WHO ARE WE - PROBLEMATISING NATIONAL IDENTITY

While the concern with 'identity politics' has grown in recent years, there are few studies of the ways in which people order and negotiate their national identities. The study reported here focuses on the iden tities used by members of the arts and landed elites in Scotland in th e assertion of perceived cultural differences between Scots and non-Sc ots. These two groups have good reason to be sensitive to the problema tic and negotiated nature of national identity in a changing cultural and political context in Scotland. The raw materials of national ident ity, in particular, birth, residence and ancestry, are used by individ uals in these groups to make claims which are sustained by and through social interaction in the course of which various 'identity claims' a re made and received in various ways.