Youth organizations and the reproduction of nationalism in Britain: the role of Urdd Gobaith Cymru

Youth organizations have long played significant roles in promoting particular forms of nationalism among young people in the UK. To date, however, academic studies of UK youth organizations have been Anglocentric, focusing on youth organizations associated with a hegemonic British state and imperial project. This paper seeks to show how youth organizations have also been used to promote alternative forms of nationalism in the UK, which have sought to challenge a British state and imperial project. Focusing explicitly on Wales, it examines how Urdd Gobaith Cymru – the Welsh League of Youth – has played a significant role over the past 90 years in promoting a Welsh and Welsh-speaking citizenship amongst Welsh youth. Drawing on documentary and archival research, the paper discusses how the organization has fostered particular practices and identities among its members and the way in which these have been challenged in recent years; most notably as a result of a decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers in Wales and changing configurations of the meanings of Welshness. The paper concludes by arguing for the need to take seriously the role played by youth organizations in helping to shape political geographies in a devolved Britain.     

Banal Nationalism 20 years on: Re-thinking,re-formulating and re-contextualizing the concept

This introduction considers the significance of Michael Billig's (1995) Banal Nationalism to geographers, and how this fits into broader trends of nationalism research in the social sciences. Through an analysis of Web of Science citation trends for the book, we illustrate its spatial and temporal reach in terms of the countries where it has been cited and how its impact has developed since 1995. We also briefly examine how political geographers have engaged the concept of banal nationalism in their research, and what sort of questions it has raised for those conducting research on nationalist discourses and territorial identity narratives more broadly. Considering how political geographers might creatively advance this scholarship, we introduce the individual papers included in this special issue and conclude with a brief gesture to future directions for research beyond Banal Nationalism.     

Hot, banal and everyday nationalism: Bilingual road signs in Wales

The paper focuses on Billig's (Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage) notion of banal nationalism. While Billig's work is to be commended for demonstrating the way in which nationalism is an endemic political ideology in all states – and not merely an extreme or hot political ideology that is based upon “blood and belonging” (Ignatieff, M. (1993). Blood and belonging: Journeys into the new nationalism. London: BBC Books) – we suggest that his work tends, perhaps unwittingly, to reinforce an unwarranted separation of the banal and hot processes that reproduce nationalism. Some empirical work has implicitly and explicitly begun to question the distinction between banal and hotter forms of nationalism. We argue that one way in which such an agenda can be furthered is through a promotion of the idea of everyday nationalism, which combines banal and hot elements in more complex and contingent ways. We elaborate on the benefits of adopting such an approach through an empirical discussion of the campaign in favour of bilingual road signs in Wales between 1967 and 1975. We focus, first, on how monolingual English road signs were constructed by Welsh nationalists as part of an everyday landscape of oppression and, second, on the everyday politics of road signs within the spaces of government. We conclude the paper by reaffirming the need to move beyond notions of banal and hot nationalism and to focus on the everyday contexts within which nationalism is reproduced.     

An Analysis of Actual and Potential Clustering Structures,Stakeholder Governance Activities and Cross-locality Linkages in the Welsh Aerospace Industry

Commercial aerospace is a key sector in the Welsh economy, engaged in complex overlapping activities from aircraft manufacture (AM), through maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), to research, development and training (RDT). Defining and operationalizing a framework for analysis using both qualitative and quantitative data, this paper examines the actual and potential roles of the relationships in Wales between commercial aerospace firms, industry, government and institutional stakeholders, at both local and non-local levels. Concentrations of manufacturing in North Wales, and MRO in South Wales along with RDT operate as distinct constituent parts of aerospace clusters in neighbouring regions of England and beyond. The results, however, highlight links between the location of AM, MRO and RDT in Wales, emphasizing their (partially) geographically symbiotic relationships. Moreover, there are key inter-linkages that need consideration if the long-term health of Welsh aerospace is to be secured. Simultaneously, all three sub-sectors in Wales exhibit weaknesses which could render them vulnerable to greater external competition, particularly from developing countries. This emphasizes a need to alter the current governance arrangements and utilize different clustering characteristics that currently exist, with government, as a major sponsor of the industry, having a strong (but changing) role to play in encouraging these more balanced industry structures and decision-making processes.     

Identifying Scotland and Wales: types of Scottish and Welsh national identities

Abstract. How are national identities and the ‘imagined communities’ ( Anderson 1991 ) upon which they are based linked? This article demonstrates that Q‐methodology, which allows each participant to express his or her own ‘personal nationalism’ ( Cohen 1996 ) while simultaneously highlighting how these individual assessments aggregate into coherent, shared types of national identity, provides a means of empirically assessing the linkage between the micro‐ and macro‐components of national identity. When applied to the cases of Scotland and Wales, the six types of national identity – three each in Scotland and Wales – highlight distinctions that reflect, as well as challenge, the ubiquitous academic division between civic and ethnic national identities. They also illuminate the differing natures of contemporary Scotland and Wales, with particular emphasis on the observation that the Welsh imagined community appears to be fundamentally more contested than the more easily forged Scottish imagined community.     

Sexual citizenship in Belfast,Northern Ireland

In this article we examine the contours and construction of sexual citizenship in Belfast, Northern Ireland through in‐depth interviews with 30 members of the GLBT community and a discursive analysis of discourses of religion and nationalism. In the first half of the article we outline how sexual citizenship was constructed in the Irish context from the mid‐nineteenth century onwards, arguing that a moral conservatism developed as a result of religious reform and the interplay between Catholic and Protestant churches, and the redefining of masculinity and femininity with the rise of nationalism. In the second half of the article, we detail how the Peace Process has offered new opportunities to challenge and destabilise hegemonic discourses of sexual citizenship by transforming legislation and policing, and encouraging inward investment and gentrification.     

National identity and economic development: reiteration,recapture, reinterpretation and repudiation*

Abstract. This article attempts to move beyond assumptions that nationalism is essentially cultural and/or narrowly political, and that it is primarily past‐oriented and defensive. We do this by examining evidence relating to the creative (re)construction of the nation from a contemporary economic perspective. Paying particular attention to Scotland and Wales, we show that the mobilisation of national identity within this process of (re)construction is not exclusive to those who seek greater political autonomy. National identity is also mobilised, often in a ‘banal’ fashion, by non‐political national institutions such as economic development agencies. We argue that, within the strategies and discourses of economic development, historic national characteristics are reconciled with contemporary needs and aspirations through four processes: reiteration, recapture, reinterpretation and repudiation.     

‘We’re Internationalists,not Nationalists’: The Political Ramifications of Welsh Labour’s Internal Power Struggle over the ‘One Wales’ Coalition in 2007

The bitter arguments within the Labour Party in Wales in 2007 preceding its agreement to enter coalition with Plaid Cymru in the National Assembly have faced little substantive analysis, and the specific behind-closed-doors debates at the special conference held to vote on the deal have remained undisclosed. This paper fulfils both tasks, revealing how actors’ arguments tapped into historically resonant traditions in Welsh Labour thought, coalescing around a central ideological conflict over the party’s identity vis-à-vis nationalism. The article thus sheds light upon Welsh Labour’s internal power struggles at an important juncture in its recent history and their continuing ramifications.     

Securing disunion: Young people's nationalism,identities and (in)securities in the campaign for an independent Scotland

This paper explores ethnic and religious minority youth perspectives of security and nationalism in Scotland during the independence campaign in 2014. We discuss how young people co-construct narratives of Scottish nationalism alongside minority ethnic and faith identities in order to feel secure. By critically combining literature from feminist geopolitics, international relations (IR) and children's emotional geographies, we employ the concept of ‘ontological security’. The paper departs from state-centric approaches to security to explore the relational entanglements between geopolitical discourses and the ontological security of young people living through a moment of political change. We examine how everyday encounters with difference can reflect broader geopolitical narratives of security and insecurity, which subsequently trouble notions of ‘multicultural nationalism’ in Scotland and demonstrate ways that youth ‘securitize the self’ (Kinnvall, 2004). The paper responds to calls for empirical analyses of youth perspectives on nationalism and security (Benwell, 2016) and on the nexus between security and emotional subjectivity in critical geopolitics (Pain, 2009, Shaw et al., 2014). Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), this paper draws on focus group and interview data from 382 ethnic and religious minority young people in Scotland collected over the 12-month period of the campaign.     

Class,Status and Party in the Analysis of Nationalism: Lessons from Max Weber

Abstract. Little attention has been paid by those seeking to understand nationalism to Weber's writing on class, status and party. These concepts can be used to analyse the groups which carry the nationalist idea outside the narrow circle of intellectuals and we use the example of Welsh nationalism to illustrate how this can be done. In our example the group in question is a status group which has a basis in class. The character of Welsh nationalism reflects the character of this status group – the ‘Welsh class’– and the changes (for instance in public policy and in the law) produced by nationalist agitation have been of most benefit to members of this status group. In terms of Weberian theory this nationalist activity can be understood as the activity of a status group which is monopolising resources through social closure.     

Language Policy and Nationalism in Wales: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract. This article is based on research conducted between 1987 and 1994. It argues that the Conservative government has increasingly used the Welsh language as an instrument of political accommodation within Wales which has served to highlight the complexity of the relationship between the aims of the language movement and the aspirations of nationalists. The comparative perspective explores the situation in Canada and the Republic of Ireland and considers the proposition that the ‘depoliticisation’ of language in the context of the politics of nationalism is beneficial to a minority language.     

The national question: sociological reflections on nation and nationalism

The sociology of nation, national identity and nationalism has long been the subject of benign neglect. After examining the few positive contributions made by classical writers, we attempt to explain why the contribution of classical theory to the field is unreliable. In common with others we find that, for all that classical theory might treat the prominence of nation, national identity and nationalism as a passing phase, it in fact takes the existence of all three as givens to such an extent that they and their effects become invisible. But the sociology of nation and nationalism reached a turning point with the publication of Elie Kedourie's influential work in 1960. We explain the effect of this work on later writers, especially Ernest Gellner and Anthony Smith, and survey the work of these and other contributors to the field with an eye to their differences and similarities. We identify various stages in the development of the sociology of nation and nationalism, culminating in the most recent stage in which the significance of the subjective aspects of nationalism has received increased attention. We think there is room for a multiplicity of approaches to the subject and stress its central significance to sociology. We explain why nation, national identity and nationalism are certainly not in decline and suggest where the most fruitful lines of inquiry lie for future research.     

‘Symbols of Justice’: the Welsh Language Society's campaign for bilingual road signs in Wales, 1967–1980

In this paper we provide a critical evaluation of the campaign for bilingual road traffic signs in late 1960s and 1970s Wales, examining how Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) came to see English language road signs as mundane, ubiquitous and oppressive symbols of anglicisation and of British/English government authority in Wales. We suggest a rethinking of Michael Billig's concept of ‘banal nationalism’, arguing that while English language road signs may appear as banal symbols and technologies of government authority and control, their banality is only ever experienced from particular perspectives by partial constituencies. For Welsh language campaigners, English language road signs were experienced and criticised as eruptive and disruptive symbols of oppression, rule and colonisation, and in the paper we trace the genesis of the bilingual road signs campaign, British government reactions to proposals for bilingual signs, and the shift in policy which followed the very public support of hundreds of respectable Welsh professionals for the campaign from December 1970. We conclude the paper by examining the work of the Welsh Office's Committee of Inquiry into Bilingual Traffic Signs (the Bowen Committee), and the subsequent disagreements between language campaigners, government scientists and politicians on the issue of language order. Throughout the paper we suggest that it was the ubiquity, functionality and materiality of road signs which made this one of the most effective campaigns carried out by the Welsh Language Society.     

Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction Miles Russell (ed.) with a Prgace by Douglas Adams

Abstract

The heritage management policy in the UK is to delegate management and protection of scheduled ancient monuments to quasi-autonomous heritage agencies. These agencies are an improvement on what preceded them: the dry, conservative and underfunded Ministry of Works. However, by analysing the way in which Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments manages the castles in North Wales one can see that the current system has many inherent failings. Underfunding, a lack of commitment to education and preservation and the artificial division of responsibility along modern pseudo-national boundaries are evidence that the current policy has run its course and now needs to be re-thought. Furthermore, there must be more effort made to present a more inclusive heritage by accepting that the heritage sites in Wales exist within a multicultural Britain and a world of shared human experience. Emerging as a model for future heritage management is Denbigh Castle in North Wales. The site was abandoned in 1998 after Cadw decreed that it did not generate enough income. Subsequently rescued by the local council, it is now thriving. Denbigh stands as an example of how a heritage site can be integrated with the local community that has lived in its shadow for hundreds of years.     

Empire‐nation: national and imperial discourses in England

When the states of England and Scotland combined in 1707, conditions were created whereby English nationalism could merge into British nationalism. With the expansion of empire, English nationalism was expressed through imperial‐national discourses allowing English nationalists to claim non‐English space when articulating what might be best understood as an Anglo‐British nationalism. Accordingly, such discourses largely ‘hid’ what one might now understand as ‘English nationalism’ within a ‘British’ discourse of empire. The case of England illustrates that imperial discourses can become intimately bound up with the ‘national’ discourse of the nations at the core of the imperial structures. Accordingly, it is here argued that imperial and national discourse are not necessarily opposed to each other, but are able to feed into each other, affecting the manner in which ideas of the nation and empire are conceived and articulated.     

King Edgar,Wales and Chester: The Welsh Dimension in the Ceremony of 973

Abstract

This article addresses two related aspects of King Edgar's visit to Chester — why he went there and how he got there. Interpretations of its purpose have generally been based upon English sources and have paid less attention to Welsh evidence: this article attempts an alternative perspective. The first of the two aspects is a stage in the development of the ‘Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’ expressed in the coronation at Bath and a tenth-century durbar at Chester when the might of the King of all England was pronounced to the outside world. The second, which was linked to that and specifically directed at the North-West, was a determined attempt to define and strengthen the north-western frontier of the extended kingdom and tighten Edgar's grip upon the northern Welsh princes whose constant infighting presented an opportunity for Norse and/or Irish incursions. His actions became an economic as well as a military necessity, to maintain the English grasp on North Wales and to protect the important trading links between Chester and Ireland.     

Dancing on the graves: Independence,hot/banal nationalism and the mobilization of memory

Nationalism is frequently considered as an extreme, ‘hot’ phenomenon related to often violent nation/state-building processes. Billig’s Banal Nationalism turned the attention to how nationalism is also ‘flagged’ and routinely reproduced in existing states. This article studies the mobilization of these forms of nationalism and suggests that independence is a useful notion in bridging the hot/banal divide and for tracing the ‘hot in the banal’. Whereas for separatist movements independence is primarily a goal aspired to, in existing states independence/sovereignty is used to bring together hot and banal forms of nationalism which are mobilized in reproducing the discourses/practices related to the purported national identity. This paper first outlines a heuristic framework for conceptualizing independence and its key dimensions in relation to hot and banal nationalism as well as state-territory building. Secondly, the paper will study empirically the merit of the notion of independence regarding nationalism research via four themes: (1) the role of independence in Finland’s state/nation-building process, spatial socialization and in mixing hot and banal nationalism; (2) the use of the ‘independence card’ by (nationalist) parties; (3) the mobilization of nationalist practices/discourses in the performativity of Finnish Independence Day; and (4) the resistance that the independence celebrations have incited. This study shows that the idea of independence in this context is inward-looking, draws on Othering, and is flagged in media and spatial socialization (e.g. education) using particular iconographies, landscapes, events, and memories related above all to wars. Rather than expressing hot or banal nationalism these discourses/practices effectively merge the two, challenging any simple dichotomy between them. The performativity of Independence Day in particular displays this blending.     

Renewable Energy Innovation and Governance in Wales: A Regional Innovation System Approach

This paper draws on research commissioned to investigate the regional innovation system of Wales on green innovation, focusing on the renewable energy sub-sectors of wind, solar and biomass. It shows how many innovative firms operate within regional networks, cooperating and interacting not only with other firms such as suppliers, customers and competitors, but also with research and technology resource organizations, innovation support agencies, venture capital funds, and local and regional government bodies. The paper argues that within the region there is the presence of various renewable energy production platforms, usually based on core technologies (wind, solar, biomass, marine, etc.) at different levels of development. They involve a mix of established energy utilities and new sustainable energy businesses that are positioned at different levels within the renewable energy supply chain. The research shows that the regional government is playing an important role in supporting the renewable energy industry; nevertheless, more needs to be done to facilitate planning control, provide skills and create new demands for renewable energy that will further foster business growth and further strengthen the existing manufacturing base and innovation in Wales. The paper identifies some weaknesses in the Welsh energy innovation system, not least that energy is not a devolved responsibility and it argues that there is some scope for the Welsh Assembly Government to further investigate gaps within the green innovation supply chain and act on strengthening regional capabilities within the industry but also to support and investigate further opportunities for inward investment.     

Shaping Women: National Identity Through the Use of Language in Franco'S Spain

In my article I show how a very particular identity was created for women during the period of Franco's Spain. I will draw upon a varied range of materials from official discourses, particularly the Sección Femenina (the women's branch of Falange); the Álvarez Enciclopedia and other texts such as songs, poems and the popular press. Following Foucault (1980: 30) I analyse an identity based on oppressive discourses whose power ‘reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning process and everyday life’. The nationalistic stress of this discourse is one that encourages women to create a new image of Spanish femininity that should be ‘different’ from the liberated portrayal of women coming from Europe, mainly through the path of growing tourism. The language of these discourses is somehow baroque, elaborated, energetic and highly dramatic. It tries to seek attention through an unnecessary and badly misorientated dramatism. It is cryptic and manipulative and claims to be poetical, but its main intention is to confine women indoors and to make them look at the world through the curtains or from a closed window. On the other hand it made women feel they were the representation of a unique matriarchal nationalism making them appear as the heroines of an essentialist national metaphor: women mothers of the nation. Inherent in Franco's equation of women = femininity = nation is a contradiction that defines women as ‘indoor heroines’ and bases nationalism in a naturalised representation of gender where women are a gendered representation of this nationalism.     

Immigrants riding for justice: Space-time and emotions in the construction of a counterpublic

During the past two decades, a new immigrants’ rights movement in the U.S. has emerged, constructing a counterpublic that challenges hegemonic immigration discourses, policies, and practices. We show how a counterpublic is constructed in practice, using as a case study the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride (IWFR), an event in 2003 that helped further the momentum of immigrant rights activism. We examine how immigrant activists and their allies came together and worked to construct, articulate, and enact a shared political identity that we refer to as an identity-in-alliance. Space-time and emotions were crucial in the development of this identity as ‘Freedom Riders,’ as well as a sense of solidarity. We reflect on the vulnerabilities within the counterpublic and challenges it faced when inserting its discourses on immigration, race, and citizenship into the hegemonic public sphere. Taking the insights gained from these practices, we extend Nancy Fraser’s concept of the counterpublic by demonstrating the centrality of space-time and emotions to its theorization.