History in the Service of Politics
Constructing Narratives of History During the European Refugee “Crisis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7971946 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steve Kirkwood (0000-0003-1508-0835, University of Edinburgh, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 297-313 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/pops.12511 |
| OpenAlex | W2889197770 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
| References cited | 46 |
It is common for politicians to refer to “our proud history of supporting refugees,” yet the historical record regarding responses to refugees is not straightforwardly positive. So how is history drawn upon in political debates regarding refugees? Applying discursive psychology, this article analyzes the use of history in five U.K. parliamentary debates that took place from September 2015 to January 2016 on the European refugee “crisis.” The analysis identifies six “functions” of the use of the history: resonance, continuity, reciprocity, posterity, responsibility, and redemption. It shows how references to historical events create narratives regarding the United Kingdom’s history of supporting refugees in order to construct the nation in particular ways, mobilize collective identities, and legitimize or criticize political actions. Specifically, references to the United Kingdom’s role in providing refuge to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany functions as a hegemonic narrative that reinforces the United Kingdom’s “heroic” position and constructs the Syrian conflict as involving an oppressive dictator and innocent refugees in need to help, thereby legitimizing support for Syrian refugees. The analysis demonstrates the flexibility of historical narratives, reformulates the distinction between “psychological” and “rhetorical” uses of historical analogies, and reflects on the social and political implications of such uses of history
Hegemony · Literature · Narrative · Political history · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Rhetorical question · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Representations and Identity
Restorative justice, refugees and criminal harm in places of asylum
In Then Out of the Frame
How being rooted in the past can shape the future
Historical revisionism in contemporary India
Adjusting to the canon
Representations of traffickers in official UK discourse
Historical analogies under dispute
A haunting past
At the Gates
Liminal Populism—The Transformation of the Hungarian Migration Discourse
Putting the past into action
Living the past? Do historical legacies moderate the relationship between national chauvinism/cultural patriotism and xenophobic attitudes toward immigrants
National Days, National Identity, and Collective Memory
Multiple borders in one war
Who's to blame for failed integration of immigrants? Blame attributions as an affectively polarizing force in lay discussions of immigration in Finland
Redefining the Meaning of Negative History in Times of Sociopolitical Change
Stability of National‐Identity Content
Putin, You Suck
Lay narratives of nationhood
Collective memory and attitudes toward asylum seekers
Social Psychology and Discourse
Representing Reality
A social representation is not a quiet thing
Social representations
Does History Matter
Shaping History
The politics of belonging intersectional contestations
History as the narrative of a people
Reconstructing the Past
Seeing like a region
Parallels, prescience and the past
Social Representations and Discursive Psychology
Challenging the Standard Story of indigenous rights in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Protecting the Nation
The Mutually Constitutive Relationship between Place and Identity
Explorations in a Foreign Land
Refugees and history
I’m not gonna hit a lady’
Shame on you’
Genocide or a Failure to Gel? Racism, History and Nationalism in Australian Talk
Aylan Kurdi
Refugees—What’s Wrong with History
Extreme case formulations
Perceived collective continuity
Notes towards a description of Social Representations
Meaning nothing but good
Whitehall and the Refugees
Theorizing identity
Temporality and collectivity
Imagined communities
Discursive Psychology
Precedents, parliaments, and foreign policy
On the Knowledge of Politics and the Politics of Knowledge
Legitimizing the “War on Terror”
Romantic Scotland, tragic England, ambiguous Britain
Constructions of Australia in pro‐ and anti‐asylum seeker political discourse
How the past weighs on the present
Rethinking Political Myth
Representing World History in the 21st Century
Social Representations of Events and People in World History Across 12 Cultures
| Unique citing works | 20 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,86 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |