The Unnoticed Roots in the Soil of AlbaAn analysis of ethnic and civic aspects of Scottish nationalism

Masterthesis in Cultural Anthropology

University of Amsterdam

Januari 2014

Name: Gosse Simon Vuijk

Studentnumber: 5882907

Supervisor: dr. A. Strating

Commission: dr. M. Veenis & dr. Y. van Ede

Wordcount: 22.775

Index

Index 1

Chapter one: A Nagging Feeling 2

Chapter two: A Civic Nation 9

Chapter three: It is a Fact 22

Chapter four: What is the Nation? 34

Chapter five: The Elusive Nations 43

Chapter six: The Unnoticed Roots 51

Bibliography 57

Register of interlocutors 61

Register of groups/organizations 64

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1. A Nagging FeelingFor me the summer of 2012 was one full of politics. I worked at the party bureau of the Dutch

social-liberal party D66 because of the General Elections in the Netherlands that would take place

on the 12th of September that year. I was fully occupied by Dutch politics, but took one week off to

focus on Scottish politics. At the time, I was a member of the editorial staff of the student-run

anthropological magazine Cul. Every summer the staff tried going abroad to report on important

events going on in other countries. This year I had suggested to go to Scotland, because of the

upcoming referendum. I don't remember how I found out there would be a referendum or why I was

so interested in it, but it had somehow drawn my attention.

Because of my job with D66, I was not able to stay the full two weeks that the other editors

had in Edinburgh. This had positive and negative consequences. The negative ones are obvious. I

didn't partake in the whole trip, so my knowledge of Scottish independence was quite limited after

the four days I spend in Edinburgh. The article I wrote, I could've written without visiting Scotland

as well. In this sense I wasted my time. However, there were also two positive consequences. First

of all, my short visit helped the other editors to get a fresh perspective on the situation. They had

mostly heard that Scottish nationalism was civic nationalism, nationalism based on citizenship and

institutions rather than ethnicity. They told me this when I arrived. Scholars had told them this, so it

sounded pretty plausible. However, I was skeptical. I didn't challenge this classification at that time

because they spend much more time on the subject already, but I did tell them that it didn't feel like

that was the whole story.

This nagging feeling was the second good consequence. It led to the research on which this

thesis is based. The nagging feeling that civic nationalism wasn't the whole story behind Scottish

nationalism: what is the nation, if nationalism is civic? To use the words of Fionn MacColla that are

carved in the pavements of Edinburgh, doesn't nationalism have any 'roots in the soil of Alba' (see

image 1 below), i.e. doesn't it have any roots in an ethnic history. This is what motivated me to dive

into the world of Scottish nationalism.

2

Image 1

1.1 What does it mean?

The question, what is the nation?, also stems from theoretical interests. During my training as

anthropologist, my main interest has always been language. Or, to be more specific, what language

can tell about certain social situations and how language can help us to understand human behavior.

I believe that when looking closer at what people say, it often turns out that people are not saying

what they are saying. The main reason that human language works is because it is based on a lot of

assumptions that are never made explicit. It is expected that everybody shares the same ideas about

the meaning of words. As an anthropologist I've always been interested in unraveling these

underlying assumptions in order to get some understanding of the socio-cultural environment in

which this language is used. An example of an interpretation that is assumed to be shared, is the

meaning of 'Scottish nation'. In day-to-day conversation the meaning of this concept is never

explicated because, as one of my interlocutors put it, 'no one would deny that Scotland is a nation'.

Everybody assumes that the a nation is a singular and clearly defined entity, just as Scotland.

However, this is not the case, as will become clear in this thesis.

My theoretical interest has developed because I came across three theoretical ideas that

helped me understanding social situations. The first of these was the notion of méconnaissance of

Ohnuki-Tierney that she puts forward in her book Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms

(2002). Méconnaissance means that people use the same concepts but mean other things by it

(Ohnuki-Tierney 2002: 281). Because they use the same concepts, they seem to be talking about the

same thing. However, because the meaning is different, they could be talking about different things

as well. This means that words actually cover up differences between people, rather than

communicating similarities (ibid.). Again, the concept of the Scottish nation is a good example of

this process. It can have different meanings to different people, but because they use the same word

(and the meaning is never explicated) it seems like they are talking about the same thing.

The second theoretical idea is the Lacanian notion of the `imaginary signified` (Stavrakakis

1999: 27), which is based on the dichotomy signifier/signified of Ferdinand de Saussure (Danesi

1999: 11), whose work influenced my ideas about language. The basic assumption of Lacanian

theory is that people are always looking for a stable and whole identity, but they will never be able

to find it (Stavrakakis 2004: 24). Language is one of the ways in which people try to find this

identity, but language fails to provide it (ibid.: 24-5). One of the reasons for this failure is that

words, according to Lacanian theory, never have meaning (Stavrakakis 1999: 27-8). Words only

seem to get meaning because they are expressed in relation to different words. Meaning occurs in a

chain of words which all refer to the others for meaning (Evans 1996: 188-9). However, people get

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the impression that words have meaning because of the imaginary signified. This is the empty

center of the chain in which all meaning seems to disappear (Stavrakakis 1999: 27), but because of

so called points de capiton1 does this empty center seem to get meaning. Points de capiton are

signifiers that seem to anchor the whole chain of meaning (ibid.: 60). These signifiers seem to load

the other signifiers with more meaning, to specify them (ibid.: 61). In Lacanian theory, just as with

méconnaissance, meaning seems to obscure more than it explains.

In Lacanian theory, language is an imprecise, social, and external structure through which

people try to find their highly specific, personal, and deeply internal identity (Stavrakakis 1999: 38).

This is why I think that this, Lacanian theory coupled with méconnaissance, offers an interesting

theoretical perspective on the nation. This perspective draws the attention to the tension between

personal interpretation of identity and the general nature of the nation that offers an identity. This

also is the main issue that Anthony Cohen addressed in his paper Personal Nationalism: A Scottish

View of Some Rites, Rights and Wrongs (1996). He wonders why people choose to identify their

particular self in terms of the grand generalization that is the nation? (Cohen 1996: 802) Cohen

posed the same question as Lacan did, and his conclusion was that nationalism is personal.

'Anyone's Scotland can be substantially different from anyone else's' (ibid.: 805). So he also argued

that the meaning of the Scottish nation was personal but that it was not experienced as being

personal because it is a generalization. This is my third theoretical inspiration.

This theoretical framework is my theoretical motivation to conduct my research on Scottish

nationalism. The three theories discussed are general theories on the relation between individuals

and the semiotic world in which these individuals live. However my research is more specific. I

wondered whether Scottish nationalism is civic or not. To answer this, the meaning of the Scottish

nation needs to be clear and for that exercise this theoretical framework is not very helpful. This

theoretical framework can help understanding why my interlocutors call their nationalism civic, but

it can not help determining whether it is civic or not. For this more specific theories on nationalism

are needed.

In order to look into the kind of nationalism Scottish nationalism is, a useful theoretical

differentiation could be made between situational, constructionist and primordial approaches to

nationalism (Brown 2000: 5). A situational approach to nationalism regards it as an ideology based

on a rational considerations of interests (ibid.: 13-20). A good example of this is Michael Hechter's

1

Point de capiton could be translated into English as 'anchoring point'. Stavrakakis described it as upholstery buttons in the language; they are points that force the surrounding fabric to form according to their position. Points de capiton do the same with meaning. They force the surrounding signified to form themselves in relation to the meaning of the point de capiton.

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argument on internal colonialism (Hechter 1975). He argues that because of uneven distribution of

wealth within a state, the interests of the peripheral groups and the core are diverging (ibid.: 30-4).

In order for the peripheral groups to serve their best interests, they have to object against the power

of the core (ibid.). This would explain the rise of Scottish nationalism, according to Hechter (ibid.:

339-40). A constructionist approach to nationalism regards it as an ideological or institutional

framework through which the world can be experienced (ibid.: 20-29). Michael Billig's argument

about banal nationalism is a good example of this, because he argues that 'nationalism is the

ideology by which the world of nations has come to seem the natural world – as if there could not

possibly be a world without nations' (Billig 1995: 37). The primordial approach to nationalism

regards nationalism as a conceptual language through which people feel an 'innate' attachment to

the 'natural nation' (Brown 2000: 6-13). According to Brown in this conceptual language 'the only

authentic nationalism is ethnic nationalism' (ibid.: 6). Brown refers to Walker Connor as an example

of a primordial theorist. In his essay 'A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group, is a...'

Connor writes that 'what ultimately matters is not what is but what people believe is' (Connor 1994:

37). This illustrates that primordialism is about the experiences of people.

This tripod is interesting because my interlocutors often talked about the 'nature' of their

nationalism. Angus, an active member of the SNP youth wing, said it most explicitly: 'In Scotland

there has always been a very civic form of nationalism'. Doug, a retired schoolteacher and pro-

independence activist, told me that 'it is quite different from ethnic nationalism'. The tripod could

help understanding which view on nationalism they have. Doug, for example, is saying it is not

ethnic nationalism. This would hardly be compatible with the conceptual language of

primordialism, so apparently Doug is not looking through a primordial lens. The question then is

through which lens he is looking. I will try to answer this question in this thesis.

At the same time, the tripod is a relevant framework for an analysis of Scottish nationalism.

Regarding nationalism to be civic, as proposed in the second chapter of this thesis, is a situationalist

view on nationalism, because all the 'civic' arguments were about how independence would serve

the interests of the people of Scotland. But regarding Scotland as 'a fact', is a constructionist

argument, while talking about Scotland being a 'banal believe' (§ 3.1) is more a primordialist

argument because of its emphasis on believing. So, in my thesis I will look at Scottish nationalism

from all three perspectives. This way I hope to address all relevant aspects of my interlocutor's

nationalism.

1.2 18th of September 2014

So, why Scottish nationalism? The questions posed theoretically could also be answered by

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researching other nationalisms, but I chose Scotland. I had two main reasons for this decision. The

first reason is practical. Because my research would focus on language, I needed to speak the

language of my interlocutors fairly good. I'm a Dutch native speaker, with some understanding of

Frisian, but the only other language I speak is English. So this limited my choice to the Dutch

and/or English speaking areas in the world.

The second reason was more important. The English language area is quite extensive, so I

still had a lot of option. I could've gone to America, land of nationalism and patriotism. I could've

gone to Ireland or Northern-Ireland because of the still recent history of violence in the name of

freedom. However I chose Scotland because of the referendum that will take place next year. On the

18th of September 2014, the people of Scotland get to vote in a referendum. They get to vote on the

question: Should Scotland be an independent country? This was the reason for the editorial staff of

Cul to visit Scotland. During the summer of 2012 the Yes Scotland-campaign (or the Yes-campaign),

the pro-independence campaign, was launched and it will keep going till the 18 th of September.

During the Cul-trip we covered the start of the campaign and during my research the half-way point

passed.

This referendum is the outcome of a long period of social and political change in Scotland.

In his book Hechter felt that he had to go back to the sixteenth century to describe this process

accurately. The exhibition 'A Changing Nation: Scotland 1900 – present' in the National Museum of

Scotland, the reference to the Scottish independence movement starts in the 1930's with the

founding of the Scottish National Party (SNP). In the STV (Scotland TV) program Road to

Referendum, which was broadcasted during my fieldwork, the story started after the Second World

War. I would say the process started in the 1296 with the start of the First War of Scottish

Independence. I wouldn't argue that there is a direct line between the Scottish independence

fighters, like William Wallace, of that war and my interlocutors, but this historic event still plays an

important part in story that my interlocutors told me. Just as the Union of Parliaments that happened

in 1707, when the Scottish parliament got dismissed and Scotland was assigned seats in the

Parliament of Westminster. After that the founding of the SNP in 1934 is the most significant

historical event, especially because it was a political party driven by artists which is also the case

for the current independence movement in which artists play an important role, for example

National Collective (see §2.5). Then, in 1967, the SNP gets its first seat in Westminster. Winnie

Ewing secures a supposedly safe Labour seat. The rise of the SNP leads to a referendum in 1979, in

which the people of Scotland are asked if they want a parliament in Scotland. A majority voted in

favor of the parliament, but because the turnout was too low (and thus the votes in favor did not

amount to 40% of the registered votes) the referendum was invalid. The same year Margaret

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Thatcher came into office and put Scotland through a difficult decade, thereby alienating almost all

Scottish voters from the Conservative Party. From that time on, Scotland voted mostly Labour or

Lib-Dems.

During the 1990's Labour regained power, but disappointed the people of Scotland with how

little change they brought. In order to regain Scotlands vote, Labour promised a referendum on

devolution, i.e. a Scottish parliament. In 1997 this referendum took place and Scotland voted in

favor (74,3 %), so in 1998 the Scottish Parliament was re-instated after being absent for almost 300

years. From this point forward, because of the neoliberal nature of Blair's Labour, the SNP was

gaining more and more support. This accumulated in winning an absolute majority in Scottish

Parliament in the 2011 elections. However, this victory was not a victory based on a wish for

independence of the Scottish electorate. Since the 1970's the SNP turned into a social-democratic

party, a reasonable alternative to the disappointing Labour Party. Although independence is the most

important goal of the SNP and the SNP got a majority of the votes in Scotland, at that time at best

one in three of the people in Scotland supported independence. At the time of my research the polls

show that between 30 and 35 percent of the people support independence, while around 40 percent

opposes it. In short, Scottish nationalism has a pretty good base of support, but is not really

dominating Scotland. The 18th of September 2014 is going to be a very exciting day with probably a

close call regarding the outcome of the referendum.

1.3 Particular place and people

Even though this whole social and political development is an important part of understanding

Scottish nationalism, it was not the focus of my research. My theoretical questions are not questions

on social change. They are not questions about understanding a specific situation from a historical

perspective. My questions are about understanding a general process that is very much bound to a

particular place, in a particular time with particular people. Different from Hechter, I will not try to

explain Scottish nationalism, or why people want to become independent or not. My research was

on how all these people seemed to talk about the same thing, while there were differences between

them. About how a nation could be civic. It is not about social change, but about a specific social

situation.

This is also reflected in this thesis. Throughout this thesis, a lot of attention is paid to

individual expressions to determine the nature of the Scottish nation as I encountered it among my

interlocutors. The most prominent question about the nature of this nation is whether it is civic or

not. The civic aspect of Scottish nationalism is addressed in the second chapter of this thesis. It will

be demonstrated that a lot of the arguments in favor of Scottish independence actually are civic. The

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third chapter will show how Scotland is a reality in which my interlocutors live. Billig's notion of

banal nationalism is useful for understanding how a nation can be a reality, and this notion will

therefore play an important role in this chapter. Scotland as a reality is an aspect of the argument in

favor of independence which gets explicated in the fourth chapter of this thesis. The reality called

Scotland is based on its history and this history is less civic than the independent future that is

argued for. This means that Scottish independence might not be as civic as claimed by my

interlocutors. In this chapter the role of ethnicity in the nationalists argument, and how it is related

to the civic aspect of the argument, will be discussed. The fifth chapter will address how these two

different aspect of the nationalist discourse, and more importantly the discrepancy between them,

can go unnoticed by my interlocutors, who claim Scottish nationalism has nothing to do with

ethnicity.

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Chapter two: A Civic Nation

When I visited Scotland for the first time, I talked to dr. Nicola McEwen, a Senior Lecturer in

Politics at the University of Edinburgh. I asked her what she thought of the classification of the SNP

as a civic nationalist party. She said: '… you might classify the SNP, in your binary definition, as

more civic nationalist than ethnic. Although, again it is a very binary definition, every nationalism

has parts of both'. I encountered this binary definition among my interlocutors during my research.

A couple of them defined Scottish nationalism, either explicitly or implicitly, as being civic and as

not at all ethnic. In this chapter I will show that by civic they mean that it is a rational nationalism

and not a nationalism based on something 'irrational' like ethnicity. According to some of my

interlocutors, independence is just the only way to serve the interest of the people of Scotland.

Through this stance, my interlocutors demonstrated a quite situationalist look on nationalism. In this

chapter I will also regard their arguments from a situationalist perspective, showing how their

arguments are rational. To some extend at least.

The differentiation between civic and ethnic aspects of nationalism has been made for a long

time and dates back to the work of Hans Kohn in the 1940's (Lægaard 2007: 41). Another example

is Clifford Geertz's argument on the tension between the civic and primordial motives for

communal unity as driving force behind the evolution of new states (Geertz 1994: 30). Geertz also

argued that even though these motives are closely related, they are different, and that s the concept

of the nation is useless for analytical purposes if this is denied. The term civic nationalism is also

used by Michael Ignatieff in his book Blood and Belonging (1993). In this book he argues that there

are two sorts of nationalism; ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism. He makes a rigid separation

between these kinds of nationalism, which has been problematized by several scholars. For

example, Billig argued that Ignatieff used this dichotomy to distance himself and his world from the

ethnic violence that sometimes results from ethnic nationalism and ethnic nation building (Billig

1995: 46-9). Ignatieff claims to be a cosmopolitan, in the sense that he is not bound to one nation

state, and thus civic nationalist, because he only supports the function (safety and security) of

nations (Ignatieff 1993: 9). In this way he distances himself from any form of nation building

(Billig 1995: 47-8). This is too simple a use of the dichotomy because '… there are no, and have

never been any, cases of a purely political nation' (Lægaard 2007: 43). In other words, ethnic and

civic nationalism are two sides of the same coin, or in Geertz's words they are different but related.

In this thesis I will argue the same. I will argue that nationalism will always have an ethnic

component.2

2 As Lægaard argues, this position is as much an expression of a certain take on what a nation is, as it is a theoretical stance on nationalism. In my case this is that I believe that the right to self-determination is vested in ethnic,

9

So why still use Ignatieff's definition of civic and ethnic nationalism? The answer lies in the

root of my curiosity towards Scottish nationalism, namely that the nationalists themselves call deem

their nationalism to be civic and absolutely not ethnic. So they make the same rigid distinction as

Ignatieff does. To make a accurate analysis of the situation I believe I should take my interlocutors

serious and that's why I want to start my analysis by assuming they are right. After that, guided by

my own skepticism, I will address the problematic aspects of my interlocutor's view. A rigid

division is useful for my analysis but my conclusions will be more nuanced.

So let us turn to Ignatieff's definitions of civic and ethnic nationalism. In their article

'Between Freedom and Belonging: Ignatieff and Berlin on Nationalism' (2009), Donald Ipperciel

and Jennifer Woo gave a great summary of this dichotomy:

'Ethnic nationalism claims that an “individual’s deepest attachments are inherited, not chosen” in that national identity is based on common ancestry, language, religion, customs and rituals (Ignatieff 1993a: 7–8; 2000a: 128). In ethnic nations, only a portion of the population may be regarded as nationals and accordingly, many individuals living in the state may not enjoy all the rights of citizenship. In contrast, civic nationalism maintains that “the nation should be composed of all those – regardless of race, color, creed, gender, language, or ethnicity – who subscribe to the nation’s political creed” (1993a: 6). According to this form of nationalism, the nation is conceived of as a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens adhering to common liberal and democratic political values. Hence, nationalism as such is not inherently bad: “there is nothing intrinsically fanatical or extreme about nationalism, if we define it as a principled love of country” (2000a: 124).' (Ipperciel & Woo 2009: 159-60)

Therefore the focus of civic nationalism is on '… the nation's political creed', or e.g. 'a shared set of

political practices and values' (Ignatieff 1993: 3-4). This is very much what (most of) my

interlocutors and the Yes-campaign tried to show that Scottish nationalism is about. In this chapter I

will analyze the arguments in favor of independence that I encountered and show how these are

examples of civic nationalism and I will start with analyzing one of the core arguments of the Yes-

campaign.

historical nations which make up the world as I experience it.

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Image 2

2.1 Who can decide best?

In presenting their case, the Scottish independence movement has one fundamental assumption.

This assumption is perfectly put into words on the inside of a flyer of the Yes-campaign: 'But one

thing is beyond question: that the people best placed to make decisions about Scotland are the

people who care most about Scotland – the people who live here' (see image 2, next page). This was

also told to me in a different way by Gary, a young employee of an independent MSP who was

member of the SNP until the summer of 2013, when I met him in Holyrood for the first time: 'To me

it is clear that the people who have the biggest stake in this country should decide about its future

and those are the people who live here. Their homes, their jobs, their schools, these are all in

Scotland and that's what they've got to lose'. It is also repeated on the Yes Declaration. When was

launched, this declaration was also presented and Yes set themselves a goal: before the referendum

they want to have one million autographs of people who support the Declaration and thus Scottish

independence. By the time I left, a little over a year after the launch of Yes and before the

referendum, there was a rumor that at least 600.000 people had signed the Declaration already. Even

if this is too optimistic, it is clear that a large number of people have signed the Declaration and thus

agreeing with its content. The first paragraph of the Declaration is as follows:

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'I believe that it is fundamentally better for us all if decisions about Scotland's future are taken by the people who care most about Scotland, that is, by the people of Scotland. Being independent means Scotland's future will be in Scotland's hands.'3

'The people who live here', 'the people who have the biggest stake in this country' and 'the

people of Scotland'. These three definitions of who should be in charge of Scotland, are examples of

Scottish civic nationalism. They define the people by where they live and not by their ethnic

background. This definition is the basis for a lot of arguments of the Yes-campaign in favor of

independence.

One of those arguments is that there is a democratic deficit in the UK, which means that

Scotland is not heard4. This argument runs as follows: In the last 30 years Scotland voted

systematically more left than the governments of the UK turned out to be. Since the start of the

Thatcher-era, Scotland never voted for the Tories, but half of the governments since then were

formed by the Tories. So Scotland is not getting the government that it votes for. Also did the

Scottish vote almost never matter for the outcome of elections. In the last 60 years, only five times

the vote in the UK as a whole was so close that a different Scottish vote would have changed the

outcome of the elections. Conclusion: there is a democratic deficit.

This democratic deficit only makes sense, if it is assumed that the people who live in

Scotland vote differently because they have different wishes, which should come from the fact that

they see that their society has different needs. Yes-activist Robbie told me that independence is also

about no longer being able to blame other people for the problems in Scotland. He told me that he

feels that Westminster is blamed too easily for the problems of Scotland and that independence

would mean that Scotland had to do it on its own, which means that they have the freedom to act on

their own behalf and address their specific problems. If they would fail, at least it would be their

own fault, he said. In my interview with Doug he said that '[t]here is nothing better than taking

control over your own affairs'. This argument is in line with the statement that the people who live

in Scotland would be best suited to decide about Scotland's future. This future would be in line with

the national political creed to which all people of the nation should adhere, according to civic

nationalists at least.

2.2 Scottish institutions and political beliefs

The national political creed, to which all people of the nation should adhere, in the right context, is

3 http://www.yesscotland.net/join-in/sign-the-declaration (11-12-2013)4 An example of the 'democratic deficit'-argument (although in a slightly different form) can be found on the SNP

website: http://www.snp.org/referendum/whats-in-it-for-me (28-11-2013)

12

part of another civic nationalist argument as well. The argument is that Scottish institutions have

always differed from the institutions of the rUK5. According to my interlocutors, there are ample

examples of Scottish institutions that have been significantly different from the rUK institutions

since the re-installment of the Scottish Parliament. For example, my interlocutors told me6, the

National Health Service (NHS) Scotland has been significantly different since devolution. In

Scotland all prescription drugs are free. All treatments in the hospitals are free. In the rUK some

prescriptions are paid for by health insurances and others have to be paid by people themselves. The

same goes for hospital visits. Westminster is now reforming the NHS and wants people to pay more

for their healthcare. The possible loss of the universal healthcare of NHS is often used as an

argument for Scottish independence. For example in an article on the pro-independence website

'Wings Over Scotland', titled 'Why only independence can save our NHS'7.

Another example of a Scottish institution that could be seen as an illustration of the

difference between Scotland and the rUK is the Scottish judicial system. This remained independent

of the British judicial system between the Union of Parliaments and the re-installment of Holyrood.

Holyrood is one of the institutions that most of my interlocutors referred to when I asked why

Scotland was different from the other countries in the UK. They told me that there are certain

Scottish laws that have always been in effect in Scotland but not in other parts of the UK. For

example the laws surrounding the burden of proof in Scotland are different. Sarah, a lawyer and the

girlfriend of one of my interlocutors called Fraser, explained to me that in Scotland one witness is

not enough to convict someone. At least one other witness or other form of evidence is needed. This

is called corroboration and doesn't exist in the rUK.8

These kinds of differences are felt to be an expression of the different moral values that are

dominating in Scotland compared to the rUK; more respect for the human rights (judicial system)

and a belief in the governments ability to deliver social justice. These different moral values are the

foundations on which the 'political creed' of Scotland is based. The argument about the democratic

deficit, and especially the point that Scotland votes more leftist9 than the UK as a whole does, and

the argument about the difference between Scottish institutions and the rUK institutions, are related

because they express the dominant moral values in Scotland. These values are supposedly

5 rUK is a abbreviation often used in the independence discussion to refer to Wales, England and Northern Ireland as a single entity. So to refer to the entity from which Scotland would separate.

6 And this view is supported by the media: http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/nhs-in-scotland-safe-from-privatisation-snp-1-3040761 (09-10-2013)

7 http://wingsoverscotland.com/why-only-independence-can-save-our-nhs/ (28-11-2013)8 Sarah and Iain told me that the Scottish government wants to get rid of this law.9 By this my interlocutors mean that Labour, the Greens, the Socialists and the SNP (as a social-democratic party)

have had more support in Scotland than these parties had in the rUK., and that the Tories never had a majority in Scotland since the Thatcher-era.

13

expressed through the way the people in Scotland vote and through the way in which people in

Scotland organized their institutions.

2.3 Borders

Another example of the civic character of Scottish nationalism is the way my interlocutors talked

about the borders of Scotland. When one of them presented the 'democratic deficit' argument, I

often pointed out to them that this only made sense if you already accepted the border between

Scotland and England. After that I asked them why this border should be the way it was. Most of

my interlocutors answered that it didn't have to be, but that it was practical to actually keep it the

way it was. For example, Erik, one of the press officers of the SNP in Holyrood, told me that

Scotland already is a real political entity. The political structure is already there, since the re-

installment of Holyrood. That's why the border of an independent Scotland should be where it is

officially now.

Angus gave me another argument. He argued that right now it is clear to everybody where

the border is and everybody acknowledges the border right now. Proposing another border would

make the call for independence unnecessarily complicated. Iain, an employee of two SNP MSP's in

Holyrood and big fan of football with whom I played a couple of matches, also talked about this in

my interview with him. He said: 'I don't care about nationality and stuff, but you need to be

pragmatic'. By this he meant that he didn't mind who was Scottish and who was English when it

comes to determining the border, but that the current border would be a pragmatic solution. David,

an RIC10-activist, told me that he has family in Manchester and that he feels kind of sad leaving

them behind in the UK. He would gladly take them in, when Scotland would be independent, but he

didn't think it was feasible that the English would comply. Mairi, with whom I lived for four weeks

and who is a passionate Yes-activist, told me she would be happy for Newcastle to join. She

wouldn't care moving the borders more down south, but she, just as David, didn't think this was a

realistic possibility because the English would never allow that.

But at times Mairi would joke about moving the borders. The first time she did that was

when she and Simon, her boyfriend who also supports independence and owns the apartment in

which I lived with them, took me to a meeting they called 'Pints for Independence'. This was a

informal meeting at a pub in Leith. The idea behind the meeting was that a lot of people feel a little

reluctant to ask the questions about independence in campaign settings because they don't want to

10 RIC is an abbreviation for Radical Independence Campaign. I'll return to this in section 2.4

14

be judged or get too involved. So this meeting was supposed to be a safe, non-campaign space in

which people only entered on invitation of friends, in which the step to ask questions and discuss

your own point of view is made as easy as possible. While enjoying a pint, you can debate whatever

you want regarding independence; no matter your stance, pro or con.

The tone of the meeting was set by the opening of Steven, the unofficial discussion leader

and an employee of the National Museum of Scotland. He had a couple of copies of a paper11 by the

Jimmy Reid Foundation (a socialist think tank) on their idea that they call 'The Common Weal'.

This is a socialist 'model for economic and social development in Scotland'. So the conversation

immediately started off as being a conversation about political visions on society. A socialist vision

(which potentially could be realized in an independent Scotland, according to the Reid Foundation)

and a neoliberal vision (as all my interlocutors see the current policies of Westminster). For most of

my interlocutors this ideological divide seemed to exist between Scotland and rUK, i.e. Holyrood

and Westminster. When I asked whether the north of England should then also join an independent

Scotland, since it votes more leftist than the south-east as well, Mairi answered: 'I would be happy

to get independence just from London. We can just take some parts. Yeah! Lets redraw the borders!'

Everybody laughed, so it was clear that this was just a joke. Steven added that there were a couple

of rich city's/suburbs surrounding London that they could do without. This remark was met with

more laughter.

This is an illustration of how Mairi and Steven perceived the borders as they are now. They

don't really care where the borders are. The same way Iain said he didn't care about nationality, they

didn't seem to think the borders should define people, the 'political creed' of the people should. This

is also expressed in a joke I made with Mairi a couple of times12. We talked about that there are

people in England that support the political ideals of the Scottish independence movement, and that

there are people in Scotland who support the current policies of the UK. Mairi told me that she

would gladly have the people who agree with her coming to Scotland. As a joke, I then suggested

that maybe there should be a solution for Scotland/England comparable to the 'solution' of

Pakistan/India. Maybe all the people in the UK should be given a choice in which country they

want to live, a socialist Scotland or a neoliberal UK. Jokingly Mairi said this was a great idea. This

is another example of how important the political creed is more important to Mairi than ethnicity, of

how her nationalism is civic.

11 http://reidfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/The-Common-Weal.pdf (12-10-2013)12 I would initiate these jokes, but because they were based on what Mairi said at 'Pints for independence' I think they

were just as much hers as mine.

15

2.4 Radical Independence Campaign

The strongest expression of the importance of the political creed in the Scottish independence

movement is to be found in the group called the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC). The first

time I heard of this group was on the third day of my fieldwork. I had just visited Cameron, a

shopmanager of a kilt- and souvenirsshop, in his shop for the first time, and I was wandering down

the Royal Mile in the direction of Holyrood, when I saw a couple of people standing outside an pub

and one of them was holding a sign. The sign said: 'We don't want racism, sexism and fascism!'.

This sign sparked my interest so I went over to the woman who was holding the sign and asked her

what the sign was for and why they were here. She told me that Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK

Independence Party (Ukip), was in the pub having a press conference. She asked if I knew what

Ukip was and I told her that I knew that it is a Euro-skeptic party that is not all that fond of

immigrants.

At that moment a lot of noise came from inside the pub and people started to come out. As I

found out later, the landlord was not informed by Ukip about the press conference and when the

protesters (of whom the most went inside before I arrived) started to interrupt the press conference,

he had had enough and kicked everybody out. The first protesters who came outside quickly

unrolled a banner that made me really happy, because it connected the protest to Scottish

independence. This was my stroke of luck that all anthropologists need. The banner was about eight

meters long and said: 'Vote Yes for Scotland'. For me the relation between independence and

protesting against Ukip was not clear, so I started to ask the people who held the banner and other

signs about it. One guy, an older man who wore a kilt, told me that both independence and being

anti-Ukip (i.e. pro-immigration, pro-gender equality and anti-fascism) were all leftist 'issues'. For

him this was the relation, and it was enhanced by the fact that independence could 'keep Ukip out of

Scotland'. In other words, he saw independence as a safe haven for his political creed.

After a couple of minutes Nigel Farage also came out and people started chanting: 'scum,

scum, scum, scum!'. This made it really clear to me how hostile this protest was. After a while,

when also the police came outside, the lyrics changed into 'Get this scum of our streets!'. This was a

really interesting sentence because with this the protesters claimed a territory and a moral

highground. They called Farage 'scum' because of his political creed, which appalled the protesters.

The protesters expressed this negative stance towards Ukip policies in another chant:

'Unemployment and inflation, are not caused by immigration, stop it, get off it, the enemy is profit'.

But through the sentence (Get this scum of our streets) the protesters did not only protest against his

political creed, they protested against him bringing this creed to Scotland. 'Our streets' in this case

16

meant Scotland. I only understood this after I talked to the older man again. He explained that they

didn't want Ukip in Scotland because there was no support for this party in Scotland and because

they supposedly brought a negative and hateful message to Scotland which didn't fit Scottish

political culture.

During the protest there was a second banner. Three young people were walking around

with a banner saying 'Radical Independence Campaign, a different Scotland is possible!'. When

Farage was finally escorted away in a riot van of the police, I went to talk to them. Only one really

seemed interested in talking to me. This was when I actually met David for the first time and he told

me that RIC is an initiative to campaign in favor of a specific independent Scotland. A Scotland

built on socialist values and ideas. Thats also when he introduced me to Liam, one of the leaders of

the protest, and I asked both of them if we could meet up later to talk about the protest. It took quite

some effort to meet Liam again (he was quite a busy activist), but when we met again he expressed

that he shared the old man's view on Ukip13.

David I met two weeks later in a pub for an interview and the first question I asked all the

people I interviewed was why they support independence. David gave the following answer:

D: I'm a strange one right because [two seconds of silence] because I'm not a fan of the SNP at all [G: no] and eh I spend quite some time campaigning against them. Ehm it's really since ehm independence is a viable option [unintelligible] looking at it, I think the most compelling argument for it is the fact that especially since like 2008, 2007 2008 [G: uhm] like the financial crisis kicking off [G: ja] You see why the UK is very much on the forefront of, politics have been really... very very neoliberal [G: ja] things are like, you have this situation that is controlled by a fairly small group of very rich people [G: uhm] and the burden is put on on the poorest section of society [G: yeah] and I think that is inher.. that is something that is inherently wrong with British politics [G: ja] it doesn't just limit to these aspects of it [G: ja] it's in foreign politics as well. [G: ja] It's eh a kind of, there is still a certain amount of ehm lingering empire-like [G: ja] atmosphere in foreign [G: ja] policy and a chance for Scotland to break away from that thinking, it is as a country set itself up with eh with a different political agenda [G: ja] A very [unintelligible, probably 'just'] informed [G: ja] political agenda [unintelligible] not just like for the population within Scotland but also across the European continent, around Europe [G: Uhm] You would have a country, a new country that's saying no we aren't, we are not going to have nuclear weapons [G: yes] we are not going to support any new defense stuff and aspects of world politics that we don't like [G: ja] It could, it could, there is eh there is always a chance that you get independence and then, it means not much of a change [G: ja] so there is a [unintelligible, probably 'need'] for people to make sure that independence comes hand-in-hand with political change [G: ja] I think that would happen if it gets voted free [G: ja].

This is a good example of how support for independence comes from political ideals rather than a

wish to have a free country. Not once does David even hint that he believes that Scotland, as a

nation, has a right to self-determination or anything like that. He even says that he only supports

independence since it has become 'a viable option'. Only when he saw it as a real opportunity for

change (to move from a neoliberal country to a socialist country) he started supporting

13 In this clip Liam expresses his views on Ukip, consistent with what the old man told me: http://news.stv.tv/east-central/225731-ukips-nigel-farage-brands-scottish-nationalism-campaign-akin-to-fascism/ (28-11-2013)

17

independence. His main focus is on change not on independence. Later on in the same interview he

also said that he thinks independence is a chance to change the status quo. '… it it is an opportunity

to to break from a status quo and it can be difficult to push through from a more left wing on the

national scale...'. He illustrates here how independence is sometimes viewed as a way out for left

wing people in the UK; how independence is a means to an end.

2.5 The 'Wish Tree'-project

Another example that shows that opposition against the current political culture of the UK and a

belief in a different political persuasion, are two strong motivations for people to support

independence, is the 'Wish Tree'-project (see image 3 below) initiated by National Collective, a

platform that tries to bring artists together to make a case for Scottish independence expressed

through the arts. The 'Wish Tree'-project is a really simple idea. The Yes-campaign has street stalls

all over Scotland. Sometimes at events, sometimes just in the streets. The idea was that there would

be little cards present at the stalls on which people could write 'what they wanted to see in an

independent Scotland'14. After they had written down their wish, the people should then hang their

cards on a couple of strings that were supposed to be hanging at the stall. This way all the wishes

were collected as the leaves of a tree. Andrew, an active member of the SNP youth wing and co-

founder of National Collective, was quite a fan of this project and he planned to collect all the

wishes from all over Scotland to present them in a creative way right before the referendum.

14 http://nationalcollective.com/2013/06/03/project-wish-tree/ (13-10-2013)

18

Image 3: Only time I saw a Wsh Tree, it consists of all the small notes hanging in the tent

After the festival Andrew took all the wishes home with him and a few weeks later we went through

them together. I took pictures of all the cards and we read the funny, inspirational or weird ones to

each other. A couple of them were really good illustrations of the political wishes that people hope

to be realized in an independent Scotland. I took pictures of 141 notes and only 16 did not have any

specific political message. By specific political message I mean a message in which ideals are

expressed, like fairness, equality or pacifism. There were a couple of these issues that returned quite

a lot. A few examples (images 4-8):

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

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Image 7

Image 8

These are all clear expressions of how people hoped Scotland would change its political creed when

it would become independent. The fact that such a big part of the notes contained civic nationalist

wishes, i.e. specific political messages, illustrates how much Scottish nationalism has important

civic components.

2.6 I'm not a nationalist

A lot of people to whom I spoke, would not classify themselves as nationalists. Especially people

who are part of RIC would often say that they are not nationalists but internationalists. Iain told me

that he sometimes had trouble to negotiate his socialist and nationalist philosophical convictions,

because socialism is about global working class solidarity. When I interviewed Colin, a SNP-

member and Yes-activist from Edinburgh East, called himself a nationalist and immediately

corrected himself. He said he was a patriot, because he didn't think that Scots are any better than

other people. However, during the interview he referred to himself as a nationalist. This illustrates

the complex relation my interlocutors have with being called a nationalist. The complexity of this

20

relation stems from the civic aspects of Scottish nationalism, because it is caused by the political

creed of the nationalists, socialism. The complexity of this relation also indicates that there is more

going on then just civic nationalism. Why else shouldn't the term 'nationalist' just be dropped all

together? Why hang on to a civic nation when a nation will always have an ethnic undertone?

Because this ethnic undertone is more important than my interlocutors realize.

2.7 A tension

In this chapter it has become clear that my interlocutors say they are civic nationalists and that their

nationalism indeed has important civic aspects. All the examples in this chapter show that most of

the wishes of the Scottish nationalists are civic claims. These are wishes about the political creed

that Scotland should have. From a situationalist perspective, as Hechter also demonstrated, their

arguments are just civic arguments based on facts. However, as the last example indicates, there is a

tension between civic and ethnic nationalism in Scotland. The remaining part of this thesis analyzes

this tension. However, because the situationalist perspective cannot explain the existence of ethnic

groups, I will turn to another perspective in the next chapter. I will question one of the most

important facts in the arguments of my interlocutors, namely the Scottish nation. From a

constructionist perspective, I will demonstrate why the Scottish nation is regarded as a fact. This

will also provide the basis for understanding why this fact doesn't fit in a situationalist, civic

discourse.

21

Chapter three: It is a Fact

Scotland is a fact, at least for my interlocutors. My interlocutors told me all about the nature, the

cities and the people of Scotland. There was no doubt in their minds that Scotland is here. They live

in Scotland, they grew up in Scotland. Of course, it is there! Scotland is a place you can walk

around in! In Scotland there are Munros, glens and lochs! As Mairi showed, when she was giving a

lecture on the relation between Scottish culture and the Scottish nature, in prehistoric times, before

platonic movement lead to the current configuration of the landmasses in the world, Scotland was

actually separated from England and Wales. That little piece of land that moved from the equator

through the tropes to its current location is real! Scotland is a fact.

Scotland as fact is the most fundamental assumption of the Yes-campaign. One of their flyers

had the title 'Where is Scotland on Westminsters radar?'. This works on the assumption that

Scotland is something to be seen. Being able to observe something means that something is a fact,

at least that is an almost as omnipresent ideology in our world today as nationalism is. Another

slogan was 'Scotland's future in Scotland's hands'. This depicts Scotland as something having a

future and 'hands'. Surely then Scotland must exist.

Regarding Scotland as a fact does not fit in the situationalist world view that my

interlocutors expressed most often. It doesn't fit, because it is not a rational argument. Yes, there are

Munros, glens and lochs. However, when the piece of land is called the United Kingdom, all this

nature would still exist. Scotland can only be understood as 'a fact' when a constructionist approach

is taken. If the existence of Scotland is regarded as an ideological experience. In this chapter, I will,

using Billig's notion of banal nationalism, demonstrate how Scotland can be experienced as a fact.

I will argue that this experience is important to understand when trying to make sense of the role the

nation plays in Scottish nationalism, because Scottish civic nationalism is at least partly based on

the assumption that Scotland is an existing entity. It is essential to the role the nation plays in

Scottish nationalism.

3.1 A banal believe

'No no no! It's not nationalist, it is socialist!' Dolina, a Scottish actress and co-writer of the Cheviot,

was quite strong in her rejection of my classification of the Cheviot as a nationalist play. The

Cheviot, the stag and the black black oil is a Scottish play from the early seventies. The title refers

to three symbols of the exploitation of the Scottish people by 'capitalism' or 'capitalists'. 'Cheviot' is

a reference to the sheep that replaced the Scots in the Highlands during the 18th and 19th century

Clearances. According to capitalists calculations the sheep would produce more on the same land

than people ever would, so the land owners decided to expel people from their homes and fill their

lands with sheep. This is how the Highlands became absolutely deserted, without any people living

22

there. This meant that the Highlands were the perfect place for the landowners to have huge estates

as holiday homes, where they could organize hunting parties. But to hunt you need a prey, so that is

where the 'stag' comes in. During the 19th century stags were brought to the Highlands so that the

landowners could hunt them down. Again the capitalists were enjoying the land from which they

expelled the poor Scots. Finally in the 1970's, after oil was discovered in the Scottish parts of the

North Sea, big American companies moved in to extract the oil. They made huge profits but

mistreated their Scottish employees by paying them low wages and letting them work in unsafe and

hard working conditions.

At least this is the story that the play tells. Dolina actually was one of the writers and

performers of the play, and she told me that they based the play on historical research (even though

they only took a couple of days to do research). Dolina ensured me that this is how it all really

happened. This is interesting because it gives an insight in how she sees history. Through which

lens she looks at history. Especially because of her strong reaction to my classification of the

Cheviot as nationalist. She missed why I classified the Cheviot as nationalist, namely because

national background of the capitalists and the exploited people matter in the play. There is one scene

in the play that seemed to be really important to Dolina, because both times I watched the recording

(on dvd) of the play with her (in two different groups), she was pointing out this scene to the other

people that were watching. In this scene the Scottish working class people refused to join the British

army even when their landlord was telling them it was their duty and that he would pay them if they

would sign up. She expressed that she was so happy that the Scots didn't want to fight for 'them'. So

in this scene the nationality of the working people was of utmost importance. Also enact the

performers in the play a couple different accents to point out that the elites, in most cases, were

either English or American. The Cheviot is a story about the Scottish people resisting the elite.

That is why the play is nationalistic, but Doli didn't see it this way and that is an indication

of how fundamental her believe in Scotland is. Scotland is the obvious space in which the class

struggle takes place and it is not doubted that it is relevant if there are foreign influences. This is an

example of the omnipresence of 'Scotland' as idea. This is a fundamental circumstance without

which the whole pro-independence discourse would collapse.

3.2 The right to self-determination

Most of the rational arguments made for independence are based on the existence of a Scottish

nation separate from other nations. There are two quite obvious examples of arguments in favor of

independence in which this is explicit. First is the democratic argument, which I already discussed

in the previous chapter. This argument is based on a separation between Scotland and the rUK. You

only make the distinction between the rUK vote and the Scottish vote if you assume that it is

23

relevant to make this distinction and you feel that these are two separate entities. This means that

this argument is not only an argument in favor of a Scottish right to self-determination, it is based

on the assumption that Scotland has a right to self-determination. First when my interlocutors argue

that 'Scotland votes more left than the rUK', this assumed separation is apparent. Secondly the same

happens when they argue that 'the Scottish vote hardly ever matters'. Here it is assumed that it

matters where a vote is casted and that a group of people have a single democratic interest, i.e. that

the Scots have a right to self-determination in which the Scots form one 'self'.

A comparable argument can be made for the economic arguments in favor of independence.

In several flyers and on their website the Yes-campaign presents the following numbers: 'Currently

Scotland has 8.4% of the UK population and we get 9.3% of UK spending. What most people don’t

know is we generate 9.6% of UK taxes'.15 Again it is the case here that it is only an argument when

you assume that Scotland is separate from the rUK. So it is not an argument in favor of

independence alone. It is an argument that already assumes a separation. It is an argument that

assumes Scotland as a fact and rUK as another. Unlike the democratic argument this does not seem

to be an argument based on the Scottish nation, but rather on Scotland as an independent economic

entity. If I asked my interlocutors why they made this separation, they told me, in different words,

that Scotland is a fact and the 'Scottish economy' is held back by Westminster politics. So also this

argument is based on 'Scotland as a fact' which can only be justified by arguing that there is a

Scottish nation, because, as omnipresent nationalism tells us, 'we live in a world of nations' (Billig

1995: 21-4).

The economic argument is presented as being a mere statement of facts rather than an

argument based on a separation between two nations. It only makes sense when it is assumed that

Scotland is a separate nation with a right to self-determination. Saying that the Scottish nation is not

important in this argument means that this is an argument for why Scotland as an administrative

entity should be independent, but doesn't address why this administrative entity would have the

'right' to be independent. This right resides in the nation, even if it is not entirely clear what is meant

by the Scottish nation. The idea that Scotland has this right also returns in the 'Wish Tree'-notes (see

image 9, next page). Mairi and David might not mind that the borders are moved (as discussed in

§2.2), but they do see borders. They see a separation between two groups of people who govern

themselves.

15

http://www.yesscotland.net/news/one-question-one-answer-yes (07-10-2013)

24

Image 9

Image 10

That's why I would say that this argument, when the importance of the nation is denied, is

conflicting with the argument of a democratic deficit. The democratic argument implies that

Scotland is more than a convenient reality. It means that 'the people of Scotland', i.e. the Scottish

nation, have a right to self-determination and thus why not Scotland as a country but as a nation

should be independent. However, my interlocutors perceived these two arguments as

complementary, which means that they do experience the importance of the nation for their

argument. They don't recognize it as being the nation because all kinds of different entities, like the

nation and the country, are plumbed together in one word: Scotland. This is also illustrated by

another 'Wish Tree'-note which said: 'Every country [emphasis added] has a right to be independent

without worrying how much it will cost! -BE FREE-' (see image 10 above). Even though the word

'country' is used, the rest of the sentence implies that this is a reference to the people, the nation,

because of the reification of the country. A country cannot 'worry', but people can. So by saying that

the 'country' should not have to worry, this person is actually saying the people who constitute the

country should not have to worry.

How can this reification happen? It is the persuasiveness of the omnipresent ideology of

nationalism. The world is filled with nations, they are all around us the whole time. Scotland is very

25

much present in Scotland in different shapes and forms. Scotland is an experienced reality. It is so

much a reality, that it turned into one entity. An actor with one spirit and will. How does this fact get

so strong? In the next section I will try to answer this question; why is Scotland such a strong idea?

3.3 A experienced fact

In his book 'Banal Nationalism' (1995) Micheal Billig analyzed how the American nation is present

in everyday life of American citizens. Billig calls this banal nationalism and argues that the

constant presence of the nation creates the ideological circumstances in which the 'nations of the

West' are reproduced (Billig 1995: 6), i.e. banal nationalism makes the nation seem like the natural

state of being. Banal nationalism indicates to people that the world is a world of nations (ibid.). The

'flagging' Billig refers to are obvious instances like the fact that the American flag is outside every

school in America, but also instances of which the nationalist nature is less obvious like statements

from politicians in which they assume the nation as a single entity (ibid.: 103). The instances of the

less obvious type are nationalistic according to Billig, because he thinks nationalism 'far from being

an intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition' (ibid.: 5). Nationalism is just

as much about the constant stream of references to the nation that hits people every day, as it is

about the moments of outburst, for example a football match.

When Erik told me that 'Scotland is a fact', I agreed with him16. Scotland is a fact, in the

sense that it is experienced by my interlocutors as a fact and this experience is supported by the

almost overwhelming presence of banal nationalism in Edinburgh I experienced. Scotland was

present in different aspects of the public space in Edinburgh. It was present in the media, in the

supermarket and in public organizations. In this section I will discuss the examples of banal

nationalism I found in Edinburgh and how my interlocutors reacted to my findings.

Media

Scotland is present in the media on two levels. First there is the existence of Scottish media. Most

of these media are explicitly referring to Scotland in their title. There is BBC Alba. Alba is the

Gaelic name of Scotland. On this BBC channel Gaelic is the leading language. There is the

newspaper the Scotsman. This is one of the two national Scottish newspapers. The other one is the

Herald, which actually calls itself the Herald Scotland. Then there also is the TV channel called

STV, or Scotland TV. This channel broadcasts the news, soap series and game shows, created

especially for Scotland. The BBC also has special editions of UK wide shows, especially made for

Scotland. One example is Newsnight Scotland. All these programs have some reference to Scotland

in their name. Last but not least there is the BBC radio channel called Radio Scotland. All these 16 Although I didn't agree with him right away because I wanted to see how he would explain this 'fact'. Later returned

to this point and told him that I agreed.

26

media are instances in which Scotland is flagged and they constantly flag Scotland in their content.

The flagging of Scotland in the content of the Scottish media is the second level of

Scotlands presence in the media. For example in an article written by Alasdair Reid in the

Scotsman of the fourth of June 2013, in which he argued that an independent Scotland can have a

good economy (see image 11 below). In this article he writes: 'We need to multiply such examples,

and we need to inspire people from all sectors of our economy, in all our communities, to become

ambassadors of change. Scotland can prosper, if we put our collective creativity to work [emphasis

added]'. This is an example of maybe the most common flagging of the nation nowadays, by

referring to our economy. In this citation, first of all Scotland is flagged once explicitly and a

number of times implicitly. Secondly, this is a nice illustration of how Scotland is related to the

reader by the use of words like 'we' and 'our'. This is one way in which banal nationalism becomes

personal nationalism. This process will be discussed more extensively in chapter five of this thesis.

Image 11

Supermarkets

Let us now look at Scotlands presence in the supermarket. Scotland is present in different

supermarkets in different ways. Most non-British people I spoke to about the supermarkets agreed

that for example Scotland was much more present in the Lidl on Nicolson Street than it was in any

Scotmid in the same area.17 But they also agreed that there were a lot of Saltires18 in all

supermarkets. It starts on the outsides of Tesco shops. These shops had stickers on their windows

17 Lidl, Scotmid and Tesco are all supermarket franchises in Edinburgh.18 Saltire is a nickname for the Scottish flag, which is also referred to as St. Andrews Cross.

27

saying 'Enjoy the taste of Scotland...' and right next to the text there was drawn Saltire (see image

12 below). Inside the supermarkets there were references to Scotland on a lot of different

products19. The most common reference to Scotland is when it is use to illustrate that products are

local products, which is most important in food (see image 13 and 14 below). Tesco, for example,

had little signs sticking out of the shelves showing a Saltire and saying: 'I'm Scottish'. The fronts of

the shelves near these signs would be cover by a blue band on which a lot Saltires were shown.

Another way of showing that products are local, most commonly used on vegetables and meat, is

just to add a sticker to the package which states that the product is produced in Scotland. Or the

statement would be on the package itself. This was the case with a bottle of hand soap in the SNP

headquarters in Donside, Aberdeen.

Image 12

Image 13

Image 14: An example of how locality is used to promote products

19 It must be said that the UK was also flagged in this way in the supermarkets. Some products had a sticker stating that those were British products. It also happens in the Netherlands, so this is not a uniquely Scottish situation. However, this does happen in Scotland a lot, because of which Scotland becomes a fact for people living there.

28

Public Services

Thirdly, Scotland is present through public services. One example of this are the charity shops in

Edinburgh. When I was on the bus in Leith we drove by a charity shop that had a big text on its

window saying: 'Everything donated in Scotland, stays in Scotland'. Next to it was a big Saltire.

Furthermore, when I was leafletting in Aberdeen for the SNP in the Donside by-election, I came

across a sticker on the back of a car. It was a sticker of the Scottish blood bank. Another day I was

driving my bike near the same spot as where I saw the charity shop and I came across a minivan of

the Scottish water company. The company is called 'Scottish Water' and the van had a picture

depicting the Saltire (see image 15 below). The Saltire is also used a lot by private companies. First

of all I ran into a insurance brokers office and even though it did seem to be an exclusively Scottish

kind of business, it still only had the Saltire as picture with their company name (see image 16 on

the next page). Secondly, this truck was on the roads of Leith and the print clearly confirms the

existence of Scotland as a place.

Image 15

29

Image 16

Football

A last example is Scottish football. A lot of my interlocutors would say that there is something that

is Scottish football. They were quite happy, maybe even proud, that there is something like the

Scottish Football Association, even though they acknowledged that the quality of the league wasn't

comparable to the English league. But, and maybe more importantly, they experienced a Scottish

football culture. When I joined Iain with one of the teams he played for, the first remarks made

were about my Dutch nationality and that they thus assumed that my technique would be much

better than their Scottish raw technique. They told me that I would see that Scottish football was a

lot different from Dutch football, because the Dutch pay more attention to technique and tactics

while Scottish football was more about kick 'n rush. This is a clear example of national stereotyping

through which the experience of the nation is enhanced.

3.4 An underestimated fact

All these examples show how Scotland is an integral part of my interlocutors daily lives. However,

my interlocutors did not agree with me when I told them that I thought that Scotland was quite

present in their daily lives. They said I probably thought this just because Edinburgh is a touristic

city. This is certainly true, but still this doesn't change anything since none of my examples come

from the touristic sector. Also, when I traveled to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Bute, I saw that the

charity shops and supermarkets use the same commercials throughout the country. This means that

this flagging of Scotland is not (or at least only to a small extent) part of the touristic sector but it

30

happens everywhere. Furthermore, Cameron told me that actually most of the touristic souvenirs

were sold to Scots. I cannot prove this, but even if it is untrue it is interesting to know that Scots do

come into Slanj, the kilt shop of which Cameron is the manager, and buy these touristic items.

In their last attempt to temper my views on the whole flagging business, they often told me

that I should see how often the Union Jack is flied in London. In their experience Britain seems to

be much more present than Scotland is. In spite of all their specific Scottish media, they still

experience that there is a lack of attention for Scotland in the media. They don't seem to notice what

the banal Scottish nationalism, while they do see the explicit nationalism of the British state. This

led to the feeling that the British state is not taken their needs into account and this sometimes led to

commotion.

A good illustration of this the commotion that occurred when Nigel Farage and George

Galloway20 were part of the panel on the BBC TV-show Question Time in a special episode on

Scottish independence. A lot of my interlocutors thought it was ridiculous that these politicians were

invited to talk about this Scottish subject, since they were not elected by Scottish people. These two

politicians were on the panel with a SNP, Labour and Tory representative. My interlocutors thought

it was wrong that other political parties who had elected MP's and MSP's in Scotland were not

invited, while Farage and Galloway, without any democratic legitimacy in Scotland, were invited. It

was an expression of my interlocutors of their feeling that they are not represented enough in the

media. Cameron told me that this was part of the Scots feeling marginalized.

A natural nation

Through the banal nationalism discussed so far, Scotland became present in the lives of my

interlocutors. However, this does not make it seem natural by definition. Three ways in which the

nation is produced as a seemingly naturally given entity, are discussed by Ana Maria Alonso in her

article 'The Politics of Space, Time and Substance: State Formation, Nationalism, and Ethnicity'

(1994) and I encountered all three of them. First of all, the nation seem to be naturally connected to

a certain space by referring to this space as territory (Alonso 1994: 382). In Scotland the word

territory is not used that often, but a suggestion from the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) about

Faslane, a important British navy port just north of Glasgow, and the British nuclear program shows

that Scottish territory undoubtedly, one would almost say naturally, belongs to the Scottish people.

The majority of the Scottish people don't want nuclear weapons in Scotland, but Faslane is the only

port that is suited to host the nuclear submarines of the British navy. If Scotland would become

independent, the nuclear submarines would, without a doubt, be dismissed from Scottish soil. This

puts the British MoD in a difficult position because they have no other port that could facilitate this

20 Galloway is a Scot (in the ethnic sense) but he got elected by an English constituency.

31

vessels. One solution the MoD proposed in a classified document, that obviously got leaked, was to

annex Faslane in case of Scottish independence. When my interlocutors heard about it, they were

furious. They could not believe that the British state would even consider taking a part of Scotland.

Apparently, the Scottish people do have a territory that is theirs to control.

Secondly, the substance (comparable to Barth's 'cultural stuff') of the nation is made natural

by tropes of kinship (Alonso 1994: 396). I encountered this kind of naturalization not that often

during my research. It occurred sometimes when people were talking about the relation between

Scotland and the other 'Nordic' countries. The Nordic countries are supposed to be the Scandinavian

countries (including Iceland) and Scotland. Sometimes people would include the Netherlands to do

me a favor. When they were talking about the people of the Nordic countries, sometimes they would

use terms like 'brothers and sisters' or 'a family of nations'. Another example is the 'Wish Tree'-note

on image 17 (below).

Image 17

Thirdly, time plays an important role in the naturalization of the nation, because 'the nation

… is conceived as a “solid community moving steadily down (or up) history” (Anderson in Alonso

1994: 387). In Mairi's pictures, during her lecture on Scottish culture and ecology, showing how

'Scotland' moved across the globe are a perfect showing of how 'Scotland' literally moved up

history. When Mairi was showing this, she actually said that she wanted to show how 'we' were

once separated from the rUK. So the landmass that she showed moving around was actually a

symbolization of the nation.

32

3.5 A reality

Scotland was a reality for my interlocutors. They lived in Scotland, they worked in Scotland and

they argued in Scotland. It was so much a fact that it is better described as an omnipresent belief

that is never questioned and is the base for every political thought. It is the base for their call for

independence. Scotland was very much present in the daily live of the people who live in

Edinburgh, and probably elsewhere in Scotland. Scotland was very much present in the daily live of

my interlocutors. It's in their food, it's in their newspaper.

The question now is, which Scotland is present? Scotland is present as an undefined

concept. It is present as a flag, as a word and as an image. Is this the civic nation that comes with

civic nationalism? Or is this something different? My interlocutors felt Scotland wasn't represented

enough in British public life, in the British media, but I think it was very much present. It was

present as a basic assumption on which all the other discussions were based. My interlocutors didn't

seem to feel this way, while they were talking about Scotland the whole time. So is the Scotland that

they were talking about the same Scotland on which all discussions were based? In the remaining

part of this thesis, this question will be answered.

33

Chapter four: What is the Nation?

The Scottish nation is not just underestimated as a fact in daily life. It is also underestimated in the

arguments for independence made by my interlocutors. Even though in the first chapter of this

thesis it is made clear that Scottish nationalism has a clear civic element in which most emphasis is

put on the rights of citizens, the nation, as group of people who are bound by a common history and

future, is also an important aspect of Scottish nationalism. Angus said that:

'We21 wouldn't be having this debate if Scotland wasn't a historic nation and it wasn't a distinct country with its own set of laws, its own set of institutions, its own set of cultural political practices, but the strand to which most people of the movement, or most young people of the movement come out from is seen as the opportunity to create a better society, prosperous, fairer...'

Here Angus shows the role the nation plays for my interlocutor's nationalism. Based on the historic

nation, they make civic claims about the present and for the future. The question now is what this

'nation' means. Is this a civic nation, as implied by the term civic nationalism? Can there be a

strictly civic nation or are even the most civic nations 'first and foremost based [on] a cultural and

even ethnic community' (Lægaard 2007: 43)?

Quést-ce qu'une nation? What is a nation? This is the title of an essay (1882) by Ernest

Renan and he argues that a nation is constituted of two things. 'One is in the past, the other is in the

present' (Renan 1994: 17). The past is about a remembrances of great things that were achieved

together. The present is about a wish to live together (ibid.). This is a fruitful starting point for an

analysis of the Scottish nation and the role it played in the arguments my interlocutors made. When

looking at Angus' argument, for example, both elements of the nation are explicitly mentioned. He

said that the independence debate is based on Scotland as 'a historic nation' and that it is 'the

opportunity to create a better society'. A historic nation from the past and a possible nation of the

future on which they work in the present. However, only when he talks about the past he mentions

the nation, while when he is referring to the future he talks about society. He seems to separate the

history from the future. Related was Angus' remark that Scottish nationalism is 'about what Scotland

can be, not what Scotland was'. He also told me that 'Scotland is a precondition for the call for

independence but not the motivation'. This clearly shows how the two aspects are related, but

separated.

In this chapter it will be argued that the historic Scottish nation and the present Scottish

nation are two different entities, that are different by nature.

21

It is hard to determine to whom this 'we' is referring. When asked, I suspect Angus would answer something like 'the people of Scotland'. At least he is referring to a broad country-wide group of people.

34

4.1 Field of Scottishness

'A lot of SNP members are from other places, but we just believe we have more a stake in this

country'. This is what Doug told me about the nature of the SNP's nationalism. A nationalism that

seems to be a very civic nationalism. It is predominantly about people's stake in society, about their

interests. The fact that people are from another place in the world is not important. I explicitly asked

Doug whether ethnicity played any role in Scottish nationalism or not. He told me about the open

attitude of Scotland. People are more then welcome to come to Scotland and contribute to society. If

you contribute it doesn't matter where you or your parents are from. He gave me an example from

when he was working in a store in Glasgow:

This young guy and his mom came in. Both ehm probably ehm Pakistani and eh they were talking a bit about ehm probably about ehm bread and what to buy and the young man turns to me and in the broadest of Glasgow accent says: 'Have you not got anything cheaper?' [both Doug and me laugh] Have you not got anything cheaper and as soon as heard his voice I said he's a Scot, you know he's a Glasgow boy and and that's the sort of nationalism that we have, people who are here and who like to be here...

Doug regarded this guys accent to be prove of how much at home he felt the guy was in Scotland.

However, what indicated to Doug that the guy was at home in Scotland? That was his 'broadest of

Glasgow accent'. Before he displayed this attribute, Doug had regarded him as being a Pakistani

guy. The guy had to demonstrate to Doug that he was at home in Scotland. Not to say that Doug

would judge him if he hadn't done this, but it is also too easy to say that ethnicity doesn't matter

when we look at this example. Ethnicity does matter. The accent of the guy stood out for Doug,

because the guy didn't look Scottish. The guy turned Scottish as soon as Doug heard his voice.

Another example, which shows that ethnicity matters, is that all my interlocutors also talked

about 'Scots who live abroad'. A good example is Sir Alex Ferguson, former manager of the football

club Manchester United. When he ended his career as a manager he finally expressed his opposition

to Scottish independence. 'Finally' because he was regarded as a prominent Scot and a lot of other

prominent Scots had already expressed themselves. But some of my interlocutors regarded his

opinion irrelevant because he didn't live in Scotland. Since they define 'the people of Scotland' as

the people who live in Scotland because they have a stake in Scotland, Ferguson was not regarded

to be one of the people of Scotland. However, he was without a doubt regarded to be a Scot.

Ferguson himself even said: 'I played for Scotland and managed the Scotland team. No-one should

question my Scottishness just because I live south of the border.'22

My interlocutors tried to make this separation quite rigidly. If you don't live in Scotland, you

don't get a say. When I asked if Ferguson was allowed to move back and if he would then get a vote,

they answered that he could if the 'rules'23 allowed him to vote. So following this rigid separation, 22 http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2012/12/17/grudge-match-alex-ferguson-vs-alex-salmond (22-12-2013)23 The rules are the rules that apply to Scottish national elections: if you live in Scotland for six months or longer as a

35

this would go for all people in the EU, because it is not about being a Scot but about living in

Scotland. This would also mean that when the British National Party24 would call for English people

to move to Scotland in order to swing the vote to a No-victory, it would not be a problem.

According to the rules it was perfectly fine, but my interlocutors didn't feel it was right. In my

interview with Ross, an employee of the Yes HQ and a member of the Scottish Green Party, we also

discussed this topic, although in a slightly different framework. Ross told me that he didn't believe

in nations, but in localism. Every local should have the right to self-determination, according to

Ross. From this point of view, he argued that people from outside Scotland should not intervene

with Scottish politics. He doesn't want the Northern-Irish Orange Order to come over next summer

to campaign against independence (partly because he is afraid they will bring violence with them).

He didn't mind that I participate, because it is for my research. However, he lives in the 'local' called

Glasgow, but he was in Edinburgh to campaign in a local election here. Wasn't that interfering with

the right to self-determination of the local called Edinburgh? No, he felt like this was fine. But he

could not pinpoint why interference within Scotland was fine and not why interference from other

'nationals' was wrong. If interference from other nationals is a problem, that would imply25 that

interference from Scots, like Alex Ferguson, would be fine. In other words, Scots have more rights

to intervene than non-Scots.

This indicates a similar situation as described by Ghassan Hage in his book White Nation

(1998) on Australian nationalism in the 1980's. In this book Hage introduces the notion of the field

of Whiteness. This refers to a national field, in the Bourdieudian sense, of power in which some

cultural possessions 'allow their holders to stake certain claims of governmental belonging relative

to the weight of the capital in his or her possession' (Hage 1998: 56). 'Governmental belonging' is

'the belief that one has a right over the nation [and] involves the belief in one's possession of the

right to contribute to its management such that it remains 'one's home' (ibid.: 46). According to

Hage there is also another form of belonging, which he calls 'passive belonging'. By this he means

the feeling someone has that he or she belongs to a nation and should benefit from its resources

(ibid.: 45). The field is a field of Whiteness because Hage argues that the white, Celtic-angelo men

held the top position in the field in the 1980's in Australia (ibid.: 56). Looking at the situation in

Scotland, using the notion of a field of power and belonging could be a fruitful tool for analysis.

However in Scotland it is not a field of Whiteness, because this would put too much

emphasis on race. It is a field of Scottishness and it actually has two axes. The first one is ethnic 26

EU-citizen (so that includes the whole of Great Britain) you are eligible to vote.24 A fascist organization that longs for Britain to regain its power as an empire, and that is therefore apposing Scottish

independence.25 Here I combine a view taking specifically from a single interview with a general view that I observed. However, I

feel that Ross' feeling about nationals, is in line with the general attitude. He just expressed it explicitly, because of his preference for localism.

26 Here I equate 'ethnic' with 'national', because I think that the situation of Ferguson illustrates that 'ethnic' Scots are

36

and the second one is civic (see image 18 below). People who are ethnically Scottish and lived in

Scotland all their life, claim the most governmental belonging. People who are not ethnically

Scottish but lived in Scotland long enough to be a Scottish citizen (or an EU-citizen), have enough

governmental belonging to vote in the referendum and thus to determine the future of Scotland.

People who are ethnically Scottish but don't live in Scotland, like Alex Ferguson, don't have enough

governmental belonging to actually vote. They don't have a stake in Scotland, so they don't get a say

in it's management. They do have the right to profit of Scotland's resources, since it would be fine if

they wanted to move to Scotland. In other words, ethnically Scots who live elsewhere have passive

belonging. This is something that people who live outside of Scotland and who are ethnically not

Scottish, don't have. At least in the eyes of my interlocutors, 'foreigners' shouldn't profit from

Scottish resources. This is very explicit in the Yes-campaign argument about taxes. They say that

Scotland pays more tax to Westminster than is returned to Scotland in terms of public spending. So

'Scotland pays more than its way in the Union'27. This implies that these are Scotland's taxes to

spend, not anybody else's.

The capital that matters on the civic axis is very clear, these are the rules for Scottish

citizenship. Which capital is relevant on the 'ethnic' axis is more elusive. What makes you ethnically

Scottish? First is a classic pillar of ethnicity, namely heritage. Andrew told me that he has always

regarded to be part of the nation, while other nationals are not. Therefore, I think it is justified to equate the two.27 http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/scotland-12288-union-public (14-12-2013)

37

Image 18

felt Scottish, even though he was born in England and lived in Bahrain. His 'whole family is

Scottish', not withstanding the fact that many of them live in England. Iain also told me about a

childhood friend of his who is a singer. He makes Scottish folk music, but is of Chinese decent. Iain

told me about him as an example of how open en welcoming Scotland is. He send an episode of a

BBC-radioprogram to me which was about Scottish identity and in which his friend served as

example. He was an example of how you could be Scottish in spite of having a different

background. Iain's friend was Scottish because he sang in a Scottish accent. This is the second

pillar, namely language. The Pakistani guy Doug told me about, became Scottish for Doug because

of his broad Glaswegian accent. Furthermore, Angus felt the need to tell me that he doesn't have a

Scottish accent because he attends St. Andrews University, a very prestigious university in Scotland

where people speak with a posh accent. He apparently felt that it was relevant, because I didn't ask

or say anything about it when he told me. The third pillar is appearance. The Pakistani guy was non-

Scottish for Doug as soon as he entered the shop. He looked different so he wasn't Scottish (yet).

The same goes for Iain's friend. Iain told me that it was great to see 'this Chinese guy sing with such

a Scottish accent'.

These are all examples in which no negative racism takes place. Iain does not necessarily

think that he has more rights than his friend. Doug does not regard himself to be better than the

Pakistani guy. Implicitly however, they claim more governmental belonging for themselves than

they grant the others. Both the Pakistani and the Chinese guy had to do something to express their

Scottishness and that is something Iain or Doug feel like they would never have to do. Even more,

when Doug told me about the incident with the Pakistani guy, he stated that he said that the guy was

a Scot. By using the word said he claimed some governmental belonging, because it implies that it

is true when he says so. If he would've said that he knew instead of that he said, he would've been a

passive receiver of this information. By using said he took an active role in creating the information

that this boy was a Scot. It was up to Doug to make him a Scot. This is also expressed in a sentence

I heard from a lot of Yes-activists: 'We [emphasis added] want to be a welcoming/open nation'. This

implies that there is an ethno-cultural core-nation, as argued by Kuzio (Kuzio 2002: 29-34), that can

decide to be open or not. Even though the other people who come in are appreciated, the core-

nation has more governmental belonging than the others. So new people coming to Scotland, with

other national/ethnic backgrounds, are welcome as long as the Scottish people accept. As Cohen

argued 'the appearance of egalitarianism conceals the reality of differentiation' (Cohen 2007: 34).

Claiming nationalism is civic, conceals the importance of ethnicity.

4.2 What does ethnicity mean?

The 'field of Scottishness'-analysis shows that ethnicity plays a role in Scottish nationalism. This is

38

in contrast to the claim of my interlocutors that Scottish nationalism is purely civic. As Ignatieff

wrote ethnic nationalism lays claims on rights that are inherited rather than chosen (Ignatieff 1993:

4-5). 'It is the national community which defines the individual, not the individuals who define the

national community' (ibid.: 5). However, Ignatieff also addresses the lack of sociological realism of

ethnic nationalism. He argues that common ethnicity does not necessarily lead to social cohesion.

This is why ethnicity as analytical term should be well defined. Hechter addresses this problem and

suggests that a distinction should be made between 'culture' and 'ethnicity' (Hechter 1975: 311-12).

'Culture' should be used to refer to observable behaviors, while 'ethnicity' should be used to refer to

'the sentiments [emphasis added] which bind individuals into solidary groups on some cultural basis'

(ibid.: 312). Richard Schermerhorn wrote that an ethnic group is a group having 'real or putative

[emphasis added] common ancestry, memories [emphasis added] of a shared historical past, and a

cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined [emphasis added] as the epitome of their

peoplehood' (Schermerhorn 1970: 17). He regarded ethnicity to be an experience rather than an

objective given (ibid.). It is about having memories of a shared past, not about the shared past an

sich. It is about symbolic elements that are defined to be the epitome of a certain people, rather than

that these elements are the epitome (ibid.). It is about experienced homogeneity, or at least a core of

homogeneity (ibid.). This is a primordialist approach to nationalism and it can provide insight on

what role ethnicity plays in Scottish nationalism, even though my interlocutors don't feel like it

does. They feel like their arguments are rational. They do not wonder in what way Scotland is a fact

or not. They experience Scotland as a fact and on this fact they build their factual, rational

arguments.

Looking at the role that language plays in the ethnic axis of the field of Scottishness, it

becomes clear how this perceived homogeneity returns in what my interlocutors showed me. For

Doug the Pakistani guy was a Scot as soon as Doug heard that he spoke like a Scot. The same goes

for another example. In my interview with Roisin, the president of Edinburgh Universities Scottish

Nationalist Association (EUSNA), I asked her about an Indian politician in Holyrood. When we

first met, during my initial meeting with EUSNA, Roisin had told me about him and she had said

that he was 'a real Scot'. At that moment I didn't ask her what she meant by 'a real Scot', so I decided

to ask her during the interview. She had some trouble answering the question, but the one thing that

she did think of was that he speaks like a Scot. So again, language was pointed out as an important

feature that Scots have. But then again, no one would deny that Angus is a Scot even though he

doesn't speak with a Scottish but with a posh accent. This points out how much this homogeneity is

an experience rather than a fact. It should, following Hechter distinction, be viewed as an ethnic

experience rather than a cultural fact.

Another example of how Scottish nationalism has ethnic elements is that there is an idea of a

39

shared history. The Cheviot is one way in which this shared history is expressed. As mentioned in

the third chapter, the Cheviot is a story about how the Scottish people resisted the elites, in

particular the English and American elites. The resistance against the Clearances is depict as being

the same fight as the fight of the unions against the big oil companies, even though these two events

are a century apart and took place in different areas. These are both fights of the same people

against outsiders, be it foreigners or elites.

I also discussed the movie 'Braveheart' with Andrew when we were visiting the National

Portrait Gallery. He told me that he found it annoying that people were so hung up on the historical

imperfections in the movie, for example that William Wallace never painted his face blue. He said

that it was not about the details but about the story as a whole. It was about the story of the Wars of

Independence and the role that William Wallace played in these wars. It was about the story about

the Scots' fight for freedom. In the same museum there is a big mural of the Battle of

Bannockburn28. I asked what the painting was and Andrew told me about the Battle of

Bannockburn, and about how it isn't taught in school. Andrew told me that children in Scotland

received hardly any education in 'Scottish history'. Both these instances show that Andrew thinks

that there is a history that the Scots share.

Furthermore, during my research there was a BBC Scotland television show called 'Road to

the Referendum'. This show told the story of the development of 'Scotland' since the early 20 th

century and how this all led to the upcoming referendum. The show could be split up in three main

developmental lines; the social/cultural development, the economic development and the political

development of Scotland. Scotland was depict as a homogeneous entity and all the developments

were portrayed as being developments that took place inside this entity. This presented the history

of the content of the container Scotland.

4.3 Two faces, two nations

However the question is who these Scots are. In the Cheviot these are the Scots that fight the

English. The same goes for the Battle of Bannockburn and Braveheart. In 'Road to the Referendum'

it was less clearly defined, but they described developments taking place 'in' Scotland. So does this

mean that Scots are people who live in Scotland? In that case the historic and ethnic nation would

be the same as the present and civic nation. However this is not the case because in this shared

history, the homogeneity of the Scots is essential. In the Cheviot you don't hear much about Scottish

elites, only about elites from 'down south' moving 'up north'. During the Wars of Independence the

Scots, as a single people, were fighting the English. Some of the members of the civic nation are

acknowledges to have a different history. The ancestors of Iain's 'Chinese' friend didn't fight the 28 In this battle, which was part of the Wars of Independence, the Scots defeated the English. The War of which this

battle was part, ended with Scottish independence in the early 14th century.

40

English in the Battle of Bannockburn, but this is okay because in civic nationalism it is not about

your past but about your future.

Therefore, to understand these two faces of Scottish nationalism, it is useful to return to

Renan's definition of the nation as consisting of two things; a heroic past and a chosen future. In the

case of Scottish nationalism as I encountered it, the heroic past is the past of a different nation than

the nation of the chosen future. I say different nations, because the membership requirements are

different. Joining the civic nation is a choice, while being part of the ethnic nation is a historical

given. The historic nation is an ethnic nation, it is the core nation. The claim of 'Scotland' to have a

right to self-determination, is based on this historical nation's right to self-determination. As Angus

told me; 'we wouldn't be having this debate if Scotland wasn't a historic nation and it wasn't a

distinct country with its own set of laws, its own set of institutions, its own set of cultural political

practices, but the strand to which most people of the movement, or the most young people of the

movement come out from is seen as the opportunity to create a better society, prosperous, fairer...'.

So, what is the nation? The Scottish nation does not exist as a singular entity. The Scottish

nation consists of two nations of a different nature. One based on a shared language and shared

history, the other based on a political creed. The former is an experience, the latter is a rational

production. These two came together beautifully in a conversation between Robbie and two people

who passed by the stall. Robbie told me that when he approached these people, they told him that

they would definitely vote yes because 'Scotland belongs to the Scots'. For Robbie this was a

difficult situation because, as he told me, he was glad that they would vote yes but he disliked their

arguments. Their arguments were based on an ethnic nation while he wants a civic nation. These

people were ethnic Scots, but they did not support the political creed of the civic nation, namely

being a fair and open society. This put Robbie in a though spot, because the civic capital that these

people had gave them excess to this governmental belonging but Robbie would rather take it away

from them. This is an indication of the importance of the political creed for the civic nation.

4.4 A paradox

So far I showed that Scottish nationalism has both an ethnic and a civic aspect, but that these are

actually two different kinds of nationalism referring to two different nations. My interlocutors only

express the civic side of the story and I tried to analyze this through both a situational and

constructionist approach to their nationalism. It gave me the tools to gain some understanding of the

civic aspect. In this chapter I used an primordialist approach to address the ethnic aspect of Scottish

nationalism. This aspect is not recognized by my interlocutors as a part of their nationalism. They

experience the ethnic nation as a fact from which their argumentation starts. In their discourse they

don't differentiate between the two nations at play, but they assume that they are just talking about

41

one nation, one Scotland. In the next chapter I will analyze the paradox of the experienced

singularity of the Scottish nation and the lack of singularity that I demonstrated in this thesis so far.

42

Chapter five: The Elusive Nations

Doug told me that 'there has always been a very civic form of nationalism in Scotland'. My

interlocutors were very keen to point out to me how civic their nationalism is. A lot of them would

even go as far as saying that they are not nationalists, they were internationalists. But they didn't

always succeed. For example Colin when he tried to not label himself as a nationalist before our

interview (see §2.6) This confusion can be explained by the fact that there are two instead of one

nation at play in the discourse of my interlocutors. The civic nation which my interlocutors aspire to

is accompanied by an ethnic nation that forms the basis from which they would like to build this

civic nation. My interlocutors, however, seemed not to be aware of the importance of the ethnic

nation. In their arguments and discourse they only referred to one nation and would never separate

the historic ethnic nation from the present/future civic nation. This way they were able to uphold

their claim that their nationalism was civic rather than ethnic.

Somehow my interlocutors prevented themselves from seeing the discrepancy in their

arguments on nationalism. In their own reflections on their nationalism, they never got away from

their situationalist approach. However, the constructionist and and primordial approach would've

shown them the more ethnic side of the story. When people use language to tell a story, they attempt

to make themselves clear. However, language is as concealing as it is revealing. Words don't have a

clear meaning and always need interpretation. In this chapter the linguistic process that covers up

this discrepancy in the discourse of my interlocutors will be discussed.

5.1 Méconnaissance and Lacanian elusive meaning

In essence the situation as described above comes down to the simple fact that words are

multivocal. People can give different meanings to a word because they are always interpreting what

other people mean. This was, at least, the basic assumption of the semiotics of Ferdinand de

Saussure, one of the Founding Fathers of semiotics. He saw signs, of which words are a specific

example, as consisting out of two components; the signifier and the signified (Chandler 2006). The

signifier is the component of the sign that attempts to transfer meaning. For example, the sound

pattern that makes up a spoken word. The signified is the concept that the signifier attempts to refer

to. For Saussure, signs were psychological phenomena. The signifier is not the physical vibrations

that make up a word, but it is the interpretation of this vibration by people (ibid.). The signified is

not a physical reality that exists outside people's mind, but it is the concept that people created as

interpretation of this physical reality (ibid.). Signs are thus purely interpretative construction of

individuals.

Because words are signs and signs are purely interpretative constructions, words have no

intrinsic meaning and they can have different meanings in different situations. The multivocal

43

character of words can lead to false coherence in discourses. As Ohnuki-Tierney showed in her

book Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms (2002), by using the same words people can

seem to talk about the same thing while they are actually referring to something different. This is

what she calls méconnaissance; 'the phenomenon of talking past each other' (Ohnuki-Tierney 2002:

281). People assume that everybody means the same when they use a specific word and this allows

people to communicate because not doing so would lead to a nihilistic situation in which everything

would lose its meaning.

Saussure argued that words don't have meaning outside the system of words in which they

exist (Chandler 2006). Words for him only get meaning in relation to other words. Signs are purely

relational entities that have no 'natural' relation to each other (ibid.). The signifier only exists in

relation to the signified and in relation to other signifiers. The signified only exists in relation to the

signifier and in relation to other signified (ibid.). This means that people only understand words

when they hear them in the right context, both conceptually and physically. That's why code

switching (using multiple languages in a linguistic expression) can be confusing. It makes it harder

to interpret the vibrations of the sound in the right way. In this situation we interpret sounds in a

certain linguistic system, while they are from a different linguistic system. So signifiers only are

effective in the right context. In fact, signifiers can only exist in a context, because the only way to

conceptualize entities is to separate them from the entities that surround them. In order to

conceptualize the color yellow in the rainbow, we also have to conceptualize the colors green and

orange because they limit the concept 'yellow'.

The other Founding Father of semiotics, Charles Saunders Peirce, wrote:

'A sign... [in the form of a representamen] is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen'. (Peirce in Chandler 2006)

Peirce also assumed that a sign had psychological effects. His representamen and interpretant are

similar to Saussure's, respectively, signifier and signified (Chandler 2006). However, Peirce also

added a third, physical component that he called the object (Mertz 2007: 338). It is the entity that

grounds the sign in physical reality that Saussure excluded from the sign (ibid). But because Peirce

and Saussure did agree on the psychological components of the sign, Peirces ideas on the

interpretations of signs are relevant here. He argued that 'a sign... addresses somebody, that is,

creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. The sign

which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign' (Peirce in Chandler 2006). This could lead to

an endless chain of interpretations because the interpretant again is interpreted as a representamen

(Chandler 2006). Thereby, real meaning can be endlessly postponed. This means that words don't

44

have any intrinsic meaning, never get any real meaning and only make sense in relation to other

words.

However, people do experience words as having an intrinsic meaning. Where does this

meaning come from? If yellow only has meaning in relation to green and green only has meaning in

relation to yellow, what is the origin of these meanings? The psycho-analyst Jacques Lacan argued

that there is no meaning, but merely an experience of meaning created by chains of interpretations

of words through other words (Evans 1996: 190). He called this experience the imaginary signified

(Stavrakakis 1999: 27). This imaginary signified can be viewed as a black hole in which all

meaning disappears, but because it absorbs meaning it itself seems to exist. It's nothingness is

implying the existence of something. These black holes are able to exist, according to Lacan,

because of signifiers that anchor the chain of words and in this way fixate the signified of the

surrounding signs (ibid.: 60). These signifiers are part of every linguistic system and he called them

points de capiton. A point de capiton is a word that appears to give other words a more specific

meaning (ibid.). The important word here is appears because even points de capiton cannot provide

words with a singular meaning. Points de capiton even are the entrance to the black hole in which

all meaning disappears, exactly because they appear to give meaning.

So people experience meaning through the imaginary signified and these experienced

meanings differ from each other because of the multivocality of words and the personal nature of

the interpretation of words. The imaginary signified only exists in peoples mind29 and this makes it

a highly personal experience which differs between people. This is where méconnaissance and the

imaginary signified meet. The multivocality of words has its impact on both the meaning of the

words in the mind of people, and the meaning of words in the shared reality. Both notions,

méconnaissance and the imaginary signified, refer to a situation in which people experience a clear

meaning, while in reality this meaning is fluid and indefinite.

5.2 A schizophrenic nation

When analyzing the discourse of Scottish nationalism, both méconnaissance and the imaginary

signified are useful notions to keep in mind. These notions can be especially useful when trying to

understand why my interlocutors were convinced of their coherent civic discourse about an

independent Scotland while they were also using the ethnic nation. This is a matter of

méconnaissance within a discourse.

Méconnaissance works because the assumed meaning of words are never checked. People

assume everybody refers to the same notion with the same words. In the case of my interlocutors,

they seemed to have never questioned the meaning of words like 'Scotland', 'the people of Scotland', 29

I'll explain why imaginary signifieds only exist in peoples mind in section 5.4

45

'Scots', 'Scottish' and 'the Scottish nation'. These are words that seem to bare a self-evident meaning.

Maybe hard to define, but, as Erik told me, 'nobody would deny that the Scottish nation exists'. Erik

is convinced that there is an object to which all these words refer. However, there is not one object

to which is referred by using words like 'Scottish'. It can refer to two objects, namely both the ethnic

and the civic nation. This one signifier had several objects but seems to create one signified in

which both the objects are incorporated.

An example of this could be found in my interview with Iain. His answer to the question of

why he supported independence contained the two following sentences: (1) 'Especially in Scotland,

historically we had a very different social conscious'; (2) 'I'm supporting independence because of

leftist reasons, because of Scotlands leftist social conscious'. Here he makes very clear that his

support for independence is based on his perception of the social conscious of Scotland as an

historic nation. Later on in the interview he was again talking about why he wanted Scotland to

become independent: (3) 'So we can engage with Europe and the rest of the world better as a

modern, progressive, albeit slightly smaller Scotland'. In this sentence he is talking about Scotland

as a future nation, but he also talks about the same social conscious as he was referring to in

sentence 1 while in that sentence he was talking about the historic Scottish nation.

All three of these sentences are examples of civic nationalism. However, he also told me that

only old folks, not the younger group that he belonged to, in the SNP would argue in favor of

independence because of national identity. Through this he implied that these old folks are ethnic

nationalists. When I asked him why he made a division between Scotland and the rUK, he answered

that it was purely pragmatic. He admitted that other parts of the UK also had a different social

conscious, but he said (4) 'Scotland just happens to have a culture and an identity...'. This shows

that his basic assumption, on which he builds his case for Scottish independence, is essentially one

based on the ethnic Scottish nation.

Between these sentences he seems to be speaking about the same thing the whole time.

Scotland seems to be Scotland, but it turns out to be different. Sentences 2 and 3 are clearly

arguments based on a civic nation, because there is only a reference to the political creed of the

nation. Sentence 4 is clearly an argument based on the ethnic nation. Sentence 1 on the other hand is

more complicated, because it is a reference to both the historical, ethnic nation, as to the political

creed. So, this shows that multiple nations were at play, while the same word was used the whole

time. Because there is no specification of the nature of the Scotland at hand, everybody is free to

interpret it the way they want, and most of my interlocutors, when asked, ignored the ethnic aspect

of it.

Another important way in which the ethnic and civic nation are united, is through the use of

46

the word we. During a RIC-meeting in Leith30 Jean Urquhart, the MSP for whom Gary is working,

was one of the public speakers. When she was talking about independence she said: 'It's about who

we are. About our self-determination to not have a bedroom-tax'. Looking at this sentence, who are

we? Our self-determination is a reference to the right of self-determination that resides in nations.

As argued in earlier in this thesis, this right is based on the historic, ethnic nation, because without

that nation 'we wouldn't be having this discussion', as Angus put it. However, not to have a

bedroom-tax is a reference to the political creed of the future Scottish nation. In one sentence Jean

managed to equate the ethnic with the ethnic nation.

Jean was only able to do this because words like we, and its derivatives like our, which are

words that only depend on the context for their meaning, i.e. these words are indexes. Index is a

semiotic notion, introduced by Peirce, that refers to 'a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary

but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be

observed or inferred' (Chandler 2006). When indexes have a clear object the signified is clear,

because the connection is physical. However, we is a index without an object. The we that is

referred to is a purely psychological construction and that's why the connection is not defined by a

physical relation but depends completely on the inference of the public. This means that the

signified stays unclear and completely open to personal interpretation. Because the signified stays

undefined, the discrepancy between the civic and ethnic nation does not become apparent.

When we look from a Barthian perspective at the use of words like we and our it becomes

even more apparent what happens. These words indicate that there is a boundary between groups,

because there is no we without you. However, because of the vague way in which they are used,

without explicitly defining who we are, these words helped my interlocutors to avoid the boundaries

of their group and the different membership requirements. Barth argued that ethnic groups can only

exist when the boundary is maintained (Barth 1996: 79). Ethnic nations are, in Oliver Zimmer's

terms, based on organic logic, i.e. it 'does not allow for others to become “one of us”' (Lægaard

2007: 44). This means that it needs to be clear who 'us' is. If the maintenance of the boundary is

shied away from, is this an indication that maybe the ethnic group is no longer maintained? The

ethnic group is no longer maintained explicitly in Scottish nationalism. However, as the field of

Scottishness analysis shows, ethnic boundaries are still maintained implicitly. In the next section, I

will analyze how the civic boundaries are elusive and implicit but present, and how this elusiveness

allows Scottish nationalists to avoid the relevance of the ethnic nation for their nationalism.

5.3 The elusive nation

Even with the classification of ethnic or civic nation, there is a lot of vagueness surrounding this

30 Leith is seen as the working class, harbor area of Edinburgh

47

concept of the Scottish nation. The boundaries are unclear. Words like we and social conscious

seem to provide clarity through unity. Saying that Scotland has a culture and identity is doing the

same. It reifies Scotland by making it appear as concrete, as a 'thing'. It gives Scotland boundaries.

This all implies that Scotland is something real, something present, and therefore something that

seems self-evident thus not needing any elaboration.

However the meaning only seems to emerge from an interpretation. Following Saussure,

Peirce and Lacan, it can be assumed that this single signified (Scotland), in which both the objects

(the ethnic and civic nation) are incorporated, has no specific meaning on its own. This signified

will be an object in peoples minds and call for another signifier. It will start an endless chain of

interpretations. Some of these signifiers are already out in the open and these are the words like

'progressive', 'modern' and 'leftist'. They seem to specify what is meant by 'Scotland'. However,

because these signifiers also create an signified, the specification continues endlessly.

For example, the term 'progressive' returns also in Salmonds speech on the latest party

conference of the SNP. He talked about what the Scottish government has done with its devolved

powers. He talked about how they took a different path: 'A path that reflects Scotland's social

democratic consensus, our shared progressive values – our priorities as a society'31. And a few

seconds later he said: 'Conference, with even just a taste of independence we have been able to

deliver fairer policies than elsewhere in these islands'. Now 'progressive' turned into 'fairer'. What

does fairer mean? It means no inequality: 'This level of inequality offends the very basis of a good

society. It fosters division. It stifles ambition. And no independent Scottish government would ever

accept such an appalling waste of talent and potential'.

All these words are related and give each other meaning, thus creating the impression that

all words have a meaning. They create an imaginary signified. However, this can only happen,

according to Lacanian theory, when there are points de capiton. In this case the Scottish nation is

the point de capiton. Progressive, fairer and equality are all describing something. They are

describing the Scottish nation as Salmond, as well as my interlocutors, would like to see it. If these

words are describing something that everyone experiences as a fact, they must have meaning.

However, these words are also describing the fact, i.e. the Scottish nation, so it is loop. The Scottish

nation needs these words to be experienced as having meaning, while these words need the Scottish

nation for the same reason.

5.4 The personal meaning

In Lacanian theory, language is part of the Symbolic Order (Myers 2003: 24). This is the part of the

human experience that people are able to share with other people. The other Order in Lacanian

31 http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/alex-salmonds-speech-2013-snp-conference-full-text (20-11-2013)

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theory is the Imaginary Order (Stravakakis 2004: 23). This refers to the part of the human

experience that we cannot share with other people. It is the sphere of unspeakable experiences in

which we form images and ideals of ourselves (Felluga 2011). It is the sphere in which our desire

originates. It is a fundamentally narcissistic part of the human experience and thus highly personal

(Stavrakakis 1999: 18).

The sense of meaning that we get from the imaginary signified is part of this Imaginary

Order. In this Order our search for meaning continues, because we want to find a stable identity that

lets us experience the wholeness we experienced before we realized that there is a world out there.

The wholeness is also referred to as jouissance, 'pre-symbolic, real enjoyment' (ibid.: 42).

According to Lacanian theory, however, both Orders are not able to provide this stable identity,

which is forever lost (Stavrakakis 2004: 24-5). This means that the search goes on and on, which is

supposed to be the incentive for human interaction (ibid.: 23).

This also means that the sense of meaning we get, is based on our personal experiences and

is thus highly personal. Especially with big and vague concepts like the nation, the influence of

these experiences is strong. Anthony Cohen argues that the nation and shared national culture are

sources drawn up on by individuals to construe their self (Cohen 1996: 804-8). People want to see

in the nation, what they see in themselves, Cohen argues (ibid.: 805). This means that the meaning

given to the nation is highly personal, while the nation is a generally shared idea. Another example

of this is provided by Hylland T. Eriksen. He wrote about how a tree in one specific village in

Norway became a Norwegian tree for a specific Norwegian nationalist (Eriksen 1997: 109)

The general idea gets meaning when it is interpreted through a personal lens, which means

that the notion of a nation has no intrinsic meaning. According to Cohen, the personal nature is one

of the reasons why Scottish nationalism is so successful (ibid.: 812) and I agree. In this thesis I

showed how different aspects of the Scottish nation stay hidden because of the vagueness of the

discourse. Because the different aspects are never out in the open, a lot of people can interpret the

Scottish nation in the way that suits them personally. Méconnaissance and the lack of meaning of

words give people the opportunity to construe their own story about themselves through a story

about Scotland. If people want to tell a civic story about themselves, they will interpret all

references to Scotland and the Scottish nation through words like we, in a civic sense.

There is another reason why the méconnaissance going on when talking about the nation

and the lack of meaning of the nation, are not noticed. People equate their self with the nation, as

argued by Cohen. If they would realize that their nation is schizophrenic, they would lose the stable

and singular identity that they are looking for so desperately. In Lacanian theory the lack of unity

could be called the Real (Felluga 2011). The Real is the thing that shatters our perception of the

world because it destroys the fundamentals (ibid.). The fact that the stable identity is forever lost, is

49

the ultimate Real (Van der Port 2011: 23). We don't experience this normally because we live with a

fantasy (Stavrakakis 1999: 46). We live with a tale that keeps the Real at bay and tells us why we

didn't find our desired identity yet, why we lack jouissance (Stavrakakis 2004: 27). For nationalists,

the fantasy is that there could be a singular nation that reflects themselves. To realize that the nation

my interlocutors are talking about is not singular, would mean that they are confronted with the

Real. A confrontation with the Real is the most traumatizing experience a person can have,

according to Lacanian theory (Felluga 2011), so people try to avoid it as much as they can. In my

interlocutor's fantasy Scotland must be singular and clearly defined. Otherwise they would've to

admit that they are not singular and whole.

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Chapter six: The Unnoticed Roots

Grasping the nature of Scottish nationalism is too big a task for a project like this, but this thesis

offers some footholds to get started. These footholds are theoretical classifications assigned, either

by me or by my interlocutors, to the situation in Scotland during the summer of 2013. These

footholds point out the complexity of Scottish nationalism as I encountered it.

6.1 Civic vs ethnic nationalism

The theoretical differentiation between civic and ethnic nationalism is the most prominent one in

this thesis. The notion of civic nationalism caused the nagging feeling that was mentioned in the

introduction of this thesis. My interlocutors referred to their nationalism as civic nationalism, but I

felt like there was more going on. They told me they wanted to be an open and welcoming society,

that everyone who wanted to live in Scotland and contribute to society would be welcome, that they

wanted Scotland to play a positive role in the world and that they wanted for Scotland to be a fair

society. My interlocutors called it civic nationalism and said that it had nothing to do with ethnic

nationalism. In this thesis I problematized this emic perspective by analyzing both the civic and

ethnic aspects of my interlocutors nationalism.

For this analysis I turned to the theoretical definition of civic and ethnic nationalism of

Michael Ignatieff. According to his definition civic nationalism is based on the idea that the nation

should consist of people whom adhere to the political creed of the nation, ' regardless of race, color,

creed, gender, language, or ethnicity' (Ignatieff 1993: 3). Most arguments my interlocutors gave me

(as presented in the second chapter of this thesis) were arguments compatible with this idea. This

makes Scottish nationalism quite a civic form of nationalism, a nationalism aimed at what could be

in the future, not what has been in the past.

However this does not mean that it is free of ethnic nationalism like my interlocutors tended

to say. As Renan wrote, a nation contains both a past and a future, which are both part of the same

nation. Scottish nationalism seems to break from this idea. In the discourse of my interlocutors,

there are two 'different nations' at play. In the fourth chapter of this thesis it is argued that, besides

the civic aspect, there is also an ethnic aspect in Scottish nationalism. As shown in the analysis

using Hage's idea of a national field, a field of Scottishness, it matters whether or not someone is

ethnically Scottish. In this thesis I argued that in the field of Scottishness speaking with a Scottish

accent and someone's family background play important roles. Furthermore, there is a sense of

shared history in Scotland which is also an indication of ethnic nationalism.

The Scottish right of self-determination is based on this ‘real’, historic and ethnic Scottish

nation. My interlocutors told me that nobody would deny that Scotland is a nation. This is related to

their idea of Scotland as an entity moving up and down history. Although this seems to be in

51

accordance with Renan’s idea that both the past and the future are part of the same entity, this is not

the case. In Scottish nationalism two different nations are at play; an ethnic historic nation and a

civic future nation. The historic nation grants Scotland the historic right to self-determination, while

the civic nation is in control of creating Scotlands future. The civic future is build on a ethnic past.

6.2 Two different 'nations', by nature

There is another difference between these two Scottish 'nations', namely their nature. Brown argues

that nationalism can be understood in three different ways; through primordialism, constructionism

and situationalism. All three of these approaches are useful and highlight a distinct dimension of

Scottish nationalism.

When looking from the situationalist perspective, the civic aspect of Scottish nationalism is

highlighted. Independence is supposed to be about the interests of the people of Scotland and the

people of Scotland are all the people that have a stake in Scotlands future. It highlights that Scottish

nationalism is a means to a goal. It is a means to defend the interests of the people of Scotland. As

Hechter has shown, the power inequality between Scotland and other parts of the UK is important

in understanding Scottish nationalism (Hechter 1975: 264-98). The people of Scotland, or at least

her elites, feel like their interests are sacrificed on the altar of the English economy and because

anthropologists acknowledge that our interlocutors are not stupid and actually have quite some

reflexive capabilities, it would be ignorant to deny that this is part of Scottish nationalism. A

situationalist approach to Scottish nationalism can certainly help to understand the situation in

Scotland.

However, Hechter starts his analysis with assuming the same separation between Scotland

and the rUK as my interlocutors do, but both Hechter and my interlocutors are not able to explain

why this separation is made. The separation between the interests of the people of England and of

the people of Scotland is never questioned by my interlocutors32. It is a fundamental assumption for

both arguments. Both my interlocutors and Hechter do not explain why this separation should be

made, but they just assume that it can be made33. The situationalist perspective is not able to provide

an explanation and it is where primordial approach may help. As argued in this thesis Scottish

nationalism is based on a very banal believe in the existence of Scotland. My interlocutors feel and

experience Scotland as being a different nation, in the present as well as in the past. To them it

32

Hechter addresses the question of how different groups come to exist, which is basically asking why the separation between Scotland and the rUK is made. But he doesn't answer his question. He just states that different cultural, ethnic or national groups are part of our world (Hechter 1975: 34-39).

33 Hechter does give some form of explanation in another article. He proposes the rational choice theory as explanation for ethnic collective action. He argues that if people think the ethnic group is the best group to join in order to serve their interests, they will constitute an ethnic group (Hechter 1986: 92). This proposal again highlights Hechters focus on interests and rational.

52

seems only natural for Scotland to seek independence because, as Doug put it nicely, ´there is

nothing better than controlling your own affairs´. For my interlocutors, Scotland is a fact and it is

one of the most important points of reference in this world. However, through their situationalist

lens, this factual nature of Scotland is taken for granted in their arguments about interests, stakes

and affairs.

This still leaves a question to be answered: Why do my interlocutors experience Scotland

this way? A constructionist approach to Scottish nationalism gives an answer to this question. This

is only one answer and it is not an complete answer, especially because in this thesis the choice has

been made to focus on linguistic constructionalism. The question needs both grand historic answers,

along the lines Anderson developed in 'Imagined Communities' (1983), and mirco answers based on

empirical data from the present. Answers about where the nation comes from and answer about how

the nation is perpetuated. I never intended to answer the former, but chose to focus on the later.

Partly my interlocutors experience Scotland as an unquestionable fact or reality, because of

Scotland's banal presence in their daily lives. Scotland is in their supermarket, in their newspaper

and in their public services. Scotland as a concept is all around them and this makes that it is one of

their most important points of reference in this world. They went to school in Scotland, they work

in Scotland and they want to build their future in Scotland. Scotland seems to them to be an entity

that moves through times as a whole. Or, to put it in other words, for my interlocutors Scotland (as

part of the world of nations) is the natural setting in which their history took place.

This historic nation, or nation in which history happens, is in essence the ethnic nation. This

nation seems self-evident and is a banal but essential part of my interlocutors' lives. Therefore, the

civic and ethnic nation are different nations by nature. My interlocutors are well aware of the nation

they want to see in the future, and they choose this nation consciously. This is the political creed

they see for their civic nation. The civic nation is the result of rational considerations. The historic,

ethnic nation on the other hand is an experience. It is part of the omnipresent ideology of

nationalism; i.e. a belief in a world of nations. It is not argued for or the result of rational

considerations, it is a fact.

This also means that there are actually different nationalisms at play in Scottish nationalism.

On the one hand a civic nationalism, which is a conscious and rational choice of my interlocutors.

In this sense their nationalism is entirely civic. On the other hand, there is an undercurrent of ethnic

nationalism, which is not so much a political ideology as it is a meta-experience of the world which

not only Scottish nationalists but also people of other political persuasion and in other places in the

world tend to hold. In other words, the Scottish civic nation has roots in the soil of Alba.

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6.3 Language

The persuasiveness of banal nationalism, be it specifically Scottish or the more general notion of a

world of nations, can partly be explained by the language used to describe it. For example, Scotland

as a concept is very powerful and persuasive. People would fight for 'Scotland'. The power of this

concept lies not in its omnipresence but in its vagueness. Defining Scotland is difficult, but it does

have a meaning for my interlocutors. As Cohen argued, Scottish nationalism is very personal and so

is the meaning that Scotland has for my interlocutors.

However, as a concept, Scotland doesn't have an intrinsic meaning, but it appears to have

this intrinsic meaning. 'The people of Scotland' is more specific than 'the people', but what it means

exactly is not clarified by adding 'of Scotland'. Who is 'of Scotland'? In the civic discourse of my

interlocutors it would be everybody who has a stake in Scotland. In what do people then have a

stake exactly? Scotland can only be explained by using Scotland, so still no meaning is given.

Moreover, the ethnic Scottish nationals are 'of Scotland' when they move back, while English

nationals wouldn't be (under certain circumstances). So Scotland does not only have a civic

meaning, as in a territory in which people have certain rights and obligations, but also an ethnic

meaning, as in something you belong to. However, in daily life these questions are never asked and

in conversations these meanings of the Scottish nation are never specified.

Exactly because of the lack of intrinsic meaning of 'Scotland', multiple meanings can reside

in this word. A situation of méconnaissance occurs. As Ohnuki-Tierney showed, this phenomenon

can provide a discourse with a sense of coherence while different people relate completely different

to the discourse. Because the nature of 'Scotland' is never questioned in daily life, it is possible that

my interlocutors don't notice the discrepancy between the two nations that they use. Scotland is

Scotland, whether in the times of Robert Burns or the times of the Proclaimers. Even when people

want to change the society into the society 'Scotland wants and deserves', it is still the same society.

At least that is the logic of words. In reality some people will belong to the civic nation while they

don't belong to the ethnic nation.

The lack of singularity of the notion of Scotland that my interlocutors use is not noticed

because it is never discussed in day-to-day conversations, i.e. méconnaissance, but also because of

the importance the nation has to individuals. People identify themselves with the nation, as argued

by Cohen, and people are looking for a singular and stable identity, according to Lacanian theory.

This means that the notion they use for identification should be singular and stable as well. Scotland

appears to my interlocutors to be a singular and stable notion. It needs to be, otherwise my

interlocutors would be facing the Real. The Real that they, just as Scotland, are not singular and

whole.

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6.4 After independence

On the 26th of November 2013 the Scottish government published the long awaited White Paper. In

these papers she elaborately explicated her plans for Scotland after independence. Just as the

Common Weal, it is a plan for the future of Scotland. Singular plans for a united Scotland. But

Scotland is not singular. It is personal, it is diverse. During the independence campaign, because of

the common goal, people with very different political creeds are brought together. They disagree on

the specific policies needed in an independent Scotland, but they all believe that the Scottish people

should be able to make their own decisions. They all believe that Scotland will be more left-wing

than the rUK will be. However, this is nothing a healthy democracy can't handle. A parliament with

several parties will overcome these differences by forming coalitions and debating publicly.

That is true for the formal and outspoken disagreements. The more interesting question is

what will happen to the differences on the personal level. According to Cohen, people want to be

able to say 'I am Scottish' and then feel like 'Scottishness means everything that I am' (Cohen 1996:

805). This would be the ultimate nationalist jouissance. The nationalist fantasy so far promised that

if Scotland would become independent, jouissance would become possible. What will happen if

Scotland becomes independent and it turns out that jouissance is not any closer than it was before

independence because Scotland still doesn't provide a stable and singular identity? What will

happen if people start experiencing that independent Scotland is not the Scotland they like to see? If

independent Scotland does not reflect their selves? Political differences can be overcome, but

Scotland can never overcome the differences between people when it comes to their personal

identity. The nation my interlocutors will see, will disappoint34. Not to say that independence won't

do any good, but their current fantasy will collapse and they'll need to construct a new one. This

transition can be accompanied by disappointment.

People will do everything they can to prevent this. This means that everybody will fight for

a Scotland as close to themselves as possible. Therefore, minor differences can suddenly become

much bigger and much more important. I think Scotland is in for a though ride of negotiating what

kind of nation it will be, not in terms of politics - although this battle will be expressed in politics -

but in terms of identity.

6.5 They are right

However, in spite of the ambiguity of Scottish nationalism, one thing has become clear to me and I

hope this thesis expresses this even though most attention is given to show how it is problematic.

When I went to Scotland, I was very skeptical about the notion of 'civic nationalism'. Every

34 This prediction is inspired by the dissertation 'Dromen van Dingen' (2008) of Milena Veenis. In chapters 7 and 8 she argues that the fantasy of East-Germans regarding Western consumerism led to disappointment when it became clear that consumerism couldn't deliver the jouissance promised by the fantasy.

55

nationalism needs some form of belonging and of Volksgeist, how can this be civic? Every

nationalism needs a history as a people, how could this be anything but an ethnic history? It seemed

to me that civic nationalism was a trick to hide ethnic nationalism. I was wrong.

Ethnic nationalism is hidden in Scottish nationalism, but it doesn't exist because of Scottish

nationalism. Ethnic nationalism is an omnipresent vision on the world that a lot of people hold.

History is regarded as the history of a people, a people distinct from other peoples with their own

history. Even though ethnic nationalism is hidden through the language of civic nationalism, it is

not hidden exclusively through this language. The basic political organization of our world is based

on an ethnic nationalistic language in which terms like 'we', 'the people of Scotland' hide the aspects

of which these imagined groups are made up. They hide the fact that the boundaries of these groups

are not strict but are gradually and vague.

In other words, as far as the nature of Scottish nationalism; it is as civic as nationalism could

ever get. There is an undercurrent of the omnipresent, ethnic experience of the world of nations, but

the rational intentions of my interlocutors are civic. My interlocutors were right all along. They

want a better society for everybody living in Scotland. They want an open and civic society. They

are civic nationalists, but with their roots in the soil of Alba.

56

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60

Register of interlocutors:

Angus Angus was a young, ambitious member of the youth wing of the SNP. Next to

being an active member of the SNP, he also completed an internship with one

of the SNP MSP's. Furthermore, Angus studied at St. Andrews University.

Andrew Andrew was a quiet but very active member of the SNP youth wing, but

more importantly National Collective. Andrew was one of the founders of

National Collective and he is a writer. He attends Napier University, the

creative university of Edinburgh.

Cameron Cameron was a shop manager of a kilt shop called Slanj. He was politically

aware but not active during my research. At the end of my research he did

become active by joining National Collective.

Colin Colin was a SNP-member and Yes-activist in Edinburgh East. He was in his

thirties and stood for local office once.

David David was an archeology student at the University of Edinburgh and a RIC-

activist. After our interview he left to spend the summer on Cyprus at a

digging site.

Dolina Dolina was a Scottish actress of high age. She was a native Gaelic speaker

and was co-writer of the play The Cheviot, the stag and the black black oil.

She was a passionate socialist and nationalist. She was also known for

hosting 'a proper cèilidh' in the SNP-club.

Doug Doug's full first name is Douglas. He was a retired schoolmaster and a active

member of the Edinburgh Central branch of the SNP. Furthermore he was a

Yes-activist.

Erik Erik was one of the press officers of the SNP in Holyrood. However, I first

met him on the football pitch.

Gary Gary was member of the youth wing of the SNP, but not a very active one. He

wasn't that active because he worked for a MSP, who used to be member of

61

the SNP but who left the party after it changed its position on Nato-

membership after independence.

Iain Iain was the only interlocutor I had met in the summer 2012 when I visited

Scotland for the first time. He is an employee shared by two SNP MSP's and

a huge football fan. After the summer of 2013 he quited his job to complete a

masters degree in law. Iain also took me to a couple of football games and

parties.

Liam Liam was a student at the University of Edinburgh and one of the informal

leaders of RIC.

Mairi Mairi was my flatmate for the last four weeks of my research. She offered me

a room to stay in the first time I met her during the Meadows Festival. She

was a very passionate Yes-activist, member of the Scottish Green Party, with

strong socialist convictions and a lover of Scottish traditional arts. She was a

lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in Scottish traditional arts. That's why

she started a group called TradYes. The goal of TradYes was to bring together

traditional artists who support independence and to support the campaign

through performances of traditional artists. This group worked closely with

National Collective. Furthermore, she was Simon's girlfriend.

Sarah Sarah was Frasers girlfriend and a lawyer in Edinburgh. I didn't mention

Fraser much in my thesis, but he was one of the people that helped me most

with getting around in the nationalist scene in Edinburgh. I owe him and

Sarah a lot gratitude for an amazing trip to the island Bute, where they took

me to some amazing Highland Games.

Simon Simon was my landlord for the last four weeks of my research. He owned the

flat in which he lived together with his girlfriend, Mairi. Simon was a Yes-

activist, although he wasn't too involved with groups. He was the kind of

activist that convinced people in his personal life. He was passionate about a

more socialist society, but also realistic about the possibilities. He liked to

read the othersides arguments so that he actually knew what he was arguing

against. Most importantly he loved technology and I had the honor to be there

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when he realized a technological dream he had for years; wireless streaming

of music throughout his house.

Steven Steven was an employee of the National Museum of Scotland. The first time I

met him was at 'Pints for Independence'. I'm not even sure about his position

on independence, because I met him primarily on the football pitch.

Robbie Robbie was an active member of the Edinburgh Central branch of the SNP

and a Yes-activist.

Roisin I met Roisin as president of the EUSNA. During this conversation she

expressed her strong socialist persuasion. In my interview with her a couple

of weeks later, she talked a lot about her Irish background and how important

that still is in her family.

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Register of groups/organizations:

BNP This is the British National Party; a radical right-wing political organization with

fascist aspects.

EUSNA EUSNA stands for the Edinburgh University Scottish Nationalist Association and is

the student wing of the SNP.

National National Collective is a platform which tries to unite artists who support Scottish

Collective independence. National Collective tries to contribute to the independence movement

by adding imagining to the discussion. Imagining what kind of nation Scotland is or

can be.

SNP The Scottish National Party was the nationalist party in Scotland. At the time of my

research it had an absolute majority in Holyrood (the Scottish Parliament) and a

couple of seats in Westminster. Furthermore, it was the biggest organization involved

in the Yes-campaign. A lot of my interlocutors were members of the SNP.

RIC The Radical Independence Campaign is a group that officially is part of the Yes-

campaign but mostly acts autonomically (their finances are separate). As group RIC

campaigns for Scottish independence with the explicit goal to turn Scotland into a

more socialist state after independence.

Yes The Yes Scotland-campaign, or just the Yes-campaing, calls itself on its website the

'all party and no party campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum on Scottish

independence to be held on 18 September 2014'. Part of the Yes-campaign are the

SNP, the Scottish Greens, Labour for Independence, the Scottish Socialist Party and

RIC, among others. However, the SNP is by far the most powerful partner in Yes.

64