Abstract
In Belonging, Guibernau’s opening contention is that ‘the strength and popularity of belonging seriously undermine arguments pointing to the predominance of individualism as the key feature of modern societies’ (p. 1). Her book identifies ‘belonging by choice’ as a defining trait of contemporary society – sometimes leading individuals choosing to give up the freedoms associated with modernity in order to belong. Indeed, Guibernau argues, growing freedom is accompanied by the countervailing force of dependency, including submission to leaders, compulsive conformity and addictions of various kinds. Such dependencies, she suggests, are founded in the desire to avoid the loneliness and irrelevance that are the pitfalls of individualism and personal freedom.
Montserrat Guibernau’s argument that individualism has not displaced the desire for belonging is compelling: indeed it is often observed that both individualism and conformism are prevalent in modern societies (whether in fashion or patterns of consumption). Guibernau suggests the desire to belong sits in tension with tendencies towards anomie, highlighting the anxieties and insecurities that may underpin the desire to belong (exemplified in the salience of ethno-nationalisms, fundamentalisms and far-right ideologies). As Giddens and Appadurai have also argued, fundamentalisms and ethno-nationalisms are not anomalous with but deeply embedded in processes of reflexive modernization and globalization.
Given its importance to her thesis, the idea of individualization receives relatively little analytical treatment, and there is surprising omission of any references to some key works on the nature and implications of individualization and modernity: Beck and Beck-Gernsheim or Bauman do not feature at all. Consequently, specific dimensions of, and debates on, individualization receive insufficient attention, and neither does Guibernau engage with any critical challenges to the thesis that individualism is a peculiarly defining feature of modernity. Thus, Guibernau draws a sharp distinction between traditional and modern societies suggesting: ‘the concept of self-identity, as such, was not relevant in traditional society’ (p. 2). There are many critics of theories of individualization as a marker of epochal change. Duncan’s (2011: 245) account of individualization and personal life draws the sensitive point that ‘just because people in earlier periods lived in what appear to us to be less open, less diverse and more restrained times does not mean that they did not engage in reflexive and individualising self projects’. Relatedly, it might be argued that although people today appear to think of their lives in reflexive and individualistic ways, it does not mean they do not also seek to belong to groups or collectivities: seen in this less binary way, the desire to belong may not necessarily undermine the relative dominance of individualism. Rather, the question might turn on whether individuals relate to groups and collectivities differently. Guibernau’s framework does not always enable reflection on the implications of modernity for the ways in which people seek to belong, because the processes and historical formation of individualization are drawn in rather sketchy ways. So, when Guibernau seeks to demonstrate that the impulse to belong (and a willingness to voluntarily give up freedoms) frequently over-rides tendencies towards individualism, she draws heavily on examples from the early 20th century (Falangist Spain of the 1940s). Yet individualization theses cite the changes wrought since the 1960s onwards (with, as Guibernau notes herself in her conclusion, the rise of new social movements and accelerating with globalization) as particularly significant for embedding individualization.
Forms of national belonging, Guibernau argues, have proven particularly resilient:
During peacetime, national loyalties seem to weaken and dissolve. They are often portrayed as a ‘feature of the past’ connected with old traditions which have become obsolete and transcended by cosmopolitanism, the idea of a global world and exceedingly high levels of individualism typical of modern society. (p. 128)
But, during times of war, or during threats to national security such as the 9/11 attacks, national identities are readily activated. As Billig’s (1995: 6) work on ‘banal nationalism’ shows, even when nationalism seems to arouse little passion, it does not merely lie dormant, but in myriad, everyday ways is continually being signalled and worked upon, such that nationalism in established nations is not intermittent but endemic. Intriguingly, Guibernau suggests that national identities do not prevail in spite of the growth of cosmopolitanism, but that national identities are not in fact incompatible with cosmopolitan ideals, which may be layered onto national and ethnic cultures.
In addressing the challenges thrown up by the desire to belong, Guibernau highlights tensions over forms of religious belonging, and particularly over claims for recognition of religious identities by Muslims, when these are seen to clash with secular European culture. Her analysis, at times, seems to assimilate narratives about the incompatibility of Islam with secular European culture. For instance, she argues: ‘In Europe, demands for the adoption of sharia law – based upon Islamic principles – instead of abiding by the law of the country of residence is gaining strength as Muslim communities become more influential’ (p. 120). Whilst this might be true in some cases, it is not necessarily the choice that many European Muslims face: even those religiously observant Muslims who do wish to abide by sharia do not necessarily see this as a choice between sharia or state law. Thus, in the UK, sharia councils operate in many areas as complementary rather than alternative legal structures. Similarly, Guibernau poses a dichotomy between political and religious (Islamic) loyalties that turns on the ‘Western secular principle of separation between state and church’ (p. 120), a distinction that is not valid within Islam. Both claims – that the West separates state and religion while Islam or Muslims cannot – are questionable in various ways, not least because of the dynamic nature of post-secular western societies and the beliefs, practices and forms of belonging among European Muslims. Such issues signal the importance of close study of the practices and meanings of belonging in modern societies.