Seminario "The Terms of Belonging in Minority Nations: Markers of National Identity in Quebec and Scotland and Attitudes toward Minority Groups"

Por Antoine Bilodeau (Concordia University)

Antoine Bilodeau is a full professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University and the director of the Immigration Research Initiative (IRI). His research interests focus on the political integration of immigrants and on the dynamics of openness to immigration and ethnocultural diversity in Quebec and elsewhere in the world. His research has been published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nations and Nationalism, International Political Science Review, Publius, Democratization, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Politics and Religion and Territory, and Politics and Governance.

Abstract: The production and reproduction of community boundaries occupies an important place in minority nations’ politics. If a certain number of studies have examined the ways in which citizens of minority nations define the terms of belonging (McCrone and Bechhofer 2008, 2015; Rosie 2014; Bilodeau and Turgeon 2021), most are limited to case studies. This paper builds on this gap and offers a comparison of the terms of belonging as defined by majority group members in two minority nations, namely Quebec and Scotland. Two objectives are pursued. First, we compare the terms of belonging in Quebec and Scotland, more specifically, comparing the markers of national identity that are most salient in the two minority national contexts. Second, we explore the connection between the predominant markers of national identity in Quebec and Scotland and how they shape views toward minority groups.

The paper relies on two online surveys conducted in Quebec in 2022 (n=2400) and in Scotland in 2023 (n=1200) among majority group members using similar question wordings.