Does Participation in National Commemorations Increase National Attachment? A Study of Dutch Liberation Festivals

Abstract

It is generally assumed that national commemorations have the power to increase national attachment. This is because such ceremonies highlight shared history, communicate core values, and have the potential to decrease conflicts in societies, while celebrating and mourning together enhances attachment to the group. Remarkably, only a limited number of studies have empirically studied the relation between participation in national commemorations and feelings of national attachment. Studies that have addressed this question focused mainly on the intentions of the organizing elite, employed qualitative research designs, or suffered from methodological problems such as causality. In this study, we examined * Sabrina de Regt is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and member of the interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS). Her research interests include democratic values, national commemorations, cohesion, and cross-national research. She has previously worked as a post-doctoral researcher on the project 'Freedom and Liberation Day in the Netherlands' in collaboration with the National Committee for 4 and 5 May, and as a fieldwork coordinator for the large-scale Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement (SHARE). Having earned master's degrees in sociology (2006, Tilburg University) and quantitative analysis in social ccience (magna cum laude,

Disparate Emotions as Expressions of Well-Being: Impact of Festival Participation from the Participants’ Subjective View

“…This creates pride, honor, respect, visibility, and identity for these people who see their ethnic communities and cultural traditions being noticed by mainstream society. This result is in line with some of the earlier research (e.g., [30][31][32]34]). Some illustrative quotations are:…”

“…Positive emotions and feelings at festivals can also be expressed in different dimensions and by using many everyday terms, such as joy, pleasure, happiness, etcetera [29]. Other authors (e.g., [30]) include feelings such as attachment, belonging, unity, and solidarity. One more aspect is the sense of pride as a source of identity-feeling for festival participants [31,32], who in some cases might belong to discriminated groups in the community [33].…”

The Sustainability of an Urban Ritual in the Collective Memory: Bergama Kermesi

“…The case study research is appropriate for identifying, describing, analyzing and also theorizing of this social event [27]. The 'invented tradition' and 'collective memory' issues are discussed through the case study research method in many studies connected with the issues including 'nationality', 'locality', 'identity' and 'tradition' [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Among these studies, few are constructed on the relation between the concepts of 'invented tradition', 'collective memory' and 'festival' [20][21][22].…”

“…Stankova and Vassenska draw attention to festivals' and local events' contribution to the conservation of cultural heritage and traditions [18]. Kong and Yeoh, Regt and Lippe; Parvez; Repšienė and Žukauskienė; and, Crespi-Vallbona and Richards analyze specific cases to reveal how officially produced events were instrumental to building up nations and national identity [19][20][21][22][23].…”

National Days, National Identity, and Collective Memory: Exploring the Impact of Holocaust Day in Israel

“…This research design enabled the researchers to compare those who participated in the ceremonies and those who did not. The authors found that participation in the national ceremony was not related to national identity (see also, de Regt & Lippe, ). Another attempt to evaluate the impact of national days was conducted in Israel.…”