Perceptions of Britishness

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to contribute to scholarly debate about the nature of national identity by exploring a set of empirical data relating to the complex case of Britishness. The paper considers, with reference to the findings of field-work conducted within a Pakistani community in London, what can be learnt about Britishness from the attitudes of young British Pakistanis. It is apparent that for such young people British national identity does not have a fixed content: their remarks draw attention to several different ‘boundaries of Britishness’ which operate in the popular imagination of people in Britain. These include the civic boundary, according to which citizenship is the primary criterion of nationality; the ‘racial’ boundary which defines as British those individuals believed to have British ancestry or ‘blood’; and the cultural boundary, according to which Britishness is a matter of the culture, values or lifestyle to which one adheres.     

Subjects or Citizens? India,Pakistan and the 1948 British Nationality Act

Independence in the case of British India occurred at relatively short notice in August 1947, but tying up the loose ends of empire stretched over years. Under these circumstances, the realignment of subjecthood and citizenship necessitated by decolonisation was protracted, and raised complex questions about identity in both the new states of India and Pakistan and the former imperial power itself. This article thus takes as its focus the drawn-out process of disengagement that followed formal independence in relation to one case study: the various ways in which Britain sought to square the working of its 1948 Nationality Act with Indian and Pakistani citizenship legislation that took shape in the 1950s. India and Pakistan faced the common challenge of establishing who now belonged within their new borders. Britain likewise was forced to recalibrate its ideas about nationality and think afresh about the rights of its subjects in view of the new sets of relationships that now linked colonies, old dominions and the ‘mother country’ within the Commonwealth. In practice, applying the 1948 Act's provisions in relation to India and Pakistan became infused with anxieties about ‘race’, which surfaced repeatedly as British officials in London, Delhi, Karachi and consulates around the world sought to manage its operation to suit British interests.     

The Other Allies: Military Security,National Allegiance,and the Enlistment of ‘Friendly Aliens’ in the Australian Armed Forces, 1939–45

Abstract

This article investigates military security attitudes toward the enlistment of ‘friendly aliens’ in the Australian armed forces during the Second World War. Employing of?cial correspondence of the period, the study positions contemporary debates regarding the enlistment of Allied nationals from Axis-occupied countries within the context of Australian conceptions of race, British nationality, and national allegiance. It is argued that, while British practice was in?uential and uniformity of Imperial policy was a desired objective, the unique concerns of Australian security, the domestic relationship between citizenship and military service, and the White Australia policy combined to determine the nature and application of Australian security attitudes in this area. In certain cases, these factors exercised severely negative impacts upon ‘friendly aliens’ who volunteered for service in the Australian armed forces.     

The ‘Linchpin for Success’? The problematic establishment of the 1965 Race Relations Act and its Conciliation Board

The 1965 Race Relations Act was the first legislation directed towards outlawing racial discrimination and racial incitement in Britain; but it has been almost universally criticised as weak, narrow and ineffectual. This article focuses on an area not adequately discussed in the existing literature—the debate about, and impact of, replacing initial criminal sanctions with American-styled conciliation and civil remedies, and subsequent creation of conciliation machinery. It argues that the protracted process of forming this Board had a greater impact upon the Act’s success than has been previously acknowledged, as it demonstrated the bipartite lack of desire to address the politically unpopular issue of race and immigration, thus creating further disillusionment towards the British state. Rather than being the ‘last step’ in such legislation, as desired by many at the time, its weaknesses and limitations stimulated criticism and increased political action, leading to subsequent broader legislation in future years.     

Changing philosophies of action? Argentine’s cultural policies in the 21st century

ABSTRACT

How can the many institutional and ideological changes of Argentine cultural policy at the beginning of the 21st century be explained? This paper analyses how representations of culture, programs and public actions are translated into different ‘philosophies of action’ depending on the political stripe of each government and the agents of cultural policy. If the predominant philosophy of action during the whole period is ‘culture as an economic resource’, it coexists with other philosophies: ‘culture as show’, ‘a communication tool’, ‘social inclusion’ and finally ‘a factor of citizenship’.     

The Colonial History of the 1905 Aliens Act

The passing of the Aliens Act of 1905 was a defining moment in British immigration law and history. This article investigates the influence of settler-colonial immigration restriction laws on the passing of the Act, and questions the current historiographical inclination to focus solely on the influence of American immigration restriction laws. By analysing the trajectory of contemporary public debates, the evidence given to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration (1902–03) and the political discussion on various bills, the article shows that the existence of colonial immigration restriction laws played an important role in the formulation and passing of the 1905 Aliens Act. Putting the Act in this larger context highlights its colonial derivation, but also its uniqueness: the British Act's defence of asylum, the exception extended to those landing as political and religious refugees, has no parallel in either early US law or any of the settler-colonial laws.     

A Flawed Saint: The Popular Image of William Gladstone in the Australian Colonies

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the popular image of William Gladstone which gradually emerged and evolved in the Australian Colonies throughout the nineteenth century. By using a wide variety of newspaper sources and political speeches, the piece shows how Gladstone was extensively discussed and interpreted on the far side of the ‘British World’. It tracks the ups and downs of the turbulent relationship Gladstone had with the Australian Colonies over his long career, as he influenced Australian history both directly through the policies he implemented and indirectly as an inspiration for local politicians. It concludes that although Gladstone repeatedly aggravated Australian opinion both through his time at the Colonial Office and the ‘soft’ foreign policy he pursued as Prime Minister, his domestic popularity as a successful liberal and democratic figure was enough to make him a hero in colonial eyes. This conclusion shows how ‘British World’ popular sentiment was able to trump nominal local interests. This demonstrates not only the predominance of Britishness in Australian identity during this time period, but also how as a simultaneously separate yet intimately linked part of the Empire, Australians abstracted their own significance and meaning from domestic British politics.     

A transnational history of immigration restriction: Natal and New South Wales, 1896–97

This article investigates the creation of Natal's 1897 Immigration Restriction Act and traces the legislative connections between southern Africa and Australia. It describes Natal's anti-Indian agitation of 1896–97 and argues that the colony's government initially sought to solve the ‘Asiatic question’ by adopting a racial immigration bill passed in New South Wales in 1896. However, the threat of violent extra-legal action by white settlers convinced the Natal government to replace this bill with one that made no direct reference to race. Natal ministers realised that racial legislation would face constitutional obstacles and were anxious to enact a restrictive immigration law without delay. The new Act was partly modelled on American immigration legislation and, though not explicit on race, its educational test was primarily designed to restrict Indian immigration. The Natal law was in turn used as the basis for Australian immigration legislation. Given these transnational connections, Natal's response to the ‘Indian question’ should be placed in a global context.     

The Foreign Enlistment Act,International Law,and British Politics, 1819–2014

Foreign enlistment has made headline news in the current Syria crisis and with the rise of the terror group ISIS. The problem is an old one. How can states prevent their citizens from joining foreign forces? Whatever the motives of volunteers, states have usually reacted with the implementation of domestic laws in the hope of gaining a grip on the situation. Britain has one of the oldest pieces of legislation in place, the so-called Foreign Enlistment Act. Dating back to 1819, the history of the Act is largely unexplored. An analysis of British state practice related to the Act brings a history to light which reaches far beyond the domestic sphere where the Act is firmly placed today. The article shows that the Act originated in the realm of foreign policy, shaping legal concepts, such as non-intervention, recognition, and neutrality in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century the Act was increasingly discussed in domestic policy, where current debates on foreign enlistment also take place. Thus, the article examines the changing role of the Foreign Enlistment Act in the context of 200 years of British domestic and foreign policy, illustrating how this domestic legislation shaped the understanding of concepts in international law.     

Monarchy and constructing identity in ‘British’ Gibraltar,c.1800 to the present

British Gibraltar began as a fortress, and royal coronations, jubilees and visits were initially celebrated in Gibraltar primarily by the British military and the colonial government. However, a substantial civilian population developed, to service the garrison and engage in trade. Sections of this civil community, not British-by-birth, increasingly demonstrated their loyalty to the crown on such royal occasions, in order to raise their status internally, protect their interests and increase their political influence inside Gibraltar. Spanish participation in royal events in Gibraltar, especially by members of the military and political elites from across the frontier, were also once commonplace and in Gibraltar uncontested. However, the relationship with Spain deteriorated, especially from the 1950s. Gibraltar's civil community then used expressions of loyalty to the British crown on royal occasions to assert its Britishness and to emphasise the duty of the British government to resist Spanish claims.     

The Shaping of John Lambert's Allegiance and the Outbreak of the Civil War

Abstract

'Sir Philip Musgrave and the Re-Establishment of the "Old Regime" in Cumberland and Westmorland c. 1660–1664: Local Loyalty and National Influence'. This paper examines the career of Sir Philip Musgrave in Cumberland and Westmorland during the period 1660–64, and illuminates the continuing integration of outlying English regions and their gentry families into a national polity, wherein gentry horizons frequently stretched beyond the boundaries of their native counties, and in which their local and national political 'worlds' were often inextricably linked. Musgrave was eager to consolidate the newly restored authority of the monarchy and Church of England, as well as his own influence within the returning 'old regime'. In cooperating with central government against Protestant Nonconformity, Quakerism and political insurrection in the Lake Counties, Musgrave and other local government officials highlight how local and central interests could dovetail. On one level, Sir Philip had little difficulty in perceiving himself as a straightforward servant of the State, declaring himself a 'State physician' during the application of the Corporation Act in Cumberland and Westmorland. Yet, as this paper will demonstrate, Sir Philip Musgrave was more than a mere compliant Royalist yes-man. As servants of central government, Musgrave and a number of his local associates were extremely important as agents of political innovation. In interpreting, applying and calling for changes in policy, they demonstrate that the exercise of political power in the developing British State was not simply a top-down process.     

浅析加拿大新移民法对华人的影响

加拿大的新移民法在 2 0 0 2年 6月 2 8日起开始生效 ,这一新法是进入 2 1世纪加国第一次对移民问题的立法。新法做了很大的修改 ,它将对约一百万名华裔社群 ,以及每年成千上万梦想移民加国的华人产生深远的影响     

Model migrants?: Sikh activism and race relations organisations in Britain

Race relations organisations in Britain hailed Sikhs as models of peaceful integration during volatile political debates about the immigration of Commonwealth peoples during the 1960s and early 1970s. But Sikh campaigns to protect the sanctity of turban-wearing challenged this symbiotic relationship. This article explores how motorcycle helmet laws provoked a campaign to protect the Sikh turban and allowed diasporic Sikhs to articulate their concerns about British integration and race relations expertise during the mid-1970s. Sikh campaigners linked restrictions on turban-wearing to concerns about race relations legislation, equal employment policy, and their rights as British residents. In assessing the fluctuating relationship between Sikh activists and race relations authorities, it reveals the fractures in pluralist integrationist ideologies that continued to prioritise British cultural authority. The evidence here also demonstrates that this moment provided British Sikh communities with an unprecedented opportunity for national solidarity and diasporic community-building.     

Seeking labour's aristocracy? The ‘Westphalian incident’ and Polish nationality policy in the immediate aftermath of war*

ABSTRACT. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish state placed a high value on national homogeneity. The Polish Committee of National Liberation signed population exchange agreements with its socialist neighbours in September 1944 and expelled the German population who remained within the new Polish borders. Far less frequently discussed are the Polish state's efforts to persuade ‘Poles’ in Western Europe to move to Poland. This paper analyses how Polish policy towards ‘Westphalian Poles’ and the British reaction to Polish claims offer insight into both Polish and British nationality and citizenship policy in the immediate post‐war period. I argue that the quality of potential labour played an important role in both British and Polish thinking. The paper also contends that the ‘Westphalian incident’ gives useful insights into the emergence of the Cold War.     

The Britishness of ‘British Video Games’

Abstract

British Government policy has much to say about video games, through production support, regulation and recognition (or lack of it) of their cultural nature, with games defined and promoted as part of the creative industries in a manner which owes much to film policy. Yet, the drive to promote both the games industry and games culture, and the inconsistent usage of terms like culture and creativity, produces tensions between different elements of ‘Britishness’, expressed and experienced not only through policy, but also through the creation and consumption of games. In considering the specificity of games’ contribution to British identity, therefore, we must understand how different elements of cultural policy interact with the interests of audiences and creators to define ‘British games’ – games which have the quality of being, or being seen to be, British. Such games might be expected not only to represent British culture within a global marketplace, and to project soft power, but also to address the British nation in some manner. This diversity, of global and local, of present-mindedness and nostalgia, suggests that British games articulate a complex and plural sense of national (cultural) identity.     

A community out of balance: nationality law and migration politics in the history of post-unification Italy

Italian government policies concerning foreign immigration have to be understood in the context of laws on nationality. Since the time of unification, Italian laws on nationality have been closely determined by policies on emigration and immigration. As a result, the laws regarding the nationality status of Italian emigrants returning from abroad, and for foreign immigrants in Italy, have on the whole been determined by the procedures adopted for the acquisition or deprivation of Italian nationality. This is a subject that has not been studied and this article reconstructs the principal stages in the development of Italian nationality laws from the early twentieth century to the present. This reveals that Italian nationality law treats Italian emigrants and foreign immigrants in very different ways. Both the legal system and government policy has in the past been extremely generous towards the former and has made both the preservation and the reacquisition of nationality relatively easy for Italian nationals, even before there were practical motives for this (e.g. the right for Italians living overseas to vote). When it comes to foreign immigrants, however, Italian law is amongst the most restrictive in western Europe. The article concludes by arguing that this underlying imbalance is a major but largely ignored weakness in Italian democracy.     

墨西哥人移民美国的历程

墨西哥移民在美国移民史上占有重要的地位,是当今美国最大的移民群体。作为一种历史现象,墨西哥人向美国较大规模的移民开始于20世纪初前后,概而观之,除20世纪30年代因大萧条而短暂中断外,墨西哥移民一直呈现出持续的高水平特征。墨西哥人移民美国的历程大致可以划分为四个阶段,与之对应的是四次移民浪潮：第一次浪潮从19世纪末20世纪初到1929年美国经济大萧条;第二次移民浪潮从1942年美墨双方签署《布拉塞洛计划55301964年该计划终结;第三次浪潮从1965年移民法颁布到20世纪80年代中期,此间大量墨西哥无证件移民流入美国;第四次浪潮从《1986年移民改革与控制法》颁布至今。墨西哥人移民美国源于一系列历史、地理、经济和社会因素,根植于美墨两国总体社会经济背景之下。     

Peering in from the window ledge of the Union: the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland

In this article I examine one particular way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement redefined unionist politics in the late 1980s. While the operation of “direct rule” had drawn the unionist middle classes ever closer to Britain in economic and cultural terms, it had also left them in a precarious position politically. The nature and scale of this political subservience was brought home dramatically in 1985 when the British government signed an international agreement giving the Dublin government the right to be consulted on Northern Irish affairs. In the period of political flux summoned by the Hillsborough Accord, elements of the unionist middle classes were drawn to the previously marginal ideas of a small leftist organisation that argued for the British political parties to organise in the region. Given the material interests and social conservatism of those attracted to it, the call for “equal citizenship” would inevitably take the form primarily of a movement seeking to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland.     

Immigration,the Celtic Tiger and the economic crisis

Abstract

This article addresses the puzzle of why Ireland has proved so open to immigration. It compares responses to immigrants in the Republic of Ireland during the Celtic Tiger era and during the post-2008 economic crisis and finds no evidence of a political backlash during the latter period even though opinion polls suggest that opposition to immigration had increased and other evidence suggested that there had been an increase in racist incidents within Irish society. Nor did the resumption of large-scale emigration trigger political hostility to immigrants. The outcome of the 2004 Referendum on Citizenship, which removed a constitutional right to Irish citizenship to the Irish-born children of immigrants, suggested that that nationalism still matters hugely and a latent tendency towards ethnic chauvinism amongst the host population. Yet, a decade after the 2004 Referendum it looked as if the old mono-ethnic sense conception of the Irish nation had been disrupted, at least a little bit.     

Securitisation through re-enchantment: the strategic uses of myth and memory

ABSTRACT

This article is an investigation into the attempt by the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper to securitise the Canadian polity through re-enchantment. Through the strategic use of discourses and the shaping of the regime of signification, the article explains how the Harper government attempted to re-enchant national myths of Anglo-conformist nationalism, militarism and loyalism. Using discourse analysis of government documents and speeches, the article examines three sites of discursive intervention: (1) National Museum and Archive policy, specifically, the renaming of the Canadian national museum; (2) the militarisation and royalisation of national institutions and commemorations, notably the renaming of the Canadian navy and (3) the privileging of anglo-centric and loyalist tropes in the performance of citizenship rituals, and associated with this, reforming Citizenship legislation. The article concludes with an analysis of the reasons for the overall failure of the Conservative government’s attempts to securitise through re-enchantment.