Categories: random
Tags: identity, nationality
Date: 25 September 2008 20:39:28
Jane at Fuzzy Edges said nice things about my entry from a couple of weeks ago (ostensibly about my feelings about not being on the NMC register any more, but more accurately my musings on identity and what gives me a sense of identity). Since Greenbelt I've been meaning to blog a bit more about identity, but not quite got round to it. I attended a very interesting seminar by Kathy Galloway from the Iona Community about Scottish identity and spirituality - unfortunately I have mislaid (or maybe left in Luton) the notes I made on my programme so this might be a bit garbled (Shurely not - Ed). She talked about the stories Scottish people as a nation tell about their nationhood and delved a bit into some of them. For example, stories of permanent victimhood (particularly at the hands of the English), traditions of community and acceptance and democracy, and that sort of thing. She said some really interesting things about that (I really must get hold of the talk and listen to it again), but what I thought was very interesting, and which resonated with me, was how discourses have evolved, so that instead of "we're not from England", that has largely morphed in contemporary Scottish discourse into what she described as the more malevolent "we're not English". I can really relate to that. I absolutely love living in Scotland, I like lots of the Scottish culture and outlook on life and the fact that I'm living somewhere with a very strong and pronounced sense of shared identity. But ever since I've been here I've had a profound lack of any sense of national identity myself. I guess because England itself is so diverse - I come from a smallish market town not that far north of Watford (and even though I say I'm from the Midlands, to be honest culturally I'm probably a right southern jessie), so have few of the same cultural referents as, say, someone from a northern industrial city or from rural Cornwall or whathaveyou - it is impossible for two people to say "I am English" and for it to necessarily mean the same thing, whereas the impression I have here in Scotland is that despite large differences in experience between rural and urban areas, between island and mainland dwellers, between those in the Highlands and those in the Borders, still "I am Scottish" has much more of a common meaning. So, I've had this sense of not having a very well-defined identity whilst being here, and am well aware that I have different experiences and cultural referents than my Scottish neighbours and colleagues, but it is different from other experiences I've had of being "foreign". When I lived in Eastern Europe, of course I was aware of being a foreigner, but I had more of a sense of what "being English" meant - maybe that's because, if I met up with expats, we had the shared sense of being foreign, of seeing the same TV shows, all that kind of silly stuff, as well as similar tales of reactions to culturally unfamiliar situations, so the regional differences that there may have been had we all been in England weren't so pronounced. But I did feel "English". In Scotland though, I think more than anything else I feel that my primary identity is not "English", but rather "not Scottish". So when Kathy Galloway talked about the malevolence of Scottish discourse referring to not being English, rather than not being from England, that did ring a bell with me. Personally, I haven't felt any malevolence or anti-Englishness here, quite the opposite (as long as I don't talk about football - and actually I'd much rather support Scotland than England anyway!) - people have been really friendly, and I absolutely love living here and being somewhere which does have such a strong sense of national and cultural identity. I think more than anything else this whole "not Scottish"/"English" thing has left me feeling more perplexed than anything else about my national identity. And I think that the constant commuting between here and England that I'm doing at the moment has just added to the bewilderment. It's got me thinking about the importance of place in our sense of who we are - when I come back to Glasgow I feel really like I'm home, I can be myself here (even though I'm not sure about all the identifiers of "myself" - see above!), whereas the bit of England where HD and I are spending most of our time at the moment because of his work just leaves me feeling, well, nothing much really. Despite having family there (and my own home town, where most of my family still are, is only an hour's drive away, so culturally it's actually all very similar and familiar), I have no sense of belonging there, of "fitting in" with the place. It's like, there's something about the personality of Glasgow which somehow chimes with my personality (and, I think, with HD's). Actually, it's probably a good thing that I don't think Luton reflects my personality. That would be a bit sad!! Anyway - if you didn't click on the link at the top, do read Jane's post, it's well worth a read. I haven't even touched on the spiritual side of things, but she does, and much better than I ever could. Maybe I'll have a go in another post sometime.