Karaoke Nation: How National Belonging is Constructed through Social Activity in Quebecois Seniors' Lives


Jessica Stallone, University of Toronto

Within the social sciences, it has become increasingly popular to study extreme forms of nationalist expression to understand processes of exclusion, racialization, boundary-making, and nationhood (Mudde 2019). Sociologists, too, study the ‘far right’, ‘radical right’, or ‘populist right’ to answer questions about rising hatreds related to Islamophobia, antisemitism, anti-immigrant, or anti-refugee sentiment (Miller-Idriss 2020). Citizens’ motivations for voting and supporting far-right political parties (or policies), though, are often complicated and restricted by limited choices. Moreover, how citizens make sense of national politics, in relation to their own ideologies and positionalities, matter for voting behaviour. This paper rejects the trend to interrogate extremes forms of nationalism, but instead examines the everyday forms of nationmaking that sustains an exclusive nation. I use the case of Quebec to argue that banal nationalism (or everyday nationmaking, Billig 1995) functions to socially construct rigid boundaries of social membership. Quebec is a minority nation. Its nationhood is challenged on two fronts: by the Canadian majority, in which they constitute a Francophone minority and by immigrants, to which they compose the majority receiving society (Laxer et al. 2014). Quebec’s nation-making involves reconciling these tensions (Laxer et al. 2014). In particular, the state has worked to preserve Quebec’s national identity by controlling immigrant-related diversity. Recent examples include implementing Bill 21 and Bill 96. Bill 21 is the first North American to ban wearing religious symbols for public employees at the workplace. Bill 96 includes new measures to protect the French language, at risk of isolating Anglophone minorities. The state defends both laws respectively to maintain Quebec values of ‘laicité’ and the French language. These laws can arguably be interpreted as radical politics, even if legislated by a center-right political party. This paper examines how senior residents of Quebec—those who identify as white, Catholic, Francophone—makes sense of their ‘Quebecoisness’ and how these ideas, in turn, shape how they understand national belonging for so-called others. Through 12-months of ethnographic data collection in two private residences with seniors that identify as Quebecois, I find that seniors’ participation in group activities—such as singing, pool table tournaments, choir, community events, church attendance, library book days and more—are embedded with meanings that are tied to Quebecois identity. This form of everyday nation-making in social activity takes on mundane (language) and fun (singing) forms. In the group activities that involve ‘dance nights’, choir or other forms of group singing, residents felt connected to ‘Quebecoisness’ by singing French songs, often from renowned Quebecois artists. During pool matches, residents used language and colloquial expressions to perform their Quebecois identity. The municipal library also deposited books monthly, with stickers indicating which books were written by Quebecers. Therefore, I find that group activities in senior homes, at times, is a form of ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995) –or everyday nationmaking. I argue that banal nationalism keeps seniors tethered to social life. Interlocutors were at a stage in the life course where they were retired, had lots of free time, and were often distanced from their families. Without social activity, seniors would often be alone in their apartments and isolated from the social world, with negative consequences for their mental and physical health. Group activity, then, served to keep seniors connected to life itself by keeping them active, being social with acquaintances and friends and having fun. Despite these forms of activity being seemingly harmless, they have exclusionary effects. Participating in group activity in senior homes worked to socially construct a collective “us” based on white, Francophone and Catholic identities. By participating in leisure activity, interlocutors performed their ‘Quebecoisness’ through singing and dancing, language, and expression, reading books, and watching TV and film and so forth. I argue that these expressions of banal nationalism are a form a boundary making that involves socially constructing an imagined Quebecois community that is rooted in white, French, and Catholic ancestry. This collective nationmaking through activity has implications for how Quebecois seniors reaffirm their selfhood and collectively define their nationhood. Arguably, banal nationalism sustains exclusionary and ‘radical’ political outcomes like Bill 21. A far right political party with sustained support may be absent in Quebec, but the outcomes of exclusionary politics that privilege whiteness and Europeanness are similar to far right politics in the US and Europe. 

This paper will be presented at the following session: