Marvellous Modern Britain unleashed upon the world’: Mass rituals and the articulation of nations as coherent, meaningful and ‘objective’ entities

Paper by Michael Skey, Senior Lecturer in Communication & Media at the School of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK.

Abstract

Contra to Anderson’s seminal argument, this paper argues that nations are not imagined but lived, embodied, heard, viewed, represented, materialised and felt communities. While much recent research on hot and banal nationalism can be used to bolster this view, for this session, I want to focus on the significance of ecstatic nationalism, events designed to commemorate, celebrate or mourn the nation. Building on Dayan & Katz’s work on media events, the paper outlines the main features of such ecstatic national events and then draws on insights from social psychology (entitativity, perceived collective continuity), anthropology (ritual, liminal) and media sociology (practices, performance, emotions) in order to offer a more critical (non-functionalist) framework for making sense of their impact. Drawing on examples from Britain, the Netherlands, China and Israel, it is suggested that such events are crucial in manifesting the nation as a more or less coherent entity that can be seen and heard, and idealised as well as providing opportunities for collective effervescence.

Bio

Michael Skey is a Senior Lecturer in Communication & Media at the School of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK. His research interests are in the following areas; (national) belonging, globalisation, cosmopolitanism, media events and rituals, communication and sport, and discourse theory. He has published widely on these topics including the prize-winning monograph National Belonging & Everyday Life and two edited collections; Everyday Nationhood (with Marco Antonsich) and Cultures of Authenticity (with Marie Hermanova & Tom Thurnell-Read).