Welsh Journals

2. THE PRODUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN WALES: HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE WELSH LANGUAGE Luke Desforges and Rhys Jones INTRODUCTION Questions of Welsh national identity are very much back on the political and cultural agenda. Owing in no small part to the recent political and constitu- tional changes experienced in Wales there has been a surge in interest in a variety of themes relating to Welsh national identities. In the aftermath of the referendum on the devolution of political power in 1997, and the subsequent elections to the National Assembly in 1999, issues relating to the nature and form of the group identity(ies) of the inhabitants of Wales, their relationship with British and European identities, and the role of a variety of factors most notably the Welsh language in shaping Welsh national identities has been the focus of much research in the social sciences (for example, see Wyn Jones and Lewis, 1999; Lynch, 1996; McAllister, 1999; Osmond, 1995; Paterson and Wyn Jones, 1999; Taylor and Thomson, 1999; Woods, 1999). Such a growth in interest in all matters relating to Welsh national identities may be due partly to the novelty of the National Assembly within the political landscape and a concomitant belief of the crucial role that such a powerful institution is bound to play in shaping group identities within Wales. However, it may also be indicative of a far wider tradition within the social sciences to ascribe the formation and consolidation of national identities to the institutions of the territorial state (for instance, see Taylor and Flint, 2000; Tilly, 1975). This process of marrying the two distinctly different institutions of the nation and the state has occurred in both an empirical and conceptual context. McNeill (1986) for instance, has demonstrated at an empirical level the major change that occurred in the relationship between senses of group identity (possibly early senses of national identity or at least forms of ethnic identity) between the Middle Ages and the modern period (see also Smith, 1986).