« Épaves humaines » et détérioration de la nation : discours de l’identité et de l’altérité dans la Grande-Bretagne victorienne et édouardienne (1860-1914)

Abstract

In the second half of the Victorian period, and even more so at the turn of the century, fears for what was considered the health of the nation started to grip Britain. The second Boer War (1899-1902) shook the already eroding self-confidence of an Empire that was preoccupied with what was described as the fitness of the race. Scientists joined the heated debate, some arguing that the British stock was deteriorating. The other, the alien element, in this discourse, was not necessarily a foreign man or woman; the outsider was coming from within the nation. This paper explores this altering discourse as well as the development of a counter-discourse that was carried by sociologists keen to reintegrate those who were stigmatised into the nation, eager to highlight environmental factors and social injustices and reluctant to oust some citizens from the community. It seeks to question and shed historical light on the construct that is Britishness in the context of raging debates on identity and nation in post-Brexit Britain.