British Identity Research Articles

The racialisation of class and the racialisation of the nation: ethnic minority identity formation across the british south asian middle classes

This paper considers negotiations of social identity across British-born Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani professionals who experience racial / ethno-religious marginality alongside relative socioeconomic privilege. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews, it finds that beneath the generalised salience of British identity to their sense of self, the racialised limits of national belonging are implicit in discussions of social identity. The ways in which class is brought to bear in identity work which often seeks to subvert and/or align with British middle class norms underscores the relationship between the racialisation of class and the racialisation of the nation. This paper also identifies different modes of identity construction around the racialised idea of the nation across dimensions of religion and gender, and thus also stresses the need to consider the heterogeneity of the British South Asian middle classes when analysing the material and symbolic dimensions of their group belongings.

Immigration, Identity and Security in the Context of Brexit: Examining Linkages Through the Lens of the Copenhagen School

This article aims to examine the complex interrelationship between identity and immigration in the United Kingdom (UK) in the context of Brexit. It analyzes the background of immigration in the UK as well as multilayered notions of identity and integration. Using the framework of securitization advanced by the Copenhagen School of thought, this study questions if and how immigration has been perceived as a threat to British identity and how this perception has influenced the decision to leave the European Union. It hypothesizes that anti-immigrant sentiment, culminating in Brexit, may be the product of securitization in the societal sphere, namely of identity. This framework aims to provide an alternative understanding of Brexit by analyzing how perceptions of threat in the societal sector can influence major political decisions.

Taking the History out of the Decade of Centenaries: Narratives, Rituals, and Symbols in British Identities in Northern Ireland

Taking the History out of the Decade of Centenaries: Narratives, Rituals, and Symbols in British Identities in Northern Ireland

The First ‘British’ Colony in the Americas: Inter-kingdom Cooperation and Stuart-British Ideology in the Colonisation of Newfoundland, 1616–1640

The accession of James VI, the Stewart (or Stuart) King of Scots, to the thrones of England and Ireland in 1603 renewed debates about ‘Britishness’. Many of the king’s attempts to popularise and codify his version of the concept were unsuccessful. His vision for closer political union between England and Scotland did not come to pass until 1707 and most historians attribute the formation of British identity to the eighteenth century. Most influentially, Linda Colley has argued that British identity was forged in the crucible of eighteenth-century empire-building as English, Scottish, and Welsh people lived, worked, and fought together across the globe in defence of shared values. English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish people and interests likewise coalesced in the pursuit of empire in the early seventeenth century. They cooperated in attempts to colonise Newfoundland and explicitly promoted the project as British. The Newfoundland example shows that James’ British vision had some success. This article examines the project’s ‘Britishness’ and argues that the 1603 union of the crowns’ role in the formation of British identity and its impact on overseas expansion requires additional attention.

(Re)Imagining oneself as an English user: identity formation of Japanese English learners

ABSTRACT This case study investigates the identity formation of two Japanese female English majors in Japan. In documenting and understanding how their identity formation as English users unfolds, we turned to theories on ideologies and English imperialism. In particular, we concentrated on how particular chronotopes give rise to particular constructure to identify classroom and interactive aspects conducive to English learning. It was discovered how community formation shaped by in-class discourse is crucial, impacting the formation of positive self-image as an English user. There is also an undercurrent of public discourse that can conflict and impede the realization of a competent English user identity. Given the ubiquitous and inconspicuous nature of public discourse, eradicating negative perception is challenging, but teachers’ high expectation toward the students in the form of numerous, challenging tasks along with positive feedback allowed students to reimagine their English user identity.

‘Perhaps the Highlanders May Imitate Them’. Highland Identity and the British Empire, from the Forty‐Five to the Seven Years War

AbstractParticipation in imperial service has been seen as a means through which Highlanders, once regarded as a threat to the British state, were assimilated, allowing Highland and British identities to coexist. This was not an uncomplicated process. Reports of Highland soldiers' conduct in the Seven Years War echo earlier accounts of the Jacobite rising and compare Highlanders to Native Americans. Such accounts reflect Enlightenment concerns about the nature of social development. They demonstrate that Highland soldiers in the British Army continued to be regarded as ‘others’ whose supposedly untamed nature remained but was now regarded as useful to the Empire.

English Landscapes

English Landscapes

The ‘Native Question’ in Australia Exploring the Anglo-Australian Humanitarian Response, 1904–1939

ABSTRACT In the first thirty years of the twentieth century the ‘native question’ loomed large in the heart of the British Empire in the context of heightened imperialism in Africa. This reverberated in Australia in the context of the Commonwealth government gaining Dominionhood, making contributions to the League of Nations as an independent mandatory power, and becoming responsible for the administration of the tropical North. A local humanitarian network developed encouraged by what they saw as more humane ideas around ‘Native’ administration emanating from the League and promoted by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines’ Protection Society. This alignment provides an opportunity to explore relations between empire and nation in connection to this question at a formative moment for both. In particular, it points to the tension created by the vernacularisation of British humanitarian ideals into an advanced settler colonial society and the reach and limits of a humanitarian settlement in the local context.

Protecting Whiteness: Counter-Terrorism, and British Identity in the BBC’s Bodyguard

This article uses Bodyguard to trace the ways that whiteness is represented in counter-terrorism TV and so draw the links between whiteness, counter-terrorism and culture. It argues that Bodyguard offers a redemptive narrative for British whiteness that recuperates and rearticulates a British white identity after/through the War on Terror. As such it belongs to a later genre of counter-terrorism TV shows that move on from, but nonetheless still propagate, the discursive foundations of the ongoing War on Terror. This reading of Bodyguard is itself important, as popular culture is a site where much of the British population made and continues to make sense of their relationship to the UK during the War on Terror, forging often unspoken ideas about whiteness. It affords the opportunity to draw out the connections between whiteness and counter-terrorism, connections that need further scholarly attention to fully understand the complex relationships between security and race.

British identity in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages: some aspects of continuity and change

This article contributes to a recent debate concerning the development of a British ethnic identity in late antiquity, during which period the Britons’ Roman identity was gradually forgotten as they came to be seen as one of the barbarian peoples of western Europe. It will argue that this reconceptualization was the result of a shift in perception regarding the place of gentes in the church during late antiquity and that, despite this, there was a considerable degree of continuity in certain key aspects of British identity between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

‘Filthiest Gangs of Thugs’: Anti-Fascism and Anti-Nazism Perceptions in Southern Rhodesia, 1930s to 1940s

ABSTRACT This article examines anti-fascist and anti-Nazi sentiments in Southern Rhodesia from the 1930s to 1940s. Even though the country did not have an anti-fascist and anti-Nazi policy or legislation, the state and the white population held competing anti-fascist and anti-Nazi attitudes regarding how the government should deal with suspected fascist and Nazi propaganda activities in the country and in internment camps. The United Rhodesia Party, Southern Rhodesia Labour Party, Labour Party, Southern Rhodesia Communist Party, and trade unions were all anti-fascist and anti-Nazi. As an openly pro-British self-governing colony, Southern Rhodesia collaborated with other colonial regimes in southern and eastern Africa by exchanging intelligence information on suspected fascist and Nazi activities. However, some sections of the white population in Southern Rhodesia criticised the state for not being committed enough in their efforts to curtail such activities in internment camps, an accusation the government rejected. White settlers defined their anti-fascism in terms of their British identity, the Allied war effort, and democracy. Using newspapers, archives, and Southern Rhodesia parliamentary debates, this article examines the convoluted nature of white identity politics based on contradictory political divides, ethnicity, and white-on-white racism during this era.

Identities in flux: evangelical identity in the time of Brexit and Trump

ABSTRACT Since the British referendum vote in 2016 to leave the European Union, scholars have analysed various aspects of this political landmark moment. However, one area that has lacked attention is the role of religion. This article fills that gap by using identity as a theoretical object of analysis to demonstrate the impact Brexit had, in conjunction with the election of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee and later US President, on British evangelical identities. I show how identities fracture and re-formulate during moments of political upheaval, focusing specifically on ethnographic data collected during fieldwork at a prominent evangelical Anglican church in London during the period 2015–2016. I ask: what does it mean to be British and evangelical? How do these religious and national identities interact with each other? Most importantly, how did this interaction change during the referendum and Trump’s election campaign? By investigating how evangelical British identity altered during these two important political events, this article brings attention to one of the most overlooked aspects of the British referendum: religion.

Expression of ethnic and cultural identity in english and uzbek proverbs

This article is devoted to the expression of ethnic and cultural identity in English and Uzbek proverbs and sayings. We studied several folklore examples on different topics and analyzed the expression of nationality, ethnicity in two languages. We tried to find proper equivalents of proverbs from one language into another.

Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the "Gesta Herwardi" to "Richard Coer de Lyon by Emily Dolmans

Reviewed by: Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the "Gesta Herwardi" to "Richard Coer de Lyon by Emily Dolmans Robert Rouse Emily Dolmans. Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the "Gesta Herwardi" to "Richard Coer de Lyon". Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2020. Pp. xiv, 235. $95.00 cloth; $29.95 e-book. Scholarship on the articulation of English identity during the medieval period has been somewhat of a boom industry over the past twenty-five years. To a large extent initiated by the publication of Thorlac Turville-Petre's England the Nation in 1996, the subfield has borne forth a rich variety of monographs, articles, and conferences examining the development of Englishness, in its manifold theorized forms, from the arrival of the Early English through to the end of the Middle Ages. Many of these studies have sought to understand these nascent forms of English group identity (the concept of nation is problematic in a medieval context) by examining the way in which identity coalesces around the center, most often in the form of the elite community of the realm, the communitas regni. Emily Dolmans's much-needed 2020 study, Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the "Gesta Herwardi" to "Richard Coer de Lyon," provides a timely nuancing of such a centralized model of identity, arguing convincingly that much medieval Englishness is determinedly local and regional in nature. Judiciously ranging across a wide span of multilingual literature set within, and on the borders of, medieval England, Dolmans's book makes a convincing case for a renewed examination of the myriad ways in which Englishness is imagined across a variety of locales during this period. The book comprises a framing introduction and five chapters, each of which forms a case study of a particular regional form or mode of English identity. The introduction, "These Englands: Regional Identities and Cultural Contacts," highlights two key aspects central to Dolmans's argument. First is the plural nature of the identity formations to be examined. Each construction of English identity performed in these texts is different, sometimes in nature, sometimes in degree, reminding us of the communal [End Page 395] fiction that lies at the heart of any sense of group identity. The many different Englands examined in Dolmans's book stand testament to the enduring value and importance of such an idea, while simultaneously reminding us of the inherent plurality of an idea repeatedly reimagined and redeployed in different geographical and political contexts. Second, the reader is reminded of the importance of the not-English in any formulation of English identity. As theorists of identity have reminded us for many decades, much of the heavy lifting of identity politics is performed by imagined and real cultural others. Here we find the Welsh, the French (in the guise of the Norman/Angevin kings), and the non-Christian others of the romance East examined for their role in the identity politics of the medieval English. Dolmans begins with the post-Conquest English identity crisis as articulated in the twelfth-century Gesta Herwardi. In this reading, the island cathedral city of Ely looms large, read here as an identity locus for the regional poetics of the text. A gesturing here toward a fractal kaleidoscope of local responses to the social and political upheaval of the Conquest reminds us of the fragile nature of the late pre-Conquest English state, a realm where regional identities were still palpable, as evident in the spatial politics of poems such as The Battle of Maldon. A retreat to long-held identity politics of the local is a natural strategy in the face of regnal displacement. After discussing Hereward, Dolmans moves us east to Lincolnshire, into the world of Gaimar's regional history, the Estoire des Engleis. Gaimar, writing in the deeply multicultural legacy of the east of England, weaves together narratives from Danish, English, and continental histories to create a sense of regional cultural identity that is simultaneously safely nostalgic and progressively integrative. The March of Wales has a history of complex and ever-changing landscapes of identity, as work in recent years by scholars such as Lindy Brady and Daniel Helbert has reminded us. Dolmans...

The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World

The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World

Francesca Kaminski-Jones and Rhys Kaminski-Jones , eds. Celts, Romans, Britons: Classical and Celtic Influence in the Construction of British Identities. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 288. $100.00 (cloth).

Francesca Kaminski-Jones and Rhys Kaminski-Jones , eds. Celts, Romans, Britons: Classical and Celtic Influence in the Construction of British Identities. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 288. $100.00 (cloth). - Volume 61 Issue 1

Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism and the Remaking of British Identity

Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism and the Remaking of British Identity

Windrush Generation in the Context of the Modern Development of Multiracial Great Britain

The author focuses on events related to the understanding of the role and place of immigrants from the West-India in modern multiracial society in Britain that have been largely unexplored in Russian historical scholarship. The first part of the article provides a brief historical outline relating to the arrival in the United Kingdom in 1948 of the ship “Empire Windrush”, which symbolised the beginning of mass immigration into the country. The second part of the article analyses the parliamentary discussions on the commemorative events of the 70th anniversary and the social and political scandal that arose on the eve of the celebration. The author pays particular attention to clarifying the controversial question in the political discourse in the United Kingdom as to what the true reason was for the surge of immigration from colonies and countries that gained their sovereign status after the Second World War. The third part provides an overview of the settlement of the scandal and the problem of monetary compensation to the affected citizens. Sources include debates in both Houses of Parliament, Cabinet documents, and statistical data. Historical-genetic, comparative and structural-functional analysis became the research methods. The author concludes that the wide public and political resonance of the anniversary celebrations and all related events reflects the complexity and multifaceted nature of the problem of migrant integration and the reconfiguration of the existing model of national identity of Great Britain, the “outlier” element of which is the attitude towards the colonial and post-colonial past of the country. Against the backdrop of debates in Parliament, there was a demand from various ethnic groups, including those represented in the political establishment, for recognition of their real contribution to the development of the United Kingdom, an inclusive environment, and multiracial diversity. The outlined topics clarify the features of the migration picture in Great Britain and bring about an understanding of fundamental questions about the essence of British identity.

“Teaching the poor of the Irish nation”: The Endeavours of the Protestant “Sons of Erin” to Educate Their Catholic “Brethren” in the Age of Catholic Agitation, 1800–1850

In Ireland, the Protestant missionary impetus of the early 19th century, known as the 'Second Reformation', coincided with Daniel O’Connell’s movement for the emancipation of Catholics and the Repeal of the Union which concurrently met with resounding success. As the Irish nationalist movement was becoming more and more catholicised, The Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of Their Own Language promoted access to the Bible in “the pure Gaelic language and the Irish character” for both the spiritual salvation of “the [poorer] sons of Erin” and “the political repose and moral amelioration of Ireland.” Even if the Second Reformation has often been considered as an attempt at anglicising the Irish through conversion, a reassessment of the reciprocal influences of Protestant missions and Irish nationalism is timely. Therefore, this paper, relying on a wide range of archival material, intends to examine how the discourse of this Protestant society disrupted the status quo of Irish and British identities. Was the Society’s redefinition of Irish identity, which combined a shared Irish culture with loyalty to the British state, perceived by O’Connell’s nationalist movement as a threat or an opportunity? This exploration of the relationship between Christianity and nationalism highlights the complex ties that can be found between several layered identities and disrupts the binaries of the vernacular being promoted by the champions of independence and of native languages being erased by the advocates of imperial rule.

A Post-Colonial Re-Reading of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe

The imperial project started to influence English national identity as early as the mid-seventeenth century, and the English began to relate their national prominence to their colonial activities, whether in trade or in the acquisition of foreign territories, throughout the eighteenth century. However, England experienced its share of anxieties on the road to imperial "greatness" in its dealings with both other European powers and its native subjects. The British people's tendency to examine themselves and their international achievements with intense pride helped to neutralize those anxieties, much like Crusoe's imagined responses to possible dangers alleviate his fictional forebodings. The English ameliorated their concerns about their international position by becoming an ever more self-referential society, thinking more highly of themselves on account of their contact with colonized peoples, as is epitomized in the personality of Crusoe. To the fictional Crusoe, the experience of his relationship with Friday validates his self-worth and his native culture more than anything else. Robinson Crusoe's affirmation of colonial power through the assertion of his authority over a particular (othered) individual corresponds with, and epitomizes, England's trading and territorial empire during the eighteenth century and the consequent effects on British subjectivity, at a time when the British were struggling to set up a trading empire and challenging other European powers for territory and markets abroad. Robinson Crusoe successfully resolves the insecurities relating to Britain's colonial activities by asserting, through Crusoe's character, the superior nature of the English subject.