Download Civil Society and the Political Construction of Welshness

The Personal Contexts of National Sentiments:
Class, Indifference and Resentment
Dr Robin Mann
University of Oxford
The subjective sense of national identity
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Increasing focus upon documenting national identity and
belonging as constituted within everyday life and social
interaction.
In the UK, there is an established body of work aimed at both
quantifying and qualifying the nature and extent of national
attitudes and imaginations.
But little attempt to consider how national sentiments relate to
contexts, experiences and events relevant to an individual’s life.
National identities are commonly treated as free-standing
social facts.
We know little of the personal contexts, experiences and events
that inform particularly meaningful orientations towards nation
and country.
National Identity in Everyday Life
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Existing qualitative literature suggests there is
considerable heterogeneity in everyday discourses
of the nation.
Billig (1995) and Smith (1991): Explanations for the
pervasiveness of national identity in everyday life.
Interactionist/Discursive approaches point to the
taken for granted assumptions in ethnic/national
identity constructions.
No convincing argument as to what distinguishes
those who articulate strong, emotion-laden accounts
from ordinarily weak or banal expressions.
Beyond the Nation:
Ethnicity and social experience
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To study ethnicity in isolation from other social
experiences is “to risk adopting an overethnicised view of social experience”
(Brubaker et al 2006:15).
 Understanding ethnic and national sentiments
requires reference to the context of “that which
is not ethnic” (Eriksen, 1993).
 Intense ethnic sentiments are dependent upon
a combination of individual and collective
experiences (Ruane & Todd 2004).
National Sentiments and Social Context –
The Social Milieu
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Expressions of national belonging, particularly
emotional or resentful expressions, need to be
understood not simply in terms of objective social
differences but with reference to a more nuanced social
milieu.
Bourdieu (1999) – One cannot understand ones
position in the macro social order without reference to
the directly experienced effects of the social microcosm.
Narratives of personal suffering are influenced by the
socially embedded “habitus” of expectations, selfunderstandings and values, and which are themselves
shaped by objective class position.
Consequently, the personal unease and resentment
emerging form unfulfilled expectations and status
frustrations can be found amongst both middle class
and working class segments of the population.
Methodology and Research
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Leverhulme Programme on Migration and
Citizenship (2003-2008) held by Bristol
University and UCL.
Research carried out between July 2004 and
August 2005
100 qualitative interviews and 10 focus groups
with “white English” respondents.
Conducted across two research sites – small
rural town and urban inner city.
Topic Guide: Home, Work, Nation and
Multiculturalism
Data and Analysis
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i. A sense of home and familial belonging.
ii. A sense of getting on/or having got on in life.
iii. A particular orientation to nation and a view
of social decline
Aim of analysis is to explore how (iii) national
sentiments are informed by their (i) sense of
home and (ii) getting on.
To be illustrated here through four case
studies.
Lived Milieu and the Nation –
Four Case Studies
Contexts/
Sentiments
Resentful Nationalist
Indifferent Cosmopolitan
Middle Class,
Small Rural
Town
Mary
Paul
Working Class,
Multiethnic
Neighbourhood
Brian
Karen
Small Rural Town – Mary and Paul
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Mary is defined by her and her husbands
professional middle class occupations which
have drawn them into a Europe wide labour
market; the disappointments of this (having to
return to England) and maybe the sacrifice of her
own career, are a source of tension and some
anger. She couples this with a disdainful status
attitude towards low status English people whose
behaviour is not acceptable by her standards.
Paul is similarly defined by his middle class
opportunities, a successful career and a sense of
having achieved what he has sought after, and
an ability to control his own destiny.
Multi-ethnic City - Brian and Karen
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Brian is working class in origin but frustrated by
a non-mobile unrewarding working class
occupation. He combines this with resentful
attitudes towards incomers.
Karen is working class in origin and in ‘status’
terms, that is, she is proud of her background.
Equally she is upwardly mobile working class,
achieving mobility within the horizons of many
working class people, and satisfied with her
gains. Like Paul, she has a sense of control and
a democratic sense of accepting others.
Case 1 – Mary
“Home” and belonging
“We came back for my husband’s work. We finished the job
in France and couldn’t find another comparable job there…so
we came back because there was an opening here…that
was the only reason we came back at all. We didn’t want to
come back…I mean who would? But we came to Westown
because of the school…this area had the best state school.
And we didn’t want to put them into private education…plus
we like the aspects, because of the local community…still got
a post office just…I would say that Weston is perhaps a little
behind the rest of England I wouldn’t expect to go into some
of the bigger towns and see that same sort of community”
 And would you say that you belong here?
 “Not particular no…I don’t feel very Westownian…no we
were here for two specific reasons as I say we wouldn’t be in
the country if it weren’t for this…I don’t particular like some
aspects of British life, which aren’t anything to do with
Westown”
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“Getting on”
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“I think I’ve had a great opportunity by leaving the
country and going to live and work and bring
children up in a different society…I was working
in a hospital in France it was sort of part time
work and office work and when I went out there I
didn’t speak any French and it was difficult and I
had two babies so I umm and I didn’t need to
work so it was it was a really nice change
actually…Yes, I think that’s I think is a great plus
when I left not many people were doing that. Not
many people were leaving…I know lots of people
are now but it felt good to see how the rest of the
world lives”
Britishness, resentment and social decline
“I’m English yeah can’t get away from it. I’m not terribly proud to be
English but I am English…I think people have, people have lost a
sense of pride in the country. They’ve had responsibility taken away
from them by legislation and the government…and I just don’t think
people give a shit anymore about the reputation of the country, and you
know, they treat themselves as individuals. I don’t think people have a
sense of Britishness anymore the younger age groups they don’t give a
monkey about anybody or anything…the media likes to group us all
together and make sweeping statements about Britain and Britons
behaviour abroad...put umm England in a bad light…because we were
on down the south of France and we were getting a huge influx of
British in the summer…there were a lot more English families coming
down to work that weren’t integrating terribly well, which didn’t go down
to well in the local community…people didn’t have a very high opinion
of the British population”
 “The town’s filthy…its something we’re not used to in France even
though our people chew gum and smoke just as much in France but I
mean its filthy…I mean its shocking you know…its most striking its just
little things like that…and the way people dress…It doesn’t make you
feel very proud when you see, you know, British holiday makers coming
down”
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Case 2 – Paul
“Home” and belonging
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“For me it’s home I suppose, the biggest thing is that my
father’s family has been in Westown for as far back as you
can trace…Westown is a place I have got roots, you know…
my grandfather was born in this street, my father was born in
the next street up, I was born just up there and my father was
one of six children: one went to Canada and the rest live in
the town… there are quite a lot of people in Westown who I
suppose haven’t seen anything else, who have been here
and that is it…I have got the luxury I suppose of being here
because I want to be here, because of what it can give me,
not just being here just because I was born here and I
haven’t bothered to go anywhere else…I made a very
conscious decision to be here, you know… there aren’t many
people you can talk to these days, there aren’t many people
to whom you can say ‘I come from there’ you know and they
can say you know, their family is there for 400 years and the
people say ‘I was brought up there’ and that gives I think
security, that belongingness”
“Getting on”
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“I have probably done better than I would have
expected…but equally I could have done better if I had
carried on from the career side… so the decision to come
back here was also really requiring me to give up the career
and really get a job instead of a career because when I was
with them, I, you know…the next move would probably have
been up to Newcastle or it could have been Manchester or it
could have been abroad…and yes you could say ‘no’ at times
but you can’t keep on doing it…I didn’t want to do that, I
didn’t want my kids to grow up just anywhere and I can
remember at the time a lot of people at the company said
‘you are so brave doing that!...but I didn’t think I was because
it just seemed the right thing to do…they wanted me to move
over to Germany to work at the European HQ a few years
ago and become the IT manager there and I said no…so, ye,
that had a cost on my career…there is a balance…but
equally it does mean that I get home on time”
Cosmopolitan indifference and Europe
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“I’m a bit mixed up. No I do consider myself to be English. I am
probably English before British although nothing against the rest
of the United Kingdom …especially coming from somewhere
like Switzerland, everybody thinks you are English and you
almost have to tell them: ‘yes I am English’ but actually it is
Britain, you know there are other people there as well. …but
yes I do feel myself to be English, I feel myself to be British and
as I say I do feel myself to be Swiss as well…I think that that’s
coming back to this thing about the Empire which the English
aren’t very good at doing, it’s kind of ‘here we are take us or
leave us but this is the way we do things’…one thing that does
frustrate me is the whole big Europe issue, it’s feeling that we
are not part of Europe…we actually have more in common with
the French than the Germans have and we have got more in
common with the Germans than the French have…and yet they
get on…we don’t realize that we are kind of a melting pot of
Europe…we kind of ignore that…and that frustrates me because
you know I consider myself also obviously to be European”
Conclusions
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A key contradiction is whether everyday
discourses are articulated through a mode of
indifference and/or resentment.
How class- and place-based experiences are
translated into nation-relevant attitudes.
The theme of resentment, commonly articulated
through a sense of decline in the country, is
associated with experiences of frustration and
immobility in these domains.
The theme of indifference is characterised by
personal security and upward mobility in these
domains and an attendant autonomy of the
individual from potentially undesirable changes in
the local and national context.