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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.
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Michael Billig's book, Banal Nationalism, published in 1995, has a significant international reputation and is one of the books most commonly quoted in Anglophone studies on nationalism. This article follows on from the various books and articles that were published for the 20th anniversary of the book and underlines the way in which the posterity of this thesis is partly based on a misunderstanding, or a misappropriation. In a context in which the end of nations seemed imminent, Banal Nationalism aimed to demonstrate that, on the contrary, nationalism was indeed spread massively and invisibly throughout the world, and particularly in established Western democracies. Yet today this book is considered one of the founding texts of the bottom-up approach to national identity, which puts individuals at the heart of the fabrication of nations. This article discusses how this interpretation has come about.
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This introduction considers the significance of Michael Billig's (1995) Banal Nationalism to geographers, and how this fits into broader trends of nationalism research in the social sciences. Through an analysis of Web of Science citation trends for the book, we illustrate its spatial and temporal reach in terms of the countries where it has been cited and how its impact has developed since 1995. We also briefly examine how political geographers have engaged the concept of banal nationalism in their research, and what sort of questions it has raised for those conducting research on nationalist discourses and territorial identity narratives more broadly. Considering how political geographers might creatively advance this scholarship, we introduce the individual papers included in this special issue and conclude with a brief gesture to future directions for research beyond Banal Nationalism.
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Michael Billig presents a major challenge to orthodox conceptions of nationalism. While traditional theorizing has focused on extreme expressions of nationalism thus making it an exotic and remote concern, Michael Billig turns his attention to the everyday, and so less visible, forms that are deeply ingrained in contemporary consciousness. Banal Nationalism asks why people do not forget their national identity. It contends that nationalism is constantly "flagged" in the media through routine symbols and habits of language. In a well-thought-out analysis, the author shows how assumptions of nationhood are regularly conveyed, often through small familiar turns of phrase, and how these reminders operate mindlessly beyond the level of conscious awareness, like the flag, which hangs unnoticed outside a public building. Banal Nationalism addresses these core features of nationalism while providing the reader with meaningful insights into their own nationality. Billig's elegantly written and broad-ranging book argues forcefully that nationalism continues to be a major ideological force in the contemporary world and will be essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.
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- Michael Billig
- banal nationalism (4)
- civil religion (2)
- everyday nationhood (1)
- flag display (1)
- flag use (1)
- ideology (1)
- national identity (4)
- national symbols (3)
- nationalism (1)
- patriotism (2)
- political symbols (1)
- sociology (1)