Scotland's post‐referenda futures

Abstract

In the midst of chaotic Brexit negotiations and the failing political processes of Westminster, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is preparing to call a new independence referendum, arguing that Scotland should not be taken out of Europe against its will. As the SNP begins campaigning for a new referendum, two different visions of Scotland’s independent future emerge: one based on concrete economic and welfare policies championed by the party, the other, an unofficial activist‐driven orientation of the future as ‘empty’. The first makes the future tangible, populated with wishful images and achievable goals. The second promises the future as a blank slate, to be authored only after a successful independence vote. These two orientations exist in tension with one another, in continuous negotiation as they are played out on the SNP campaign trail.

The possibility of possibility: Between ethnography and social theory

“…The SNP considers itself to be a civic nationalist party who argue in favour of independence for democratic -rather than historical -reasons (Manley, 2019(Manley, , 2021. In 2014, this position led them to reject traditional historically-grounded nationalist narratives, re-framing instead their pro-independence message as one entirely concerned with Scotland's future possibilities.…”

“…In Manley’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Edinburgh, the 2014 referendum is recalled by SNP supporters as ‘dizzying’, ‘exhilarating’ and even at times ‘a little scary, but in a good way’; their actions opening up hopeful possibilities by destroying the status quo in order to create Kierkegaardian ‘new and original forms of living’. In contrast to the response to the Greek economic crisis discussed below, pro-independence supporters in Scotland were moved into political action by this opening of futural possibility, the potential rupture and subsequent political fallout inciting hope, rather than anxiety, through its clouded unknowable state (Manley, 2019). When balanced on the referendum’s cliff-edge, not knowing whether to hold on to the familiar political status quo, or plunge into the unknown futures associated with independence, pro-independence supporters embraced the vertiginous, the potential rupture, which inspired in them the sense of audacious discovery mentioned by Serres.…”