidadians, but also as a signifier

of the more egalitarian, informal dispositions of American servicemen in contra-

distinction to the stiff formality of British colonial administrators. In addition,

Coca- Cola and its competitor beverages – known as ' black sweet drinks' and red

sweet drinks' – are symbolically associated with different ethnicities (' White' ,

' African' and 'Indian' ), both in terms of the ethnicity of the highly competitive

companies who produce and bottle them and in terms of how they are consumed

and by whom. Moreover, Coca- Cola is partly conceived of as modern, but this is

often articulated as nostalgia for the earlier era of economic and social modern-

isation in Trinidad. And its inclusion in what is regarded as Trinidad' s national

drink, rum and Coke, shows how it has been adapted. It is thus absurd to extract

Coca- Cola as some sort of meta-product from this situational, dynamic context,

for Miller shows that the production and consumption of such products in complex

cultural circumstances is far from predictable. This does not deny the potency of

the global but insists that ' globality is itself a localised image, held within a larger

frame of spatialised identity' (ibid.: 184).

Another pertinent example of the complexities typifying the meaning and uses

of commodities from abroad is provided by Rausing (1998) who explores the

rearticulation of national identity in recently independent Estonia following the

demise of the Soviet Union. He shows how newly available Western goods, though

more expensive than local products, were purchased as if they were ' normal'

because they were believed to be more reliable than similar Russian commodities,

but, more importantly, because they expressed the always-already Western nature

of Estonia which had been interrupted and denied during the years of Soviet control.

Yet certain handmade Estonian crafts were esteemed above all. At the same time,

goods donated charitably to Estonians by Swedes were accommodated with

discomfort since there were few opportunities for reciprocation, engendering a

sense of national shame.

These two examples highlight how global commodities are domesticated but

that they also compete with local goods. People' s engagement with the world of

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commodities utilises shifting frames of reference. For instance, consumers may

be drawn to ' exotic' foreign commodities but also choose certain exemplary

national products. However, this overt choice-making is also accompanied by

habitual consumption where an awareness of the origins of everyday goods may

not be so evident but is nevertheless grounded in quotidian experience. The

ensemble of these diverse relationships between people and goods, insofar as they

can be identified as a pattern of conventions and shared forms of knowledge and

practice, can be partly considered as an element of the ongoing, increasingly

complex, production of national identity.

Material Culture and Semiotics

Until now I have not discussed the semiotic facility for objects to convey particular

meanings like a language. In national terms, this is most evident in those obvious

material markers such as stamps, coins, flags, coats of arms, costumes, car stickers,

maces and crowns, official documents which circulate between the everyday and

the established fixtures of the nation. These are complemented by the array of

souvenirs and popular artefacts which are collected as symbols of the identity of

other nations by tourists. Thus bullfighting accoutrements signify Spain, models

of the Eiffel Tower symbolise France, and tartan objects represent Scotland. Another

manifestation of the condensation of these symbolic objects is their arrangement

in collections, where the world of nations becomes reaffirmed in stamp albums,

coin displays or cabinets of dolls. These projections of meanings onto objects

overdetermine their significance, so that, for instance, national currency becomes

'the symbolic bearer of a distinctive national history and fund of national

achievement' (Cubitt, 1998: 14).

Again, however, it must be stressed that although these fixings of symbolic

value consolidate forms of common sense, the meaning of things can never be

fixed. Particularly where objects are invested with symbolic import, the dominant

meanings which centre upon them are apt to be challenged, not because the objects

are insignificant, but in terms of what they signify, because such artefacts are likely

to become shared condensation symbols. I have already provided an example of

this in my discussion of the appropriation of the Union Jack flag in Chapter 1.

Nevertheless, certain artefacts are able to contribute to the stability of identity,

and an excellent example of the enduring symbolic meaning of objects is illustrated

in Jarman' s work on the centrality of Protestant– Unionist banners in Northern

Ireland, which have become the ' visual and material repository of the Orange

tradition' (1998: 121). The continued importance of ritual and the way in which

it entrenches and reproduces the importance of tradition and history to this

community is furthered by the presence of 'traditional' banners during Orange

parades. The subjects of the banners seemingly portray a rendering of historical

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events, complemented by more contemporary episodes of ' Loyalist heroism' . Here,

objects reaffirm through materialising the intense focus on (a highly particular)

history which is so central to this British Irish identity. This significance is furthered

since the banners are made of cloth, highly symbolic to this Protestant community

by virtue of its centrality to their nineteenth-century economic prosperity. This

attachment to a rather static conception of history and tradition, a set of endlessly

recycled symbols, modes of ritual, and the material culture which support these

enactions, seems somewhat atavistic, harking back to earlier expressions of national

identity in its refusal to engage with the modernity of becoming.

Things in Place and Out of Place

Things can be considered to be ' out of place' in the same ways that people are.

Thus objects have to be conceived of in terms of their spatial contexts, for the

ways in which things are used and understood depend on geographical knowledge

about where they belong. This placing of objects is apparent in the most intimate

material contexts, principally which centre upon notions about 'home' . As Dant

says, the 'house is a locus for material culture, a meeting point for people and

things, in which social relationships and material relationships are almost indist-

inguishable because both are bound together in the routine practices of everyday

life' (1999: 61).

Domestic space is continually reproduced by what Attfield (2000) calls

'containment ' whereby things are ordered and framed within existing materially

and spatially regulated contexts. Housework includes the upkeep of things, ensuring

that they stay in their assigned positions. And objects are arranged in domestic

spaces in familiar ways to facilitate practical action; for instance, ' the arrangement

of furniture in space provides pathways for habits' (Young, 1997: 136). Modes of

decorating the home, the placing of ornaments and pictures, the siting of appliances

and tools in areas of work tend to follow conventions about how domestic space

is divided up.

Home-making also includes the domestication of new objects. Thus when

souvenirs or other signifiers of otherness are positioned they are domesticated

by their inclusion in a normative system of arrangement. This recontextualisation

is a way of dealing with the strangeness and ephemerality produced out of the

global flows of things. On the other hand, it is often only when familiar objects

appear in unfamiliar contexts, or are absent, that we acknowledge their important

role in facilitating everyday routines. For surrounding us in our homes, we spend

energy on interacting with them, maintaining them, and when they are moved,

restoring them to their assigned position. Where relocation of home is involved,

there are usually attempts to recreate familiar domestic materialities. For instance,

McCarthy (2000) demonstrates how migrants to the USA who work in spatial

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contexts in which they service the public, place television sets within an assortment

of other objects, some connoting ' home' , some relating to other experiences. These

assemblages of objects, with the TV typically the central artefact, reveal the geog-

raphical and historical traces evident in mobile forms of home-making which

incorporate transnational and national objects.

Diverse ideas about placing things may clash, particularly where established

habits of situating objects confront 'foreign' ideas about the arrangement of things,

which are often discredited as inappropriate – for instance, because there are too

many things crammed into space, or because objects are imported into settings

which are not deemed to be ' fitting' . In Sweden, according to Pripp (cited in

Alsmark, 1996: 93), the arrangement of household furniture in the houses of

migrant Turks is at variance to the distribution of the very same articles in Swedish

homes, and they appear to Swedes to thwart the forms of social interaction and

ordering that they are used to.

Such ' odd' arrangements of objects are apparent when we travel abroad, but

may also confront us when we come across communities where migrants or non-

residents dwell. For instance, as a boy I remember being driven past the housing

quarters for the US naval servicemen, and their families, who manned the nuclear

submarine base at Holy Loch near Dunoon on the Clyde estuary. I was captivated

by the sheer unfamiliarity of the large barbecues that seemed to be situated on

every lawn, and the colossal garbage bins that lay at the sides of the houses. These

objects appeared to be glaringly un-British, and had presumably been imported as

familiar domestic fixtures, perhaps partly to ameliorate a sense of being away

from home, in their spatial enclave.

Although national forms of common sense instil notions about the placedness

of things, it is vital to refrain from reproducing spatial and material essentialisms

about localities and nations. Using the example of food, Cook and Crang (1996)

refute the idea that particular cuisines are indigenous to places. Instead, utilising

Massey' s ' progressive sense of place' (1993), they show how this depends upon

the connections that are made between places, noting that tea, supposedly

intrinsically English, emerges out of the imperial links between Britain and its

former colonies. Although things are used in particular spaces of identity they

cannot be claimed as pure and authentic articles belonging to particular nations,

for they originate, are traded, sourced, manufactured, represented and circulated

in various locales, and increasingly exist in particular local nodes in complex global

networks.

The Biographies of Objects

Individual and collective narratives are often organised around objects. A shared

national history of consuming and using things comprises a resource which fuels

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the contemporary nostalgia boom. In the face of globalisation, commonly shared

things anchor people to place. Spooner argues that people use commodities ' to

express themselves and fix points of security and order' to enable them to deal

with increasing complexity (1986: 226). Objects are signs of their own historical

and geographical context. Old snapshots, instruments, clothing, certificates,

pictures, gramophone players, modish ornaments and scrapbooks become keep-

sakes. Commercially, the heritage industry sells old-fashioned products in shops

like ' Past Times' in the UK (Attfield, 2000: 230), and ' ordinary' objects are increas-

ingly stored and catalogued in museums.

The ability of things to connote shared histories is potent. For instance,

hula hoops, bobby sox and Chevrolets signify an America of the 1950s. A recent

BBC television series, entitled I Love the 1970s , focuses on a melange of TV

programmes, films, pop music, sports news and artefacts (http://www.bbc.co.uk./

cult/ilove/years). For instance, the programme I Love 1973 features the Austin

Allegro car, the Raleigh Chopper bike, the board game Mastermind, and the popular

fashions of the ' snorkel' parka, platform boots, flowing dresses and ' big hair' .

These images of objects are accompanied by contemporary pop music, sitcoms

and movie stars to provide a dense set of related items which conjure up a particular

time. And the artefacts featured are contextualised by an ensemble of mnemonic

props which organises a mediatised nostalgia for a part of the past that, it is assumed,

will be shared by large numbers of viewers. By the interweaving of these quotidian

artefacts and other media products, as objects which we domesticated and

consumed, the era can be dramatised and narrated as part of national biography.

Yet the memories of objects inspired by the programme also leave room for the

personal memories that accompany recollections of, for instance, wearing particular

garments. Thus collective memories mesh with personal memories to effect another

means by which national identity draws upon various contexts of identification.

Commodities and keepsakes can be used to deflect a sense of disorientation

generated by continual transformation and by the speed at which fashion changes

to produce the always already new. Accordingly, certain objects commonly labelled

'classic ', 'enduring', 'traditional ', help to establish stability in the face of material

ephemerality. National nostalgia for things is also apparent in the desire for ' craft'

products, as distinguished from mass-produced, ' homogeneous' artefacts. Wooden

toys, for instance, hark back to the prevalence of artesanal skills which were located

locally rather than the contemporary disembedding mechanisms which remove

production from locality. Such products are believed to emerge from a craft

aesthetic which links product with place. A particularly pertinent version of this is

found in the lingering appeal for handmade cloth (khadi ) in India. Ghandi used

khadi as a symbol of a distinctly Indian system of manufacture, part of an emerging

industrial economy which was destroyed and replaced by British manufactured

cotton items. It was accordingly a nationalist duty for Indians to produce khadi on

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handlooms as resistance to this form of colonial oppression (the symbol of the

Congress Party remains a handloom) (Bayly, 1986). Khadi thus became a national

symbol in the struggle for independence, and still possesses national(ist) resonance,

though it must compete with nylon manufactures which connote modernity. Again,

the symbolic properties of things invoke the familiar tension between modernity

and tradition within expressions of national identity, the simultaneous desire for

historical embeddedness and continuity, and the surge towards modernity and

becoming.

The desire for fixity leads a host of items to be associated with 'authenticity' ,

a particularly contested quality insofar as it is applied to material culture. ' Authent-

icity' , Attfield claims, ' assures provenance and assumes origins ' (2000: 79),

investing objects with temporal and spatial fixity, and providing material evidence

of roots. Yet she shows how objects may be considered as ' authentic' in contradict-

ory ways: because they are traditional, because they are wrought through traditional

craftsmanship, because they are modern, because they are made out of ' authentic'

materials such as wood as opposed to plastic, because they are thought to be unique

or designed by unique artists/craftworkers (ibid.: 99– 120).

To return to collecting, there are distinctly popular, vernacular modes of

remembering which may be far from recent. For instance, Kwint cites the huge

popularity of commemorative plates, mugs and jugs commemorating national

events in seventeenth-century England (1999: 5), and souvenirs and commem-

orative artefacts continue to be utilised to express affective remembrance for

national events and customs. Official forms of remembering, however, have become

rather more contentious. Part of the imperative of modernist nationalism is to record

and classify, but issues about selection and interpretation have become extremely

fraught in recent years, and are struggled over by curators. It is apparent that certain

official modes of organising things according to national significance have become

somewhat decentred, and are complemented by more individual, affective, sensual

forms of relating with objects to sustain memories. For instance, photographs are

objects which are used to exchange stories, are props through which communal

bonds are re-woven by narrative. However, as E. Edwards points out, photographs

are not merely encoded with visual information but ' demand a physical engage-

ment' in that they are ' handled, touched, caressed' as sensual objects (1999:

227). Thus memory is also a sensual and embodied affair, not only that which is

deliberately recorded and inscribed by authoritative experts. The evocation of

objects through the sensory apprehension of their particular qualities continually

reasserts the feelings of the everyday world, or captures past sensations of the

material world in intimate settings. As Susan Stewart says, ' we may apprehend

the world by means of our senses, but the senses themselves are shaped and

modified by experience and the body bears a somatic memory of its encounters

with what is outside it' (1999: 19).

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Automobiles and National Car Cultures

In order to develop an investigation into the relations between material culture

and national identity, I want to explore the national dimensions of what is probably

the most richly symbolic artefact of the twentieth century, the automobile. For

Sheller and Urry, the status and glamour of the car make it ' the quintessential

manufactured object' (2000: 738; also see Sø rensen, 1993), but, besides its iconic

status, it has transformed societies in introducing new forms of mobility. Its

emplacement in national cultures has also meant that the geographies it has

produced, the ways in which it is represented, the various affordances of particular

models, the ways in which it is inhabited and driven, the forms of governance

which regulate its use, and the role of motor manufacturing companies have claimed

a similarly iconic role in national(ist) imaginaries. In sociology, the key phrases

'Fordism ' and ' Post-Fordism' indicate the centrality of the car to contemporary

society. The sheer variety of qualities associated with (different kinds of) cars and

the range of identities and practices associated with automobiles infest popular

culture. Notions of desire and sexuality, mobility, status, family-related activity,

independence, sport, adventure, freedom and rebellion play across films, advertise-

ments and fiction. Moreover, for many the car has become part of our ' second

nature' , 'the habituated extension of ourselves that feels like nature in requiring

no conscious mediation in their daily employment' , whereby ' driving, roads and

traffic are simply integral to who we are and what we presume to do each day'

(Miller, 2001: 3). Nevertheless, the glamorous and romantic image of the car has

often coincided with a view of it as dangerous and alienating. It has been seen as

both advancing modernity and heralding decline. The romance of the automobile

is under threat as never before as it becomes identified as a harbinger of ecological

damage and social alienation.

As several recent writers have pointed out (Miller, 2001; Sheller and Urry, 2000),

the car has been surprisingly neglected by social scientists and cultural theorists,

who seem to be stuck with a conception of social life as static and place-bound,

whereas transport technologies, notably the car, have brought about a tremendous

revolution in mobility. Yet mobility is constitutive of modernity, is an integral part

of the way in which people dwell in the world. I want to explore how different

modes through which the car is inhabited, symbolised and utilised correspond to

particular national car cultures. Rather than generalising about the cultural

significance of cars, it is useful, as the contributors to Car Cultures (Miller, 2001)

show, to explore the ways in which symbolic objects such as cars become embedded

in distinct cultural contexts, or as Sø rensen and Sø rgaard (1993), Ø stby (1993)

and Hagman (1993) point out, become ' domesticated' by owners, bureaucrats

and artists, irrespective of the origins of manufacture. For instance, Miller (1994)

contrasts the ' inward-looking' concern with embellishing the car' s interior and

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the ' outward-directed' , expressive use of decoration by car-owners in Trinidad,

and maps it onto ethnicity. The first strategy, more typical of male Indian

Trinidadians, negotiates the desire to express status whilst retaining the domestic

values associated with family, whereas the second is a more overt celebration of

distinction characteristically advanced by black Trinidadians. Young (2001) shows

that amongst the Anangu of South Australia, cars are utilised to entrench the

relationships amongst people, and between people and the land, but may also be

used for storage, as a windbreak, a ceremonial prop, a source for light and music,

and come to embody other complex cultural meanings.

In a more overt example of the relationship between national identity and cars,

O' Dell (2001) provides an insight into the ways in which American cars were

viewed in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s. Whilst Swedes shared the notion that

cars were the pre-eminent symbols of modernity and rationality, at the same time

the general repudiation of ostentation, the desire to ' fit in' discreetly – in contra-

distinction to American individualism and display – meant that the increasingly

flamboyant cars from the USA were rejected by most Swedes in favour of more

sober European models, notably the Swedish Volvo. Yet American cars were

claimed eagerly by the raggare , a Swedish youth subculture which defied the

normative Swedish preference for the unobtrusively tasteful, as objects which

asserted individualism and rebellion. This group (and their cars) was subject to

hostile censure from the Swedish media because it supposedly represented a threat

to Swedishness by Americanisation, ' in terms of violence, classless gaudiness,

superficiality and hedonistic consumption' (ibid.: 123), not to mention the moral

decline signified by illicit sexual activities that were believed to take place in these

cars. Hagman also observes that, in general, cars were absorbed into Sweden by

allying them with the mythical characteristics of Swedishness, namely ' rationality,

effectiveness, predictability, harmony, independence, family and love of nature'

(1993: 96). Another excellent example of the cultural situatedness of cars is

presented by Verrips and Meyer (2001), who show their integration into Ghanaian

culture, where they are objects of potential economic reward as taxis and goods

vehicles. However, such cars are often ancient, and require considerable mechanical

skill and enterprising ingenuity to keep them on the road. Accordingly, an extra-

ordinary web of workshops exists whereby these European models are '" baptised

into the system" , "tropicalised" or "adjusted"' (ibid.: 159), an elaborate social

network of money-lenders and patrons supports such endeavours, and cars are

enmeshed in rituals which protect them against malign influences.

In order to identify the distinctive car cultures into which these hugely symbolic

objects are placed, it is necessary to unravel the whole context: the institutional

matrix whereby states regulate and co-ordinate transport; the geographical

distinctiveness of roads and roadside cultures, the motorscape; the styles through

which cars and drivers interact with other vehicles and road users; the industrial

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infrastructure which maintains and services motors; driving practices, types of

journey and cultural activities carried out in cars; the social relations they generate

and reproduce; the range of representations which circulate around and centre

upon cars; the economic importance of the symbolic motor industry and its

products; and the affordances whereby sensualities of motoring are apprehended

– the furnishings, motoring conditions and technical capacities of cars.

To introduce the topic, I will describe the distinctive styles of Indian motoring,

before going on to consider more widely the nexus between cars and national

identity, looking at national car industries, national ' motorscapes' , auto-centric

cultural practices, the affordances of cars, and cultural representations which focus

upon them.

Characteristics of Indian Motoring

It is apparent that particular rules apply for Indian motorists. There are conventions

which are not established by state surveillance – indeed such regulation is distinctly

low-level on India' s roads – but by common adherence to widespread norms. It

is necessary to sound your horn to warn a vehicle that you wish to overtake, for

rear-view mirrors are rarely used and often absent. Indeed, most commercial

vehicles bear the entreaty 'Horn OK please ' to encourage the practice. This adds

to the distinct soundscape of the Indian road. Also, vehicles and other road users

must obey the maxim that precedence is always given to the largest vehicle.

Accordingly, cars must move aside for buses and lorries, auto-rickshaws must

defer to cars, bicycles have to permit auto-rickshaws and motorbikes to pass them.

For instance, when moving onto a road at a T-junction, cars are not obliged to

wait for a break in the flow of traffic for their drivers expect other, smaller road

users to stop and allow them to progress unhindered. However, the numerous cows

that graze alongside and on the road are not hustled out of the way in the same

way as other road users.

The road culture of India has several distinctive qualities. Most roads are

bounded by a kind of heterotopic space either side where temporary dwellings,

industries and activities reside. A host of services, from bicycle-tyre repair men

and telephone kiosk wallahs, to roadside dhabas (small cafés and tea shops)

alongside other services such as hairdressers, dentists and sellers of all kinds, co-

exist with grazing animals and their keepers, rubbish tips, play areas and domestic

spaces. Accordingly, life at the roadside is not diminished by regulation but forms

part of the habitual motorscape as a source of potential hazard, service and

entertainment. It also affords scope for movement, as an unofficial hard shoulder,

to avoid accident, or as parking space. I have written elsewhere of the distinct

qualities which inhere in the Indian street (Edensor, 2000b). Car drivers in India

must take account of the flow of bodies and vehicles which criss-cross the street

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in multidirectional patterns, veering into courtyards, alleys and culs-de-sac. For

busy streets are rarely merely ' machines for shopping' ; they are also sites for

numerous activities. Disrupting linearity, they are part of complex spatial labyrinths,

containing a host of micro spaces: corners and niches, awnings and offshoots.

Through the play of children and adults, demonstrations and religious processions,

roads may become temporary stages. Accordingly, the scopic concentration

afforded to the motorist by many Western streets becomes more difficult, partic-

ularly on urban roads in India. Distracted and impeded, the motorist must avoid

other vehicles, animals and people, denying smooth, linear progress. The miscel-

laneous collection of vehicles that use the street: bullock-carts, cars, bicycles,

motorbikes, auto- and cycle-rickshaws, buses and other diverse forms of transport,

all move at different speeds as they manoeuvre for space, providing a fluid

choreography at variance to the controlled flow and pace of traffic on Western

thoroughfares.

A distinct sensual experience is thus afforded by these contingencies, a tactile

sense of motoring which involves continual manoeuvres: pressing the horn, jerking

the wheel and applying the brake. And this is accompanied by the smells of the

Indian road: the scent of cooking from the roadside, cow dung and the fumes of

distinctive fuel types. Typically, the road' s soundscape is not constituted by the

uniform purr of cars but by a symphony of different mechanical, human and animal

noises augmented by snatches of Bollywood film music, the cries of street traders,

and the ever-present cacophony of car horns, to produce a changing symphony of

diverse pitches, volumes and tones.

The Indian car industry is often held to exemplify a virile economy. Yet the

crises of national identity which have intermittently afflicted sections of Indian

society since Independence now find clear expression in what is perceived as a

post-colonial reliance on Western modes of governance, politics and culture which

have effaced ' traditional' Indian (usually specifically ' Hindu' ) ways of doing things.

Accordingly, India is simultaneously insufficiently modern (underdeveloped by

Western powers or too reliant on their technologies and industries) and losing

traditional qualities. The Indian car industry is an interesting case where laments

are heard about the reliance of foreign technology. The website http://www.

cybersteering.com/cruise/dr iving/indiancar .html contains a litany of complaints

about the lack of a properly indigenous Indian motor industry. Though cars are

manufactured in India, concerns focus on the dearth of indigenous design and

innovation which renders cars un-Indian.

In fact, the car market in India has changed dramatically in the past decade.

Formerly, two cars dominated the roads, the Ambassador, produced by Hindustani

Motors, and The Premier Padmini (commonly called the Fiat because it was based

on a design by that company), produced by Premier Autobackmobile. Only seven

companies were granted licences to produce cars until the 1980s, since when the

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Ambassador, though still a familiar feature, principally as a taxi and as a politician' s

car, has been dramatically superseded by a new generation of cars (especially

since economic liberalisation in the 1990s) which possess higher status due to

their more contemporaneous design. Compact saloon cars now grace Indian streets,

by far the most popular being those from the range offered by Maruti, who now

dominate the domestic market in economy range vehicles. Formerly the style of

motoring in India was synonymous with the affordances offered by the venerable

Ambassador, a replica of the 1952 British Morris Oxford, with its low-slung, leather

seats.

As far as practices are concerned, it must be added that many middle-class

Indians never drive but employ drivers to transport them around. Typically, long-

distance journeys are carried out on trains and buses, for cars are owned by a

minority of the population and travel across India involves considerable distances.

Rather than driving for pleasure in the American sense, cars remain a costly luxury,

generally used for functional everyday purposes such as shopping and going to

work. Thus in India, cultures of mobility are still dominated by the experience of

bus and rail travel, or by bicycle and rickshaw for shorter journeys. The ownership

of a car is unthinkable for the great majority of people and this adds to the allure

of cars as status symbols and objects of fantasy.

The above discussion is designed as an introductory exemplification of how

cars – like most objects – cannot be abstracted from the settings they inhabit. In

developing this discussion I will go on to explore how relationships with cars

contribute to a sense of national identity.

The Symbolic Role of National Car Industries

The symbolic weight of the car means that the performance of car production has

been conceived as a significant measure of national economic and industrial virility

and an indicator of modernity. As Ross declares, ' the automobile industry, more

than any other, becomes exemplary and indicative; its presence or absence in a

national economy tells us the level and power of that economy' (1995: 19). Not

only is the automobile industry iconic, but it is associated with a much more

extensive 'machinic complex ' consisting of a host of other industries; those which

service cars, develop roadside leisurescapes, (suburban) housing developments

and retail environments. The interlinkages which constitute this vast network also

include the subsidiary industries which supply components, refine raw materials

like rubber and oil, and build the motor infrastructure of road networks, and these

have become extended as never before. Previously, the network supporting the

production and servicing of the motor industry and car drivers tended to be more

compact, with, for instance, a cluster of small workshops making components

being situated close to the large factories. Although car production has always

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been linked to the import of raw materials, the national identity of products has

become evermore denuded by the organisation of production at an international

scale, wherein cars are only assembled in a single locality with components brought

to these assembly points from far-flung sites of manufacture. Despite the obvious

point that cars can no longer be identified with the skills and techniques available

in one nation, they continue to be freighted with a national(ist) significance because

of their historical emergence in national economies. To exemplify this industrial

imbrication with the national, I will examine the British car industry, identifying

especially symbolic vehicles.

In 1939, about 2 million people in Britain owned cars, a long way behind the

number of American car owners, but an increase on previous years. This partly

reflected the gradual transcendence of class associations as cheaper cars were

introduced. Car ownership in Britain had previously been the preserve of a wealthy

elite, and status continued to be marked by the fact that the gentry owned Armstrong-

Siddeleys, Bentleys, Lanchesters and Rolls-Royces, avoiding models such as the

Humber, which was associated with mere aspirants (O' Connell, 1998: 23– 24).

The lack of the American democratic impulse to produce cheap cars for the wider

population was also reflected in the widespread, patriotic sentiment that the British

manufactured a better class of vehicle than the Americans (ibid.: 16). What counted

was quality, not quantity. And this vision of quality was accompanied by accounts

which portrayed a kind of heroic masculinity, which O' Connell describes as

'a world of impressive inventions, engineers, manufacturers and racing drivers'

(ibid.: 3), a legacy which persists.

The British motor industry developed throughout the 1950s when the six most

prominent manufacturers were Austin, Ford, Nuffield, Rootes, Standard-Triumph

and Vauxhall, only the latter being a subsidiary of an American company, General

Motors. Later Rover and Jaguar emerged, along with British Leyland, consolidating

the Britishness of the car industry. In order to give a flavour of the highly charged

symbolism of British cars I will focus on three kinds of motor, the Rolls-Royce,

the Aston Martin and the Mini, each signifying different definitively British

attributes.

The Rolls-Royce has become a byword for quality and luxury, and this is

reflected in the price of these cars, beloved by pop stars and self-made businessmen.

Moreover, these elite vehicles are commonly cited as the ' best cars in the world' ,

exemplifying apparently native traditions of engineering excellence, craftsmanship

and attention to detail, embodied in the arch-engineer Royce, and the energetic

entrepreneur, Rolls, symbolically entwining mythic entrepreneurial acumen and

technical know-how. Myth has it that in the early years of motoring, Royce took

the French Decanville and improved on ' just about everything he could' (Heilig

and Abbis, 1999: 11), bettering the best efforts of foreign industrial rivals and

signifying pride in Britain as the first and foremost industrial nation. Rolls-Royce

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cars are owned by notable figures in British institutional life, the most notable

being the Royal Family. The Queen owns five, each bearing a solid silver statuette

of St George and the Dragon instead of the familiar ' spirit of ecstasy' figurine.

Thus the appeal of the Rolls is certainly not based on any democratic availability

but rather veers towards a representation of Britain as class-bound and obsessed

with status. However, irrespective of class, there is a certain pride in these iconic

vehicles which signify excellence in workmanship as well as taste.

In an increasingly competitive world market, the firm went bust in 1971, and

after a bail-out operation, its fortunes declined steadily thereafter. Ironically, in

1998, the company was bought by German car manufacturers Volkswagen, and it

is intended that the company will be sold to German rivals BMW in 2003. This

has caused consternation as another piece of Britain' s manufacturing industry

declines – and in this case is the subject of a foreign takeover. Rolls-Royce,

emblematic of British engineering and entrepreneurial prowess, like other

losses, signifies a deterioration in national reputation and worth: ' for the world' s

most elegant car to be built by a manufacturer of German economy cars comes

as a shock' (Heilig and Abbis, 1999: 7). The authors further opine that lessons

must be learnt from Ford, who in 1990 took over manufacture of another symbol-

ically British car, the Jaguar, but allowed 'the quintessential Britishness of the

Jaguar to continue to dominate' . They argue that so long as the cars ' continue to

be built in England, and the world' s finest craftsmen and craftswomen make the

interiors . . . they will survive' (ibid.). Yet there is a hope that BMW and VW will

fail to understand the unique qualities of these cars and they will ' throw up their

hands after a few years and seek to return Rolls and Bentley to British ownership'.

They further claim that ' there has to be a place in the automotive world for these

special products that exemplify traditional British craftsmanship' (ibid.: 127).

In a similar vein, the motor of choice of the archetypal British agent, James

Bond, the Aston Martin, has also been taken over by American car giant Ford. R.

Edwards observes that the Aston Martin has been described as the ' Englishman's

Ferrari' , but dissents from this description: ' A Ferrari is Italian and can never be

anything else. An Aston Martin is British and can never be anything else ...as

British as Edward Elgar or Boadicea' (1999: 7). The car' s image is one that, while

pertaining to elitism, is very different to the stately Rolls-Royce. The association

with Bond ties it in with 1960s social and sexual liberation. Here is a model that

connects not only with ideas about 'raciness', pleasure and the pursuit of a

hedonistic lifestyle, but also with a certain style associated with British notions of

gentlemanly conduct and suaveness.

If the cars mentioned above epitomise a British sense of luxury, the Mini

incorporates a host of symbolic traits which operate across the class divide. Again,

the conventional stories told about the car' s development highlight Alec Issigonis,

the vaunted designer genius wrought out of the independent British entrepreneurial

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spirit. Perhaps most symbolically, the Mini also emerged as a British icon in the

1960s, the decade where Britain showed off the style embodied in its pop music

and fashion industries, and apparently discarded many of its post-war, class-bound

rigidities. Emblematic of the 'Swinging Sixties', along with the Beatles, the mini-

skirt, and symbolic places such as Carnaby Street, the Mini was heralded as a

cheap car available to a newly confident working class, but was simultaneously

coveted by the fashionable rich. The car operated as a trendy acquisition, which

offered status in various ways. Thus, in order to maintain forms of distinction,

customising the vehicle was a popular activity especially amongst its wealthier

owners; also, its flexible affordances enabled it to be adapted as the Mini-Cooper,

a sporting car which won rallies. The accretion of symbolic values was also

reflected in the film the Italian Job (significantly featuring archetypal English

actors from opposite ends of the class spectrum, Michael Caine and Noel Coward)

where a ' cheeky' (a term also frequently applied to the Mini) gang of British

criminals stage a successful bank robbery in Rome, using a fleet of minis as get-

away cars because their small size and steering capabilities were well suited to the

winding route used to escape.

This mobilisation of competitive Britishness is beautifully exemplified in the

campaign to launch the vehicle, which utilised a spectacular aerial photo of 804

minis in Union Jack formation (see Golding, 1994). And the familiar national

rivalry with Germany also emerged. Having created the Volkswagen ' beetle' as

the German people' s motor car during the Third Reich and later successfully

exported it, before the advent of the Mini the lesser charms of the Bubble-car

were foisted on the British market. This led one patriotic commentator to announce

that ' every engineer wanted to burst the bubble cars that were popping out of

Germany' (Scott, 1992: 10).

It is interesting that while the 'high' cultural values of exclusive cars like the

Rolls, the Jaguar and the Aston Martin conjure up a traditional Britain, the Mini

offers a more democratic world which resonates with the efflorescence of British

popular culture and its successful marketing – like the Mini – to overseas markets.

Thus we see the reincorporation of a material object into a distinctive kind of

national identity, which distinguishes itself from foreigners but draws on a wider

range of gendered and class imagery to proffer a more inclusive identity.

The British motor industry has been inextricably linked with the international

prestige of Britain as competitor on the world market. Rather than considering

companies and cars as regional entities, or as the outcomes of individual enterprise

irrespective of nationality, they have been entrusted to represent the nation's

economic virility in the world market. Yet the sustenance of the British Motor

industry has been particularly fraught over the past three decades. Besides being

linked with the masculine virtues of British skill, hard graft and ingenuity, the

industry also became associated with the 'British disease', militant trade union

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National Identity

industrial activity. In the car industry, the radical activities of mythical shop stewards

such as ' Red Robbo' , and ' infiltrators' such as ' Red Steph' , were the subject of

much alarmist commentary in the popular press, being commonly cited by the

Thatcherite Conservatives as evidence of the need to return to ' Victorian values' –

in other words, a reversion to another imagined Britain. These activities were

heralded as symptomatic of the decline of industrial Britain, and accompany other

depictions of the loss of those qualities which generated British competitiveness

and social cohesion.

Like the decline of the steel, cotton, shipbuilding and coal industries, which

constituted the primary elements of the ' workshop of the world' , the car industry

was part of a symbolic geography and object world in which the links between

products, people and places were part of popular knowledge and anchored industrial

Britain to a glorious past. The loss of these industries signifies the loss of this

symbolic spatial network – an industrial/geographical index which the service and

informational industries of the post-industrial economy have yet to replace. In a

Scottish context, the disappearance of these large industries is often regarded as

evidence of the unsupportive and discriminatory attitude of Westminster towards

Scottish industry. In their hit single, 'Letter to America ', the avowedly nationalist

band the Proclaimers sing, ' Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Methil no more,

Irvine no more', highlighting popular Scottish resentment about the disappearance

of these symbolic sites of industrial production, the first two of which hosted car

factories.

According to one popular trope, these sites and objects are made by mythic

producers: the skilled workers, visionary entrepreneurs and technical geniuses

who still exist, but governmental incompetence, devious foreign marketing, and

insufficient patriotism have badly let down these heroic characters. This version

of events is challenged by Whisler, who argues that the inflexibility of British

corporate and national plans in a context of ever-changing markets constituted a

'rigid institutional matrix ' (1999: 2) which spelt doom for the industry. More

pertinently, he contends that despite the British reputation for ' innovative products

and " engineering Culture "' , it was this that was the industry' s ' Achilles' heel'

because amongst those who worked their way up the ranks in time-honoured

tradition ' mechanical skill was prized over theoretical knowledge' (ibid.: 179).

This will inevitably result, Foreman-Peck et al . reason, in British motor production

depending ' upon a small number of multinationals headquartered in other countries'

(1995: 254).

Nowadays, a vestige of pride in British motoring achievement is echoed in the

sporting field, where patriotic pride in the skilled driving performances of Nigel

Mansell, Damon Hill and David Coulthard carries on the trend for the worship of

skilled speed merchants and the technological back-up they receive. The symbolic

cars of yesteryear have not been succeeded by new models but can be found in

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the popular motor museums which are situated around Britain, transformed into

nostalgic yearning for the national(ist) pride instilled by industrial achievement.

National Motorscapes

In a sense, nations have become more available for inspection by the development

of the motor industry and the concomitant extension of road systems. The culture

of mobility advanced by the car may disembed much activity from local public

spaces but it simultaneously opens up wider networks of space. Automobilisation

extends human habitats, disperses places across space, enables escape from

particular contexts, and facilitates the formation of new socialities (Sheller and

Urry, 2000: 742). Accordingly, motoring cultures may be distinguished by how

they explore space and link spaces together via car driving. One way of considering

these expanded networks of spatial association is to explore the role of motoring

in stitching the nation together. The ' democracy' of car travel enables valorised

national scenes and sites to be visited, opens up the possibilities for 'knowing ' the

nation. The development of motoring generated the ' slow meandering motor tour'

(Urry, 2000: 60) ' a voyage through the life and history of the land' (ibid.: 61)

wherein images were witnessed and photographed (see Taylor, 1994). Compilers

of national culture have identified regional features of folklore and customs, historic

associations and sites, dialects, dress, styles of building, natural history and

landscapes which have subsequently been filtered into popular motoring guide-

books and glossy publications.

The car has increased possibilities for gazing upon the nation, especially for

'selected aspects of English heritage and landscape' (O' Connell, 1998: 79). A range

of features have been identified for nationals to gaze upon, as both signifiers of

regional specialisms and as part of the compendium of national diversity. But while

numerous resources exist (books, maps, tourist brochures and information centres,

videos), this is an active process – one that requires practice at recognising,

representing (for example through photography) and linking landscapes, places

and things in familiar ways. In this way, the cultural elements of national space

are stitched together by car travel, and utilise particular technologies. In an English

context, these include books such as the aforementioned H.V. Morton' s seminal

In Search of England, I-Spy books which encourage children to identify pre-

assigned symbols of generic roadside Englishness, and a host of more specialised

publications, such as the Shell Guides , which focus on regional food, natural history,

architecture, and so on. The English landscape has become intensively mapped

and scrutinised, giving rise to an ethic of knowing one' s country ' properly' .

Previously remote places can be reclaimed within a national geography. For

instance, in the United States the Blue Ridge Parkway has opened up the possibility

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National Identity

of gazing upon formerly inaccessible regions, and the national road system provides

a huge index of possibilities for potential travel into the ' great outdoors' .

O' Connell remarks that the car is the ' perfect facilitator of the " away from it

all" immersion in the beauties of the countryside ' (1998: 154). But ironically, the

car also threatens this haven of peace and rusticity by its intrusion. Long-standing

tension between the rural tradition and the modernity epitomised by the car persists,

as arguments rage about the natural beauty of the land becoming desecrated. For

despite the almost sacred role the countryside possesses in the construction of

national identities, it is also the site of numerous claims about how it should be

used and by whom, between rural dwellers, foxhunters and animal rights protesters,

commuters and rural inhabitants, conservationists and developers, farmers and eco-

tourists (see Macnaghten and Urry, 1998). As part of this conflict, the road protest

movement in England has cast its struggle against the car in a nationalist light,

by constructing a lifestyle and a set of beliefs that frequently draw on the ' more

authentic' Celtic or pre-Christian forms of wisdom which are posited as a more

appropriate, ecologically aware heritage, an approach that claims primordiality in

the contest over the uses and value of the land.

Besides shaping the experience of the nation, the technologies of the car and

its subsidiary service industries have also contributed to the shaping of generic

kinds of space. Half the urban landscape in the USA – and two-thirds in Los Angeles

– is devoted to cars (Luger, 2000: 9). This concentration of autospace has produced

a distinctive landscape, a roadside Americana of drive-ins, malls, amusement parks

and suburbia, motels or inns, transport café s, garages and drive-in eateries that

have fed into innumerable representations and fantasies to produce a ' a wild mix

of cars, girls, drive-ins, bowling alleys, racing, rock and roll music' (Witzel and

Bash, 1997: 41). Nevertheless, these images, though nostalgically circulated

through popular film, television and music, have, according to Basham et al. , largely

been replaced by an ' infinitely recurring topography of turnpike, billboard, drive-

in, motel and suburb; a world of reassuring sameness or of nightmare repetition'

(1984: 129). Now the American motorscape is saturated by signs heralding the

Ramada Inn, Wendy' s, McDonalds, Holiday Inn and Taco Belle, a sequence of

familiar, easily read signs and advertisements. The massive flow of continental

traffic has enabled many to see the 'structural commonalities of the US' (Sopher,

1979: 144–145) which inhere in this commercial landscape.

Nevertheless, the nostalgic aura of the roadside is not new. Belasco describes

the American roadside as 'a combined theatre and amusement park ' (1983: 105)

which, since its development in the early years of motoring, has been the site for

productions of various forms of nostalgia. ' Auto-camping' or ' motor-gypsying',

he argues, emerged as a move to restore a lost American individuality, and public

camps developed which harked back to a more communal way of life. Despite the

evolution of more privatised cabins, and ultimately motels, during the Depression

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of the 1930s, ' Americans looked to their road culture for comforting evidence of

national solidarity'. For a widespread participation in roadside rituals revealed

that there was ' a common American way of life' irrespective of the economic

crisis (ibid., 1983: 118). And even since this period, Belasco contends that ' demo-

cratic nostalgia' based around the roadside persists, albeit within the realm of style

and advertising. Along roadsides, ' New England, Virginian or Spanish colonial

architecture' co-exists with signs of homeliness such as ' lace curtains, rocking

chairs and window boxes' (ibid.: 120). Even so, other movements try to recapture

the original American flirtation with movement across space in backpacking and

off-road motoring. And there are extensively mapped highways that search for

the sights of the mythical Americana and celebrate those signatures which still

exist, as for instance in Marling' s homage to the colossal vernacular roadside statues

which form part of American motorscapes, many from the 1930s (1984).

The automobile has changed more mundane spatial aspects of American

everyday life as well. The growth of automobile ownership facilitated the extension

of ' metropolitanism' into rural areas and spurred the ' geographical configuration

of a consumer society based on car travel' , generating enormous changes in

everyday routines (Interranté , 1983: 91). One upshot of this has been the evolution

of suburban realms into exurbs and edge-cities far removed from the inner city, a

spatialisation that has furthered the institutionalisation of American apartheid and

the ' extinction of the walking city' (Gilroy, 2001: 100). But it has also changed

the shape of much domestic architecture – for instance, the relationship between

the ' garage, the front porch and the parlour' (Kihlstert, 1983: 161) – engendering

new domestic choreographies and habits.

Styles of Driving and National Auto-centric Practices

The independent mobility heralded by car culture has been partially desynchron-

ising, disembedding familiar time-geographies from localities. However, the

complex systems required for car travel have required a resynchronisation whereby

the communal patterns of car use evolve: the routes used (for instance during rush-

hours and holidays), parking arrangements in cities, and common rituals. In

concrete ways, shared cultures of automobility structure experience of time, and

work, leisure and consumption patterns. As Sheller and Urry identify, motoring

networks force people 'to orchestrate in complex and heterogeneous ways their

mobilities and socialities across very significant distances' (2000: 744). These

experiences change as motoring cultures evolve, as new travel options and networks

are developed, and the sensual experience of automobility also restricts other, older

ways of experiencing space, curbing the sensual possibilities offered by other

mobilities (see Urry, 2000: 60).

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For Britons, the Sunday drive, driving on busy motorways, getting stuck in

traffic jams on holiday trips to Cornwall or en route to Blackpool, getting booked

by traffic wardens (national symbols of British petty authoritarianism), and driving

to the shopping mall, provide an ensemble of widely recognisable experiences

that find echoes across popular culture. For instance, the car has long been a cultural

resource in the pursuit of sexual adventure (see Lewis, 1983). An imaginary world

of vehicles described as ' passion wagons' and ' love traps' populates the ' low

culture' of British comedy (Hunt, 1998), based on familiar strategies devised to

facilitate youthful sexual experience and illicit middle-age trysts

In the early years of motoring in Britain, cars pre-eminently became associated

with taste and social status, concerns which still surround particular models as

has been already discussed. Moreover, a particular gendered construction of

motoring evolved and persists to a degree. There are still normative ideas about

what constitutes men' s and women' s cars. For despite the ongoing erasure of highly

gendered lifestyles, ' masculine' vehicles remain those which are large and

powerful, whereas ' female' vehicles still are portrayed as convenient (usually for

shopping in town). Most notable in the early years was the mockery and patronising

attitude directed at female drivers, and the persistent association of driving with

physical strength and mastery of technology (see O'Connell, 1998: 43– 76). The

ritual leisure pursuit of tinkering with the car became associated with a particular

kind of masculinity (for more on the gendering of car cultures see Scharff, 1997).

Besides this specific form of gendering motoring, the British style of driving

placed an emphasis on the ' safe' and ' sensible' – ' playing the game' as it was

referred to (O' Connell, 1998: 129). However, in the 1930s, the introduction of

speed-traps to ensnare speeding motorists was described by campaigning motorists'

groups as infringing national rights and therefore as 'non-English' (ibid.: 133).

Driving styles are still held to identify particular national traits and to draw

boundaries between national identities. The idea that British motoring remains

safe and responsible is echoed in frequent references made to the unsafe driving

practices of ' continental' drivers. This conservatism is echoed in the way in which

the British motor car became domesticated and is partly evidenced in the design

of cars. As Basham et al. maintain, although Zephyrs and Zodiacs ' grew tame

[tail] fins in imitation of their Yankee cousins . . . the classical lines of the Jaguar

or Wolseley' prevailed (1984: 135). Alison Light conjures up this enduring spirit:

'Far from being stuck in the past, conservativism seems to have improvised rather

well in the modern period, making something homely and familiar from the brand

new: think of the inventiveness of the spirit which could take that futurist symbol

of speed and erotic dynamism – the motor car – and turn it into a Morris Minor'

(1991: 214).

Despite the contemporary common-sense idea that car ownership is a democratic

right for British nationals, aspects of automobility enforce exclusions. For example,

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widespread poverty restricts car use, effectively disenfranchising a workless or

low-paid class. More obviously, institutional racism causes Black male drivers to

be disproportionately stopped by the police because of assumptions about the

prevalence of black criminality.

Unlike the exclusions marked by car association with an elite in Britain, in the

USA ' the car began life as a mass product, indeed it was the original mass product,

and hence its symbolism is more complex and in many ways intertwined with the

" American Dream" and particularly with the ideology of freedom' (Graves-Brown,

2000: 158). Car ownership is often articulated as a right in the USA, as is the right

to cheap fuel irrespective of geopolitical and energy-saving imperatives. The

entanglement of the car with American identity is captured by the platitude that

'what is good for the country is good for General Motors and what is good for

General Motors is good for the country' . This pinpoints the symbolic centrality of

the auto industry to the US economy, and it is this which led to the cultural alarm

raised when Japan overtook the US as the world' s largest car producer in 1980,

which lasted until 1994 when America prevailed once more (Luger, 2000: 7).

Kline and Pinch (1993) show that the original reception of the motor car in

rural America was far from homogeneous, mixing resistance and use to accomplish

diverse tasks and express distinct meanings. However, the contemporary appeal

of the car is surely bound up with the possibilities of movement which the develop-

ment of cheap models opened up. American ideologies often centre on the metaphor

of movement (movement westwards, the possibility of social mobility), and the

car facilitates trans-American travel and adventure which have become an important

motif in constructions of American individualism: the ' freedom of the road' . Long-

distance car travel has been a staple ingredient of American popular culture, perhaps

best symbolised by Jack Kerouac' s On the Road, which symbolises the youthful,

non-conformist energy of continual adventure and continual movement.

Yet mobility is not only characterised by the endless search across continental

USA; it is based in more local activities. The theme of movement and sexuality

is beautifully captured in an illustrated book, Cruisin': Car Culture in America ,

which is replete with airbrushed illustrations of sinewy muscled men, but they are

out-glamorised by the chrome and steel beasts they attend to. The pleasures of

'cruising ' include 'showing off your car, looking for races, or better yet, looking

for girls' and following the specifics of a cool appearance low in the seat, and

customising the vehicle in particular ways (Witzel and Bash, 1997: 9). Romantic-

ally, the authors assert that ' cruising was and always will be an American folk

activity that extracts the essence of the early coach builders, blends it with a need

for mobility, folds in a hefty dose of good looks, tosses in a dash of exhibitionism'

(ibid.: 123). Cruising is also evoked by the Chuck Berry song ' No Particular Place

to Go':

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National Identity

Riding along in my automobile

My baby beside me at the wheel

I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile

My curiosity running wild

Cruising and playing my radio

With no particular place to go

Cruising is also symbolically accompanied as a car-centred pursuit by ' hot-

rodding' , typically a teenage dirt-track racing competition as immortalised in the

James Dean vehicle, Rebel Without a Cause, and which is described by Basham et

al. as ' virtually America' s unofficial national sport' (1984: 17). These styles and

leisure pursuits, mainly emergent and popular in the 1950s, constitute something

of a national imaginary, suffused with nostalgic longings for the youthful activities

of yesteryear and the mythical small-town America in which they took place.

This mythical 1950s of American car culture is also embodied by the baroque

excesses of car design, featuring giant tail fins, and elaborate chrome bumpers

and grilles. Such features emphasised luxury and status but also the fantasies

stemming from the peculiar modernity of 1950s science fiction. Distinctively

American, contrasting with the sleek and restrained shapes of Italian vehicles and

the classical refinement of British cars, such exorbitant designs foreground stylistic

flamboyance and excess, celebrating unrestrainedly the material abundance

provided and promised by American capitalism. These extrovert expressions of

Americanness can also be found in the less mainstream, subcultural pastime of

customising vehicles, again a tradition that emerged in the 1950s and which is

still prevalent amongst marginalised groups such as Hispanic Californians, who

devised ' low-riders' , huge souped-up cars with enormous wheels and spectacular

suspension which afford an alternative form of status for the poor, young men

who work on them.

This example points to the exclusions perpetrated by the car' s central role as a

prop to identity, and as a means to participating in American society. Like Britain,

particular notions of gender shape the cultural construction of cars. As Scharff

says, the car was ' born in a masculine manger and when women [try] to claim its

power they [enter] a male domain' (1997: 13). Whilst this gendering has been

somewhat dissipated, the racial coding of automobiles and car ownership is well

grounded in history. This is best exemplified by Berger' s amazing account featuring

Jack Johnson, the black heavyweight boxing champion of the world, who had

achieved his title by defeating two white fighters, Tommy Burns and Jim Jeffries.

His fondness for motor racing and his ability in this other sport, where he also

defeated white competitors, led to a challenge from the world speed champion,

Barney Oldfield, to a race. The pernicious racial coding of the contest – pitting

black brawn against white intelligence – inevitably won by Oldfield, was intended

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to teach Johnson a lesson, for having defeated white boxers he refused to adopt

the humility white America expected, instead openly pursuing white women and

showing off his wealth and fame. His symbolic defeat was thought to reclaim a

measure of white American prestige (Berger, 1983). Paul Gilroy explores the

marginalisation of black car-owners and drivers in the USA more generally. Where

poverty and the refusal of some companies to sell certain models to black customers

attempted to debar them from the fruits of the booming economy and its most

symbolic commodity, the car was simultaneously appropriated as a sign of black

progress. For car ownership could signify social improvement, was a kind of

democratic participation via the consumer culture, a movement out of the stasis

of segregation imposed in space, and cars became signs of ' insubordination,

progress and compensatory prestige' (2001: 94), for instance, resounding through

black popular music.

Despite the centrality of the car to national identity, it seems as if the American

love affair with the car is threatened. Fear about road deaths, ecological damage,

the persistent culture of machismo, the privatisation of experience, segregated cities

and the demise of other forms of mobility (Wolf, 1996) have been identified as

symptoms of a car-dominated society. And Luger (2000) argues forcefully that

the car and its industry also demonstrates the extent to which corporate power

continues to shape American economy, politics and culture negatively.

Cars and their Affordances: National Sensualities

To reinforce the arguments about space made in the previous chapter, it is useful

to conceive of the car not as a discrete object but as part of ' automobility' , a

distributed ' complex amalgam of interlocking machines, social practices and ways

of dwelling' (Sheller and Urry, 2000: 739). This sort of analysis captures the

distinctive national cultures of automobility that I wish to identify. The car driver

can be considered as a ' hybrid assemblage' , comprising humans, machines, roads,

signs, representations, regulatory institutions and a host of related businesses and

infrastructural features. Such an assemblage also produces distinctive ways of

sensually apprehending cars and car travel for people inhabit, and are institutionally

emplaced in, particular webs of affective and sensual experience. The sensuality

of motoring and the experience of routinised, mundane forms of travel provide

distinct ways of dwelling, moving and socialising in places (Urry, 2000: 59). Like

the routines inscribed in the home, modes of dwelling-on-the-road or dwelling-

in-the-car suggest that the car is a ' home from home' . Thus distinct sensations are

produced by bodily interaction with particular cars, which possess particular

affordances – the feel of the wheel, the seats, the rate of acceleration and the ease

of changing gears – and they impinge on how the car can be manoeuvred. Particular

forms of skill and driving dispositions are thus formed. The Rolls-Royce mentioned

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National Identity

above clearly engenders a comfort-oriented drive which minimises the effect of

external influences such as bumpy road surfaces. On the other hand, the French

Renault and Citroë n are less concerned with such matters. Their economy based

appeal equates with more compact space, less-plush furnishings and a suspension

that lacks the smoothness of the Rolls-Royce. Such sensations also depend upon

the road surfaces, the climate and the conduct of other drivers. These bodily

experiences, then, are constitutive of a less-heralded form of national identity, as

well as a function of the different car models on any market.

Cars can be understood as extensions of bodies, what Graves-Brown (2000)

calls a kind of ' exoskeleton' . And the forms of bodily relationships established

through car-driver hybrids vary considerably. For instance, the prevalence of

automatic gears in American cars means that the driver needs to be less attuned to

the noise of the engine and the speed travelled, whereas drivers of most European

cars – that largely possess manually operated gearsticks – incorporate a reflexive,

bodily awareness of which gears are needed, a practice that barely impinges upon

consciousness for experienced motorists. Similarly, cars are customised and

domesticated according to nationally shaped conventions. A ' mobile domesticity'

is achieved by owners decorating cars with furry dice, stickers signifying nation-

ality, bumper stickers (in the USA), religious emblems and figures, mascots, mini

football strips, Garfields, nodding dogs and music facilities (ibid.: 157).

As well as the tactility of cars, particular smells – often associated with the

kind of fuel used – can provide a heightened experience of car travel, and so can

the sound of motor engines, both one' s own car and the noise produced by fellow

road users. Bull (2001) has identified the integral role of sound in constituting the

motoring experience. The automatic turning on of the radio, or the routine playing

of cassettes, provides an internal soundscape which usually covers up the noise of

the outside. These intimate pleasures reinforce the homely status of the car, but

the nuances of motoring with manufactured sound relate to the particular music

or radio programme being listened to. Thus, particular national radio programmes

are devised to entertain and inform listeners during this ' drivetime' , again

constituting a familiar, shared enjoinment in which we, the national audience in

simultaneous motion on the way to home or to work, are addressed as a normative

community, often reinforced by frequent travel bulletins concerning the state of

the nation' s roads. Likewise, car journeys in North Africa are more likely to be

accompanied by Egyptian pop music than the rock music played by Western

stations. The subtle but distinct qualities that such music lends to the journey shape

the nationally bounded experiences of motoring.

To explore this further, I want to discuss an episode which occurred in September

2000, when my car radio was stolen. This meant that until I replaced it the 50-

minute drive to work was bereft of broadcast music and chat (I usually listen to

BBC Radio 1 and Radio 5). It struck me that at first the car seemed devoid of

Material Culture and National Identity

–135 –

noise, of life, and I experienced the sensation that I was in a vacuum or bubble,

and began to long for the journey' s end. But after accepting the apparent sterility

and sensory deprivation that the trip entailed, the sounds that filled my ears were

revelatory. I realised that I hadn' t heard traffic for months, or the noise of my own

engine, which led me to imagine potential problems in the suspicious noises I was

hearing. This attunement to a different motoring soundscape was complemented

by a more intense visual awareness: instead of being enmeshed in an auditory

experience I switched into a more visual mode. I noticed changes in the mundane

features of the M6 motorway, the lushness of the fields and woods. Nevertheless,

despite noticing these formerly masked experiences, I continually jerked forward

to switch the non-existent radio on, my hands and fingers involuntarily twitching

to restore the status quo. Attuned to a sensual norm, my body was unable to de-

programme its customary operations and unconsciously performed a regulatory

series of movements to reintroduce the missing sound, revealing the somatic embed-

dedness of particular routine experiences, where bodies are habituated to customary

sounds and manoeuvres which install the body in place.

Representing Cars

Besides the physical interaction cited above, it is evident that the symbolic

importance of cars is widely circulated through a variety of media, including

painting and photography, poetry, literature, music, adverts, television program-

mes and film which contribute to a sense of national identity. This is nowhere

more blatant than in the central role of the automobile in twentieth-century film.

Hollywood has produced a huge range of films in which cars are a central feature,

an iconic role which varies substantially. From the gangster movies of the 1930s

to the car chase films of the 1970s (Bullitt , The French Connection ), cars have

been essential components in the making of contemporary folklore. Another

particular genre is the rites of passage movie – most prominently The Last Picture

Show and American Graffiti – typically set in an elegiac 1950s, in which youths

confront the advent of teenage sexuality and responsibilities of impending

adulthood, within a range of social activities organised around automobiles,

conjuring up the myth of a common youthful experience. But the best-known

car-related genre is the road movie, a genre which encompasses a diversity of

treatments. Road movies recycle recurrent geographical and visual themes,

including iconographic portrayals of the endless road, spectacular landscapes and

roadside garages. Basham et al. (1984: 13) cite the 1958 film Thunder Road as a

seminal movie about cars which captures ' the mystery and elation of driving' and

'the never-ending rhythm of the tarmac and the sublime joy of motion' . At once a

metaphor for restless movement across the USA, mirroring the surge westwards

of the ' pioneers', the road movie has mutated to encompass a number of themes.

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National Identity

The individualistic, often counter-cultural impulse to escape the sterility of the

urban and the control of government (Easy Rider ), or the search for a better life

(The Grapes of Wrath ), can also be articulated as a route for deviance (Natural

Born Killers, Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands ) (see Cohan and Hark, 1997: 1– 14).

This ambivalence does not gainsay the power of these treatments for they constitute

a recognisable array of multi-interpretable visual signifiers and narrative tropes

which provide a shared cultural resource for producing a car-oriented imaginary.

In a fascinating study of French post-war cinema, Ross shows the essentially

ambivalent character of the car in its relation to national identity. At first, it was

celebrated as heralding modernity and a new, exciting, American-shaped future

after austerity, even before cars became a feature of French everyday life. Ross

argues that American cinema was hugely influential in projecting a mythical,

prosperous America saturated by gadgets, household comforts and cars, as an ideal.

French new-wave auteurs also eagerly grasped the car as a modern, rebellious

symbol which represented the antithesis of traditional conservative values. Thus

the French motor industry and the (French and American) film industry ' reinforced

each other' (Ross, 1995: 39). Later, however, films such as La Belle Americaine

reveal the domestication of an American car, its adaptation to French life, so

that ' one can acquire America' s good features while avoiding its corruption, one

can modernise without losing the national . . . identity' (ibid.: 53). But also, the

automobile is represented in later French films as a key factor heralding the

destruction of close communities – and hence Frenchness – in its association with

the pursuit of individual status, traffic jams and the reordering of experience. Again,

this shows how conflicts between traditional and modern versions of national

identity are articulated in popular representations.

Conclusion

I have tried to show in this account that objects are part of everyday worlds,

symbolic imaginaries and affective, sensual experiences which inhere in forms of

national identity. It is true that through travelling cultures, extended commodity

flows and diasporic experiences, things are distributed in a more protean fashion

than ever before. In this context, Knorr Cetina argues that as individualisation

proceeds apace, with the erosion of established communities, objects increasingly

displace other people as ' relationship partners' and ' embedding environments '

(1997). Sociality, as a form of binding or grouping together, can also be understood

by the process of surrounding the self with objects, by interacting with familiar

objects in a series of arrangements and by identifying with objects.

A proliferation of objects penetrate our lifeworlds, infest our homes and bodies,

and produce 'clusters of consciousness ' (ibid.: 3). Their meaning is produced

through the ways in which they link to or embody systems of technical knowledge,

Material Culture and National Identity

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or are part of wider human– object networks. Knorr Cetina considers that the social

is reconstituted through what she calls ' objectualisation' . Through interacting with

technologies and things there is ' an increasing orientation towards objects as

sources of the self, or relational intimacy, of shared subjectivity and of social

integration' (ibid.: 9). The notion that relationships with objects can be created

and sustained seems to require reflexive, technically skilled, self-authoritative

individuals who construct and reconstruct their identities and lifestyles. As the

'nationalisation of social responsibility ' breaks down, and common values and

traditions become dissipated, individuals construct new links with the nation, in

affective and cognitive ways, through alternative networks of association, including

those offered by relations with objects. Whilst this is a somewhat bleak portrayal

of contemporary material culture, it does point to the ways in which objects are

incorporated into contemporary processes of meaning. For the shared resources

which already exist means that symbolic objects such as the car can be reincorp-

orated into national identity, can be adopted and adapted in different national

contexts, both practically and symbolically, and drawn into particular affective

relationships which cohere around ideas about national car cultures.

Scottishness and Braveheart

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–5–

Representing the Nation: Scottishness

and Braveheart

Introduction

National forms of representation articulate the relations between space, things,

people and practices, denoting the qualities assigned to them as being distinguished

by a common denominator: the nation. This is the context which binds unlike

categories together by means of conceptualisation and language, to constitute a

shared referential resource, and shared discursive formations. National identity is,

then, partly sustained through the circulation of representations of spectacular and

mundane cultural elements including those featured throughout this book; the

landscapes, everyday places and objects, famous events and mundane rituals,

gestures and habits, and examples of tradition and modernity which are held in

common by large numbers of people. Importantly, these forms of signification

work not because they are realistic but because they 'become naturalised codes

whose operation reveals not the transparency of linguistic or visual codes, but the

depth of cultural habituation of the codes in operation' (Barker, 1999: 12). These

words, images and styles have no essential meaning but represent 'concepts and

feelings that enable others to decode our meanings' (Hall, 1997: 5). Yet irrespective

of how they are encoded and decoded, these foci provide shared topics for

consumption. Through widespread dissemination, they are 'embedded in sounds,

inscriptions, objects and images' made manifest in books, TV programmes, adverts

and the like (ibid.). They cohere precisely because of their intertextuality, because

they form complex chains of signification which provide maps of national meaning,

dense clusters of ideas and images which can be connected to other constellations

in endless ways. The images we share and are often particularly familiar with

occur – and have occurred through our lives – in particular contexts: as pictures in

classrooms, on billboards, in relatives' houses, and so on, and are interwoven with

the spaces which we have inhabited. Whilst certain iconic images have become

detached from the national (Elvis Presley, the moon landing), a host of consistently

reproduced images continue to act as a shared resource to underpin national

belonging, however recombined and reinterpreted they may be.

Much of the time, such representations are unreflexively generated and

consumed, as Billig (1995) describes insofar as they are manifest in everyday

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National Identity

speech and in the deixis reproduced in daily newspapers which assumes that

the ' us' and the 'we' referred to in articles require no qualification but will be

uncritically accepted by readers. In the same way, images and descriptions can

trigger a sense of national belonging without any further explanation being needed.

Representations of ' our' national identity become more pointed when used to define

'us ' against 'them ' – usually other nations in political or sporting conflict – when

stereotypes are more likely to be bandied about, and this is also the case when

'exotic ' otherness is being sold via commodities and by the tourist industry. As I

have mentioned, the constructions of others speaks not of them but of the desires

and fears against which we define ourselves. This works in the world of nations as

much as it does in the realms of self-identification. Technologies of representing

otherness in travel programmes, tourist brochures, natural history magazines and

television documentaries are generally produced for and consumed by audiences

or readerships that are constituted nationally.

In discussing representation in this chapter, I want to direct attention to media

products – films, television programmes and popular literature and advertising. I

do not mean to discount all the other cultural elements that have featured throughout

this book. In a sense, all these are forms of representation. Spaces are represented

by planners and architects; their materialisation and regulation is a form of

representing ownership and power over meaning, not to mention the semiotic

inscriptions that are engraved onto all spaces subject to human intervention, whether

through gardening styles, monumental features or road systems. Performances

too are ways of representing ourselves to ourselves and to others, both in terms

of shared everyday conventions of enaction, body language, and in large-scale

ceremonies. Likewise, objects may be used, placed and bought in order to transmit

symbolic meanings. But in addition, the things, landscapes and performances that

have been discussed in previous chapters are not discretely consigned to their own

realms – all circulate through forms of representation as they become identifiable

symbolic cultural elements. And the process of representation adds a further density

to the ways in which these are apprehended, producing more points of association

through which they accrue meaning. In this chapter, I do not attempt to divorce

the material, performative and spatial from the chosen form of representation, the

Hollywood epic, Braveheart , as will be clear when I look at the rich seam of

artefacts, performances and spaces that are intimately related to the themes and

mythical elements of the film.

As I have been at pains to express throughout this book, national identity is

processed through the realms of affect and sensuality as much as through cognitive

processes of meaning construction and transmission. Bodily dispositions, modes

of inhabiting space and ways of using things infer a structure of feeling; they can

transmit shared emotional and sensual experiences in intangible ways, constituting

a shared milieu of feeling and knowing. In looking at representation in this chapter

Scottishness and Braveheart

–141 –

I do not wish to propose a dichotomy whereby there are realms of representation

and non-representation, and similarly to infer that representation can be theorised

by a set of tools and that this is separate from what some have called ' non-

representational theory' . It should be clear from the foregoing that representation

is (always) embodied and embodying, performed and conveying of performance,

spatialised and spatialising, and objective and subjective. The problem, I believe,

stems from the primacy accorded to the visual and the playing down of the material,

spatial and embodied nature of the social world. Accordingly, whilst modes of

representation can be identified, they are inevitably imbricated with the various

processes of identification which I have discussed throughout the book.

To return to the discussion of national culture in Chapter 1, characteristically

privileged forms of national identity have been those assumed to be linked with

either a ' high' culture or a ' folk' culture. So national literatures (the ' Great American

novel' , poetry, national canons), schools of painting, and the pantheon containing

Shakespeares, Goethes, Tagores and Matisses are held up as hosting exemplary

species of national genius. Besides representing the nation, such literatures,

paintings and poems are resources which are called upon to provide images, verses

and passages that capture national attributes. Such quotations are brandished by

politicians, sports writers and advertisers and circulate throughout popular culture.

Yet in contemporary times, the consensus around canon formation and the universal

recognition of excellence is no longer tenable. Now national identity is as likely

to be identified in film and television products and styles, in popular music, and in

fashion. Yet both forms of ' low' and 'high ' culture are distributed across mediated

cultural forms, in which everyday styles and vernacular cultural practices are

represented along with quotations from previously canonical icons. This detrad-

itionalisation and informalisation of culture does not mean that the national no

longer exists but rather that it is continually being redistributed in more complex,

variegated ways.

The mass media has proved to be the most important way of disseminating

representations of the nation. I have argued that writers such as Gellner and

Hutchinson have over-stressed the power of an elite in defining what is culturally

valuable (high culture) for national identity, and popular culture has now almost

entirely absorbed notions of high and low (which is not to say that debates about

national cultural values are defunct). For as Thompson has observed, ' a major

new arena has been created for the process of self-fashioning' (1995: 43) by the

evolution of the mass media. As I discussed in Chapter 2, the experience of the

media has been woven into the rituals and routines of everyday life, embedding

their temporal and spatial reception in the quotidian, and producing numerous

contexts in which they are interpreted. Moreover, as Stevenson states, the arena

in which contested representations of the nation are fought out is the media, in

which the ' development of a sophisticated array of visual codes and repertoires

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National Identity

that interrupt the agendas of more hegemonic institutions and cultures is an essential

armament within the semiotic society' (2001a: 5). Morley points to television' s

potential for examining the ' constitutive dynamics of abstractions such as

"the community" or "the nation "' (1991: 12), a facility for reimagining the national

community which is promiscuous, drawing on cultural meanings, for instance,

about tradition and modernity. Thus, the example of Braveheart , the media form

discussed here, will show how myth is reinterpreted and recycled, reaffirming old

and new meanings about national identity and history. In addition, the mass media

also disseminate numerous ways of representing others, and provide cultural forms

from elsewhere which are interpreted in cultural contexts far from those in which

they were produced. Global news networks, tourist marketing, advertising, films

and television all provide often stereotypical representations of otherness which

feed into forms of national belonging by providing images which can be reworked

in (re)constructing 'our ' identity as not like this otherness.

Nationally based mediascapes still largely predominate in everyday media

experience – people still largely consume national newspapers, listen to national

radio stations and watch national television. In certain circumstances, however,

this is not so – for instance, with the huge global consumption of Hollywood film.

But in all spheres, there has been an enormous increase in the amount of information

and imagery available. The globalisation of the media, and the increasingly vast

circulation of information, has not diminished the vitality of ways in which national

identity is represented, for it has unleashed a torrent of national representations,

comprising a welter of stereotypical portrayals and symbols, as well as avenues

for dissenting and dissonant representations. Global cultural forms such as the

soap opera – which in their British and American incarnations have previously

been exported without modification – have subsequently been compressed into a

national mould, whilst at the same time pan-continental programmes suited for

wider dissemination have been designed to minimise differences (Barker, 1999:

67). Westwood refers to what she terms ' correlative imaginaries' to discuss how

the representations produced by South American telenovelas – along with football

and religion – provide a means to frame the self within a national context, to

'produce a form of identification between the self and the social ' (Westwood and

Phizacklea, 2000: 42). Plot themes and kinds of character generate shared cultural

referents, which are interpreted in multiple ways but nevertheless supply common

points of orientation. Crucially, such themes, often dealing with 'sensationalistic '

social issues, featuring a range of class, ethnic and gendered characters, potentially

undermine official versions of the national story by including marginalised

characters and issues. Viewing the telenovelas also reveals the forms of scaling by

which individuals fit themselves into the nation, connecting emotionally and

cognitively with the narratives and representations which offer ' mediations between

local and national, big and small worlds' (ibid.: 56).

Scottishness and Braveheart

–143 –

In fact, within images flows there is great inequality between nations, between

those who have a large technological infrastructure and are home to global media

corporations which are able to transmit hegemonic meanings globally via visual

means, and nations which, lacking the means to produce and circulate a vast array

of images of their own, import a larger proportion of representations from else-

where. This global system of the transaction of images belies a power-geometry

whereby the majority of representations consumed by some national subjects

are generated from outside. In addition, there has been a growth of ' regional' and

'geo-cultural ' markets, such as Chinese, Indian, Arabic, European and other

diasporic populations, in which a number of nations must be addressed either

specifically or in programming that foregrounds regional ' common denominators'

(Barker, 1999: 53).

What I want to emphasise is that there remain identifiable regimes of represent-

ation (albeit increasingly unstable, plural and interpenetrated by other regimes of

representation) which are shaped around our national identity and our understand-

ing of other nations. And I also want to stress that the Baudrillardian nightmare

about the production of a free-floating, postmodern sign system within which any

possibility of meaning has been lost as images become detached from that which

they signify in a welter of signs is a chimera. However, the power to represent

means that visual and discursive hegemonies persist across mediascapes, and

swarms of images and words offer an increasing range of subject positions. Thus,

although attempts are made to fix meaning in the midst of mediascapes and

ideoscapes, representations are difficult to pin down, so the attempts of cultural

nationalists to retain stable meanings must be ongoing and vigilant, and can only

try to limit the potential for undermining hegemonic meaning.

It is with questions about the globalisation of representation that I have chosen

to look at Braveheart , in many ways a formulaic Hollywood product which deals

with (Scottish) national identity but casts the story within a more generic framework

designed to appeal to a global audience. I have chosen to look at a global form

of representation rather than one that is more obviously located in a national

tradition or school. The issues I will explore are different from, but overlap with,

those associated with national film traditions. For these latter schools often act as

guardians of film heritage, establishing archives and film institutes. Higson has

argued that amongst European nations, ' national' cinema has been marshalled to

assert a claim for autonomy against the influence of Hollywood and to foster and

support a distinctively 'national cultural form, an institution with a " nationalising"

function' (1989: 43).

Gledhill (2001) argues that national film can be identified in a number of ways:

by a focus on identifiable national narratives and myths; by a tradition of particular

genres; by codes and conventions of acting, screenplay, characterisation and so

on; through body language and the ' gestures, words, intonations, attitudes, postures'

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National Identity

that inhere in performances; by the signs and values which national stars carry

(Michael Caine, Sean Connery). It is also distinguished according to the market

it is designed for (Hayward, 1999). Gledhill also refers to British cinema as mobil-

ising identifiable kinds of ' story-telling, modes of acting and theatricality, and

pictorialism' . These are distinguished by a specific ' cultural poetics ' and ' culturally

conditioned modes of perception' , notably influenced by social divisions of

class, region and, latterly, ethnicity. For instance, there is a concern with portray-

ing restraint and passion as distinctive expressions of class which inform and are

informed by a broader awareness of acting in a social context. These key elements

produce an insistently social cinema which is realised not in 'realistic' represent-

ations but ' in the processes of story-telling, lay acting, trying on each other' s

costumes, listening to each other' s accents, quoting each other' s stories, mobilising

each other' s cultural forms and practices' (Gledhill, 2001). Clearly, there are

recognisable modes of production and reception which emerge out of particular

national identities and preoccupations.

However, rather than explore these undoubted regularities identifiable in national

cinemas, I want to examine a Hollywood product to explore how the often formulaic

themes it plays with feed back into contemporary constructions of national identity.

As an iconic representation of Scottishness Braveheart capitalises on popular

myth, but the power of this myth, its flexibility, means that the film has been used

and interpreted in numerous ways. As such, the example also serves to locate the

production of national identity as partly occurring outside the nation, embellishing

my concern to show how it is situated in the constellations which are organised

within an increasingly global matrix.

Introducing Braveheart

The Hollywood blockbuster Braveheart , directed by and starring Mel Gibson in

the title role, tells the story of the struggles for Scottish independence led by Sir

William Wallace, the legendary Scottish warrior, who, although from humble

background, assembled a force capable of defeating the occupying English army,

and achieved considerable military success until his abandonment by treacherous

Scottish nobles led to his capture and gruesome execution on the orders of Edward

Longshanks, the English King. Using this film, I will look at the ways in which

representations of the nation are contested, the genealogies by which such emblems

of national pride are summoned up, and how representations concocted and broad-

cast at the global scale may become repatriated, and may serve to bolster or question

mythic national tropes. My aim is to focus on the response to the movie as an

exemplary form of contemporary representation, but then to broaden the discussion

by exploring the historical contexts through which the Wallace myth has persisted.

Moreover, the role of Braveheart in reconstituting forms of Scottishness can be

Scottishness and Braveheart

–145 –

divorced neither from the (re)production of other representations of Wallace,

ancient, modern and ongoing, nor the use of Wallace in material culture, and in

forms of ritual and performance. My argument will rest upon the contention that

representing aspects of Scottishness through the medium of a highly commercial

film has not led to a passive consumption of the narrative and images beamed out

of the cinema screen, but has dynamically (re)generated a proliferation of other

arguments, artefacts, images, performances, phrases and symbolic spaces which

(re)produce ideas about Wallace and national identity.

Braveheart emerged at a crucial time for the reconstitution of Scottish identity,

in a period which has seen the establishment of a Scottish parliament. Many com-

mentators cite what they call the ' Braveheart effect' in contributing to this renewed

national awareness. Yet popular responses to the film highlight many of the

ambivalences and conflicts about the constitution of Scottish identity and the repre-

sentation of Scotland, and these themes are far from recent. The reactions of Scots

partly indicate the difficulties of sustaining narratives of national identity in a

globalising world.

To explore the various discourses and appropriations of Braveheart, I will firstly

contextualise the discussion by considering some debates about the representation

of Scotland in film and deliberate upon the manufacture of a contemporary Scottish

identity in an era in which intensified processes of globalisation – mediatisation,

commodification and cultural disembedding – appear to threaten national and local

identities. Secondly, I will assess the responses of politicians and commentators

to the film, to highlight the debates around Scottish identity. In broadening out

the discussion, I will then go on to explore how Braveheart has significantly

heightened the profile of Scotland in the international tourist market – like film,

an important contemporary source through which national attributes and attractions

are circulated – and the ways in which this has also been subject to contestation.

Furthering my intention to draw on the wider context of representation – and to

situate debates about Braveheart and Scottish national identity within a wider

matrix – I will examine the production of images of Wallace over time, places

associated with him, forms of material culture which have been generated by this

mythic figure, dramatic rituals organised around him, and briefly discuss the

reception of Braveheart outside Scotland.

William Wallace is one of the central figures of Scottish history, in official

accounts and in popular myth and legend. Commencing with the fifteenth-century

book by Blind Harry, The Actis and Deidis of the Illustere and Vailzeand Campioun

Schir William Wallace, Knicht of Ellerslie, Wallace has been a constant point of

identification in popular culture, featuring in the poetry of the national bard, Robert

Burns, notably the patriotic anthem ' Scots Wha Hae' (wi Wallace bled) and

commemorated at the imposing nineteenth-century National Wallace Monument

in Stirling. In 1990, Marinell Ash proclaimed that the power of Wallace (and Robert

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National Identity

the Bruce) was becoming irrelevant, yet she conceded that any outbreak of popular

nationalism would make it ' surprising if the figures of Bruce and Wallace are not

invoked once more' (1990: 92). As the success of Braveheart testifies, this is exactly

what has happened. The fifth biggest grossing movie in the UK in 1995, Scotland

provided 28 per cent of the national audience (its usual share of the British market

averaging 8 per cent). The movie was the subject of controversy in the national

press, with a profusion of letters, articles and editorials, contributing to a tumult

of national self-analysis and definition, as will shortly be discussed. Before that, I

want to provide a context for debates about representation, film and national identity

by exploring the portrayal of Scotland in film.

Scotland in Film

One may argue that in general the subject matter, characterisation, narrative, pace,

action sequence and dialogue in Hollywood films are premised upon the expect-

ations of the international markets at which they are aimed. Forming an integral

part of global 'mediascapes' and 'ideoscapes' (Appadurai, 1990), these cinematic

flows of images and information contain identifiable tropes which are designed to

appeal to an international audience but also bear powerful traces of American

ideologies.

Because Hollywood appeals to ' fantasies, desires and aspirations that are not

simply of local and national interests' it is, in an important sense, integral to the

film cultures of most parts of the world, and hence part of their national cinema

(Higson, 1995: 8). Whilst the majority of its films are situated in the United States,

Hollywood also casts its net further, often alighting on mythical heroes and

epics from other cultural locations (for instance, The Three Musketeers, El Cid,

Robin Hood, Crocodile Dundee, Mulan), disembedding the telling of these stories

from localities and encoding them with its own particular themes of stylised

romance, versions of masculinity and femininity, and individual liberty and

integrity. The circulation of these images and narratives of 'otherness' signify

familiar notions of global difference. Such movies are therefore important cultural

forms which (re)construct the nation through symbolic ingredients such as

traditions, landscapes, histories and myths which are consumed by national and

international audiences. Some argue that these commercial strategies which cross

national boundaries to create new ' imaginative territories' are destined to dilute

national identities portrayed via Hollywood. Indeed, according to German film-

maker Edgar Reitz, Hollywood has ' taken narrative possession of our past' (Morley

and Robins, 1995: 93).

To assert cultural identity in response to Hollywood' s market onslaught, other

independent film projects are devised specifically to articulate a more located sense

of identity and repel what are perceived as the denationalising tendencies of this

Scottishness and Braveheart

–147 –

globalising movie culture. These movies are commonly distinguished from Holly-

wood as belonging to a ' national cinema' – and in certain cases (for instance, in

France) are part of a defensive reaction against what is seen as ' Americanisation' .

More particularistic films tend to represent other identity formations within

the nation such as race, sexuality, ethnicity, region and class, but there are also

'heritage ' films which tap into nostalgic modes of representing the past (Higson,

1995). Alternatively, other strategies exploit their own ' exotic' national character-

istics and attempt to sell this difference on the international market, further ensuring

that such productions contain familiar plots based around action adventure, romance

and sexuality, such as the (very) English films Notting Hill and Lock, Stock and

Two Smoking Barrels, which trade respectively on English reserve and charming

eccentricity, and on East End gangster lore.

Scotland has a particular place in the annals of Hollywood-produced mythology.

According to McArthur, Scottishness in films is represented by well-worn historical

stereotypes. He contends that besides informing ways in which most other cultures

imagine Scots, 'the melange of images, characters and motifs consuming tartanry

and Kailyard' also provides the framework within which Scots continue to construct

themselves. Such films thereby sustain a hegemonic system that interpellates Scots

with a sense of their own inferiority and suffocates attempts to produce alternative

representations (McArthur, 1982: 40). Craig supports this view, asserting that the

reified forms of representation are cliché s which 'need to acquire a new historical

significance before they can be released into the onward flow of the present from

the frozen worlds of their myths of historical irrelevance' (1982: 15). The con-

clusion of the edited collection, Scotch Reels , is that ' more politically progressive'

representations of Scotland should be produced in Scottish film (McArthur, 1982).

It is argued that consistent and regressive forms of representation can ' slip into

the national imaginary as familiar identities, and into the international image

markets as tradable symbolic goods' (Caughie, 1990: 14). The key themes of Kail-

yard, Clydesideism and tartanry indicate the loss of identity and a removal from

'authentic' Scottishness (whatever that might be). McArthur laments that Scotland

seems destined continually to fulfil its role as ' the Romantic dream landscape par

excellence' (1994: 104).

These arguments resonate with wider assertions that Scottish popular culture

is damned by embarrassing stereotypes. Fretting over Scottish television dramas,

popular iconography and commodities as well as films, journalists and intellectuals

attempt to distinguish between ' progressive' cultural products and practices, and

those which stain Scotland' s image and promote a ' sense of inferiority' . It is argued

that to achieve a ' mature' or ' modern' national identity, these dismal trappings of

Scottishness – kitsch tartan souvenirs, hard men, romantic scenery and whimsical

locals – need to be replaced by more ' contemporary' representations. This distrust

of ' low' Scottishness is appositely captured by historian T.C. Smout: 'in popular

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culture, Scottish history appears as the stuff of heritage industry, colourful and

episodic, but basically not serious. It is a poor foundation on which to identify a

Scottish nation with a confident and empowered Scottish state' (1994: 109).

Films such as Brigadoon , Whisky Galore , Local Hero and Loch Ness, certainly

seem to fit into the whimsical, moral stories of kailyard, and have been augmented

by representations of folksy Scottishness in TV series such as Take the High Road,

Dr Finlay' s Casebook and Hamish McBeth. The rural wistfulness and disempower-

ing sense of loss that Scotch Reels emphasises seems to be evident in other recent

films set in the Highlands such as Ill Fares the Land, Venus Peter and Another

Time, Another Place.

As far as Braveheart is concerned, the preoccupations of Hollywood in general

and the imaging of Scottishness in particular appear to follow predictable forms.

Some critics maintain that films such as Rob Roy and Braveheart are fashioned

for an international audience by resituating the ethos of the western in a Scottish

setting (Royle, 1995). A central theme of the action movie is the fantasy of male

control and empowerment through physical engagement (O' Shea, 1996: 244).

Moreover, here, as in most Hollywood products, the heterosexual love story is a

staple ingredient. Of course, the motif of freedom and the defeat of oppression

(connoting democracy, individualism and a dominant American ideology) is

frequently integral to Hollywood narrative and needs little further explication here.

In Braveheart , these gendered themes are transcoded in an imaginary Scottish

landscape populated by the ' wild charismatic men' and ' the fey elusive women'

cited in Scotch Reels . Wallace and his rugged warriors are fighting to reclaim their

land and their masculine dignity from their English overlords – whose (wholly

fictitious) practice of primus nocte represents the emasculation of Scotland. One

figure, Wallace, emerges to claim the right to liberty; the physically courageous

hero must be central to the tale whilst the military tradition of Scotland is reinforced.

The two chief female characters are grateful recipients of Wallace' s hyper-

masculine qualities. The romantic interludes are set beneath the stars in pastoral

splendour midst trees and rocks. Likewise, the landscape is seen as a source

of sustenance to Wallace as he ruminates atop the Cairngorms about the battle

strategies he must implement, the camera giddily swirling around him. This

mapping of the bodies of the key participants onto archetypal scenery reinforces

the importance of the landscape in popular fantasies of Scotland in which Scots

are nurtured and strengthened by wild nature.

Despite the persistence of these stories and images, the proliferation of films

and TV programmes set in and produced in Scotland means that representations

of Scotland are now more complex than in the recent past: ' less than a decade

ago, Scottish cinema could be simplified, abstracted and categorised in critical

and historical research' (Caughie, 1990: 13). The rise of an independent sector

has fuelled the production of smaller-scale, home-based drama which displays

Scottishness and Braveheart

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themes and images far removed from the kinds of ' stereotypical' films impugned

above. Films like Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, and Breaking the Waves can be

evaluated as morally, aesthetically and politically challenging. Moreover, films

such as Small Faces, Orphans and Ratcatcher, TV series such as Tutti Frutti,

Taggar t , and Bad Boys , and the plays of Peter MacDougall, all explore themes of

urban Glasgow and Clydesideism, deconstructing and parodying the Glasgow ' hard

man' and brutal gangs, and the urban culture. These productions underline the

diversity of new representations of Scottishness.

More seriously, however, the withering criticisms levelled at the ' traditional'

films by McArthur et al . miss the contradictions and ambivalences which inhere

in their popular reception and the knowing self-mockery which they promote

amongst Scots. Ignoring the interpretations of audiences, and the ways such repre-

sentations are reclaimed, recycled and used to express a wide range of meanings,

such analyses presume that films are unproblematically consumed by viewers,

that they are encoded with dominant messages which are simply and consensually

decoded.

Although it is commonly attributed to popular films that they are formulaic,

market-led and predictable, it is necessary to recognise that they are consumed by

diverse groups, in particular historical contexts and in specific political cultures.

For instance, popular films can stimulate utopian desires through the structures of

feeling they concoct, and audiences can imagine transcending forms of oppression

and conceive of transgressive and transformational acts. Thus the common filmic

representational and narrative tropes around the purposive and efficient expenditure

of physical energy, sensual viscerality, the transparent intensity of emotion and its

expression, the authenticity of emotional relationships and the sense of community,

can promise the transcendence of the quotidian, or of oppressive political

circumstances. In this sense, the utopian possibilities suggested by the sensual

and narrative intensity of Hollywood movies hint at a transformative appropriation.

Films are formulaically encoded with fantasies about ' freedom' , individual

accomplishment, overcoming inequality, unmasking hypocrisy and corruption, and

achieving romantic fulfilment. Moreover, the conventional figure of the doomed

hero who ' will not settle for the world as it is' suggests the exemplary nobility of

those who struggle to transcend oppression (O' Shea, 1996: 245). Braveheart is

exemplary in this respect, since it enables particular fantasies about Scottishness

and nationalism to be translated into present political struggles.

The political impact of a film is heavily influenced by ' which political currents

are in circulation and which discursive strategies they adopt' (ibid.): ' whether

particular film viewers connect the pleasures of communitarian transcendence

they enjoy in a film to a communitarian politics will depend upon the political

culture they inhabit in that historical conjuncture' (ibid.: 259). And in the context

of Braveheart , the film must have seemed like manna from heaven for many

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nationalists who have witnessed a rising tide of support for Scottish political

independence during the 1990s. For although the Hollywood appropriation and

reconstitution of myths exemplifies the disembedding of culture, it also provides

new images and reconfigured narratives that can be re-embedded. Rather than

losing their significance, the global transmission of disembedded images and

narratives may feed back into local discourses, even heightening their power over

identity and imagination.

Battles Over Braveheart

In order to explore the variety of responses to Braveheart within Scotland, I will

concentrate on the uses which some nationalists eagerly made of the film, and

then look at its negative reception amongst a range of commentators. This is

intended to give a flavour of the heated and complex debate which took place,

especially in the national press, to further elucidate my argument that popular

forms of representation can feed into the reflexive reconstruction of identity, rather

than being passively consumed. These debates also highlight the problems of

sustaining national identities which depend on 'traditional' forms of representing

the nation which appear to clash with ' progressive visions' – again the contest

between modern and traditional dimensions of national identity.

Celebrating Braveheart

Although Mel Gibson somewhat disingenuously denied that the film had any

political content but was merely a good story (Scotsman , 2/9/95), the Scottish

National Party (SNP) was quick to exploit the metaphorical possibilities it offered.

Former Party leader Alex Salmond claimed that ' the message is relevant today in

that it is the Scots who are fighting for their independence the same way they are

at the moment' (Glasgow Herald , 2/10/95). Skilfully comparing the political project

of Wallace with that of contemporary nationalism , he argued that Wallace' s 'idea

of the "common weal", the common good, is a Scottish spirit that has lasted for

centuries; it is that spirit that the modern civic nationalism of Scotland retains'

(Observer , 10/9/95: 6).

This presumed Scottish quality of a more democratic disposition is intended to

compare with the lesser democratic instincts of England, from which Scotland

must free itself. As mentioned earlier, notions about the ' double time of the nation'

(Bhabha, 1990) and nationalism as ' janus-faced' (Nairn, 1977) reveals how

nationalists simultaneously evoke historical events and figures, and optimistic

invocations of future glory. What has been achieved can be attained once more.

Using archetypal myth to establish precedent, the SNP cite Wallace' s exemplary

Scottishness and Braveheart

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adventures to inform future progress. Out of a long continuous history marked by

passages of autonomy and oppression, the present state of affairs merely presages

the realisation of the nation, its eventual coming into efflorescence, as prefigured

in earlier triumphs. Whilst an appeal to the militaristic characteristics of Wallace' s

campaign has been seen as crude and triumphalist, the allure of his supposed

concern for civil rights, equity and self-determination fit snugly into contemporary

political discourse. Others argue that the film addresses other contemporary political

and historical issues. For instance, Massie cites the Whig historian G.M. Trevelyan

as articulating the popular view that Wallace introduced the ' new idea and tradition'

of ' democratic patriotism' into the world (Sunday Times , 17/9/95).

Besides this appeal to rational political objectives clothed in the language of

modern democracy, the SNP also drew on what Salmond called ' the real power

in the emotional appeal' of Braveheart (The Herald , 11/9/95). This is exemplified

in the rabble-rousing parallel he draws by identifying the SNP with the cause

of Wallace: ' At the Battle of Stirling Bridge I would have been on Wallace' s side

and at least [Michael] Forsyth would know he wanted to be on the other side. But

Labour would have been in a quandary. I can safely say Wallace wouldn' t have

been in favour of devolution' (Sunday Times , 3/9/95). At the time, Forsyth was the

Secretary of State for Scotland in the unpopular Conservative government. In order

to capitalise on this emotional and political charge, the SNP distributed cleverly

devised leaflets outside cinemas in Scotland in the form of reply-paid postcards.

On one side was an image of Mel Gibson as Wallace and ' BRAVEHEART' in

large capitals, along with a text, culminating in the words: ' TODAY IT'S NOT

JUST BRAVEHEARTS WHO CHOOSE INDEPENDENCE – IT' S ALSO WISE-

HEADS – AND THEY USE THE BALLOT BOX' . On the other side is the slogan

'YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE . . . NOW FACE THE REALITY.'

The ' head and heart' campaign which the SNP mobilised to cash in on the

popularity of the movie had immediate results in opinion polls which recorded a

dramatic rise of eight points in those intending to vote for the party, and, according

to Salmond, applications for membership were almost sixty a day (The Herald ,

11/9/95). Even if this contains a pinch of hyperbole, it seems to indicate the power-

ful impact of the film on Scots – what has been termed the ' Braveheart effect' .

The SNP' s belief that Braveheart possessed a symbolic significance for

nationalists was widely argued by other media commentators and columnists. In

line with the imperatives of cultural nationalists, discussed in Chapter 1, who argue

that a nationalism bereft of cultural and historical appeal is instrumental and sterile,

some commentators acknowledged that the film provided Scots with ' a powerful

creation myth which will surely help to focus our national sense of identity' (Brian

Pendreigh, Scotsman , 4/9/95). Moreover, Mike Russell, Chief Executive of the

SNP, contended that the film highlighted a significant historical episode which

fostered ' an understanding of the heroic nature of at least one part of our past and

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National Identity

a new enthusiasm for the future of our nation' ( Scotsman, 20/9/95). Such arguments

infer that an effective nationalism must have recourse to a set of foundational

myths that provide ' roots' for identity. As O' Shea avers in his discussion of the

popular consumption of films, political projects need ' affective investment as

well as a rational acceptance' (1996: 264). Thus Braveheart tapped directly into

these transcendent desires for emotional identification with aspects of the nation

which connote struggle, history and heroism, and tradition.

One of the most common claims in praise of Braveheart was that it highlighted

'wider truths ' which hinted at both contemporary inequality and the enduring

corruption of a self-serving class of Scots. Maley suggested that ' the triple whammy

of anglicisation, inferiorism and anti-Irish sentiment can be addressed at a single

stroke, and in an accessible manner' (1998: 78). Mike Russell wrote that the motiv-

ation which led Wallace to undertake such a campaign, his decision to embark on

a quest for autonomy and freedom, was a positive choice that stresses the import-

ance of independence. For the ' lack of equality and respect between the institutions

of Scotland and England' along with the ' thoughtlessness that familiarity, political

superiority and dependence have bred' at Westminster, are relevant political

analogies that the film arouses (Scotsman , 20/9/95).

For others, Braveheart raised awareness about how Scottish nobles had

consistently betrayed the aspirations of their countryfolk. Lesley Riddoch argued

that a class analysis reveals the way the elite – what she terms ' our Uncle Toms' –

had sold out the interests of the ordinary Scots: 'the overwhelming lesson of history,

and the clear message of Braveheart is that one individual cannot triumph while

the so-called professional classes divide their loyalties between themselves and

the collective interests they' re supposed to serve' (Scotsman , 15/9/95). Using the

thirteenth-century nobles portrayed in Braveheart as an example, she links these

betrayals by an aristocratic 'parcel of rogues' to the contemporary betrayals by a

Scottish elite in the name of ' enlightened self interest' and warns of the tragic

'prospect of history repeating itself '. This theme is echoed by Pendreigh, who

remarks that ' Braveheart does an excellent job in conveying the duplicity of the

Scottish nobility, including Bruce, as they seek to promote their own interests'

(Scotsman 8/9/95). Likewise, Russell accuses the 'deceitful ' and ' treacherous'

nobility of being ' mean-spirited' and cites the overcoming of these narrow interests

as essential in the ultimate achievement of Scottish independence (Scotsman ,

20/9/95).

In addition to these sentiments, the economic value of the film, and the very

fact that Scotland was represented on a world stage, was seen as a source of prestige.

Indeed, Michael Forsyth primarily used the film to project an image of himself

as touting for business for Scotland (see The Guardian , 11/9/95). In this context,

the politics and content of the film are irrelevant but its economic potential is

not. Others also recognise the economic arguments of projecting a powerful

Scottishness and Braveheart

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image abroad. As a member of the Wallace clan writes in a letter to the Sunday

Times, ' A romantic international view can be a good thing and we should not

knock the tartan out of Scotland; it has the potential to create many well-paid

jobs' (14/6/96).

Widely reported in the press was the request of Ally McCoist, the Scottish inter-

national footballer, for a special showing of Braveheart before the crucial European

Championship qualifying match with Finland to induce patriotic feeling and spur

the team on to victory. Whether apocryphal or not, the story evinces the ways in

which popular cultural forms and practices are used to express nationalist sentiment,

and sometimes operate in an intertextual way so as to reinforce each other. The

episode conjures up the war-cry, ' Remember Bannockburn' , which resonates when

Scotland play the ' auld enemy' , England, at football, and testifies to the emotional

significance of twinning sporting and celluloid versions of national(ist) achieve-

ment. It seems that any Scottish athletic achievement is currently signalled in the

press as the feat of a sporting ' Braveheart' .

Finally, the highly charged symbolism of Wallace' s exploits in contemporary

Scotland was crystallised in the decision to hold the 1999 devolution referendum

to decide whether there should be a Scottish Parliament on the date of the 700th

anniversary of Wallace' s successful defeat of the English at the Battle of Stirling

Bridge.

Criticising Braveheart

Despite the celebration of Braveheart by numerous patriotic Scots, there were

many dissenting voices in the media about the morality of the film, and its suitability

as a political and emblematic expression of Scottish identity. It is noteworthy that

the arguments identified above by those who lament the regressive and stereotypical

representations of Scottishness in popular film and the tourist industry find an

echo in critiques of Braveheart . The familiar fears about the obsession with tartanry

and Highland tales resurface, for instance, in Audrey Gillan' s comment: ' Braveheart

has encouraged Scotland' s lack of knowledge about itself. Greedy for confirmation

as a romantically wild nation, our gluttony for feeding on myth and heathery legend

reaches worrying proportions when it affects the entire socio-consciousness of a

nation' (Scotland on Sunday , 16/9/95).

Widespread concern was directed towards the growing nexus between the

heritage industry and the media. As the place-marketers leapt onto the Braveheart

bandwagon, fears about the impact of these attempts to recycle the images of the

film for tourists led to complaints about the production of a hyperreal, post-

industrial Scotland: ' Sadly, the tourist industry is about the only industry thriving

in this wee country today as Scotland gradually moves towards becoming a theme

park for wide-eyed romantics' (Miller, Scotsman, 7/9/95).

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National Identity

Although I have identified a dominant view amongst Scottish nationalists that

the film was a godsend to their cause, for some the importance of presenting a

modern, European and progressive image is hamstrung by the persistence of tartan,

militaristic and mystico-romantic representations of Scotland. Several responses

to Braveheart highlight this disaffection with what they envision as anachronistic

themes of Scottishness. Counter to the arguments of cultural nationalists, the

preoccupation with the motifs of the film was considered by several commentators

to be at the expense of rational political debate. As a letter-writer to the Sunday

Times recorded (15/9/96), ' the SNP should stick to economics, social policies,

international policies and its proposals for an independent Scotland. It should forget

trying to stir up long dead emotions.'

A major source of discontent about the film was what was perceived as the

anti- English sentiment, even hatred, which was believed to encourage a version

of patriotism that blamed others for Scotland' s own failings. Nationalist strategies

of constructing a mythical foe – the English – against which the nation can be

contrasted were accused of veering towards exclusivist and hysterical tendencies.

According to Gillan, the recourse to demonising the English is a nationalism

which has ' at the back of its consciousness . . . imperialist bogeys, redcoats, poll-

taxers, and goals by Bobby Charlton' (Scotland on Sunday , 16/9/95). The rather

homophobic motif running through the film, embodied in the character of the

Prince of Wales, was identified by MacAskill, who asserted that ' every Englishman

is either completely evil or homosexual, and speaks with a Home Counties accent'.

In contradistinction, 'Scots are all kindly, rough hewn souls, mixing courage and

humour' . He argues that 'Salmond should be ashamed that his party has benefited

from tawdry emotionalism and racism' ( Scotsman, 12/9/95). Moreover, Massie

attests that Braveheart panders to popular stereotypes that the English are

'arrogant', less community-minded than Scots, and snobbish, and that these reflect

'old and pointless resentments' that will be rekindled and 'inflame the feelings of

animosity which already exist' ( Sunday Times, 17/9/95). The summoning up of

such stereotypical enemies is held to betray a lack of self-confidence and a

vilification of a reified ' other' .

Besides fretting about the portrayal of the English and the anachronistic sense

of identity that this reproduces, the claiming of a medieval warrior by the nationalist

cause was seen as inappropriate and irrelevant by some. Michael Forsyth asserted,

'I think we have to fight the battles of the 21st century, not the 14th century' ( Stirling

Observer, 1/9/95). Later he said that Wallace was a ' loser and a failure' and an

example of how Scots tended to celebrate failure. This defeatism, he concluded,

signified something about the ' contemporary Scottish ethos' , particularly its neglect

of celebrating successful figures. Rather predictably, Forsyth cited Adam Smith

as a ' more suitable role model' ( Guardian, 27/4/96). Instead of venerating the

attributes of losers, Forsyth recommended that the most estimable qualities of Scots

Scottishness and Braveheart

–155 –

were epitomised by their ' self-sufficiency, education, thriftiness and wealth

creation' ( Sunday Times 21/7/96).

Likewise, Massie insists that Wallace is an ' impossibly remote' figure and that

'the wars of independence are not only a long time ago, but irrelevant to modern

Scotland' . His argument is whether an ancient military figure serves as an

appropriate icon: ' does it really serve us well to identify as our national hero a

man who, however brave and honourable he may have been, has his hands red

with English blood?' ( Scotland on Sunday, 3/9/95). Massie then broadens his

discussion by suggesting a list of other Scots who ought to be celebrated with the

same fervour as that accorded to Wallace (a theme I will return to shortly), offering

those who perished in military conflict to uphold ' democracy and civilisation'

commemorated by the national War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle. There is a

move here to reclaim the unionist tradition of highlighting those Scots who pros-

pered and made fortunes in the era of empire, and the familiar Victorian litany of

heroic inventors and explorers, notably David Livingstone. In a similar vein,

historian Richard Findlay argues that the benefits derived from empire go ' against

the grain of much of Scottish history that tends to represent Scotland as victim'

(Sunday Times , 21/7/96). These critiques raise the question of the mythical value

of heroic figures, and show how national identity and nationalism is an arena both

for radically different interpretations of familiar mythic figures and events and for

contests between groups who utilise different mythical elements to stake their

political claims through such identifications. As we shall see, more pertinent,

perhaps, is the dearth of female Scottish mythic figures, emphasising the masculin-

isation of Scottish identity as evinced through the film and heritage industries

(Edensor and Kothari, 1996).

Two other critical responses to the film are worth pointing out. First is the

argument that Wallace' s struggle against oppression ought to be identified as a

class struggle, an aspect Braveheart did not depict. Capitalising on the popular

belief that Wallace is a particularly exemplary hero because of his lowly origins,

historian J. Mackay averred that 'there is a far better argument that what he did

was more Marxist than Scottish nationalist. He was a man of the people. But his

struggle was a struggle against the Anglo-Norman aristocracy' ( Sunday Times,

21/7/95). Likewise, in an academic context, Willy Maley admires the way the

film foregrounds class divisions to lambast the ' collaborative national bourgeoisie'

and commends its 'uncompromising rebelliousness and anti-authoritarianism'

(1998: 71).

A concern with realism is manifest in further critical responses that pointed

out the film' s lack of historical accuracy and authenticity. Here is evident a conflict

between contending forms of narration and representation; namely, between History

and Myth. For instance, Miller points out the innumerable ' howlers' of the film,

reserving particular opprobrium for the Highland presentation of Wallace – who

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was apparently a lowlander, Wallace' s (Gibson' s) Glaswegian accent, the unrealistic

portrayal of Edinburgh as a collection of cottages rather than a fortress town, the

sound-tracking of uilleann (Irish) pipes as the Highland bagpipes are played on

screen, and above all the suggestion that Wallace was the progenitor of the English

throne through his liaison with the future queen of England. What is rather more

noteworthy here is the implication that the effeminate princely husband of the

target of Wallace' s affections is inadequate to the manly task fulfilled by the Scottish

epitome of masculinity. As Charlotte O' Sullivan notes, ' siring turns out to be the

supreme patriotic act' (Observer , 16/6/96: 18).

The first lover of Wallace, the elfin Murron, apparently has no basis in docu-

mented evidence. Other writers directed particular outrage to the absence of

a bridge in the scenes of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the entirely mythical sug-

gestion that the city of York was captured by a Scottish army, and the inauthentic

shortness of Gibson in contrast to the legendary towering height of Wallace.

McArthur contends that the film makes no attempt to capture the complicated

feudal politics of medieval Scotland (1995: 45). Perhaps most obviously, the sense

of national identity, patriotism and self-determination that Wallace seeks in the

movie would have been incomprehensible in a feudal era where the ties between

lord and peasant were paramount and conflict was typically organised around

battles between lords.

Despite these fulminations about authenticity, it is useful to consider Rosen-

stone' s reminder that ' films which have been truest to the past have tended to be

visually and dramatically inert' (1995: 7). Moreover, as some nationalists main-

tain, the wider issues raised by the film transcend the concerns of period detail.

The conventions of realism which typify many historical films, motivated by the

pretension that ' the screen can be an unmediated window onto the past' , are

ineffective according to Rosenstone. Instead, he commends what he terms the

'postmodern history film ' which ' creates multiple meaning, plays with the past,

questions the knowledge on which History is constructed and yet recognises the

impossibility of banishing the past' (ibid.:12). Whilst the simultaneous occurrences

on screen of image, sound and language often convey contrasting messages and

disrupt the flow of meaning, they can convey a more sensual and emotional sense

of the past than an arid discourse. In any case, there is no way that the medieval

period can be recovered accurately, besides which, claims about inauthenticity

mask the ideological and value-laden discourses which inhere in (especially official

and authoritative) histories. Effectively, it may be emotional authenticity rather

than historical accuracy that satisfies audiences, for the former may more closely

relate to the emotional needs and desires of the present. In fact, such popular cultural

products may provoke renewed interest in history, as Braveheart undoubtedly has,

with a greatly increased number of Scottish students applying for places on Scottish

History courses.

Scottishness and Braveheart

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Recycling Images: The Tourist Industry, Heritage and Film

in Scotland

In order to reiterate my general points about the intertextuality of popular culture,

its dissemination into an increasingly complex network of connections, I want to

look at the tourist industry and the way it also propagates representations of national

identity. I also explore the growing nexus between tourism and the film industry,

which the former increasingly relies upon to foster its creation of place-images

and attractions. For as a symptom of global economic restructuring, the tourist

industry exploits ' minute spatial differentiations' (Harvey, 1989: 294) in order

to sell ' unique' places and cultures on the global market. Local particularities are

exploited and commodified for cosmopolitan consumers, ' torn out of time and

place to be repackaged for the world bazaar' (Robins, 1991: 31), so that particular

countries stand as metaphors for distinct attributes, such as the ' exotic' , the ' erotic',

the 'romantic' or the 'classical' .

The fastest-growing sector of the Scottish economy is tourism. Scotland has been

subject to a romantic tourist gaze since the early eighteenth century (McCrone et

al., 1995: 60), and the tourist industry tends to utilise a repertoire of images with

which to attract tourists. And again, the selling of Scotland abroad tends to rely on

stereotyped images such as kilted warriors, Highland scenery and romantic castles,

constructing what Rojek calls ' an enchanted fortress in a disenchanted world' (1993:

181). Womack has commented that ' all Scots wear tartan, are devoted to bagpipe

music, and are moved by the spirit of clanship . . . all these libels live on as items

in the Scottish tourist package of the Twentieth century' (1987: 25). These repre-

sentations emerged in the eighteenth century and solidified in the nineteenth

century, when they became enormously popular. Serving as an ' other' realm on

the margins of the United Kingdom, a rugged and ' sublime' Highland landscape

with its wild clansman garbed in tartan and kilt, Scotland was a romantic dream-

scape tailored by and for metropolitan desire. These fantasies were served by the

productions generated in the era where folklore and traditions were ' invented' .

MacPherson' s Ossian epic, the Sobieski Stuarts' invention of tartan styles (McCrone

et al., 1995: 51), the vast pageant of Scottishness put on for the visit of George IV

to Edinburgh (Withers, 1992: 152– 153), and the romantic impressions of the High-

lands produced by Landseer for Queen Victoria (Pringle, 1988) have all contributed

to this staging. Equally, the military significance of tartan was reinforced by its

appropriation as battledress for Scottish regiments. To this day, a large proportion

of Scotland's tourist sites, like many cinematic portrayals, are military. Tom Nairn

mourns that Scottish popular militarism is ' far more strident than anything found

in comparable levels of culture in England' (Nairn, 1977: 165).

Pat Kane laments this preoccupation with what he calls ' claymore culture' ,

and he maintains that the construction of Scotland as ' an elemental land of warrior

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men and wan maidens, of breast beating heroes fighting the overly rational English'

disempowers identity production, whilst at the same time these tales of ' authentic,

primitive redemption, of direst passions expressed in natural surroundings' serve

the ' tourist agencies perfectly' ( Guardian , 18/5/95). Similarly, Nairn has attacked

the production of the 'tartan monster', that 'prodigious array of kitsch symbols,

slogans, ornaments, banners, war-cries, knick-knacks' (1977: 162). Of course, any

trip to a tourist centre sees the consumption of such objects in full flow.

Quite clearly, then, there are strong similarities between the ways in which the

long-established tourist industry and the rather more recent film industry represent

Scotland. This circulation of symbols, images and narratives of Scottishness is

protean, operating across various cultural fields, but is especially and increasingly

interconnected between tourist and cinematic representation. Most obviously,

tourist marketing campaigns frequently plunder the images and narratives of

popular films. As part of global 'mediascapes ', films also transmit notions of

difference and stimulate the ' desire for acquisition and movement' (Appadurai,

1990: 299); they stimulate fantasies of the ' other' which spark tourist trends. For

instance, a quarter of a million copies of a movie map devised by the British Tourist

Association where tourists can ' follow in the footsteps of their screen heroes' was

produced in 1996. As mentioned in Chapter 3, in such campaigns, touristic

landscapes are promoted as theatres and stage sets where movie episodes can be

reimagined. Popular films can provide important resources in promoting attractions

and boosting the place-images of localities, as has been most evident in the case

of Braveheart .

Crucially, particular images and ideological narratives circulate through the

production and presentation of heritage attractions and films. Reconstructions in

costume dramas capitalise on the desire to see the 'other' in the foreign country of

the past (Corner and Harvey, 1991: 49). And as Higson remarks, the construction

of a national identity via the ' heritage film' involves ' the transference of present

values on to the past as imaginary object' (1995: 41). In the case of the English

heritage film, this has typically rotated around conservative images of the pastoral

and the country house, suggesting ideals of a natural, hierarchical community and

historical continuity which are echoed in the popularity of visiting country houses

by foreign and domestic tourists.

Entrepreneurs and politicians have fully attempted to capitalise on the success

of Braveheart by intensively marketing Stirling' s association with Wallace. As

a marketing tool, the film has proved opportune in attracting tourists and raising

the town' s profile. The Loch Lomond, Trossachs and Stirling Tourist Board

acknowledge that the film' s success brought in millions of extra tourist pounds,

with the director stating that ' Braveheart has given us the ideal opportunity to

relaunch Stirling as one of Britain' s finest heritage towns' ( Stirling Observer,

20/9/96). The board produced an advertisement which reads, ' Where the Highlands

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meet the Lowlands, step into the echoes of Rob Roy, Robert the Bruce and William

Wallace – Braveheart Country' , and designed an advert for international trans-

mission in cinemas before the showing of Braveheart . Combining scenes from

the film with aerial views of the Wallace Monument and local scenery, the advert

ends with the exhortation to ' experience the very heart of Scotland: Stirling is

Braveheart Country' . Subsequently, the popularity of the Wallace Monument

increased dramatically following the release of the film: in the two years following

the film, visitor numbers to Scotland rose considerably and it is estimated that

revenue increased between £200 and £300 million (Scott, 2000).

Wollen argues that film and television are becoming a ' kaleidoscope for armchair

tourists' (1991: 191). Yet in addition to the marketing and representing of places

via cinematic links, heritage interpretation increasingly relies on audio-visual

presentations, son et lumè re shows, dramaturgical re-enactments, and animatronic

characters, which offer an experience akin to the cinematic. The Wallace Monument

also attracts visitors by advertising their audio-visual experiences and simulacra,

altering the relationship between site and visitor by producing an ' experience' .

Rather than gazing upon authentic artefacts, the contemporary tourist increasingly

enjoys immersion in a mediated, staged experience.

The upsurge in popular movies with a Scottish theme has transformed the selling

of heritage attractions in many parts of Scotland as they repatriate and recycle the

images and stories from these global media forms. But whilst commercial

possibilities for the expansion of the Scottish heritage industry have been expanded,

many Scots view these movie-influenced productions with alarm. Pat Kane pro-

nounces, ' Some of us feared that the future of Scotland might be as a romanticised,

adventure theme park. But could we have guessed that the might of Hollywood

would get behind the push so vigorously?' The effect of this recourse to the old

signs and stories of Scottishness thwarts Scotland' s need for ' a complex vision of

its culture and society – a representation that points the nation towards the 21st

century' (Guardian , 18/5/95).

Here we have returned to arguments similar to those cited above: like the

representations of Scotland in film, the heritage industry is replete with dominant

stereotypes that curtail alternative versions and imaginative reappropriation.

However, in a more populist interpretation, Porter argues that the commodification

of the past at tourist attractions and in films decentres auratic, expert versions

of history. Subsequently, history enters the realm of public discourse where it is

contested and appropriated. He writes, ' the past is not graven on stone tablets,

but is a show, constantly being recreated, on the screen, on stage, in the mind's

eye. Movie history is moving history' (Sunday Times, 30/7/95). His use of the

term ' moving' suggests the powerful emotional charge conveyed by dramatised

history as well as the ways in which the past is continually reinterpreted according

to the politics of the present.

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Geographies of William Wallace

To ground the meaning of Wallace geographically, it is notable that there are

symbolic sites particularly associated with him, as well as a plethora of subsidiary

locations within Scotland and places worldwide, which have rendered a link by

erecting monuments. Of particular importance within Scotland is the Stirling area,

historical location for the Battle of Stirling Bridge, site of the Victorian Wallace

Monument, and venue for several statues of the hero (all in different styles).

Describing Stirling as the ' seed-box' of Scottish nationalism, a local historian avers

that ' to revive the history of Stirling is to revive the history of Scotland' (Lannon,

1983: 56). Symbolically positioned at the meeting of the Highland and the

Lowlands, the historical identity of the town is dominated by the ' Stirling Triangle':

Stirling Castle, Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument. Lannon describes how

nineteenth-century romantic nationalism culminated in the raising of the flagstaff

at Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument, which ' resulted in Stirling becoming

a place of pilgrimage for all those who cherish the notion of Scottish independence'

(ibid.: 51). These attractions are evocatively described as being ' installed like

bits of organic furniture in a spiritual home' (ibid.: 54). Thus the affective tourist

geography recently reconstructed by the tourist industry emerges from Victorian

times and can be described as a ' memoryscape' whereby representations of Wallace

are inscribed upon the landscape to constitute 'points of physical and ideological

orientation' which materialise 'circuits of memory' (Johnson, 1995: 63).

A further level of geographical representation is demonstrated by the numerous

forests, trees, lakes, summits, cairns and caves throughout Scotland which are

associated with Wallace. We can conjecture that over the centuries wandering bards

and story-tellers have related stories of Wallace or recited Blind Harry' s epic, and

that these appellations speak of attempts to translate mythic episodes into local

contexts, in a sense commemorating them in the landscape. This local domestication

of Wallace and his deeds perhaps illustrates the scaling of national identity whereby

the local is connected to the national, showing how shared narratives are locally

dramatised within everyday, familiar landscapes.

Other Representations of Wallace

In 1997, ' Scotland' s Liberator' , an exhibition at the Smith Art Gallery and Museum

in Stirling, was organised to coincide with the 700th anniversary of the Battle of

Stirling Bridge and to capitalise on the upsurge of interest in Wallace raised by

Braveheart. The exhibition gathered various artefacts, works of art, texts, videos,

and details of rituals inspired by Wallace, to convey his symbolic significance in

Scottish art, literature and popular culture over the centuries. The exhibition

attracted record numbers of visitors to the gallery.

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'Scotland 's Liberator ' reveals the extraordinary proliferation of visual repre-

sentations of Wallace, ranging from the medieval to the contemporary. It is evident

that no single image of Wallace predominates, for there are many Wallaces –

a rugged swordsmen, an elegant statesmen, a neo-classical figure in perfect

proportion – differently garbed, some emphasising his masculine physicality, others

clothing him in rough cloth or noble robes. Stylistically and ideologically, these

depictions epitomise the fluidity of Wallace as a meaningful character, using distinct

metaphorical and allegorical ways to represent a range of causes and identities.

Whilst contemporary narratives about Wallace, including Braveheart, tend to

be contained within a framework of nationalist independence, this has not always

predominated. For during the era of nineteenth-century Romantic nationalism,

'British national and imperial identity chimed quite nicely with a strand of Scottish

national identity, reinforced by Protestantism, Unionism and militarism' (Nairn,

1977: 209). Strong Scottish patriotic celebrations of Wallace were subsumed within

a wider salutation of Britishness. This can be see with regard to the most iconic

representation, the aforementioned Wallace Monument, whose founders were

predominantly Unionists. The monument contains the most hallowed object

associated with Wallace, his mighty sword, recently described as a '15th-century

fake' by Toolis (1999). At the ceremony to lay the monument' s foundation stone

in 1861, Wallace was eulogised as a proto-British figure, and upon inaugurating

the campaign to erect the tower, the Earl of Elgin declared ' if the Scottish people

have been able to form an intimate union [with the English] without sacrificing

one jot of their neutral independence and liberty – these great results are due to

the glorious struggle which was commenced on the plain of Stirling and consum-

mated on that of Bannockburn' (quoted in Morton, 1993: 215).

Wallace then, was claimed as an exemplary figure by Unionists, as is borne out

by the display on the second floor of the Wallace Monument, the Hall of Heroes.

The sixteen busts comprise renditions of Robert Bruce, Robert Burns, Buchanan

(poet and Protestant campaigner), John Knox, Allan Ramsey (artist), Robert

Tannahill (poet), Adam Smith, James Watt, Walter Scott, William Murdoch

(engineer and inventor), David Brewster (inventor of the kaleidoscope), Thomas

Carlyle, Hugh Miller (geologist), Dr Chalmers (founder of the Free Church of

Scotland), David Livingstone and W.E. Gladstone. Most of these figures – all men

– were contemporaries of the monument and supported and served imperial ends

through their endeavours in the key areas of literature, painting, scientific invention,

Protestantism, statesmanship, economics and exploration. Their presence lends

allure to the middle-class values of thrift, industry, religious devotion, enterprise

and invention, qualities which were also imagined to be embodied in Wallace him-

self. Notably, the monument now includes an audio-visual display which features

a more contemporary ('politically correct') selection which can be juxtaposed with

the idealised marble worthies. This updated selection teems with one hundred Scots

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from seven fields identified as ' Liberty and Justice' , Sport' , ' Art' , ' Science and

Technology' , ' Music' , 'Literature' and 'Drama'. It includes such popular luminaries

as Jackie Stewart, Jock Stein, Eduardo Paolozzi, Jimmy Shand, Lulu, Muriel Spark,

Sean Connery and Billy Connolly.

In a similar vein, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ceramic designs for pottery

manufactured in Staffordshire conveyed the key theme of united nationality. A

platter embossed with the legend ' Interview between Bruce and Wallace' , features

the characters ' attired in a manner more suggestive of Roman legionaries than of

medieval warriors' , signifying the absorption of minorities so that they are rendered

'symbolically safe' (Brooks, 1999: 60).

As I have mentioned, in Stirling and throughout Scotland there are several

statues of Wallace, all very different in style. For instance, a familiar neo-classical

statue on the Athenaeum in Stirling is markedly distinct from the huge, fierce,

thickset warrior looming through the trees at Dryburgh in woodland adjacent to

the River Tweed. To this array of statuary has been recently added (as featured on

the cover of this book) a controversial 13-foot statue of Wallace at the foot of the

Abbey Craig in Stirling, site of the Wallace Monument. It bears a quite obvious

likeness to Mel Gibson; across the shield of the figure is embossed the word

'Braveheart', and 'Freedom' is engraved on the plinth. A stonemason, Tom Church,

inspired by the film and convalescing after heart surgery, saw the rise of Wallace

and the subsequent emergence of an independent Scotland as a metaphor for his

own physical regeneration. The placing of the statue led to accusations of ' cultural

mediocrity' and banality. The Stirling Observer (10 September, 1997) bemoaned

that the memory of Wallace was being exploited, and a local SNP councillor

declared that the statue would ' detract from the true , very important history which

the monument stands for' (my italics). The statue has been defended by the

marketing manager of the local tourist board on the grounds that it is this image

of Mel Gibson that most people now associate with Wallace, and that it will attract

tourists and hence create jobs. Fears about the trivialisation of Scottishness are

articulated in the notion that a filmic image is not conceived as a fitting form for a

heroic piece of sculpture.

I want to explore this response for it seems to articulate several of the concerns

in this book. Undoubtedly representative of the most contemporaneous rearticul-

ation of the myth, the sculpture appears to challenge the reified conventions of

monumental sculpture. This is a representation of a popular film, an image widely

shared in popular culture, but is understood by its many critics to fail to transmit

due gravitas to the figure of Wallace because it does not follow the lofty traditions

of most monumental sculptures; indeed, it is not a 'proper ' sculpture. There are

echoes of an increasingly outdated nationalism here, a nationalism which seeks to

defy the increasing transmission of national identity via popular culture as being

improper, unserious and undignified. As I have tried to demonstrate throughout

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this chapter, fears about the erosion of national identity concentrate on popular

culture as undermining more ' modern' versions that ought to supersede it. These

vilified forms might be considered to be too kitsch, commercial, American, senti-

mental or inauthentic. Here the arguments against this much-maligned sculpture

seem to want to reinstall and secure some sort of essentialised public representation

of the Wallace myth – itself an impossible task given the multi-interpretability of

successful myths. I understand this to be partially a resistance to the distribution

of national identity through popular culture and a desire to produce representations

which freeze meaning. Such an aim ignores the fact that such conventions are quite

recent reformulated neo-classical expressions in the guise of romantic or civic

nationalism. Crucially, since there are so many other, more conventional, monumental

representations of Wallace, it is curious that any threat is perceived,

In addition to these sculptural representations, images of Wallace are also found

in objects of quotidian cultural production. ' Scotland' s Liberator' includes small

figurines, models of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and a marzipan piece of Wallace

in combat with an English adversary. The inclusion of these popular creations

signifies how Wallace is considered a suitable emblematic topic in the unheralded

domestic art of thousands of model-makers, amateur artists, and embroiderers. As

a popular motif in the ' grounded aesthetics' (Willis, 1990) of everyday creativity,

Wallace circulates through the artefacts of household production, demonstrating

that he is not merely passively consumed but actively recreated. These creators

must reflect upon his significance and choose how to portray him.

The exhibition also includes samples of the vast range of ephemeral commercial

products – souvenirs and trinkets that are part of the selling of tourist attractions

and commemorative occasions. Commodities such as ash-trays, plates, plaques,

postcards, chess pieces, badges, pens and a host of other items are embossed with

Wallace' s image and are remarkably diverse in form. Stewart (1993: 132– 151)

remarks that the collection of souvenirs involves the authentication of the tourist's

visit, but also domesticates the spectacular, through taking home a representation

which is ' appropriated within the privatised view of the individual subject' , and

rendered enclosable and thus possessed by the body (ibid.: 138). This reinforces

a relationship between collector and the symbolic subject of the souvenir, and,

furthermore, marks an event that is ' reportable' , which, told as a biographical

episode of identification, a souvenir of a visit or participation in an occasion, can

be situated within a larger narrative of belonging, melding individual and collective

identity. Rather than being passively consumed representations, such artefacts might

thus be conceived as being worked over in the process of identification and

narration.

In addition to these memorabilia, the name and image of Wallace is also used

to lend allure to a variety of commercial interests. Wallace/Braveheart has recently

been used to sell houses, a new shopping centre in Stirling and the Scottish National

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Party. Maclays have relaunched their Wallace Pale Ale after a hiatus of several

decades. In addition to these commercial uses, Wallace' s likeness adds weight to

official local documents, such as school certificates, situating the recipient in place

by confirming the symbolic importance of Stirling.

The renewed significance of Wallace is glaringly illustrated by the row which

broke out after it emerged that the new National Museum of Scotland, which

opened in 1998, had no artefacts representing the great man. It transpired that a

letter from Wallace was deposited in a German archive but that no effort had

been made to claim it for display in Scotland. This provided Alex Salmond with

an opportunity to complain that ' for centuries, members of the establishment have

been attempting to eradicate all traces of Wallace from Scottish history' (Toolis,

1999).

It may be that Mel Gibson is the most conspicuous Wallace at the moment but

he will surely be absorbed back into the mass of other representations, none of

which will necessarily predominate. This proliferation prevents the reification of

a single image which signifies the views of the powerful or freezes value. Instead,

the various representations show that Wallace has been a figure upon whom diverse

and contesting meanings and messages can be hung. His flexibility as myth has

allowed distinct groups, from different eras, for various occasions and espousing

divergent causes, to preserve Wallace' s iconic importance. This proliferation of

images thwarts a fixing upon any ' definitive' representation, for we confront a

range of characteristics which make Wallace elusive, distributed as he is amongst

a plethora of cultural settings.

Performances and Rituals: Re-presenting Walalce

To complicate this further, and to expand upon the notion of representation, I

want to look at the ways in which Wallace has been represented dramatically in

a range of performances – harking back to Chapter 3. I have already alluded to

performances shaped around using and interpreting Wallace: through the granting

of certificates and qualifications, through the purchase of tourist souvenirs, and

also through the visiting of tourist sites and perusal of museum displays.

There are a number of current rituals associated with Wallace, notably the tourist

pilgrimage to the Wallace Monument and the more emotionally charged, nationalist

Wallace Day march at Elderslie. A good example of a rather more disciplined

performance is that undertaken by the Free Colliers of Falkirk, who use Wallace

to signify the struggle of their eighteenth-century forebears who were in servitude

and used the hero as a talismanic figurehead in their quest for freedom. On the

first Saturday of every August, pinkies interlinked, the colliers march to a Wallace

memorial they erected in 1810 to lay wreaths and make speeches. This use of

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artefacts both materialises the significance of the event and establishes a relation-

ship between symbolic objects and those who use them. The use of music, through

a pipe band, and a flag-waving display, produces an affective ceremony which

ties participants together and expresses the emotive appeal of the colliers' struggle,

and by association reinforces the significance of Wallace.

A more carnivalesque ritual is the guising at Hogmanay, where, typically, four

or more guisers go from house to house enacting a playlet called 'Galatians' .

Formerly popular throughout Scotland but now confined to Biggar, Lanarkshire,

these short dramas always featured Wallace as hero who, with supernatural strength,

slays the villain of the piece. With Wallace at the centre of an ever-changing cast

of characters, the improvisatory performance of these short vernacular dramas

attests to the dynamic ways in which various symbolic elements have historically

been creatively combined and recombined by participants in popular culture.

Besides these rituals, there have also been two theatrical productions staged in

Stirling. A large-scale Battle of Stirling Bridge play was performed on the Castle

esplanade in September 1997, the anniversary of the battle. Featuring a 200-strong

cast, performing in front of an audience of 2,000, the play featured battle scenes

and much music and dance, ending with a singing of ' Scots Wha Hae' and a

fireworks display. This ambitious event was partly devised for a tourist audience

as an impressive spectacle but it made few concessions to a ' balanced' view,

presenting Wallace as an unadulterated hero.

A more challenging, politically engaged drama, Wallace' s Women, was per-

formed at Lanark and Stirling in October, 1997, by Castlegate Repertory Theatre,

and featured in the 1998 Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme. The play confronts

the gendered nature of national(ist) myths by exploring the role of the women

alluded to in versions of the Wallace myth. The conventional prominence of military

cunning and derring-do in the story of Wallace is supplemented by an attempt to

conjure up aspects of the myth from a female perspective. The play, performed by

an all-female cast, tells the story of Marion Bradefute, Wallace' s lover, and other

women mentioned in Blind Harry' s Acts and Deeds of William Wallace, including

his mother Lady Margaret Wallace, Queen Yolande, Marion' s nurse Elspeth and

her daughter Bridget. The reinstating of these characters into the myth reverses

the masculinised characteristics of the tale and imagines a medieval women' s

culture which blends Christian and Celtic belief in festivities, pagan cures and

the influence of the environment. Although quite raw in parts, the drama was an

ambitious attempt to critique the invisibilisation of women in the national story

and restore a sense of their participation in great national events.

The play decentres the prominence of Christianity in most versions of the

Wallace myth, and brings out a ribald and powerful femininity at variance to the

stereotypical images of fey Highland maidens. The women share a far from passive

sexuality and are enthusiastic consumers of drink and drugs, which are used in

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the wild pagan celebrations in which they participate. Wallace' s Women, then, repre-

sents a struggle which takes place inside the popular myth of Wallace, which tries

to deconstruct its gendered formation, and creatively uses the story to interrogate

notions of Scottishness, masculinity and femininity, and the telling of history.

Theatrical performance is not, as I have argued in Chapter 3, confined to

demarcated events and rituals but is embodied in a host of reflexive and unreflexive

everyday enactions. Overt expressions of identity require that particular clothes

be worn, paraded in conjunction with a physical performance to convey particular

values. The impact of Braveheart was particularly influential on a group who

assemble under the title of the Wallace Clan, many of whom acted as extras

and fight arrangers in the film. A key aim is to fund the purchase of ' clanlands' to

replace those taken from them centuries ago so that they may build a village where

they can practise traditional farming and crafts (and receive tourists). They continue

to clothe themselves in costumes from the film that were donated to them by Mel

Gibson. Membership of the clan entails not proof of descent from Wallace, or

indeed any familial connection with anyone called Wallace, but an ' attitude' . This

adoption of a (postmodern) identity is one that does not depend on geographical

or historical mooring but can be freely chosen. Nevertheless, as a seeming example

of individual fluidity, the clan' s identity clearly depends on a particular articulation

of Scottishness, sustained by ideas about authenticity, which must be continually

performed to represent a stable identity.

I have discussed elsewhere the ways in which Bannockburn Heritage Site and

the Wallace Monument are (contested) sites of national significance which

nationalist pilgrims visit to pay homage to the mythical heroes of Bruce and Wallace

(Edensor, 1997). The former is the site for the annual nationalist Bannockburn

Rally where Scottish nationalists assemble after a march from Stirling. Participants

at recent rallies, like the football fans who have followed the Scottish team in

football competitions, wore outfits that had clearly been influenced by Braveheart .

Rather than donning the immaculate ' white heather club' garb of jacket, kilt, sporran

and shiny shoes, they opted to wear rough leather jerkins, flowing locks and tartan

tunics favoured by Wallace and his followers in the film. This seems to suggest an

informalisation of Scottish identity, reacting against familiar formal signifiers,

which aims to transmit a more ' authentic' , down-to-earth identity, which is less

anglified and stereotypical. Such a performance shows how popular movie

iconography may be reclaimed or repatriated by those making symbolic statements

about their origins and identity which challenge traditional expressions.

The Reception of Braveheart Outside Scotland

I have discussed the reception of Braveheart in Scotland, but as a global product

its impact was wider, and, moreover, in a nationalist sense. This is evidenced by

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the large number of large internet sites which are devoted to the movie (Morgan,

1999: 377). Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League which was campaigning

for secession from the Italian state, acclaimed the movie and was subsequently

parodied in the Italian press as 'MacBossi' (Hague, 1999: 78). In the United States,

the home of the film' s star and director, the effect on particular groups has been

well-documented. Hague looks at the Rightist Neo-Confederate League of the

South, whose president sang the praises of Braveheart since it ' appeals to all the

things that New York despises, namely Christian devotion, populism, patriotism,

home-rule, self-defense, well-defined sex roles, traditional morality and self-

sacrifice for a noble cause' (quoted in ibid.: 78). Likewise, the film was celebrated

by white supremacist groups, who, according to a civil rights activist from Alabama,

cherish Braveheart . Leaders of racist group Aryan Nation esteem what they regard

as the racial purity of the Celts, and recommend the use of the Celtic Cross to

their members. Thus, they ' create a history for themselves that paints them as

bearers of true belief opposed by a remote government' (Seenan, 1999). The story

of resistance to a more powerful foe, courage against the odds, and the images of

brutal oppression and action-oriented heroics succour the fantasies of empowerment

integral to the cultural elements of exclusivist movements. Thus the movie has

acted as a spur to these groups, perhaps because its mythic structure and narrative

can be adapted to enhance the claims of specific campaigns, despite the Scottish

context.

Hague also points out that Braveheart was also a powerful ingredient in the

constitution of a Scottish-American identity; that is, those Americans who descend

from Scottish migrants or believe that they do. There is an interesting slippage

between the histories of both countries: both gained independence from the over-

mighty British, and the mythic traditions of both countries are grounded in the

battle against oppression and the fight for ' freedom' . Moreover, it is argued that

the military attributes of Scottish warriors have served America well where Scottish

Americans have entered the battlefield (Hague, 1999: 80). Hague argues that the

importance of the movie for Scottish-Americans highlights the increasing ways

in which diasporic identities and imagined communities are constructed via

mediascapes. This ' diaspora dreaming' utilises imaginary portrayals to refresh those

parts of the self which have become detached from place (ibid.: 84). Sally Morgan

speculates that this myth of Wallace was exported to colonial and national set-

tings as a ' ghost in the luggage' , for instance chiming with American myths of

origin. Moreover, she argues that the Wallace presented in Braveheart emerges

out of this diasporic re-imagining so that he has been created 'through the lens of

an American consciousness' (1999: 385). Thus, like others, she has contended

that the film fits into a ' Western' genre, with its emphasis on scenery and steadfast

manliness, and also parallels movies about the American War of Independence,

where English 'oppressors ' are portrayed in similar terms (indeed, Mel Gibson's

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latest epic, The Patriot, similarly demonises the English colonialists and rejoices

in the qualities of the American patriots opposing them).

Conclusion

The historical weight of romantic stereotypes around kailyard, Highland tartan-

alia, militarism, and the recirculation of these images and themes in the heritage

and film industries, might appear to form a formidable obstacle to attempts to

rebuild and reconstitute a ' progressive' Scottishness. Nairn argues that the persistent

circulation of these representations has produced a deformed national identity

which he lambasts as ' cultural sub nationalism' (1977: 156). Apparently, in the

absence of any more appropriate cultural resources, Scots seek recourse in prod-

uctions such as Braveheart , which serve to reinforce archaic, negative versions of

Scottishness.

As I have indicated above, certain pundits in the press and academia have

inferred that Scottish popular culture is embarrassing and banal. Braveheart has

been criticised as masculinist, regressively anti-English, irrelevant and inauthentic,

and the response to the statue of Wallace/Braveheart sited in Stirling has expressed

outrage at the degradation of Scottish identity. This response contributes to and

partly misunderstands how national identities are dynamically constituted around

discursive practices and cultural resources. Whatever the politics and poetics of

the movie, and however much experts declaim about historical inaccuracies, the

continuing significance of Wallace lies in his flexible mythic qualities. For Wallace,

along with Robert Burns, Mary Queen of Scots, Robert Bruce, Rob Roy, the debacle

of Culloden, are ' complex icons of cultural, social and political belief ' which no

amount of historical research can invalidate (Finlay, 1997: 123). By implying that

films, narratives and artefacts are encoded with dominant messages which are

simply and consensually decoded, the cultural arbiters miss the contradiction and

ambivalence in and across the discourses about Scotland and the diverse ways in

which representations of myths and archetypes are reclaimed and recycled.

Through visual, literary and dramatic processes of representation, popular

symbols and myths of the nation are reworked into contemporary concerns.

Because they tend to be ideologically ' chameleon' forms (Samuel and Thompson,

1990: 3) they can be used to transmit contrasting messages and identities. As a

'condensation symbol ' (Cohen, 1985: 102), Wallace has been (re)appropriated by

a wide range of contesting groups to provide antecedence and continuity to a diverse

range of identities and political objectives (Tilly, 1994: 247). Chartists have marched

under his banner, suffragettes have used his name, and socialists have claimed

him as a common-born fighter for the rights of the oppressed. As I have shown,

even Unionists have identified him as an inspiration to the formation of the United

Kingdom. And the fact that little is actually known about him extends the symbolic

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uses to which he can be put. Thus grounded, creative processes have restlessly

recreated Wallace in diverse ways, highlighting the dynamic relationship between

culture and national identity.

Pessimistic cultural commentators view Hollywood films as imperialistic

commodities which decentre local identities and interpellate audiences in pre-

dictable ways, and these fears resonate with anxieties about the ' Americanisation'

of Scottish culture. Braveheart is a global representation of Wallace, in that it is

manufactured in the image factory of Hollywood and devised to be marketed

worldwide. Whilst it has acted as a catalyst to contemporary forms of political

identification outside Scotland, it has also followed the conventional tropes through

which Scotland has been represented in films and in the tourist industry – which,

it is fair to argue, fix Scotland' s marketable identity for foreign viewers and tourists.

However, this takes no account of the numerous ways in which it has been

repatriated in Scotland, demonstrating that through the proliferating informational

and image flows across global space (Appadurai, 1990), national myths are being

simultaneously decentred or disembedded, and provide a new impetus for national

identification. These responses can be defensive responses, offering succour to

essentialist versions of Scottishness, yet the diverse visual representations, dramas

and artefacts surrounding Wallace suggest that any exclusive notion of national

identity is a fantasy. Rather, a range of identities merge, squabble and ignore each

other, but they share a set of cultural resources and themes which are interpreted

and used in contesting ways.

The use of Wallace before and after Braveheart , even in Braveheart , is marked

by interpretations which are shaped as much by gender, class, religion and region

as by a crude, recursive national identity. Elspeth King makes the point that

Braveheart is substantially drawn from Blind Harry' s epic (1998: 8– 9), itself woven

together out of the local myths about Wallace that Harry collected during his

journeys around Scotland. This work, the Acts and Deeds of William Wallace, is

exemplary in that like all narratives about Wallace it is constituted out of many

strands. Braveheart itself is partly a reworking of elements of the Wallace myth,

using and supplementing existing narratives, dramatic portrayals and images. The

recent development of a Wallace industry has seen the publication of a number of

novels, historical texts, books, images, poetry and even a video game, that represent

Wallace in various ways, adding to the pool of cultural resources. These repre-

sentations talk back to history in a dialogic and reflexive environment where Scots

negotiate with each other, certainly reproducing and reinterpreting old notions of

national identity but also producing new meanings, forms and practices. They feed

back into the pool of representations that signify Wallace, contrasting with some

and chiming with others in an intertextual circulation of signs.

Nevertheless, as a contested cultural form, the reception of Braveheart reveals

many of the complexities in the sustenance of contemporary national identities in

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National Identity

general and Scottish identity in particular. The imperative to gather together a set

of symbols and histories and represent the 'imagined community' of the nation is

an ongoing and competitive process. Old symbols fade into disuse, are reinvig-

orated, are appropriated by different causes and reinterpreted, and new symbols

are invented, claimed and circulated. Whilst Braveheart was enthusiastically

celebrated by many Scots, reinvigorating and adding to the Wallace myth, it caused

others to critically assess the desirability of reproducing representations wrought

in the era of romantic nationalism. Responses also reveal the tensions between

political and cultural strands in nationalist movements. The SNP' s development

of their ' head and heart' campaign testifies to the need to appeal to an emotional

sense of attachment as well as the more ' objective' economic and political

arguments. Herein lies the problem of expressions of national identity which are

encumbered by anachronistic cultural baggage but nevertheless retain popular

appeal. Some politicians therefore recognise the efficacy of foundation myths,

notions of historical continuity, a set of shared symbols and myths in sustaining a

sense of belonging. They argue that strategies which encourage the nation to loose

its historical moorings and set sail for the future deny notions of a shared past.

However, such romantic renditions are ripe for ridicule, especially by those who

desire to see the nation as moving ever forward in linear progress, towards and

beyond modernity. Merging with these debates are those which attempt to retain a

version of high culture as the most suitable way in which to clothe the nation,

promoting those cultural forms which attempt idealistic, romantic representations.

But the era whereby a cultural elite could determine which (high) culture was

suitable for the masses has long gone, and as the example of Braveheart shows,

national expressions of culture are increasingly promiscuous, circulating through

expanding networks, where they are utilised by growing numbers of groups.

Emphatically, this does not diminish their power; it redistributes it.

Exhibiting National Identity

– 171 –

–6–

Exhibiting National Identity at the Turn of

the Millennium

'Self-Portrait' at the Millennium Dome

The Millennium Dome was the national flagship of the millennial celebrations in

2000. Designed to mark the year 2000, and simultaneously provide a celebratory

assessment of the contemporary character of the nation, the project seemed to

hark back to other grand projects, notably the Festival of Britain in 1950 and the

Great Exhibition of 1851. However, the Dome was immediately and continuously

surrounded by mockery and criticism, and, as the year went on, to increasing

opprobrium. A momentum gathered which allowed few avenues for acclaiming

the attraction. It became something of a byword for overweening ambition, and

for the ineptitude and self-aggrandisement of the ministers who had so vigorously

promoted it and continued to defend it.

This is not the place to go into an in-depth discussion about why the Millennium

Dome proved such a fiasco; but a brief contextualisation is needed. The criticisms

were fulsome, many arguing that the ensemble of contents in the Dome inevitably

produced a senseless jumble of ideas. Others contended that the project should

have resembled a conventional theme park. Many maintained that the money would

have been better spent on more local, modest projects. And the content of the

building, the ideas and displays, were surely compromised by the imperatives of

the corporate sponsors, who tended to remove politically sensitive notions and

foreground commercial messages about company virtues. There was, it was widely

believed, a wholesale 'dumbing down' which resulted in a series of mediocre

attractions.

My own opinion is that a grand project on a scale such as this is no longer

feasible. Whilst previous exhibitions have managed to persuade most visitors that

there was a coherent British national identity, widely recognisable if not shared

by all, such an ambition is no longer possible because national identities are frag-

menting, as I have tried to argue throughout this book. The elements of national

identity, the familiar signifiers, rituals and fixtures, have not disappeared but

have proliferated through popular culture and in the diversification of everyday

lives. There could therefore, be no singular approach to a project like the Dome.

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National Identity

A grand vision or a set of accepted guidelines seem peculiarly anachronistic.

The project therefore reflected the multiple ideas of those contributing to its pro-

duction, and hence was invariably chaotic, generating an incoherent expression of

Britishness.

However, my aim in this final chapter is to look at one zone in the Dome,

prospectively called the ' National Identity Zone' but, finally, the ' Self-Portrait' .

My aim is to provide a conclusion to the book by way of assessing a contemporary

attempt to delineate national identity. It is my belief that the varied expressions of

Britishness which the ' Self-Portrait' features, highlight the main arguments that I

have been making.

The zone was sponsored by Marks and Spencer, itself a symbolically British

company, which despite well-publicised recent problems remains an emblem of

high-quality British commodities. The ' Self-Portrait' was devised by the company

in association with New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) – which had

responsibility for the overall content of the Dome – and design company Caribina.

According to the co-ordinators of the project, primary objectives were to produce

a ' non-elitist' version of Britishness, a snapshot of the nation at the turn of the

Millennium, and a 'people ' s view' of the nation rather than an academic or media

product. According to visitor surveys, the ' Self-Portrait' was the third most popular

zone in the attraction, and The Times (Kennedy and Gledhill, 2000) evaluated it as

'absorbing and unpretentious ' and gave it 8 marks out of 10.

The ' Self-Portrait' was comprised of five distinct elements: a range of quotes

and topics printed on large boards, large satirical sculptures, pre-recorded accounts

from local (Greenwich) children and a soundscape of British noises, a huge frieze

called the ' National Portrait' , and the ' Andscape' , a huge collection of over four-

hundred images of items identified as typically British. It is this latter feature that

I will concentrate upon, but I will briefly outline the other components.

Display Boards

The boards cover a range of topics under the headings of ' Diversity' , ' Invent-

iveness' , ' Creativity' , 'Fair Play ', ' Humour' , ' Public Spirit' and ' Language' . It is

probably this element of the zone which is most conspicuously self-congratulatory,

trumpeting the increasing diversity of British culture and Britain' s contribution to

literature, high and popular culture and science. Well-known quotes expressing

pride in the nation are reproduced, but these are countered by more ambivalent

statements about, for instance, the possibilities of alienation. The generally

ambiguous and dialogic tone of the zone as a whole is less apparent here, but the

sentiments frequently pose contradictions rather than platitudes and are intended

for interaction.

Exhibiting National Identity

–173 –

The Sounds

There are two dimensions to the production of sounds. Firstly, in a central area of

the ' Self-Portrait' , visitors were invited to approach a collection of ' reed poles' ,

vertical steel rods with small speakers fitted at their apex, and listen to the recorded

voices of children who articulated their hopes for the future and expressed anti-

racist opinions, their fantasies and desires. The rather touching sentiments expressed

were presumably designed to remind visitors that a future generation was growing

up facing a distinctive range of problems and opportunities. The other sonic effect

was the background soundtrack of distinctive sounds of Britishness, some of which

had been suggested by the ' Andscape' selections. The noises include the anthem

'Jerusalem' , ducks, Big Ben chiming, rain, hooting owls, mooing cows, baaing

sheep, nursery rhymes at school, birdsong, Kipling' s poem ' If' , polite applause,

sporting commentary on the television, a radio weather report, train-station porters,

a jet engine, barking dogs, the sounds of Sunday League football, playground

noise, a shop till ringing and horses' hooves. Clearly, this selection is somewhat

sentimental and yet, as I will discuss, it co-exists with diverse other elements.

Nevertheless, it echoes my earlier comments about the soundscapes that form part

of the sensual, affective sense of place.

The National Portrait

This was perhaps the most extraordinary exhibit in the zone. Co-ordinated by artist

David Mach, who was commissioned by the NMEC and allowed free rein over

the images he produced, it is a huge frieze comprising approximately a quarter

of a million images organised into 15 panels, two metres long by one and a half

metres high. Described as the world' s most complicated collage, it includes land-

scapes from across Britain, paintings from national collections and images from

tourist brochures as backdrops, and in the foreground are photographs of thousands

of Britons. Integrated into the mosaic are familiar representations of stereotypical

English landscapes and objects, but also some controversial elements. However,

the overall effect is one of excess and proliferation, a great seething mass of space

and activity peopled by hordes. This carnivalesque profusion decentres central

images, drawing them into the chaos and abundance. There is no possibility of

fixing an image of the nation, for the presence of so many varied people produces

an energy that militates against stasis. After the closure of the Millennium Dome

it was planned to take the work around the country, a tour to be launched at the

National Portrait Gallery. This will be accompanied by an education pack for

primary and secondary schools.

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National Identity

The Sculptures

The coloured, fibreglass sculptures are designed by iconoclastic political cartoonist

Gerald Scarfe and are highly satirical, even critical, in content. They were commis-

sioned with a brief to portray the darker side of British national identity, and to act

as a counter to the more celebratory elements in the zone. As was written in an

introduction to the sculptures, they are intended to ' depict the side of human nature

we often do not want to admit' . The sculptures are as follows

1. Traditional 'Cool' Britain. The Prime Minister and the Queen are personified

as the two emblems in the national crest, the Lion and the Unicorn. The

inscription reads, ' The Queen and Tony Blair preside over the joys of traditional

Britain: warm beer and cricket, beefeaters and mad cows, late trains and leaves

on the line' .

2. The Racist . The introductory board opines, ' there is an element of racism in

many of us. Beneath the apparently benign figure of a civilised man in his

Gabardene raincoat, lurks the monster of racism, which bursts out, raging against

what it sees as foreign and different' .

3. The Couch Potato. This portrait of a glazed television viewer being absorbed

by his chair is similarly self-explanatory: ' How many of us sit lazily in front of

our televisions, letting them spew substandard culture over us? This chap has

been sitting in his armchair so long, with his beer and remote control, that the

upholstery is taking him over' .

4. TheThug. Perhaps the most fearsome work, this features a graffiti covered, pot-

bellied figure who has a large, spiky boot where his head should be, about

whom it is written: ' From football hooligan to road rage, this sculpture shows

the violence underlying the thin veneer of civilisation' .

Clearly, these works postulate a critical approach towards national identity; towards

the ineptitude of rulers who claim to represent the nation but induce a political

culture of mediocrity; towards the exclusivist tendencies of Britishness which are

masked behind apparent ' decency' ; towards much popular culture – which instead

of provoking and informing encourages passivity; and towards an underlying

violence which contrasts with the much-mooted virtues of tolerance. The works

provoked a strong reaction from some visitors, many of whom were disconcerted

by such representations, and complained that they maligned Britain. However,

the pieces were further contextualised by the placing of the panels cited above

which talked back to these sculptures. For instance, there was a selection of quotes

and information on the theme of ' fair-play' directly situated behind the ' Thug' ,

and a panel around the motif of ' Creative Nation' behind the ' Couch Potato' .

Exhibiting National Identity

–175 –

This collection of challenging attractions within the ' Self-Portrait' is clearly

designed to proffer a multiple, ambiguous, dynamic conception of British national

identity. Not only do each of the features described decentre any complacent,

zealous expression of Britishness, but also, if they are taken as an ensemble, there

is even more of a cacophony of voices, images and sensations. The nation is repre-

sented according to no overriding set of themes, an achievement which befits the

contemporary characteristics of national identity. The multiplicity of national

identity manifested here is further exposed in the final component of the ' Self-

Portrait' zone, the 'Andscape ' .

The ' Andscape'

The ' Andscape' was devised by asking people all over Britain to respond to leaflets

left in Marks and Spencer stores and in public spaces such as libraries, which

entailed answering the question: 'What one thing best represents something good

about Britain to you and why?' Of the thousands of responses, over four hundred

were selected, partly to reflect cultural and geographic diversity. The result was

the compilation of an enormous mosaic of photographs representing the entries

that were selected, an assortment of positive signifiers of Britain that was accomp-

anied by the reasons given by respondents for these choices. The photographs

were reproduced with this text and organised into a linear sequence at waist height

along the side of a spiral walkway, but were also hugely enlarged in a larger display

to comprise the external and internal walls of the ' Self-Portrait' , which was devised

as a large cylindrical structure.

I want to use the ' Andscape' as a means to draw out some of the points I

have been making about national identity in this book. The hundreds of items,

like the ' National Portrait', represent profusion and multiplicity. However, there

are innumerable associations that can be made between items, so that forms of

constellation emerge. There is no obvious way of representing these constellations,

but I have somewhat arbitrarily drawn selections together under my own categ-

ories; namely, ' things' , ' food and drink' , ' geographies' , ' institutions and abstract

qualities' , 'people', ' animals and plants' , ' popular cultural forms' , 'technology

and innovation' , and ' cultural practices' , primarily to reflect some of the concerns

of this book. I invite readers to make their own interpretations about the symbolic

values associated with these selections, because my aim is not to suggest that there

are self-evident ways of categorising national cultural elements but to assert that

such authority ought to be resisted. I also encourage alternative attempts to link

these symbols together to make chains of signification. This is why I have cited

all the entries. I will draw five conclusions from the exhibit to reinforce the major

contentions I have been making throughout the book.

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National Identity

Things

Crossword puzzle

Blackpool tram car

Sandcastles

Red phone boxes

Stamps

Tartan

Wellies

UK/EU passport

The Union Jack

Charity awareness ribbon

Ice cream vans

The map of Britain

Stained glass windows

Lawn mower

Traditional English longbow

The teapot

Umbrella

Marks and Spencer knickers

London Underground map

Blue rinse hair

'House', by Rachel Whiteread

Picnic hampers

The British bulldog

A Ripon horn

Bowls

Graffiti

Red double-decker buses

The Football Association crest

Black cabs

The cup and saucer

Socks and sandals

Conkers

A miner' s oil lamp

Beefer acupuncture trainer shoes

An Orange Disabled card

A red letter box

The red poppy

Rocking horse

Embroidery

Exhibiting National Identity

–177 –

A knitted tea cosy

Window boxes

My MUFC season ticket

Ordnance Survey maps

The Dove of Peace

The Oxford English Dictionary

The (Churchill) Crown coin

The wake knot

A red rubber ball

An organ donor card

My swimming and football awards

A bicycle

Food and Drink

Cox' s Orange Pippin

Chip butty

Cornish pasty

Baxters Soup

Marmite

Gin and tonic

Mushy peas

Fish and chips

Kebabs

Organic/free-range produce

Chicken Tikka Masala

A wee dram

Black pudding

Fair Trade coffee

Baked beans

Cheddar cheese

Seaside rock

Potatoes

Love hearts

Chinese takeaway

Pork pies

Kippers

Seafood

A pint of beer

Liquorice Allsorts

Custard

–178 –

National Identity

Victoria sponge

Cream teas

Strawberries

British beef

The Oxo cube

The traditional fry-up

Malt vinegar

Dairylea cheese slices

M & S ready-made meals

An IPA can of beer

Candy floss

The Balti

Worcester sauce

Toad in the hole

Geographies

Canals

Traditional markets

Allotments

Drystone walls

War memorials

Public conveniences

Beach huts

Libraries

Pebble beaches

Large windmills

Skateboard parks

Fish and chip shops

The sea

The garden shed

Parks

Mosques

Pigeon lofts

Hedgerows

Hindu temples

Gardens

My church

Bluebell woods

Battersea Dogs Home

Wimbledon

Exhibiting National Identity

–179 –

London

Lords Cricket Ground

Cotswolds

Scotland Yard

Belfast Waterfront Hall

Wembley' s twin towers

The Palm House, Belfast

Heligan Gardens, Cornwall

The second Severn Bridge

St Albans Cathedral

Dean Clough Mill

Lloyds building

Forth Rail Bridge

Huddersfield Stadium

Carnaby Street

The Giant' s Causeway

The Liver Building

Tower Bridge

Cornish tin mines

The White Cliffs of Dover

Speakers Corner

Padstow

The Maharajah' s well

Angel of the North

Battersea power station

The Seven Sisters

Blackpool Tower

The Ridgeway, Wiltshire

The London skyline

Bishop' s Rock Lighthouse

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Robin Hood' s Bay

Brighton Pier

St James Park

The Elan Valley

Portmeirion

Stonehenge

Bluebell Steam Railway

Tooting Bec Lido

Snowdonia

Stone Lions, Heaton Park

–180 –

National Identity

Snettisham

Big Ben

St Ives

Institutions and Abstract Qualities

The royal family

House of Lords

The Red Arrows

National Lottery

Royal Zoological Society

The Royal Ballet

The Royal Marines

MacMillan Nurses

The Open University

NSPCC

RSPCA

The British Lions

The RNLI

The National Trust

The National Health Service

The Inter-faith Network

Greenpeace

Comic Relief

Children' s Promise

The Findhorn Foundation

Radio 4

Beefeaters

The Salvation Army

Marks and Spencer

The Family

London marathon

Notting Hill carnival

Guy Fawkes night

Eisteddfods

Crufts Dog Show

The Proms

The Irish Peace Agreement

Equal Opportunities in Sports

Parliamentary democracy

Pageantry

Exhibiting National Identity

–181 –

Pub culture

Comprehensive schooling

British pop music

Greenwich Mean Time

The weather

The Queen' s head on coins

Competitiveness

Political activism

Politeness

Humour

Enlightenment

Hope

Tolerance

Compassion

Sarcasm

Imagination

Understanding

Spirit

Courtesy

Bloody mindedness

Ambition

Family values

People

Lee Bowyer

Charles Dickens

Roger Bannister

Dougie McLean (Scottish songwriter)

Queen Mother

Stella McCartney

My GCSE class

Quentin Crisp

Oasis

Kate Moss

Our Lady of Walsingham

Thora Hird

Michael Owen

Patrick Moore

The Beatles

Roald Dahl

–182 –

National Identity

Harry Enfield

My son

Richard Branson

Nasser Hussein

Mo Mowlam

Terry Thomas

Boat race

Hilda Ogden

Rochdale Pioneers

George Wylie

Michael Barrymore

Oswal Boateng

Kevin Keegan

Jools Holland

Trevor MacDonald

The Dales farmer

Ainsley Harriot

Evelyn Waugh

Tony Blair

Henry Moore

Jarvis Cocker

Vivienne Westwood

Lollipop ladies/men

Michael Caine

Basement Jaxx

Alan Partridge

Ranulph Fiennes

A mixed race couple

Talvin Singh

Our unborn twins

Denise Lewis

1966 World Cup squad

Our 6th form college

Morecambe and Wise

David Hockney

Tricia Guild

Bikers

Gilbert and Sullivan

Cliff Richard

Terence Conran

Iain Banks

Exhibiting National Identity

–183 –

Francis Bacon (painter)

Sir Walter Raleigh

My mates

Margaret Thatcher

Paul Oakenfold

Winston Churchill

George Michael

Eddie Izzard

Shakespeare

Tony Benn MP

My son Alistair

Julie Burchill

Stephen Lawrence

British men

Stephen Hawking

Animals and Plants

Seashells

Sweet peas

Skylark

Oak tree

My giant dahlias

Thistle, rose, shamrock, daffodil

The Yorkshire rose

Border collie

Nessie

The native honey bee

My cat

Grey squirrels

Donkey

The house sparrow

Dogs

Salmon leaping

'My school ' s "Belief and Hope " tree'

Popular Cultural Forms

Thunderbirds

James Bond

Paddington Bear

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National Identity

Billy Liar

The Full Monty

'Kes'

Dad' s Army

The Big Issue

Sergeant Pepper' s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP

Sooty

The Beano

Rhadamanthus

The saucy seaside postcard

Robin Hood

Basil Fawlty

Mr Punch

Winnie the Pooh

The Mr Men

Mr Bean

'Cats'

Carry On films

The Ministry of Sound

Pudsey Bear

Goon Show

The Sun

British newspapers

Technology and Innovation

Whittle' s jet engine

The passenger liner Queen Elizabeth II

The Thames barrier

The internet design industry

CYD (a web language program)

Concorde Leeds Virtual Science Park

The X-ray

The Sinclair ZX81 computer

The Sinclair C5

The Lotus Esprit

The Triumph motorcycle

HMS Victory

The Dyson vacuum cleaner

The Hovercraft

Exhibiting National Identity

–185 –

The Spitfire

The telephone

The Eurostar train

The Mini Cooper

1907 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost

Cultural Practices

Pantomimes

Go-karting

Folk dancing

The Edinburgh Festival

Clubbing

Rugby League

Village cricket

Horticultural shows

Car boot sales

The response to the death of Diana

The milk round

Morris dancing

Highland Games

The Ben Nevis race

Glastonbury Festival

Bingo

Orderly queueing

Jumble sales

Rock climbing

Local agricultural shows

Hastings Jack-in-the-Green

Thatching

Golf

Quilting

Sunday morning football

The brass band

Pancake races on Shrove Tuesday

Scouting

Going to the circus

Driving on the left

Trainspotting

Sunday lunch

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National Identity

Interpretation of the 'Andscape'

Locality and the scaling of national identity

I have attempted to show throughout this book that national identity is not only

located and experienced at renowned symbolic sites, but equally is domesticated

and asserted at local and domestic levels. Whilst in the ' Andscape' familiar

landmarks are cited as common-sense geographical signifiers which epitomise

Britishness (for instance, Big Ben, the White Cliffs of Dover, Stonehenge), so are

the domestic and local spaces inhabited by 'ordinary' people as the centres of

their everyday worlds (for example, the garden shed, ' my church' and local or

regional attractions such as Bradford' s Dean Clough Mill). The connections

between these differently symbolic, differently scaled spaces testify to the scaling

of national identity. National identity is enacted in homely settings as well as

at ceremonial sites and memoryscapes. It is embedded in taskscapes, consumed

in the home through the representations shown on television; it is domesticated

in the local sharing of national rituals; it is discussed and contested in families,

workplaces and pubs. Thus the national is linked to the local in numerous ways;

indeed, the local and the national each make sense of each other, are bound together

in common-sense enactions, everyday spaces, iconic and mundane objects and

in local diversity. This is reinforced by an institutional matrix of places of wor-

ship, parks, libraries, pubs and retail outlets, synchronised habits and rituals,

and recurrence through national space of serial senses, sights, objects and

representations.

The mundanity of national identity

The things, rituals, spaces and representations I have focused upon mix up the

spectacular and the mundane, the famous and everyday, the archaic and the con-

temporary. In each of the chapters I have emphasised the everydayness of national

identity, the often unreflexive habits, unnoticed objects and homely spaces that

constitute the comfort of identity, conceived in national terms. In the ' Andscape' ,

the milk round, driving on the left, going to car boot sales, playing bingo and

Sunday morning football, and eating Sunday lunch are all mundane practices which

are identified as epitomising Britishness. National identity is located in the familiar

routines and embodied habits that such practices engender. It is perceived in the

familiar sparrows and cats that populate local environs, in one' s friends, in pigeon

lofts and fish and chip shops, Oxo cubes and baked beans, bicycles and tea cosies.

These familiar, everyday objects are part of the affective and cognitive structure

of quotidian life, the regular, reliable features around which mundane habits and

routines are organised. As I have argued, these familiar features may not ordinarily

Exhibiting National Identity

–187 –

be perceived since they are always there, but any threat to their existence can

result in panic and a sense of threat. Moreover, the initial unfamiliarity engendered

by confronting others' everyday spaces can similarly result in disorientation and a

desire to reinstate the familiar.

The contemporary centrality of popular culture and mediatisation of

national identity

It should be clear from the ' Andscape' that national identity is certainly not merely

epitomised by what was formerly understood as ' high culture' , for there are a

host of references to popular music, films, television programmes (especially

comedy and children' s programmes), comics, tabloid newspapers and sporting

celebrities. These popular citations greatly outweigh any of the traditional badges

of national identity which are wielded as forms of cultural prestige, although these

are not entirely absent. However, the pride afforded by technological innovation

appears to echo the symbolic importance that is popularly attributed to the British

car industry discussed in Chapter 4. Whilst the high cultural signifiers persist,

contestations over value and the importance of particular fields of endeavour mean

that there is no longer the possibility of mass adherence to the discriminations of

a cultural elite, if there ever was. People engage in multiple ways in the dynamic

realm of popular culture, but there is a greater degree of immersion which contrasts

with the more distanced appreciation and assessment typical of an engagement

with ' higher' cultural forms. Such affective, convivial and protean involvement

seems as likely to produce a strong sense of belonging, even national pride, as the

marking out of cultural excellence. Everyday hobbies and pastimes (scouting, train-

spotting, and attending jumble sales) are as valued as traditional pursuits. The

role of the mass media in producing (very rapidly changing) nationally symbolic

personalities is also notable, for many of the citations of celebrities are highly

contemporaneous.

The intertextuality of national identity – the matrix of associations and

their constellations

I have argued that the range and density of connections between cultural elements

consolidates rather than erases a sense of national identity. The circulation of ideas

and images in the media provides a vast storehouse of interlinked cultural forms,

places, objects, people and practices which are associated across time and space.

The ' Andscape' provides plentiful examples of these interconnections. For instance,

a garden(ing) theme recurs, which includes wellies, lawnmowers, apples, sweet

peas and dahlias, allotments and gardens, garden sheds, visitor attractions such as

–188 –

National Identity

Heligan Gardens, honey bees and horticultural shows. And these citations conjure

up a host of other intimately associated elements which suggest yet others (for

instance, I find myself thinking about wheelbarrows, gardening programmes and

their celebrities, lawns and nest boxes). These intertextualities do not merely address

identity at the level of representation, but also evoke familiar sensations comprising

the sounds, smells and tactile experiences which correspond to specific forms and

memories of gardening or being in gardens.

Even more apparent is the dense network of associations conjured up by the

British royal family through their extension across popular culture and everyday

life, which possibly consolidates the continued popularity of the monarchy amongst

Britons. Cited in the ' Andscape' are stamps, the Union Jack, several prominent

royal persons, the Queen Elizabeth II passenger liner, and other practices (horse-

racing) and places (Wembley Stadium) associated with royal presence. In fact,

these form only the tip of the iceberg. There are a profusion of places associated

with royalty, notably their palaces, but also many historic buildings (Tower

of London), towns granted royal charters and titles (Royal Tunbridge Wells),

sites where they attend institutionalised functions (London Palladium, Royal Albert

Hall, the Cenotaph), and places where they served in the forces or were educated.

Many institutions are inflected with royal identity, including charities patronised

by royals and state institutions (Her Majesty' s Prison Service, the Royal Navy).

Moreover, plentiful objects are associated with the monarchy, from the highly

specialised (the crown jewels) and the commonly circulated (money and stamps),

to the commercial (products purchased by the monarchy and granted permission

to display the royal crest, souvenirs and commemorative artefacts). There are

numerous rituals and occasions that mark out national time, including historical

commemorations; large traditional showpieces such as royal weddings, funerals

and marriages, jubilees, the Trooping of the Colour, Laying the Wreath to the

Fallen at the Cenotaph, the Changing of the Guard. And there are more intimate,

informal events such as the Queen' s Christmas speech and, increasingly, television

insights into, and press coverage of, royal lives; the playing of the national anthem

at a wealth of sporting and cultural occasions; royal visits to localities within Britain

and royal tours abroad; not to mention the innumerable references made to the

monarchy in the media, and indeed throughout popular culture. The thick network

of allusions to royalty in everyday life and popular culture forms a virtually

inescapable part of quotidian experience for an inhabitant of the UK.

However, the important point about constellations of national identity is that

they are increasingly complex, for a proliferating range of interconnections can

be made which stretch across diasporic and virtual space. I have argued that whilst

there remain common-sense points of fixity where constellations solidify and hold

epistemological weight, it is vital that national identity is understood as continually

dynamic, capable of making connections through a persistent rearticulation. It is

Exhibiting National Identity

–189 –

now the sheer flexibility of ways of making links in the vast, shared cultural matrix

that sustains the power of national identity, opening up multiple points of

connection. For the old symbols of national identity are increasingly flexible, can

be reinterpreted anew where exclusivist attempts to delimit their meaning are less

successful. Condensation symbols are more effective than rigid emblems, for they

can be interpreted and claimed by different groups, broadening their appeal and

constituting a sharing, albeit one that might be contested.

The ongoing contestation, fluidity and diversity of national identity

So it is that a sense of national belonging is increasingly decentred from authorit-

ative, official versions of culture and identity. The ' Andscape' dramatically reveals

the contesting and multiple ways in which people assert and assume a sense of

Britishness. The ' traditional' is not dead but its power is diminished, for the claims

upon Britishness include selections that destabilise reified geographies and per-

formative conventions. Thus Stephen Lawrence and Talvin Singh rub shoulders

with Winston Churchill and Shakespeare, mosques and Hindu temples coexist with

war memorials, and kebabs are consumed along with mushy peas. Thus the fluid

and the hybrid seems to prevail over the ' unchanging' and the ' pure' . For global

flows foster conditions for the rearticulation of national identity along more

inclusive lines and render impossible fantasies of cultural purity.

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Index

– 209 –

Index

Belasco, W. 129

belonging, sense 170

Bennett, T. 85

Berger, J. 64

Bhabha, H. 1

Big Ben 42

Billig, M. 11, 17, 52, 79, 89, 139

body 81

performance 72

and places 56

Bond, James 124

Bondi Beach, Australia 49

Borg, B. 80

boundary-making processes 25

bounded space 37–9

Bourdieu, P. 71, 91

Braveheart, film 33, 39, 82, 139–70

bricolage 99

Britain 96–7

Chinese 95

cinema 144

disease 125–6

Edwardian styles 109

Empire 85

Festival of (1950) 171

identity 111

Irish identity 114

landscape 51

national car industries 122–7

quiz show 98

British Airways 111

British American Tobacco company 83

British Tourist Association 158

Britishness 123, 161, 186

Bruce, R. 75

Bull, M. 134

Butler, J. 70–1, 89

Caillois, R. 100

Calhoun, C. 35

abstract qualitites 180–1

actor network theory 31, 104

Adorno, T. 13

Africa 88

Agyeman, J., and Spooner, R. 44

Alsmark, G. 94

Americanisation 53, 112, 119

Anderson, B. 7–8, 88, 97

Andscape 175

interpretation 186–9

Ang, I. 14

animals and plants 183

anti-English sentiment 154

Appadurai, A. 110

Archetti, E. 49

Argentina 39

Arnold, M. 12

Ascherson, N. 39

Asian diaspora 64

assembly sites 48–50

associations, matrix 187–9

Aston Martin 125

Attfield, J. 117

and Kirkham, P. 107

Australia 76

Bondi Beach 49

identity 49

authenticity 118

auto-centric practices 129–33

automobile 118–36

automobilisation 127

Bachelard, G. 59

Banal Nationalism (Billig) 11

Bannockburn

Battle (1314) 75

Heritage Site 166

Barker, C. 7, 28, 30–1, 97

Barthes, R. 26

Basham, F., et al 128, 130, 132, 135

Index

–210 –

Campbell, N., and Keane, A. 45

car

affordances 133–5

cruising 131–2

culture 118–36

market 121–2

orientated imaginary 136

representing 135– 6

symbolic role 122–7

see also automobile

Car Cultures (Miller) 118

carnival 78– 84

Notting Hill 84

Trinidad 83

Carpentier, G. 80

Castells, M. 30

Catalan flag 6

ceremonies, invented 208

Chamberlain, M. 17

Chaney, D. 86– 7

Charlesworth, S. 54

Chevalier, S. 59

China

Mao suits 109

takeaways 95

Chineseness 86

Christianity 4

Churchill, W. 189

cinema, French post-war 136

Citroë n 134

Civilisation 16

Clay, G. 53

cliché s 147

Clifford, J. 2, 61, 102

clothing 108

Coca-Cola 112

comfort of identity 94, 109

commodities 109–13, 116

community, imagined 97

competencies, popular 88–98, 105

conceptualising identity 23–30

condensation symbol 168, 189

Connerton, P. 74, 77, 78

Conservative Party 44, 74

constellations 187– 9

contestation, ongoing 189

Cook, I., and Crang, M. 115

Couch Potato sculpture 174

Countryside Alliance 43

Craib, I. 28, 94

Craig, C. 147

Crang, M. 66, 67

and Cook, I. 115

cricket 80

Crouch, D. 54

Cubitt, G. 1, 8, 24, 29

cultural forms

popular 183– 4

and practices 20

utility 16

culture

boundaries 26

commercialisation 16

contestation 15

definition 12– 13

elite 5

hegemony 8

high 4

industries 13

interconnection 35

intimacy 88

low 4

national 1–2, 21

nationalism 10

practices 185

resources 26

rights 26

shock 22

value 25

Dallas 14

dance 81–2

Argentinian tango 82

European 82

Latin 82

sega 87

Dant, T. 114

Dawson, A., and Rapport, N. 61

decoding 13

Deleuze, and Guattari 33

Dempsey, J. 80

dichotomy, high/low 16– 17

discursive formation 139

disjunctive flows 30

display boards 172

diversity 189

Index

–211 –

domestic locations 63

Dover, White Cliffs 42

driving styles 129– 33

Duncan, J. 47

dwellingscapes 54– 7

Edensor, T., and Kothari, U. 46

Edinburgh 156

Castle 155

Edwards, E. 117

Eiffel Tower 68, 113

Elizabeth II, Queen 76

emotional authenticity 156

enaction 186

synchronised 88–98

encoding 13

engendering patterns, new 129

England, rural 40–1

English 95

English heritage film 158

Englishness 41, 42–3, 49, 62, 67, 79

Enloe, C. 46

Eriksen, T. 8

Estonia 112

ethnicity 8

ethno-symbols 10

Europe 27

European threat 42

everyday life 19, 23

expressive competence 95

Featherstone, M. 15

feeling, structures 101

Felski, R. 21

femininity 165– 6

Festival of Britain (1950) 171

film 33, 39, 60, 82, 125, 139–70

Fiske, J. 14

flag

British 25–6

Catalan 6

French 26

fluidity 189

food and drink 177–8

Foot, M. 74

football

Brazil 81

English Premier League 98

Germany 81

Ford 124

Fordism 118

Forsyth, M. 154–5

Foster, R. 111

France 40, 46, 51–2, 67, 95, 113

fashion 108–9

flag 26

Paris 45

post-war cinema 136

Frankfurt School 5, 13

Frykman, J. 101

and Löfgren, O. 101

Gardiner, M. 23, 100

Gellner, E. 2– 4, 8, 11

gender

identity 107

motoring 130

and sex 71

Gendered Object (Kirkham) 107

General Motors 131

geo-cultural markets 143

geographical matrix 68

geography 37– 68, 178– 80

George IV, King 157

Germany 79

Nazis 43

Ghandi, M. 116–17

Gibson, M. 150, 162, 164

Giddens, A. 6, 28

Gillan, A. 153, 154

Gillespie, M. 64

Gillis, J. 78

Gilroy, P. 32, 63, 133

Gledhill, C. 143

globalisation 27, 29, 64

consumer culture 28

cultural matrix 27–30

national identity 29

power-geometry 34

Goethe, J.W. 141

Goffman, E. 89–90

golden age 18

Gottdiener, M. 85

Graves-Brown, P. 134

Great Depression (USA) 128–9

Great Exhibition (1851) 85, 171

Index

–212 –

Greece 91, 92

grounded aesthetics 163

Guardian 158

Guibernau, M. 2, 5, 93–4

Guss, D. 82–3, 84

habits 90–1, 92

embodied 88–98

habitus 1, 20, 71, 93, 95, 96

national 93

Hagerstrand 54

Hagman, O. 119

Hall, S. 13, 19, 25

Handelman, D. 84

Harrison, P. 23, 32, 101

Harvey, D. 64, 86

heritage industry 153, 155, 159

Herzfeld, M. 91

heterogeneity 30

Higson, A. 143, 158

Hindu sites, India 47

Hispanic California (USA) 132

historical literary figures 161–2

Hobsbawm, E. 5– 6, 8, 11

and Ranger, T. 5, 6, 73, 75

Hoggart, R. 14

Holland 39

Holliday, R. 94

Hollywood 135–6, 142, 143, 144, 146, 148,

149, 159

home 57–64, 114–15

Home Counties 41, 67

home-making 58, 114

homely space 57–64

homogeneity 30

Horkheimer, M. 13

human interactions 104

Hutchinson, J. 10–12

hybrid 106

I Love the 1970's (TV) 116

iconic sites 45–8

identification 24– 5, 141

identity

comfort 94, 109

conceptualising 23–30

economy 40

fixity 29

fragmentation 171– 2

gendered 107

politics 32

space 32

spatial 52

ideology 76

image 173

flows 169

iconic 139

imaginative territories 146

imagined community 7, 97

In Search of England (Morton) 66

independence 152

India 21–2, 94–5, 98, 105, 116

car industry 121

Hindu sites 47

motoring 120– 2

Muslims 47

Nehru suits 109

road culture 120–2

street 120

Taj Mahal 46– 7, 48, 96

Indianness 86

Ingold, T. 105

and Kurttila, T. 55

institutionalisation 19

institutions 180– 1

intellectuals 9

intertextuality 157, 187–9

Invention of Tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger)

5, 6

Ireland 39

Irishness 65, 85

Italian Job film 125

Italy 95

Jackson, Michael 28

Jacobs, J. 56

Jaguar 124

Japanese migrants 62

Jarman, N. 113

jazz 88

Jenkins, R. 19, 24

jewellery 104

Kane, P. 157, 159

Kayser Neilson, S. 57, 93

Keane, A., and Campbell, N. 45

keepsakes 116

Kennedy, J.F. 77

Index

–213 –

King, E. 169

Kirkham, P., and Attfield, J. 107

KitKat 110–11

Kline, R., and Pinch, T. 131

Knights Templar 75, 82

Knorr Cetina, K. 136–7

Kothari, U., and Edensor, T. 46

Kurttila, T., and Ingold, T. 55

landscape 37–68, 40

British 51

ideologically loaded 45

ideology 39–45

vernacular 52

landscape ideologies 67

landscapes, rural 39– 45

Latour, B. 107

Lawrence, S. 189

Leavis, F.R. 12

leisure 96

Light, A. 130

Lippard, L. 60, 68

Lloyd, D., and Thomas, P. 2

locality 186

immediate 59–60

Lö fgren, O. 98, 101

and Frykman, J. 101

London 67

Notting Hill carnival 84

Long Day Closes film 60

Lowenthal, D. 40– 1, 67

Luger, S. 133

McArthur, C. 147, 156

et al 149

McCarthy, A. 114

MacClancy, J. 81

McDonaldisation 34

McGuigan, J. 15

Mach, D. 173

Mackay, J. 155

Madonna 28

Maley, W. 152, 155

Maradona, D. 50

Marks and Spencer 172

Marling, K. 129

Martin-Barbero, J. 97

Marxism 155

masculinity 130

mass media 141

Massey, D. 32, 54, 68

Massie, A. 151

material culture 103–37

Mauritius 80–1, 87–8

media products 140

mediascapes 142, 143

mediatisation, national identity 187

Mediterranean countries 96

Meinig, D. 53

Melucci, A. 31

memory 74, 117

memoryscape 160

Merleau-Ponty, M. 71

Meyer, B., and Verrips, J. 119

Michael, M. 30, 34

militarism, popular 157–8

Millennium Dome

National Identity Zone 172

self-portrait 171–5

Miller, D. 112

Miller, E. 155–6

Mini 124–5

modernists 10

modernity 3

Moores, S. 97

Morgan, S. 167

Morley, D. 142

and Robins, K. 57

Morocco 39, 96

Morse, M. 60

Morton, H.V. 127

motorscapes 127–9

mundanity 186– 7

Muslims 47

Indian 47

Nairn, T. 18, 168

nation

-state 37–8

and culture 1–2, 3, 21

literatures 141

portrait 173

staging 84–8

national identity

constitution 35

exhibiting 171–89

globalisation 29

inclusive and exclusive 24–7

Index

–214 –

matrix 1–35

mediatisation 187

performing 69–102

redistribution 30– 5

reproduction 11

scaling 186

National Museum of Scotland 164

National Portrait Gallery 173

National Trust 41

National Wallace Monument 145

nationalism

places 37–68

romantic 161, 170

theories 1–12

Nazis, Germany 43

Netherlands 39

network

criticism 104

human-object 137

instability 31

society 30

New Age Travellers 44

New Millennium Experience Company

(NMEC) 172

New York 84

Nigeria 62

nomad 32

North Africans 108

nostalgia 128

Notting Hill carnival, London 84

Nurse, K. 83

object 140

biographies 115–17

worlds 103–9

Observer 156

O' Connell, S. 128

O' Dell, T. 119

Olympic Games 76, 81

On the Road (Kerouac) 131

O' Shea, A. 152

O' Sullivan, C. 156

otherness 43

pageants and rituals 4–5

Paris 45

Parker, D. 95

Pendreigh, B. 152

performance 69–70, 72, 99, 101, 140, 164–5

body 72

habitual 90

totality 102

performative norms 100

performativity 70– 1

Phizacklea, A., and Westwood, S. 45

Pickering, M. 6

Pinch, T., and Kline, R. 131

place

and bodies 56

sense 68

political struggles 149–50

popular centres 48–9

popular competencies 88–98, 105

popular culture

centrality 187

sites 48–50

Western 18

Porter, R. 159

Post-Fordism 118

post-tourism 99

practices, contesting 92

Princess Diana 99

print media 7

privacy 58, 59

profusion and multiplicity 175

quiz show 98

quotidian landscapes 50–3

quotidian life 18

quotidian realms 17

Racist sculpture 174

Ranger, T., and Hobsbawm, E. 5, 6, 73, 75

Rapport, N., and Dawson, A. 61

Rauch, A. 80

Rausing, S. 112

realism 155–6

reggae 88

Reich Landscape Law 43

Renault 134

representation 139– 70, 168

Riddoch, L. 152

ritual 164–5

communal 78

formal 72–8

and pageant 4–5

Index

–215 –

Ritzer, G. 34

road movies 135

Robins, K., and Morley, D. 57

Robson, B. 79

Roche, M. 27

Rolls-Royce 123– 4, 133– 4

romantic stereotypes 168

Rorty, R. 29

Rose, G. 44

Rosenstone, R. 156

Ross, K. 122, 136

Royal Family 124

royal identity 188

Royal Tournament 76–7

rural national landscapes 39–45

Russell, M. 151–2

Russia 112

Rybczynski, R. 58

St. Partick' s Day, New York 84

Sarup, M. 24

Scarfe, G. 174

Scharff, V. 132

Scotland 39, 113

identity 145

independence 144

industry 126

landscape 148

National Museum 164

nobility 152

popular culture 147

Scotsman 154

Scottish National Party (SNP) 150–1

Scottish-American identity 167

Scottishness 139–70, 154, 169

sculptures 174– 5

second nature 89

semiotics 113–14

sensual experience 106–7, 108, 117, 121, 129,

133

sensualities 133– 5

sex

adventure 130

and gender 71

sexual experience 188

Shakespeare, W. 141, 189

Sheller, M., and Urry, J. 118, 129

shopping 110

Silverstone, R. 97

simulacra 159

Singh, T. 189

sites

assembly 48–50

popular culture 48–50

Smith, A. 8– 9, 45

Smout, T.C. 147– 8

social relation 103–9

Sopher, D. 57

sounds, production 173

soundscape 134– 5

souvenirs 163

sovereignty 38

space 32–3, 37–68, 140

bounded 37– 9

identity 32

symbolic 48

themed 85

Spain 96–7, 113

spatial identity 52

spatial ideologies 40

spatialisation 1, 37, 51, 65

national 51

Spillman, L. 76

Spooner, R. 116

and Agyeman, J. 44

sport 78–84

Sri Lanka 47–8

Staffordshire 162

stages 69

Stevenson, N. 26

Stewart, S. 117, 163

Stirling 158–9, 160, 162

Stirling Observer 162

structure, feeling 19–20, 101

subjectivity 25, 27–8

Sweden 67, 115, 119

Swedishness 119

symbolic imaginary geographies 67

symbolic sites 69

symbolic spaces 48

symbols and practices 9

synchronicity 91

Tacchi, J. 60

Taj Mahal, India 46– 7, 48, 96

taskscape 57, 58, 93

Index

–216 –

tea 115

technology and innovation 1845

Teddy boys 109

television 97– 8, 116, 149

temporality 66

tennis players, Germany 79

Thatcher, M. 111

things 176–7

third spaces 64

This England magazine 42– 3, 44

Thomas, P., and Lloyd, D. 2

Thompson, J. 6, 141

Thug sculpture 174

time space 54

compression 32

Toolis, K. 161

tools 107

tourism 84–5

tourist industry 77, 102

Scotland 157– 9

tourist sites 86

Traditional ' Cool' Britain sculpture 174

Trinidad 112

carnival 83

Turkey 80

Union Jack (British flag) 25–6

United Kingdom (UK) 15, 38, 105, 116, 146

see also Britain

United Nations (UN) 38

United States of America (USA) 15, 45, 62, 76,

127, 165

American Dream 131

Great Depression 128–9

Hispanic California 132

ideology 146, 148

indivisualism 131

jeans 109

motorscape 128

War of Independence 167

Urry, J. 1, 27, 31, 33

and Sheller, M. 118, 129

Uses of Literacy (Hoggart) 14

Vancouver 63

Venezuela 82–3

vernacular landscape 52

Verrips, J., and Meyer, B. 119

Victoria, Queen 157

Volkswagen 124

Wales

Eisteddfod 77

Prince of 73

Wallace Monument 159

Wallace, Sir W. 144– 6, 160–4

geographies 160

industry 169

myth 162, 164, 165

re-presenting 164– 6

representations 160– 4

Wallace' s Women drama 165

War of Independence (USA) 165

Warner, M. 46

Watkins, H. 61, 63

Weber, C. 70

West Indies 108

Westwood, S., and Phizacklea, A. 45

Whisler, T. 126

Williams, R. 19– 20

Willis, P. 14

Wilson, A. 63

Womack, P. 157

women 108, 165

see also Elizabeth II : gender : Victoria

World War II 42, 62

World Wide Web 1.121

Young, I. 58, 62

Zimbabwe 48

... The nation is incarnated in the everyday, in what we do not notice and it draws much on popular culture as on high culture (Edensor, 2002). The important study National Identity and Popular Culture (Edensor, 2002) examine ways in which the nation was routinely represented, materialised and performed through a range of cultural forms, material environments and everyday practices. ...

... The nation is incarnated in the everyday, in what we do not notice and it draws much on popular culture as on high culture (Edensor, 2002). The important study National Identity and Popular Culture (Edensor, 2002) examine ways in which the nation was routinely represented, materialised and performed through a range of cultural forms, material environments and everyday practices. Such insights are key to analysing the manifestation of ethnicity, nationalism and national identity issues in football fandom since football can be unproblematically categorised as popular culture. ...

... However, the fan likened Pasuwa to an 'airtime vendor' thereby stripping him of the requisite appurtenances of the Coach of a national team. The nation is embedded in the everyday, in what we do not notice and it draws much on popular culture as on high culture (Edensor, 2002). Struggles for national identity are thus rooted in mundane practices such as football fandom. ...

This chapter examines the mediation of the post-Mugabe Zimbabwean crisis through satirical parody videos circulated on Magamba TV, a YouTube-based platform. This chapter shows how political satire is used to show that "New Dispensation" of Emmerson Mnangagwa has failed to deal with the multiplicity of problems bedevilling the country. The proliferation of political satire in the "New Dispensation", we argue, is not a sign of the opening up of democratic space in Zimbabwe but rather a growing propensity to keep the government in check. In this way, political satire has a subversive function as well as acting as a "social barometer/moral watchdog". Drawing on Scott's theory of the "weapons of the weak" and Downing's postulations on "radical alternative media", we show that political satire allows for an interrogation of the new ruling elite in Zimbabwe. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we show how alternative media, as embodied by Magamba TV, represent a multiplicity of discourses whose themes are primarily intended to satirise and question the government and public officials in Zimbabwe.

... The complexities of this inward process have long been researched: Foucault (2008), Billig (1995), Yuval-Davis (1998), Edensor (2002, Hobsbawm and Ranger (2012), Calhoun (2007) and many others have explored how institutions such as national museums, universities, and educational schooling systems build and disseminate narratives of collective belonging to enhance feelings of commonality among citizens. States also invest in national heritage (McGuigan and Mcguigan 2012) and language protection: in broadcasting systems or in shared fiction; original mythologies and folklore; or soap operas and movies. ...

... Culture, rituals and tradition ease the violence of the law; and with them, also conflictual issues like social class awareness are diverted. The process of nation building sometimes adopts the form of nation-branding (Montiel et al. 2008) and, as much as the nation is taken for granted in the everyday life, sometimes it is abused and it can be particularly violent to newcomers (Edensor 2002). ...

• Benjamin Nickl

Race remains problematic in the twenty-first century for the reconstruction of historical German Holocaust memory through fictional cinema productions. A case study of black British director Amma Asante's 2018 British romantic war drama film, Where Hands Touch, suggests the difficulty in adapting national race and race representation discourses for global Afro-diaspora audiences outside the German national and supranational European cinema context. The film caused controversy among transnational black audiences and American pop culture outlets. Even black British viewers flat-out rejected it on Twitter. They alleged that Asante deployed clichéd depictions of neo-romanticised interracial romance and naïve reformulations of historical racism, which were interpreted as an example of self-reproducing Blaxploitation. All this points to under-researched structures of transnational minority representations operating within contemporary Afro-European pop culture cinema. I foreground these relations as interstitial culture space, thus linking transnational German cinema's racially loaded themes like the Holocaust and hybridity to a larger cinema of diasporic storytelling and questions about transnational film scholarship in the twenty-first century.

... Cinematic discourse also frames national groups, international relations and historical events. Specifically, there is a strand of research dealing with the ways in which national 30 identities are framed in popular cultural forms (Edensor, 2002). This resides in the idea that national identities are constantly (re)produced and contested in everyday discursive practices, namely, what Billig (1995) calls "banal nationalism." ...

• Anastasia G. Stamou
• Kornilia P. Petraki

Considering the prominent role of popular culture in forming our perceptions about national/ ethnic identities and historical memory, in the present study, we explore the way in which Greek-Turkish relationships as well as the ethnic identities implicated are depicted in the Greek blockbuster film Α Touch of Spice/ Politiki Kouzina, which deals with the Greek community of Istanbul in the 1950s and the 1960s. For the study of ethnic identities in the cinematic text, a social constructionist framework for the analysis of identities in discourse is adopted. The analysis suggests that the film maker, being part of the ethnic group, adopts an ingroup Istanbul Greek gaze. In this way, the emphasis placed on the similarities with the Istanbul Greek self and on the distinctions from the Greek and the Turkish other could be seen as an ideological strategy, through which an ethnic "body" is constituted.

... Consequently, such leisure spaces too often communicate popular notions of nationhood, based on how nations are represented and appropriated in playful set-ups (Edensor, 2002). Sangiorgi (2014) asserts that '[t]heme parks provide us today with one of the most important metaphors of the globalized world; thus, the idea of nationhood they convey needs to be examined' (p. ...

In recent years, Bollywood has expanded into a global, trans-textual phenomenon, consumed by a large audience-base worldwide. Existing research has shown how Bollywood offers Indians – both home and abroad – a cinematic image of their homeland, fostering a sense of belonging. This paper focuses on the popularity of Bollywood's transmedia culture in an international setting. More, in particular, it offers an empirical exploration of the tourist experience of Bollywood Parks Dubai – the first and largest theme park dedicated to Bollywood. Based on a series of in-depth interviews with 18 participants and accompanied by participant observations, this paper shows how Indian tourists use this leisure zone far away from the Indian subcontinent as a platform to connect and celebrate larger notions of Indianness. In experiencing nation-pride in a playful manner beyond the national borders, ideas of contemporary Indianness are redefined in a cosmopolitan context. The paper concludes by critically examining these popular celebrations of nationalism.

• Danny Kaplan

This article argues for an analytic distinction between questions of collective identity and questions of solidarity in studies of nationhood. Whereas the former inquiry centres on group classifications and commonalities, the latter examines cooperation and patterns of interaction among group members. Although theoretical discussion of national solidarity is sparse, three central approaches in the field can be highlighted: understanding solidarity as a byproduct of identity, as a relationship between strangers and as an extension of sociability. The distinction between solidarity and identity bears on the much‐disputed dichotomy between ethnic and civic nationalism. Civic nationalism has been widely criticized for failing to account for group boundaries and shared culture. Yet its emphasis on patterns of interaction and cooperation should not be neglected either. Instead of addressing the civic–ethnic dichotomy as two types of national identity, one could benefit from differentiating between epistemological questions about (ethnic‐national) identity and those about (civic‐national) solidarity.

• Arzuu Sheranova

This paper examines 'invention' of a new 'tradition', that is of nomadic games in Kyrgyzstan blessed by its prehistoric past of nomadism. Since 2012 the Kyrgyz government had introduced the World Nomad Games (the WNGs) in Kyrgyzstan. The country hosted three spectacular games in the northern oblast of the country – Yssyk-Kul. Hundreds of sportsmen worldwide took part in these events and thousands of tourists rushed into the country to watch the games. In fact, Kyrgyz nomadic games are more than just a revival of old nomadic traditions, but they are political inventions. Using Hobsbawm's framework of 'invented traditions' (1983), I examine the World Nomad Games as invented tradition. I argue that the Kyrgyz leadership invented tradition of nomadic games to tackle with contemporary issues, such as a need for attraction of foreign investment and promotion of tourism. As I illustrate the WNGs project was a timely response to improve the country image after a series of political instabilities the country underwent in its recent history.

• Zeffry Alkatiri
• Reynaldo de Archellie

This article aims to analyze the politics of historical memory, the function and meaning behind the procession of the Parade on the Russian National Victory Day (Dend Pobeda) every May 9th. The day has become a ritual for the Russian nation since the Soviet Union era; it has become a collective memory for the Russians who had defeated the Fascist German military at the end of World War II. Russia's government during Vladimir Putin presidential tenure has tried to reproduce and reconstruct memories by holding grandeur events of the Parade in the Red Square. This article then proposes some questions: why does Putin feel that he bears the authority to reconstruct it? What are the meanings behind the Parade for the Russians and Putin's government? It used Putin's official speeches between 2000–2018 as the primary sources to explore and reveal what made Putin's regime to put the Victory Day parade as the instrument to reconstruct and reproduce the post-Soviet Russian national identity. By using historical approach within the collective memory conceptual framework, it found that the May 9th Parade ritual comprises various symbolic meanings, including the meaning of giving, blessing, success, history, and togetherness. As a ritual that is practiced annually in a national-wide ceremony, the May 9th Parade has subtly functioned as a pseudo religion to Putin's regime.

• Priyadarshini Singh

This article examines the meanings of Indian nationhood at the grassroots level in "settled" locales where no state‐seeking separatist movement exists but local identifications of caste, language and religion are politically prominent. Based on ethnographic data from four rural and urban locales, the article extends the literature on Indian nationalism and everyday nationalism. At the grassroots, Indian nationhood is fuzzy and intermittent in nature; "conceptual frames" are a useful analytical tool to examine this, with a focus on territory, community and political leadership. Indian nationhood is not conceptualised predominantly as a cultural category; it is meaningful as a journey towards an ideal horizon defined by the values of dignity, rights, freedom, equality and socio‐economic development. Non‐elites play an active role in nation‐making and invoke these frames strategically and self‐consciously for local and particular purposes.

• Amy Clarke

This article examines the significance of race in how nation is articulated by the white middle-classes in 'post-racial' Britain. In doing so, it highlights the centrality of bodies and informal markers of difference within processes of national recognition and reveals a normative expectation for British bodies racialised as non-white to perform or inhabit (particular kinds of) whiteness. Bringing insights from post-race theory and advocating a broad conceptualisation of whiteness as a set of relational ideas and codes, the article demonstrates that whiteness continues to shape and underpin dominant conceptions of Britishness – articulated by middle-class white Britons – even as they recognise people of colour individually, and to some extent collectively, as British. Since the role and symbolic power of the white middle-classes is often overlooked in discussions of Britishness, the article makes an important contribution to debates on race and nation, illustrating how whiteness continues to function in alledgedly 'post-race' societies. It concludes that narrow definitions of race and whiteness allow their continued significance to be under-estimated and ultimately enable the perpetuation of racialised hierarchies of belonging.

• Catherine Palmer

This article discusses how the concept of banal nationalism can enable theories of national identity to be related to the lives of ordinary people. It links this concept to three key areas, the body, food and the landscape arguing that these are as much 'flags of identity' as are the more obvious symbols of national belonging: coins, costumes, anthems and ceremonies. It further states that these flags provide a system of reference within which aspects of the material world are used, consumed and experienced. It is, therefore, important to consider how this system operates so that a better understanding can be gained into how a sense of belonging and identity is communicated and maintained.

• Tim Edensor

In this paper, I examine the different and competing practices through which symbolic places, and the events and figures they commemorate, are woven into national memories. By exploring the semiotic, commercial, expert, narrative, and bodily practices of remembrance that centre upon Bannockburn and the Wallace Monument, in Stirling, Scotland, I highlight the complex ways in which forms of remembrance are currently proliferating and fragmenting. I then move on to discuss how the common themes in these shifting politics of social remembering have been echoed in popular responses to the Hollywood film Braveheart, which celebrates Wallace. I conclude by looking at how these practices of remembrance indicate the contemporary unstable and contested condition of national identity.

• Sally J Morgan

The recent film, Braveheart, has been received by many in Scotland as a celebration of Scots nationhood, and as a portrayal of Scottish patriotism in the face of English territorial greed. Indeed, in the campaign leading up to the British general election in 1997, and the subsequent referendum on Scottish devolution, Braveheart was often cited as an example of Scottish mettle in the face of oppression, and the very word became a nationalist rallying cry. However, as this paper demonstrates, the film is actually constructed as a post-colonial, 'white-pioneer' myth of origin and ancestry which addresses and confirms a (mainly) American sense of cultural identity. The paper examines the origins of the Braveheart myth and the historical evidence surrounding the original William Wallace. It then traces the exportation of the Wallace legend to the British colonies in the 18th and 19th centuries and its eventual transformation into the Braveheart story of the 1990s.

• Douglas Hartmann

Using the case of the African American Olympic protest movement that grew out of the crisis of the civil rights struggle in the late 1960s, this article is an attempt to argue that work involving identity, culture and popular culture is crucial to the study of race and ethnicity in the contemporary world. A reconstruction of this movement demonstrates, first of all, how a cultural arena like sport can make it possible for otherwise powerless racial and ethnic minorities to draw attention to their cause. Of course, as with most insurgent movements, such initiatives ultimately (and often very quickly) come up against structural impediments that work to reject or absorb their challenge and reinforce the hegemony of the established regime. But the precise nature of the structural constraints operating in this particular case provides profound insight into the construction of social order in liberal democratic settings and the threat posed by cultural politics to this order. More specifically, I argue that athletic protest was overwhelmingly condemned and rejected because it threatened to rupture the homologies between sport culture and liberal democratic ideology that otherwise legitimated a fundamentally individualist, assimilationist vision of racial justice and civil rights in the United States. In more general theoretical terms, then, culturally‐oriented movements expose the ways in which domination itself is deeply structured in and through culture. The article concludes by suggesting that this, especially in an age when capital and power have discovered techniques to insulate themselves against traditional, materialist forms of resistance, is why cultural forums and identity politics have become primary sites of the struggle for hegemony.

• Nigel Thrift

This article attempts to understand the reconstitution of the `present' in modern societies. I argue that this reconstitution is the result of work done on `bare life', which I associate with that little space of time between action and performance. The article goes on to consider the ways in which this reconstitution of the present is taking place, using examples from the economic sphere. Throughout the article, I argue that operations on bare life are not only instrumental but also open up new spaces of biopolitical practice based on a greater recognition of the value of slowness in a world commonly figured as fast.

• Mary Chamberlain

Until recently Caribbean migration has largely been viewed as a movement of labour, an approach which tended to exclude or marginalise the importance of historical, cultural and social influences in migration and settlement. This article is based on research conducted by Harry Goulbourne and Mary Chamberlain and financed by the ESRC on the evolution of Caribbean families in Britain. It explores the role of the family in Caribbean migration, and the impact of migration on the family. It suggests that while individuals migrated, the wider family were implicated in the endeavour either at the point of departure or destination. In the process, family values of support, obligation and responsibility were reinforced and continue to be retained across the oceans, and the generations. Cheap communications and the move towards return provides further opportunity for family contacts to be replenished and with that fresh opportunities for cultural retention. The family therefore provides (and has done so historically) a model for migrant behaviour; this model however stresses the importance of siblings and kin peers who provide the basis of social networks and act as a metaphor in settlement and organisation. These two processes may be regarded as the avenues through which Caribbean peoples have 'indigenised' in the countries of settlement.

• C. Nash

For the appreciation of difference requires the acknowledgment of some point beyond which the dancer cannot go. If she were able to go everywhere, there would be no difference, nothing that eludes. Denial of the unity and stability of identity is one thing. The epistemological fantasy of becoming multiplicity - the dream of limitless multiple embodiments, allowing one to dance from place to place and self to self - is another. What sort of body is it that is free to change its shape and location at will, that can become anyone and travel anywhere?' (Susan Bordo, quoted in Foster, S.L., 1998: 29).

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/205836856_National_Identity_Popular_Culture_and_Everyday_Life

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