The National in Everyday Life: A Critical Engagement with Michael Billig's Thesis ofBanal Nationalism

Abstract

This paper is designed to provide a critical engagement with Michael Billig's seminal thesis of Banal Nationalism (1995), perhaps the most influential study of everyday forms of nationhood. With an increasing number now focusing on the (re) production, dissemination and negotiation of the national through routine texts and practices (cf Foster, 2002;Edensor, 2002;Madianou, 2005;Brubaker et al., 2006;Bratsis, 2006) and others employing the concept of banality in relation to non-national (Gorringe, 2006) and post-national identities (Aksoy and Robins, 2002;Szerszynski and Urry, 2002;Beck, 2006;Cram, 2001), it would seem like an opportune moment to assess Billig's contribution and also the limits of his approach.In the first instance, a brief overview of Billig's work will be provided, including definitions and the main thrust of his argument. The significance of the study to both theories of nationalism and the social sciences in general will be then assessed. In the second part of the paper, I want to adopt a more critical approach by drawing on the work of those who have attempted to 'test' empirically or interrogate Billig's thesis, by focusing on its lack of complexity. Finally I will draw attention to Billig's failure to address effectively the place of the nation in a globalising world and the relationship between hot and banal forms of nationalism. Here, a more dynamic model for the study of the nation at the level of the everyday is offered, one that specifically attends to wider socio-economic and political shifts. Banal nationalism: a brief overviewBroadly speaking, Michael Billig's study of Banal Nationalism (1995) seeks to draw attention to and problematise what he labels as a 'double neglect' in how the contemporary era is understood and theorised (Billig, 1995: 49). First, he notes that much of the writing about nationalism is generally discussed in

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