Our programme is focused on the changing nature and dimensions of Scottishness and Englishness as these are affected by constitutional change, notably the setting up of a Scottish parliament.

The relationship between Scotland and England is the crucial driving force in the changing relations between countries in the UK. The British state was created by treaties of Union between the two countries in 1707, and constitutional change in the last two decades has been driven by the renegotiation of this core relationship between Scotland and England. Creating assemblies (rather than parliaments) in Wales and Northern Ireland may, especially in the latter country, be extremely important in the longer term but is secondary at the present time to this Scottish-English relationship for the following reasons. First of all, if dramatic constitutional changes occur in the next five years, they are likely to do so in Scotland. It is a priori unlikely that Wales or Northern Ireland will become independent within this time span, or indeed generate claims to do so. Hence, the links between national identity and political action - which are at the heart of our programme - are going to be much clearer in the Scotland-England context. Secondly, changes in England are more likely to be affected by what is happening in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. What happens in Scotland is also likely to have much greater bearing on further constitutional change in these islands than what happens in Wales or Northern Ireland. In the latter case, its constitutional position is framed at least as much by all-Ireland issues as by developments in the UK. It is important to our argument here to appreciate that the constitutional changes taking place in the United Kingdom have neither been planned as a totality nor fit together as neatly as it sometimes suits government and commentators alike to claim.

The relationship between Scotland and England is not symmetrical. While Scots are likely to take the English as the 'other' against which they define themselves. The converse is not necessarily true, if only because of the different population sizes of the countries. 'Englishness' may or may not develop in the same way as 'Scottishness' which raises a number of issues such as:

• How likely is a 'backlash' in England against greater Scottish autonomy and its political and economic consequences?

• Would that involve a concomitant assertiveness of Englishness in the new political and social context? If not, what other forms might a 'backlash' take?

• Does (re)defining Scottishness involve anti-Englishness rather than simply contra-Englishness? Or will it reduce anti-Englishness?

• Will constitutional change lead to great animosity, and even conflict? Or will it lead to amicable federalism? Or make little difference?

Studying Scotland and England at this moment in time permits us to track processes of changing identities, and the economic, social and political consequences of those changes in real time. We have selected a variety of research methods, each appropriate to a particular level of the study, and propose to funnel from the large-scale, quantitative survey of public opinion, through to the use of anthropological fieldwork in the study of identities in organisations. In this way we shall apply a variety of methodologies to the problem of changing identities, and how these are produced and consumed over time. The underlying rationale is that identity is the flexible hinge linking structure and action which requires to be studied at the individual, organisational and institutional levels.

It is important to establish broad patterns in the populations at large, and at different time points, as well as adopting a concomitant focus on problematic groups or territories. The key to studying the impact of constitutional change on identities is to find particular research locales, critical cases, where changing identity and its consequences may be especially salient, contested or problematic. Our programme is designed in such a way that it has three complementary strands: (a) how identities are carried, altered and used by individuals themselves, (b) how individual identities and those of the organisations in which the individuals are embedded affect each other, are articulated and express themselves in action (c) how institutions in turn shape, and are shaped by, identities. We shall discuss each of these strands in turn.

Strand A
Explores how individuals themselves construct and mobilise identities in making sense of constitutional change by means of:

• establishing the general level of public opinion, examining how constitutional change is received, how issues of territorial identity (state, nation, region etc.) are negotiated around it, and how these mediate the desire for further constitutional change.

• an examination of the effects of identity change upon migrants and residents looking particularly at how the English in Scotland and Scots in England negotiate identities in the new national communities, and secondly at the problems raised for groups seeking social inclusion in Scotland and England.

• a focused study of the views of young people with regard to their willingness or otherwise to cross the Scottish-English border in the context of labour markets, thus providing a means for assessing the interaction of national identity and socio-economic behaviour.

Strand B
The second strand focuses more directly on the significance of national identity to individuals in work and organisational settings. In this part of the programme we are examining the role of the work milieu or the organisation as structurally intermediate between the individual and national level. We are doing this by means of:

• an examination of the nature, saliency and consequences of national identity in different organisational settings, notably a hospital and a bank, using intensive ethnographic research.

• assessing the ways in which national identities are carried by groups such as academics and how they negotiate these identities, in this case in the context of the cultural role and national identity of academic institutions.

Strand C
The third strand focuses on the institutional level itself by looking at two key mediating structures in which issues of national identity are likely to be salient. The important point here is that institutions themselves are crucially involved in the process of producing and negotiating national identity, and refract these back to the population at large:

• a study of how the media produce and mediate understanding of identities in the context of constitutional change, and how these products are received by people.

• a study of the ways in which key economic agencies and their managers articulate and mobilise versions of national identity in their negotiations at different political-economic levels.

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Nations and Regions research programme
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EDINBURGH EH1 1LZ, Scotland
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Last modified: 16 May 2002
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