Performing Legitimate Nationhood: Actors, Audiences and Scripts in the French Veil Debates

• In Event: 151 - Regular Session. Nations/Nationalism

Abstract

A consensus has emerged among scholars that republicanism drives legislation to restrict Islamic symbols in France’s public spaces and institutions. This article draws insight from an emergent study of politics as performance to offer an alternative explanation. Based on in-depth analysis of the debates surrounding the Gérin commission – the six-month government inquiry that preceded France’s 2010 ban on face coverings – I propose that, rather than a straightforward guide to policy, republicanism is one of many scripts upon which competing political actors draw to perform nationhood in ways that audiences will deem intelligible, authentic and legitimate. Using evidence from transcripts of the commission deliberations and interviews with twenty-eight key commissioners, participants and audience members, the article offers a rare glimpse into the mindset of those who articulate, activate and redefine national discourses in moments of upheaval. In addition to pushing forward the study of nationhood as a contingent cultural and political practice, the article provides an empirical roadmap for linking disembodied national discourses to the political relations and practices that lead to their enactment.

Author

• Emily J. Laxer, University of Toronto