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Questions remain about nationhood's everyday salience – that is, whether and how nationhood is engaged with by "ordinary people" undertaking routine activities. We present an innovative methodology for investigating everyday nationhood at the international border. We created a social media dataset of 1,083 "tweets" made during British airport border crossings, where nationhood might be expected to be particularly salient – especially during a period corresponding to post-referendum Brexit negotiations. We used content analysis to generate descriptive frequencies, before analysing these broad patterns in further detail via qualitative analysis. Nationhood is found to be largely absent, at least explicitly. A large majority focus on the contingencies of everyday life in highly individualist and consumer-oriented ways. The most common identification – "non-EU" – indicates border-crossing experiences framed by geopolitical inequalities, but only rarely by nationhood. One possible exception to the dominant patterns is a highly individualist, tacit manifestation of Britishness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative statistical analysis is of tolerance and how it was perceived and experienced by minorities and majorities in the UK and Germany before and after two defining national events that both focused on immigration and national identity. Based on combined sweeps of the European Social Survey (2012–2018), this study applied logistic regression modelling to determine that during the Brexit vote in 2016 and the German Refugee Crisis in 2015, majorities from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to be intolerant towards minorities, who were more likely to experience discrimination. Majority intolerance and minority perceptions of discrimination increased after both events among less well-off groups. However, majorities from higher socioeconomic backgrounds were less likely to exhibit intolerance towards minorities before these national events and after. This study offers an original perspective on race and ethnic relations at times of national crises over identity and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the tumultuous early twenty-first century, vigorous appeals to whiteness in Britain are largely attributed to populist ethno-nationalism. This article offers a complementary critical account focusing on the use of "racialism" as a purportedly non-invidious theoretical framework for describing racial differences and resultant societal impacts. Drawing on recent examples, especially the work of David Goodhart and Eric Kaufmann, I consider the deployment of racialism to characterize a benign white ethno-racial communalism based on "self-interest" and a positive preference for "co-ethnics" sharing common values. I suggest that racialist local whiteness is used to pursue two repudiatory projects: first, politically weakening black, Asian and minority ethnic groups by constituting white disadvantage; and second, disarming accounts of pervasive and systemic racism by naturalizing racial stratification. Ultimately, I argue that an understanding of racialist local whiteness guards against the racial reification of populist nationalism and illuminates the deeper entrenchment of racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a conjunctural analysis of the financial and political crisis within which Brexit occurred with a specific attentiveness to race and racism. Brexit and its aftermath have been overdetermined by racism, including racist violence. We suggest that the Leave campaign secured its victory by bringing together two contradictory but inter-locking visions. The first comprises an imperial longing to restore Britain's place in the world as primus inter pares that occludes any coming to terms with the corrosive legacies of colonial conquest and racist subjugation. The second takes the form of an insular, Powellite narrative of island retreat from a "globalizing" world, one that is no longer recognizably "British". Further, the article argues that an invisible driver of the Brexit vote and its racist aftermath has been a politicization of Englishness. We conclude by outlining some resources of hope that could potentially help to negotiate the current emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virdee's book adds enormously to our understanding of two interconnected processes: the ways in which racism and nationalism in England/Britain became totally intertwined and embedded in working-class views of the world, and how at certain key moments those racially cast out from that depressing maelstrom may become the champions of an anti-racist internationalism. I am fractionally less negative than the author about the seemingly total hold of racism/nationalism on the whole working class, and less certain about racialized ‘outing’ as the key to the DNA of universalist anti-racists. Using the Garibaldi mobilizations of 1862–64, I suggest he may have underestimated the potential and reasons for ‘insider’ working-class resistance to racism/nationalism, and suggest greater caution in arguing an association between ‘racialized outsiders’ and internationalist views. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the important roles national identity and legacies of the past play in shaping the meanings second-generation adults of Nigerian descent attach to being British or American. Whether a country's national identity is inclusive or exclusive of immigrants, and whether its national myths have emotive appeal also affects the sense of welcome and belonging that the second generation feel. Comparing the USA and the UK, I find that although the USA has taken a laissez-faire approach to multiculturalism, its national identity has strong emotive appeal and is accepted by the majority of the second generation. The UK is a contrary case; despite its official policy of multiculturalism, it has not seen widespread articulation of shared national sentiments and myths among its second generation. From careful analyses, it is clear that multicultural policies are not making a big difference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study explored feelings of European identity and attitudes towards Europe manifested in two groups within the British population: the indigenous white British population (N = 58) and the South-Asian ethnic minority (N = 44). A social survey approach was used with scales to evaluate British, European and ethnic identities and also attitudes towards Europe. Perceived compatibility of identities was also assessed using a visual representation of identities task. Previous research findings were confirmed with the indigenous white British respondents, who displayed a strong sense of national identity negatively correlated with European identity. In contrast, the South Asian respondents displayed positive feelings of identification on all three levels, and a British identity that correlated positively with European identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since multicultural policies in modern liberal democracies depend on the official institutionalization of ethnic diversity, systems of ethnic classification, such as those incorporated in the national population census, acquire a particular political significance. Ethnic activists who regard their group's identity and culturally specific needs as being ‘excluded’ from the multicultural framework can be expected to mobilize to secure inclusion. Ultimately it is politicians who decide which ethnic groups should or should not be included in systems of ethnic classification. In this way, official ethnic classifications have become sites of contest in contemporary identity politics. Through an analysis of the dynamics that led to the inclusion of an ‘Irish’ option on the ethnic group questions for the 2001 Censuses of Great Britain, this article shows how radical changes to the list of ethnic designations used on censuses can be driven by political expediency rather than considered understandings of sociological reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between Hindutva networks in the UK and the growth of Hindu nationalism in India since the 1980s. The article begins with a critique of ethnicity-based paradigms in sociological and anthropological disciplines and argues that they can share much epistemological space with ethnic and religious absolutist tendencies that have arisen in South Asian communities. It explores the ideological orientations that were required in the Hindutva movement to ‘make sense’ of Hindu migration and settlement in the West. Detailed discussions are presented of Hindutva views about the role of Hinduism in the global diaspora. The essay focuses on the structure and ideology of the Hindutva movement in the UK, tracing its origins to the patterns of indenture and early migration to east Africa, and looks at the impact of the Hindutva movement in the reorganization of youth and religious communities in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps some of the salient ways in which the tenets of Hindu nationalism are being disseminated and made acceptable within British politics and within the core of social living among various communities in Britain. It examines specific institutional sites through which a politicized Hindutva community is forged: the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (UK), the vernacular press, and the Swaminarayan temple in north London. It argues that the “familiar-familial” space occupied by religious preachers draws large numbers of believers into the Hindutva fold. The article demonstrates the role of the vernacular press in constructing an articulate political community in Britain which silences criticisms of Hindu nationalist aggression in India. It draws out the connections between violence against religious minorities in India with the assertion of a global Hindu pride, and argues that the latter is founded upon a curious anti-racist and anti-imperialist discourse. It concludes that the intellectual project of the Hindu right is to shift the basis of ethical judgements, insert the trope of “Hindu hurt” within British politics and reconfigure the nature of political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a poll, concentrating on Scottish identity that emphasized the extent to which Scots have an uncertain vision of themselves. When people identify themselves as members of a certain group they are distinguishing those who are not members of this group. It is not so much that they must have enemies but that they are conscious of an out-group. When one identifies as a member of the working class the out-group is fairly clear. They are different not only in the sense that they have a different culture but also that they are believed to have different interests. In football and in one or two other spheres of life, which are not salient for politics, this awareness of differences exists but not in areas, which might normally affect the vote. Beyond this the boundary is often not clear. For the Scot, the archetypal Englishman is the upper class manager or administrator. National hostility is almost exclusively reserved for him. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is trying to do something for the upliftment of these people. The basic problem, which the SNP has, however, is that there are many people who share these identities and the alienation from British Establishment institutions but who do not vote for the SNP. The importance of the Scottish identity for politics is not fully developed for the majority of Scots.

This article discusses various discourses involved in the referendum debate in Wales. Although all discursive formations focus upon the issue of the Referendum Act, a great variety of discursive formations can be expected than merely a duality in favor and opposed to the Act. The opposition to the Bill spoke strongly and firmly from the place of the Centrex with the integrity of the continued unity of Great Britain as its main concern. It is axiomatic that a region is only part of a totality which has a Centrex which constitutes the place from which the above discourse emanates. The totality is Great Britain. Thus Wales is represented as a region of Great Britain. England is not treated as a region in the same way as Wales. This is because, England is held to be a plurality of regions and therefore cannot be seen to be a region. Nationalists are eager for Wales to become a separate state. Nationalists are the strongest supporters of a Cardiff assembly. However, others feel that the unity of Great Britain has given Wales and Scotland a common history, heritage and a rich way of life.

The case of the Scottish National Party (SNP) received particular attention, principally because it threatened to alter fundamentally the British political landscape, and also because it was thought by many respected scholars that Britain was the paradigm par excellence of the integrated nation-state. SNP electoral success was quite a surprise, and in the effort to explain it a whole host of frameworks, propositions, and explanations were offered. A common characteristics of all the approaches, and in particular those which emphasize structural or long-term factors, is a heavy reliance on macro social and especially economic variables to explain increased voter support for the SNP. The argument of this assay is that macro level variables should be considered opportunities as well as constraints for political mobilization, viewed as factors which may lead to an increase or drop in support for a nationalist movement. The starting point in explaining the decline of the SNP from 1977 to 1981 is the general observation that to a certain extent the party was a victim of its own success.