A methodology for analysing of the discursive construction of the nation

It was concluded in chapter one that nations are social constructs and that nation-building is carried out discursively. It was also argued that the discursive construction of the nation as a historical process occurred in modern times, although not all its building blocks are necessarily modern. This chapter has presented a theoretical model to explain how this discursive construction of the nation operates. Let me summarize what has been said before outlining a methodology for the study of nation-building in Spain.

Nation-building is said to be enacted discursively, in terms of observable social practices situated across time-space. Such practices consist of multimodal semiotic work structured at different levels which in turn operate at different scales according to Giddens’s theory of

social structuration. At the lowest level we have myriad micro-events and event chains, such as the regular presence of flags in official buildings. Events such as these are enacted by reflexive social agents across dynamically inter-related social domains. The continuous reproduction of micro-events gives rise to processes operating at the meso-structural level in the timescale of conjuncture: see, for instance, the decentralization process Spain has experienced after 1975. At the macro level of structuration, we have highly abstract agent-less phenomena situated at the longue durée, such as time-space distanciation, identity or territorialization. As Sewel (2005) explains, structures such as these consist of a duality of virtual cultural schema and actual resources which both enable and constrain social action at the meso and micro levels. Ideographic analysis, based on first-hand experiences grounded

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on a strong empirical basis, is the preferred method in studying micro-events. Meso-processes are less susceptible to idiographic analysis than micro-events because they may operate along complex chains of causes and effects situated across different realms of the social, while the analysis of macro-structures can only be nomothetic, based on deductive generalization and rational argumentation.

Nation-building resulted from two inter-related phenomena. The first of these was the profound socio-economic changes of structural nature defined as “modernisation” leading to the emergence of a national mode of organization. A defining structure of modernisation was the progressive distanciation between time and space where social action increasingly transcended the realm of the local. This turned nations into imaginable communities where the State was able to exercise its homogeneising action over a territory in different phases, described by Taylor (2003) as “power container”, “wealth container”, “cultural container” and “social container”. Another key process of modernisation was the rise and consolidation

of capitalism and industrialization in which Nation-States have operated as key political units. The second phenomenon implicated in nation-building was the nationalist mobilization led by the State and its elites which resulted in the emergence and diffusion of national narratives giving rise to more or less hegemonic identity discourses.

On the basis of these insights, I propose a discourse-oriented methodology to study nation-building in Spain combining the historical analysis of social structures, processes and events implicated in this construction with the study of national narratives during specific periods. Such a methodology would integrate the nomothetic and idiographic modes of analysis enabling me to test hypothesis and draw generalizations based on concrete empirical

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evidence. On the one hand, I will examine the specific conditions present in the historical development of the national mode of organization in Spain, with particular emphasis on the effects derived from State-building and modernisation. This will consist of a critical review of historical accounts of Spanish nation-building and modernisation. The approach adopted here will be predominantly nomothetic given the structural complexity and higher level of abstraction of the phenomena being examined, although the discussion will be illustrated with concrete evidence from different periods. On the other hand, I will research the nature and level of nationalist mobilization by examining the construction of national narratives and analyse the extent to which more or less hegemonic nationalist discourses have led to the emergence and consolidation of specific forms of Spanish identity. In researching this aspect of nation-building, I will combine the nomothetic analysis of the historical conditions present in the formulation of such narratives with the idiographic commentary of such narratives based on concrete examples. This broader historical analysis will be complemented with a more focused quantitative empirical study of recent national narratives from the Spanish press. The idea is to triangulate the qualitative analysis of national narratives against a “quantitative snapshot” of how these narratives have been constructed in Spain in recent

years based on data extracted from a large corpus of newspaper articles.

As argued before, this corpus-oriented discourse analytical approach can be a valid methodology for text-based analyses of social issues as it addresses some of the methodological shortcomings derived from alternative methods of discourse analysis and discourse-based historical research: it provides an objective method of text selection enhancing the representativity of our data; it offers a standardized replicable method of linguistic analysis and it allows us to make reliable generalizations about language used

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based on large amounts of data, revealing what is typical in a discourse without neglecting the existence of counter-examples which may constitute proof of anecdotal or counter-hegemonic discourses. Ideally this corpus-based approach to text analysis should be applied to different historical periods. This is not possible due to the limitations in the scope of this research. The hope is to lay the foundation for future studies where the present findings could be contrasted against additional evidence.

I provide in chapter three a historical introduction to the development of the national mode of organization in Spain and I discuss the extent to which more or less consolidated Spanish identity discourses could emerge during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by reviewing the work of historians, economists, sociologists and political scientists, with particular emphasis on macro structures and processes supplemented with concrete examples from specific periods. In Chapters four and five the emphasis will be on the micro. I will concentrate on the corpus-based discourse analysis of recent national narratives in the Spanish press. The approach adopted here will combine the more quantitative, lexically oriented methodology of corpus linguistics with the qualitative analysis of entire texts. Such approach is said to help us minimize the micro-macro gap by favouring objectivity and representativity and providing a more balanced and comprehensive method of linguistic analysis at different levels.

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CHAPTER 3: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATION IN SPAIN, A