When the Nation Becomes Louder: Everyday Nationalism and the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum

The 2014 Scottish independence referendum provided a sociologically opportune moment to study how nationalist narratives are constructed, expressed and experienced from below – or how nationalism is lived on the ground – as ‘the Scottish nation’ was widely discussed and debated. Drawing on 24 qualitative interviews, this article considers how ethnic and racialised minorities experienced and made sense of the nation on an everyday level around the time of the referendum. Consequently, this article argues that experiencing the everyday as routine, mundane or unremarkable is often a privilege; that focusing on those whose national belonging is not ‘beyond question’ is a revealing angle to take; and that during such hyper-nationalist contexts the nation merely becomes louder for ethnic and racialised minorities.