British Identity

Статья посвящена языковым аспектам тюдоро-стюартовского завоевания Ирландии, которые рассматриваются с точки зрения установления властных отношений в британской композитарной монархии и сквозь призму интеллектуального контекста. Автор подчеркивает, что осознание этнокультурного неравенства основывалось на средневековой этнографии, для которой было характерно неодностороннее восприятие инаковости, и обращает внимание на
то, что различия идеологизировались в рамках оформления властных отношений. Автор выделяет два этапа государственного строительства в Ирландии в XVI—XVII вв., предполагавших различные сценарии для ирландского языка. Если в начале английская корона демонстрировала определенную толерантность к ирландскому языку в обмен на лояльность своим действиям, то затем, во многом из-за противодействия туземных элит процессам продвижения центральной власти, возобладали более жесткие стратегии дисциплинирования и контроля над многообразием, в результате чего к 1640-м гг. установилась функциональная
иерархия, в рамках которой английский язык был языком социального доминирования, а ирландский использовался для повседневных нужд.

This chapter examines how representations of Britain’s ‘imperial’ history continue to form an important part of contemporary mediated constructions of Britain.  Specifically, this is explored in English national newspaper coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Ceremonies.  Accordingly, while the English press served to frame Britain in relation to its imperial decline, the subsequent success of the Games revealed discourses that reflected, reinvented and reimagined Britain’s past within the present.  Indeed, such findings are particularly relevant for exploring how historical significances are embedded in mediated constructions and (re)constructions of the nation during sporting mega-events.

This paper is a critical evaluation of how Gramsci's theory of hegemony can be applied to how the British Media treats the Royal Family. This paper explores notions of capitalism, nationalism and British identity as they pertain to Britain's most popular family as well as an overview of hegemony conceptually. The primary focus of this paper is to assess the validity and relevance of Gramsci's theories in the contemporary media landscape through qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis.

The Colonial Medical Service was the branch of the Colonial Service responsible for healthcare provision in the British overseas territories. In this first published history of the Colonial Medical Service, Anna Crozier profiles Colonial medical officers serving in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania from the beginnings of British colonial rule to World War Two. Using both official and personal sources, the composition and experiences of this governmental cadre are profiled and analysed in a way that prioritises the experiences of colonial-medical life. The work is divided into two substantive parts: entering the Colonial Medical Service and experiencing the colonial medical career. The first looks at how doctors joined the Service, what the objective and subjective criteria for recruitment were and how these criteria influenced the types of individuals that were recruited. Then reasons for entering the Service are analysed, particularly looking at explanations from officers as well as examining broader contextual factors that may have stimulated recruitment. The second part of the work focuses upon the experiences specific to being a medical officer once arrived in East Africa. It outlines job descriptions and typical duties as well as the common experiences officers were likely to have and how these changed over time. Special attention is paid to the way colonial life demanded particular characteristics, ones stressed during the recruitment process and by the appointees themselves as defining the job as a 'different' choice for medical graduates. This reflection over the shared professional encounters moves to an argument for the development of distinct colonial medical identities, arguing that the sense of common mission and the shared experiences of this cohort bound officers together symbolically in a progressive British political and medical project. This formation of distinct colonial identities relied upon various (although also unifying) factors of race, situation, employer, profession and medical interests. The resulting sense of kinship, Crozier persuasively argues, both determined, and also to some degree regulated, colonial medical attitudes and behaviour.

As a typical product of their time, Francis Hodgson Burnett’s novels contain many classist and racist descriptions. In both A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911), the London setting is contrasted against the British Empire. In my paper, I analyse the description of the United Kingdom and India: worlds set apart according to geographic, social, and cultural viewpoints, but brought together by characters who migrate from one country to another, or, more specifically, from what is considered the periphery to the centre.

When discussing identity, particularly perceptions of identity, one immediately enters into something of an academic minefield. Nonetheless there are good reasons to review the issues of identity in a British context, not least as a result of the ongoing debates which have been raging about the subject since the opening of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999. One thing that seems clear from this scholarly (and often less than scholarly) renewed interest is that there is an underlying assumption that a concept of Britishness emerged, developed and is now suffering from some sort of irreconcilable clash of cultures which pits the Irish, Welsh and Scot against the larger and more powerful neighbour of England. Yet throughout the early modern period we also witness an undeniable movement towards bringing Scotland and England closer together into what would eventually become Great Britain in 1707. That process took the better part of two centuries to come to fruition and only after numerous contesting claims and projections of British identities at local, national and supra-national level had been adressed.

When The Return of the King was on cinema release in December 2003, it became the focal point for a recruitment drive for the British National Party (BNP). Pamphlets were distributed that bore the exhortation taken from Aragorn’s stirring speech at the Black Gates, ‘Stand, Men of the West!’ The ‘Men of the West’ had been translated directly to mean white Britons - and they were called on to stand against immigration. For the BNP, the theme of a homeland under threat from outsiders and the defence of a beloved culture was one that resonated with their political and ideological beliefs; the people who were going to see The Return of the King were deemed to include the sort of people whom the BNP wanted in their ranks - existing BNP members were encouraged to print off the aforementioned pamphlet and distribute copies among the audience as they left screenings of the film.
Even before this occurrence, struggle for ideological ‘ownership’ of Rings had been commented upon. Sophie Blakemore’s (2002) article from the Birmingham Post discusses the fact that on the day Towers came out on general release in Britain, Dr Stephen Shapiro of the University of Warwick commented on the worrying trend of the Rings being ‘hijacked’ by right wing groups. The article also mentions the encouragement on the part of local British right-wing groups to their members to see the film and offers Shapiro’s counter that all fans of Tolkien - whether of the novel or the films - who object to this reading of the work should make their own views heard (ibid.).
The focus of this article is the attempts by the B.N.P to appropriate The Lord of the Rings as a pro-fascist text; however there had been numerous objections to the way in which the BNP have appropriated British icons and iconography with a view to imbuing them with their own political rhetoric. As Philippe Naughton and Aled Thomas reported in the Times, the BNP ‘routinely uses pictures of Winston Churchill and took a Second World War Spitfire as the logo of its recent European election campaign — dubbed the "Battle for Britain" — when it had two MEPs elected’ (Naughton and Thomas 2009). The implication of such an association of British iconography with a model of right- wing rhetoric that emphasises patriotism is that anyone who is not ‘one of them’ is not a patriot and not truly British. The objections to the BNP’s attempt to co-opt signifiers of Britishness for their own ideological objectives were augmented by the disputed icons - the Spitfire, Churchill, the Armed Forces as an entity - being reclaimed by the Left.
This article looks at concepts of British National identity - its definitions and representations - and, drawing on the work of Albert Boime (1998) and others, looks at how cultural appropriation and reappropriation works to express the ideological discourses of both the Left and Right.

В статье речь идет о легитимирующем мифе сформировавшейся на территории
Британских островов раннестюартовской композитарной монархии. Несущей конструкцией нового
государства, в условиях сосуществования в рамках одной империи разнородных по этнокультурному
признаку народов, сделалась новая территориальная общность — «британская нация». Построение новой
общности влекло за собой проблему соотношения «британского» и «английского», варварства и
цивилизованности, которая провозглашалась миссией англичан в виде «британского проекта».
Различные концепции британской идентичности и этногенеза британского народа исследуются на
примере «Поли-Альбиона» Майкла Дрэйтона.

This thesis focuses on the topic: The evolution of brand endorsement around the world
with a focus on the 'James Bond' Franchise (select films). The core of the thesis will
revolve around how various brands and the James Bond film franchise have shared a
symbiosis that is unique and trendsetting. The standpoint of this research will be based on my
(Archith Narasimhan's) experience in the advertising industry (as Copywriter and later
Manager for Planning and Strategy) as well as a Masters' student of Media, Film-Studies and
Global Communication. The research looks at twelve of EON Productions' James Bond films
to explore how brands have evolved in their marketing communication; while the films have
had to change their approach with time. All the films will be assessed qualitatively, keeping
in mind 5 main aspects of the character and the stories:
 Clothing and Fashion
 Cars and Motorcycles (Automobiles)
 Weapons (Sidearms)
 Gadgets (Technology)
 Watches
The research ultimately aims in shedding a branding oriented light on the James Bond
franchise and a film-oriented light on branding, while also taking into consideration how this
has been able to evolve marketing, advertising, consumer culture and the concept of national identity in Britain.

The Fabulous Journeys of Alice and Pinocchio si apre con una citazione del romanziere italiano Italo Calvino, tradotta in lingua inglese: “The classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the languages and customs) through which they have passed” (p. 1). Le parole dello scrittore testimoniano lo spunto critico da cui la ricerca del volume ha avuto origine. Laura Tosi (Professore ordinario presso l’Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia) e Peter Hunt (Professore Emerito presso la Cardiff University) hanno, infatti, colto la necessità di approfondire l’essenza e l’impatto che Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871) e Le Avventure di Pinocchio (1883) hanno suggerito ai lettori di tutte le lingue e le culture con cui sono entrati in contatto.


The Fabulous Journeys of Alice and Pinocchio. Exploring Their Parallel Words. Laura Tosi, Peter Hunt, eds., Jefferson NC, Mc Farland and Company, 2018, 978-1-4766-6543-6 / 978-1-4766-3194-3

New book out now: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-multiculturalism-and-the-politics-of-representation.html and https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Multiculturalism-Politics-Representation-Lecturer-International-Relations-Thomassen/1474422667/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1484317128&sr=8-4&keywords=lasse+thomassen

See attached flyer for details and discount code

This article addresses a need for refinement and greater conceptual clarity about non-white British identity in the British Empire and its aftermath, by focussing on the Tamils of Jaffna in northern Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Tamils from socially and intellectually elite backgrounds exemplify the nuances of a particular type of non-white ‘British’ identity, which are explored here as variously functional, ascribed, and emotional. ‘Functional’ refers to modes of identification in which Tamils attempted to call on a British moral and intellectual heritage in order to achieve political goals. By contrast, ‘ascribed’ denotes a Britishness that was imposed on Tamils by other colonial subjects as a result of their perceived affiliation with British authority and power. Finally, ‘emotional’ identification with Britishness refers to residual or outmoded forms of attachment to a shared imperial identity, which were expressed by Tamils in the aftermath of the British Empire. While Tamils never simpl...

New book out now: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-multiculturalism-and-the-politics-of-representation.html and https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Multiculturalism-Politics-Representation-Lecturer-International-Relations-Thomassen/1474422667/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1484317128&sr=8-4&keywords=lasse+thomassen See attached flyer for details and discount code

This paper examines British newspaper representations of the ‘Team GB’ athlete Mohamed ‘Mo’ Farah during the 2012 London Olympic Games. In particular, attention is given to examining how representations of Farah were related to discourses on British multiculturalism. A brief discussion of recent rejections of multiculturalism is provided, with specific reference given to political and public calls for immigrants to assimilate with ‘British values’. By turning away from a dichotomous understanding of assimilation, this article suggests that processes of assimilation reflect a complicated coalescence of national inclusion and exclusion. That is, rather than simply highlighting how the national press serve to reproduce simple ‘us’ and ‘them’ binaries, this article draws upon Elias and Scotson’s (1994) established-outsider perspective in order to examine how the discursive construction of the ‘nation’ rests upon a dynamic process of identifying and managing ‘outsider’ individuals. As a result, while ‘outsider’ groups are frequently subjected to negative media portrayals, it is argued that Farah’s significance was underscored by discourses that sought to highlight his assimilated Britishness and through his promotion as a symbol of Britain’s achieved multiculturalism.

In this brief contribution, we cautiously propose a parallel between Roman Britain and Cisalpine Gaul. The comparison is based on an analysis of the Romano-British section of the British Museum, as compared to similar sections in northern Italian museums. In both cases, mutatis mutandis, we see an Iron Age Celtic society which gradually becomes Roman and signs of deep Romanization together with remnants of the Celtic past (deeper in Britain, shallower but longer lasting in Cisalpine Gaul),  centuries after the Roman conquest.

Applies corporate identity theory to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Whilst the BBC has an enviable reputation for the breadth, depth and quality of its broadcasts which accounts for its esteem as the world's premier public service broadcasting organisation it is not beyond reproach. In particular, this article uncovers the myth, paradox of the BBC when the Corporation's actual corporate identity. Despite the rhetoric, the BBC sometimes fails to serve the broad British public in the way it is charged to do and, as such, the BBC can be a self serving, myopic and self-serving institution. For example, available models of corporate image formation stress the importance of staff, corporate culture and a clear statement of corporate philosophy. However, the BBC is beset with a number of difficulties including a fragmented culture leading to a fragmentation of effort and the lack of a clear corporate philosophy. In this regard, the article found the BBC's original motto 'Quaecunque' ("Whatsoever things are true etc..."-inspired by Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians - established by Reith and the one he used as his own motto) is a more appropriate, meaningful and enduring motto for the Corporation than its replacement, and somewhat flaccid, motto 'Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation.' Argues, the BBC's original purpose and values (as reflected in Reith's motto) are still meaningful. An examination of the rarely used alternative motto of the corporation was argued to be of significance. One test of the suitability of a guiding organisational philosophy (such as the one reflected in the BBC's original motto) is the degree to which it is applicable to Great Britain. This is because the BBC is sometimes seen to be a repository of British cultural values and enjoys an important quasi-constitutional role. The article concludes by noting how organisation's in examining their past often find their future and, as such, argues for senior managers to revisit their organisation's foundational identities and purposes-especially in relation to the values and vision of their founder. This is especially germane for the BBC.

This article examines in what sense the decline of the coal industry contributed to the emergence of a debate about the genesis, shape und future of ‘Britishness’ in the 1990s and early 2000s. Taking a discourse-analytical approach, it argues that the decline of the coal industry contributed to bringing about the debate in two ways: firstly, by feeding into popular narratives of national decline and renewal, it helped to provide the debate’s intellectual background. Secondly, the political cleavages of the 1980s and 1990s between Old Labour, Thatcherism and New Labour elevated the coal industry to a contested symbol for a way of life and a political orientation. These differing interpretations, in return, were associated with a particularly British social reality, a self-conception of the British nation that was embedded in the London-centric political and cultural discourse. Changes to this self-narration required an explanation, which various contributions to the discussion of ‘Britishness’ in politics and popular culture sought to provide in the 1990s and early 2000s.

This article critically reflects upon media coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, scrutinising the emergent discursive constructions of ‘Britishness’ and ‘Scottishness’ through an examination of both London-based (English) and Scotland-based publications. Drawing upon Dayan and Katz’s portrayal of ‘media events’, the article explores how both events presented competing sites of symbolic struggle during a period of constitutional and political turmoil. Consideration is given to the existence of a ‘hegemonic Britishness’ in print media narratives of these events, as evident in the emergent connotations associated with ‘British nationalism’ and ‘Scottish separatism’.

Sport continues to be one of the primary means through which notions of Englishness and Britishness are constructed, contested and resisted. The legacy of the role of sport in the colonial project of the British Empire, combined with more recent connections between sport and far right fascist/nationalist politics has made the association between Britishness, Englishness and ethnic identity(ies) particularly intriguing. In this paper, these intersections are explored through British media coverage of the Canadian-born, British tennis player, Greg Rusedski. This coverage is examined through the lens of ‘performativity’, as articulated by Judith Butler. Through a critical application of Butler’s ideas, the ways in which the media seek to recognise and normalise certain identities, while problematising and excluding others, can be more fully appreciated. Thus, it was within newspaper framings of Rusedski that hegemonic notions of White Englishness could be performed, maintained and embedded.

Summary


This thesis examines the significance of local politics and government in Dublin city, and the independent suburban townships, from the introduction of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898 to the final peace-time local elections of 1914.

Using council minute-books and contemporary press reports, the thesis investigates the social, economic and political relationships between the Municipal Council of the City of Dublin and the Urban District Councils of Clontarf, Drumcondra, New Kilmainham, Pembroke, Rathmines & Rathgar, Blackrock, Kingstown, Dalkey, Killiney & Ballybrack and Bray. The administrative and political interaction with government, both at Westminster and in Dublin Castle, is considered through official reports and parliamentary debates. By studying the electoral campaigns and manuscript collections the research also investigates connections between party politics at a local and national level.

In setting out the international context for the evolution of municipal government, the research considers Dublin’s development against its contemporary theoretical and ideological backdrop. Between 1898 and 1922, Ireland and Britain shared the same system of local government, however it only operated as its architects intended in the years before the outbreak of war. The thesis examines the behaviour of Dublin’s civil society during this brief period, testing concepts put forward by Graeme Morton and Norton E. Long on the role of municipal government vis a vis the state.

The research traces the complexities of Irish local government in the nineteenth century to understand the reformed system’s operational and electoral inheritance. Studying the region’s first local elections in the new era, in January 1899, shows the impact which the transformed franchise had on campaigners, officials and results. The ensuing growth in local government powers and responsibilities presented enormous challenges to city and suburban councillors. This work assesses councils’ responses to these social, political and administrative trials.

Detailed research on the 1901 and 1911 censuses traced the individual household returns for over seven hundred candidates competing in elections across the Dublin region. From this, a comprehensive database was produced, allowing a wide range of demographic statistics to be established. The resulting tables and histograms reveal the occupational, religious and age profiles of councillors in the predominantly nationalist city and the mainly unionist suburbs. These are compared with the statistics for the voting public to consider whether local councillors were representative of their communities. An examination of demographic profiles by political party in 1899, for example, shows socio-economic differences between Parnellite and Anti-Parnellite factions in the city, while suburban unionists had the highest rate of Dublin-born councillors. Continuing the analysis of the censal data to 1911 demonstrates gradual sectarian polarisation of the political class, with increasing proportions of Catholic councillors in the city and more Protestants in the suburbs. At the same time a growing number of councillors throughout the region lived on investments in property or finances.

The consistent level of unionist membership on the city council was significant, especially when considered alongside the fracturing of Irish Parliamentary Party’s broad nationalist front in the first decade of the twentieth century. Reform and Ratepayers’ parties emerged representing voters who sought municipal reform, and who were not attracted by the traditional nationalist or unionist programmes. Beneath its Gaelic radicalism, Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin is seen to be part of a broader reformist movement throughout the UK. Examples of similar urban political groups, bent on cleansing local councils of cronyism and the power of the publican, are found in London, Leeds and across the Atlantic at this time. Sinn Féin’s cooperation with municipal unionists, Labour and the Reform party won them considerable support in the party’s early years. Later the IPP regained some nationalist ground, while Labour under Larkin won back its original radical supporters; support for Sinn Féin slowly declined.

Combining the analyses of voting strengths and demographic profiles revealed that working-class Protestants in the city did not automatically support unionist candidates. Like their fellow workers and co-religionists in Britain, many of them opted to vote Labour. The consistently high proportion of suburban council seats held by unionists is explained by the support they attracted from very many middle-class Catholic voters. These two facts show the importance of class identity in municipal, and arguably in national, politics in Ireland.

The value of the urban element to an understanding of Irish history is central to the argument. This thesis demonstrates the significance of Dublin’s local politics to any appreciation of a period frequently overshadowed by subsequent revolutionary events.

This article critically reflects upon media coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, scrutinising the emergent discursive constructions of ‘Britishness’ and ‘Scottishness’ through an examination of both London-based (English) and Scotland-based publications. Drawing upon Dayan and Katz’s portrayal of ‘media events’, the article explores how both events presented competing sites of symbolic struggle during a period of constitutional and political turmoil. Consideration is given to the existence of a ‘hegemonic Britishness’ in print media narratives of these events, as evident in the emergent connotations associated with ‘British nationalism’ and ‘Scottish separatism’.