Abstract
The British nation state is a myth. It has never really existed. Not, that is, in the literal sense of one national group bound together through a common ancestry and/or heritage, living in one political entity called a state. Indeed, there is no modern state which is not multi-racial or multi-national in character. In Britain there has been an attempt to construct the nation around the myth of a continuous line of Anglo-Saxon people with unique rights to claim Britain as their ‘homeland’. In reality the British Isles have for centuries been inhabited by a variety of peoples with different cultural, linguistic, racial and even national identities. At the same time, because of Britain’s imperial history, those who did come to share a common British identity and/or citizenship (characteristics generally associated with nationhood) have not all lived in the UK but have been scattered around the world — their access to the rights which flow from citizenship dependent on their ancestry or race.
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© 1989 Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias
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Klug, F. (1989). ‘Oh to be in England’: the British Case Study. In: Yuval-Davis, N., Anthias, F., Campling, J. (eds) Woman-Nation-State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19865-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19865-8_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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