Banal nationalism in the family. Genesis and implementation of a research project

Abstract

Speaker Sophie Duchesne, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Since the mid-1990's, 'banal nationalism' has found a wide audience. A lot of work has been devoted to observing in various contexts the ubiquitous national flagging that Michael Billig has revealed in his book. But the analysis of how banal nationalism works, of how these flagging's sustain national preference, remains little developed. One hypothesis is that nationalism is the result of a very early socialisation, which takes place within the family. The nation would be at the heart of parental transmission. The Survey on the Transmission of Belonging Within the Family (Enquête sur la transmission des appartenances au sein de la famille, https://www.centreemiledurkheim.fr/projets-de-recherche/etpaf/) project was designed to study the way parents transmit national allegiance, using an innovative and qualitative method to investigate parents’ educational practices. This talk will review the background to the project, the research design we arrived at and the difficulties encountered in its implementation. It will conclude by presenting for discussion the hypotheses on which we are undertaking the analysis. The data collected is particularly rich. They confirm the obvious, never questioned, nature of parental responsibility in the transmission of national feeling. We hope to be able to unlock the black box of identification with the nation.