‘Different Backgrounds’: Post-Devolution Citizenship and Community in Theresa Breslin'sDivided City(2005)

Abstract

This article considers the reconfiguration of community and citizenship within post-devolution Scotland in Theresa Breslin's Divided City (2005). Utilising the imaginative space of young adult fiction, Divided City explores the entrenched sectarianism within Glasgow and its associated football rivalries. Such traditionalist subjectivity is set amidst the diversity of an increasingly glocalised cosmopolitan community and the challenges and opportunities arising from transcultural mobility. Exploring the interstices of deterritorialised space, Breslin's text recognises post-devolution Scotland's potential for a curative cosmopolitan direction and echoes Rosi Braidotti's philosophical nomadism insofar as its citizens exist ‘in a globally linked world’ (Transpositions 93). Rather than remaining insularly driven by cartographical narratives of difference, Divided City posits an alternative outlook that encourages its future citizens to seek reconciliation and mutual understanding. It is a timely reminder that, far from existing in hegemonic national isolation, ‘ “we” are indeed in this together’ (Transpositions 93) and, as such, must strive to accommodate evolving communities.