The edges of the nation: a research agenda for uncovering the taken‐for‐granted foundations of everyday nationhood

Abstract

In many parts of the world, nationalism has gone underground. It's there, just beneath the surface, underpinning the social order without requiring, or even permitting, much tinkering. This is the realm of the unselfconscious: nationhood not as an object of purposeful manipulation, but as an unspoken set of assumptions about the national order of things. But if the nation is unseen, unheard, unnoticed, how do we know this? Indeed, how can we know this? In this paper, I elaborate a breaching approach for uncovering the ways the nation is taken for granted. I look to the edges of the nation: the places, times and situations where the nation is on the periphery – the edges – of consciousness, lurking just beneath the surface where it might be teased out with a carefully concocted breach. My aim is to explore and exploit these edges to turn unselfconscious suppositions about the nation into explicit articulations of the nation.

Debate on understanding national identity by David McCrone and Frank Bechhofer

“…The data they present, both qualitative and quantitative, consist of ordinary people doing things with their national identities (generally talking and ticking boxes). But while on one level it is clear that their respondents are freely invoking their identities, on another level the same data might be reinterpreted to tap into that more elusive and typically unnoticed version of national identity that others have claimed is inaccessible (see Fox ).…”

“…But the answers they give are nevertheless meaningful. The boxes they tick do not provide space for nuance or texture, but rather require quick, quasi‐automatic, reflex‐like responses (see, e.g., Li : 120–24, Bonikowski : 438, Fox : 42). And because the answers are not premeditated, they give us a glimpse into the netherworld of national identity as who we are.…”

‘There are times when I feel like a bit of an alien’: middling migrants and the national order of things

“…While placing people at the heart of any analyses is, of course, important, this way of distinguishing everyday and banal nationalism also risks trading in rather crude categorisations at times. In this case, we have those who actively produce or, indeed, challenge national frameworks to meet their needs contrasted favourably with the ‘nationalist dupes’ (Fox : 30) whose engagements are largely unthinking. It also downplays the changing ways in which individuals and groups may shift between more or less reflexive pronouncements or practices.…”

Introduction: Everyday nationalism's evidence problem

“…But if we do not, and cannot, see the nation, then how do we know this? Indeed, how can we know that banal nationalism goes unseen, unheard, and unnoticed (Fox )?…”

“…There is considerably less interest in such questions, however, from scholars of nationalism. Exceptions include Hester and Housley's () foray into ethnomethodological analyses of national talk; Skey's () and Fox's () shared interest in national breaching (a la Harold Garfinkel ); and the techniques devised by experimental psychologists Hassin, Ferguson, Carter, and colleagues (Carter et al ; Ferguson and Hassin ; Hassin et al ) to uncover evidence of ‘subliminal nationalism’. Others, taking their cue from Bourdieu, have talked about national habitus, national doxa, and national capital, all conceived of as partially or wholly submerged modalities of being (see, e.g.…”