National Identity, Citizenship and Social Inclusion 2006-2011
Context
When we applied to the Trust in 1999 we said that the constitutional changes in the nations of the UK were likely to be ‘the beginning rather than the end of decentralisation and new territorial relationships in these islands’. While subsequent events largely confirm this, in one important way there has been little change in Scotland. It was, in large measure, a strong sense of Scottish identity which created pressure for devolution. Unsurprisingly then, constitutional change has not triggered any sizeable change; people in Scotland feel no more and no less Scottish than before. That said, who is seen as English or Scottish has acquired a sharper edge since 1999, and constitutional change has to some extent altered the way the English in Scotland are seen and the way they see themselves.
Objectives
Geo-political changes have shifted the emphasis from the meaning of national identity to broader questions of identity, citizenship, exclusion and inclusion in areas such as immigration, race and ethnicity. We are beginning to understand how and why national identity at different times and different places takes a political or a cultural turn. We have developed a better grasp of the underlying reasons people have for articulating their sense of national identity in different ways in different contexts. These are the issues which we now study.
Significance and Originality
We are exploring issues of belonging, acceptance and inclusion in three contrasting but interlocking ways:
- extensive comparative survey work, of a kind never carried out before, in three locales: the Scottish Highlands & Islands, Scotland and Britain as a whole. We propose to make these three-way comparisons over time by conducting the survey work in 2006 and 2008. We aim to capitalise on two hitherto under-exploited approaches developed during the previous programme which builds on our qualitative work. Specifically, we wish to explore who is included/excluded in terms of identity markers such as birth, residence, ethnicity, descent, residence; the relationship between being British and being Scottish/English/Welsh, and the rights and benefits which derive from these.
- qualitative work in selected locations in the Highlands and Islands with an emphasis on the GÀidhealtachd. This will fill a notable lacuna in our territorial coverage, of longstanding interest. This work is being carried out by Dr James Oliver. Studying the Scottish GÀidhealtachd is potentially of great significance because, local identity competes with ‘national’ identity to affect perceptions of constitutional change, social inclusion and politics generally. The sense of local identity is likely to be highly influential, entwined with issues of language, attitudes to the land, and a sense of a culture which is in some ways unlike that found even in the more rural parts of the Central Belt, affected as it is by relative isolation, issues of transport both on land and sea, sometimes tension over the continuing role of Gaelic and a stronger sense of the residual impact of religion. The diversity of social and geographical origins in the GÀidhealtachd increases the significance of a study in this area.
- Social psychologists Steve Reicher (St Andrews) and Nicholas Hopkins (Dundee) have developed original ways of exploring the effects of social stimuli on what people think, feel and do. Sets of experimental studies will address the nature of national identity and the implications for social inclusion and social harmony, leading to a powerful and valid analysis of the effects of social stimuli on what people think, feel and do. These new studies address, in a methodologically distinct way, issues to be explored in the surveys.
Methods
Survey work
The British Social Attitude Surveys enables us to compare Scotland, England and Wales. Because these surveys use random sampling, inevitably the number of cases in Scotland and, especially, Wales will be small and the scope for detailed comparison restricted. In order to overcome this, we included modules in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, and commissioned a booster in selected parts of the Highlands and Islands, where, by means of the booster sample, we are pursuing the same goals, at least in the first wave of surveys in 2006. In 2008, we may vary the approach in order to follow up specific ideas generated by the qualitative study. Because of the highly dispersed population in these areas it is likely that we shall follow a strategy of sampling from areas selected to provide illuminating contrasts, rather than trying to cover the area as a whole.Qualitative work in the Gaidhealtachd (Dr James Oliver)
Qualitative work will once again concentrate on how people ‘do’ identity in this area where the context is rather different from the places we have studied previously. Only with qualitative work can we understand the meanings and subtleties of national identity as lived and experienced in everyday life. We have demonstrated the merits of this approach in over a decade of research on national identity, and the proposed survey work would not be possible without it.Experimental studies (Prof. Reicher and Dr Hopkins)
These draw upon a highly original and sophisticated methodological development in the previous programme, the experimental work carried out by Reicher and Hopkins leading to a powerful and valid analysis of the effects of social stimuli on what people think, feel and do. These new studies in part address, in a methodologically distinct way, issues to be explored in the surveys.
Why The Leverhulme Trust?
The researchers are grateful to The Leverhulme Trust for funding this programme of research, and its previous support under its Nations and Regions programme. The Trust in particular appreciates how the researchers have developed their substantive ideas as well as relevant methodologies in order to get at what are complex issues of social, political and cultural life.
This page was published on
8 June 2010