Empire-nation: National and Imperial Discourses in England

Abstract

When the states of England and Scotland combined in 1707, the conditions were created whereby English nationalism and interests would affect the expressions of a new British nationalism and notions of Britishness. As the British state expanded into Empire, ‘Anglo-British national identity’ began to be expressed through an imperial-national discourse based on notions of governance. As ‘Englishness’ played a large part in the creation of ‘Britishness’, so too did imperial discourses of ‘Britishness’ affect the meaning of ‘Englishness’. Thus, with England as the most powerful and conspicuous of all the constituent parts of the Union, the statist and imperial framework for discourses of British nationalism that were articulated would not so much submerge Englishness, but feed into it. This situation gave Englishness and Britishness much of the same character, ‘hiding’ English identity in the sense that it became implicit in manifestations of ‘British’ identity and making the terms ‘English’ and ‘British’ almost synonymous – at least for the English. The conflation of notions of England, Britain and Empire also allowed English nationalists to appropriate non-English space and peoples when speaking about and defining England. Accordingly, it is here argued that imperial and national discourses are not necessarily opposed to each other, but are able to feed into each other, affecting the manner in which ideas of the nation are conceived and articulated.