The Re-Invention of a National Identity?: Women and 'Cosmopolitan' Englishness

Abstract

Current developments towards globalization, European integration and devolution have opened up a space for the transformation of national identity in Britain. Our interest is in the question of how this space is being filled by members of the post-war generation elite. Given that the relationship between generations and national consciousness has received little attention, this article explores how a particular generation is responding to these developments. Moreover, because the literature on both generations and nationalism has tended to marginalize women, this article focuses on post-war women. Based on an inductive approach, we have constructed a model of an emergent national identity that we have called ‘cosmo-politan nationalism’. We found that members of the post-war elite generation of women were offering narratives about national identity that were open in their tol-eration for local national identities such as Welsh and Scots; cosmopolitan in their identification with Europe and empathy for multiculturalism; ironic in their aware-ness of the constructed nature and inventiveness of national identities; feminine in their antipathy towards aggressive nationalism and militarism; and creative in their objective to rebuild a more open identity. We suggest that the sense of national iden-tity being promoted by these women could be both a function of their gender and generational location, reflecting as it does the values formed in the 1960s and by the women's movement.