‘Diasporic Otherness’: racism, sectarianism and ‘national exteriority’ in modern Scotland

Abstract

This article examines the twin problems of racism and sectarianism in Scotland, exploring everyday experiences of them, the geographical bases of their production and their relationship to the wider Scottish society. I use qualitative interview and ethnographic research from Scotland, carried out in 2001, to examine these issues, arguing that they can be usefully considered together, within a framework focusing on diasporic belonging, hybridity and difference. These areas help uncover the positionalities of the groups involved, relative to each other and to Scotland, as well as the processes through which different minority groups are Othered and exteriorized whilst simultaneously (if differentially) embedded within Scottish/British society. Referring these issues to the ongoing political processes in post-devolution Scotland, ambivalences of belonging and desire can be identified which serve to complicate diasporic identities, which make both problems particularly intractable, and which pose questions for the construction of an inclusive ‘civic’ identity in Scotland.