Abstract
National identities are social phenomena with concrete—both political and social—effects in society, but a fundamental part of their constitution takes place through narratives about the collective. The existence of collective identities thus depends on drawing boundaries between the collective ‘we’ and the ‘others’, as well as on disseminating coherent ideas about the fundamental identity of the we-group. These narratives thus constitute a privileged object for investigating how collective identities are constructed and legitimised in a discourse that places the collective in time, that is, with a coherent and logical narrative about the past and a trustworthy projection into the future. This article defends, first, the concept of the ‘master narrative’ as a useful analytical category for investigating how national history is constructed, and, second, the concepts of ‘sites of memory’ and ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ as means of accessing this narrative. These concepts represent instances of creation and rewriting, respectively, of the narrative and are thus useful tools for analysing how a sense of connectedness with the community through time is created: that is, how a sense of continuity with certain distant epochs is conveyed, and how, on the other hand, a sense of discontinuity with other periods is favoured.
Highlights
Nations are collective identities, and, as such, social phenomena with real, concrete social, and political effects in society, but a central part of their constitution very often happens through narratives about the collective
German historians demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of the historical master narrative as an analytic tool for inquiry into constructions of national history, which are inextricably linked to any national discourse and the building of national identity
Nations are a kind of collective identity, and, as such, a social phenomenon with concrete political and social effects in society
Summary
As such, social phenomena with real, concrete social, and political effects in society, but a central part of their constitution very often happens through narratives about the collective. The argument here is not that these narratives are the only or even the most important part of constructing a nation’s identity, but that they often enough constitute one of the mainstays of the (re)formation of national identity As such, they are interesting for investigating how collective identity phenomena are constituted and legitimised in a discourse that places the collective in time with a coherent and logical narrative about the past and a trustworthy projection into the future. The past mentioned in such a narrative is precisely not the past as such but the story about it, which no longer feels complete or fair such that story must be rewritten This text draws primarily on examples taken from Spain, because Spanish history—with a long-lasting, successful dictatorship followed by a negotiated transition to democracy—makes it an interesting case for investigating master narratives. Nations outside the so-called West have developed different approaches to nationalism and national identity, but these are not part of the focus of this article
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