NATIONAL IDENTITIES AND EMOTION IN THE DISCOURSE OF BRITISH MANUFACTURING UNIONS IN THE 1980s AND EARLY 1990s

Abstract

This article attempts to explain increasing economic nationalism among British trade unions in the 1980s and early 1990s by linking together approaches from two disciplines which are usually pursued separately, namely psychoanalysis and sociology. By means of a case study of the collective identities of British trade unions in the 1980s and early 1990s, the article shows that despite a strong internationalist rhetoric, British unions responded to economic globalization and European integration during this period with a discourse of economic nationalism which also came to be strengthened and reinforced by strong feelings of shame and anger, which in turn undercut the articulation of broader forms of identification at either the European or the wider supra-national levels. Drawing on a theoretical framework developed in a previous article, the main argument is that in the context of an increasingly global economy and a hostile Conservative government, British unions' increasing economic nationalism may be thought of partly as discourse or political rhetoric and partly as a ‘social defence mechanism’ rooted in the anxiety generated by the social conditions of the unions. Finally, the data also lend some, albeit tentative, support to the thesis advanced by a number of authors that national identities and their accompanying emotions also tend to be expressed in a gendered form.

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