This paper departs from the idea that citizens are not passive recipient of the ideal type nationhood worked out by elites. Instead citizens have room to negotiate and redefine their identity, and therefore what they declare to be their identity will not always be as accurate as social scientist assume.
When citizens speak out their identity they evaluate who is asking, what are her motivations for asking, how will the answer more likely be interpreted, what is the context, what other people answer etc. Theories such as those dealing with auto-censorship, the spiral of silence, or Goffman’s presentation of the self in every day live are relevant to understand and describe how this negotiation takes place.
The room for negotiation includes the rejection of a particular national label, the redefinition of the label, as well as the acceptance of a redefined label. The process of redefinition will most likely make use of banal elements that make easier the acceptance of a national label. However these banal elements are usually overlooked with just a generic reference of “banal identity”. This article argues that those elements deserve a deeper understanding and analysis, as well as a better definition of what would be banal and non-banal elements.
The paper analyses 11 focus groups carried out in 4 Spanish regions: Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid and Galicia, to see how the Spanish national identity is negotiated by leftist citizens, who traditionally have found it difficult to identify with Spain, particularly in some regions.
