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 PALGRAVE POLITICS OF IDENTITY & CITIZENSHIP SERIES
Finding Political Identities
Young People in a Changing Europe

Alistair Ross
Palgrave Politics of Identity and
Citizenship Series

Series Editors
Varun Uberoi
Brunel University London
London, UK

Nasar Meer
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, UK

Tariq Modood
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
The politics of identity and citizenship has assumed increasing ­importance
as our polities have become significantly more culturally, ethnically and
religiously diverse. Different types of scholars, including ­philosophers,
sociologists, political scientists and historians make contributions to this
field and this series showcases a variety of innovative contributions to it.
Focusing on a range of different countries, and utilizing the insights of
different disciplines, the series helps to illuminate an increasingly
­controversial area of research and titles in it will be of interest to a ­number
of audiences including scholars, students and other interested individuals.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14670
 Alistair Ross

Finding Political
Identities
Young People in a Changing Europe
Alistair Ross
London Metropolitan University
London, UK

Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series

ISBN 978-3-319-90874-8    ISBN 978-3-319-90875-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90875-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946624

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

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For my grandsons, all born over the course of this study: Kit,
Sandy, Robin and Pip.
 Preface

This book explores how young people in Europe construct their political
identities. It is based on 324 small discussion groups I held, with 2000
young people across 29 European states. Aged between 11 and 20, they
talked together about the construction of their identities, creating con-
tingent narratives of local, national and European identities with fami-
lies, friends and through social media. As well as exploring what these
kaleidoscopic identities look like and the sources they draw on, this book
also examines how young people assemble these accounts, and how they
are integrated with each other.
The study uses deliberative discussion as a way of allowing young peo-
ple to develop their own constructs and terms in conversation with each
other. The voices presented here are those of young Europeans whose
origins are from many countries across the continent and the world, from
small villages and towns as well as cities and metropoles: a complex
polyphony of political beliefs, values and rights and affiliations to politi-
cal structures and social institutions that often transcend traditional
boundaries of state and nation.
These identities are narratives, multiply constructed and re-con-
structed around contingencies and contexts. This book looks particularly
at how young people perform these narratives in creating and recreating
their political identities within and beyond various European states. In
Chapters 2 and 3, I examine the contingencies that arise from the events
vii
viii Preface

around them: their narratives of rights in general, and then the specific
narratives of diversity, migration, racism around the migration of refu-
gees in 2014–16. Chapter 4 looks at the range of potential influences
that may impact on this narrative-construction process – the family,
friends, school and media.
Chapters 5 and 6 examine the contexts that are dependent on place:
narratives that are driven by political locations of country, continent,
settlement. These include both the influences of the geographical region
of Europe, and of the various aspects of scale of location, from village or
city, through country, region, Europe and the world. These contribute
political and cultural narrative frames for identity construction.

LondonAlistair Ross
June 2018
 Acknowledgments

My first and most important acknowledgment must be to the young

people who spoke with me with candour and passion. Their eagerness to
discuss and debate with each other was exciting to observe, and their
values and ideals were expressed with clarity and verve.
I must also thank the staff at the many schools, colleges and other
institutions who helped arrange my visits, who efficiently organised
groups and facilities that made the fieldwork possible.
The fieldwork expenses were partly funded by the European
Commission as part of my Jean Monnet chair (2010–12), partly by the
London Metropolitan University (2014), and partly by myself. The
University also oversaw the ethical scrutiny of the project (Klaus Fischer),
and the administrative staff (Teresa Carabajo-Garcia, Angela Kamara and
Roushanthi Sivanesan) managed the funded research accounts and travel
arrangements.
I am particularly indebted to three networks or organisations that
helped me identify locations, institutions and young people to work with,
and who commented, translated, interpreted and expertly advised me on
the particular conditions and contexts of each of the locations I visited.
Travelling around Europe by bus, train, ferry, car and the occasional plane
on a tight schedule was exciting and demanding, and their help in setting
it up was essential:

ix
x Acknowledgments

Children’s Identity and Citizenship in Europe (CiCe) was an Academic

Network supported by the European Commission’s Erasmus programme,
which I helped establish in the late 1990s. Still active as an Association,
many of its members helped me;
Networking European Citizenship Education (NECE) is a group
established by the Federal German Government’s Bundeszentrale fur poli-
tische Bildung that brings together NGOs with an interest in citizenship
education across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East: members
assisted me particularly in countries where CiCe had few members; and
the British Council staff in Macedonia, France and Bulgaria were help-
ful beyond their remit in helping me find people who would help – and
sometimes themselves coming to schools with me.

To all of these, I am grateful for providing the structures and contacts

for the individuals who gave their time, assistance and support:

Austria Thomas Bauer, Christian Kogler, Maria Krebs, Melanie Steiner,

Roswitha Stütz;
Belgium Véronique Chuffart, Christian Goethals, Paul Goethals, Patrik
Rebry, Anne-Marie Van den dreis, Hugo Verkest;
Bulgaria Katia Christova, Evelina Kelbetcheva, Katya Simeonova, Galia
Slavcheva, Mirela Vasilva;
Croatia Branislava Baranovic, Iva Buchberger, Bojana Culum, Karin
Doolan, Ivana Jugovic, Iva Koustic, Vesna Kovak, Jelena Matic, Saša Puzić;
Cyprus Arzu Altugan, Tözün Issa, Stavroula Philippou, Christos Theodopolos;
Czech Republic Ivona Cindlerová, Martina Güberová, Jana Heczková,
Jan Lašek, Jelena Petrucijova, Marta Šigutová, Pavel Vacek, Daniela
Vrabcova;
Denmark Søren Hegstrup, Ritt Kristensen, Connie Rasmussen;
Estonia Kristi Köiv, Edgar Krull, Urve Läänemets, Eve Mägi, Sulev Valdmaa;
 Acknowledgments
   xi

Finland Marjo Autio-Hiltunen, Liisa Hämäläinen, Hannu Jokinen,

Timo Kinnunen, Ulla Kiviniemi, Riitta Korhonen, Leena Lestinen, Jan
Löfstrom, Erkka Perkkarinen, Tytti Tyrväinen, Arja Virta;
France Karine Bécu-Robinault, Isabelle Bourdier-Porhel, Sabine Coste,
Irene Daumur, Andreea Ernst-Vintila, Chantal Etienne, Richard Etienne,
Alexandra Jeanneau, Sandrine Mahieu, Aude Marchand, Anne Midenet,
Nicole Tutiaux-Guillon, Maxence Van der Meersch;
Germany Amanda Baker, John Barnes, Max Behrendt, Hagen Hoppe,
Christoph Mueller-Hofstede, Mona Qaiser, Gunnar Rettberg, Tatjana
Zimenkova;
Hungary Noémi Büki, Marta Fülöp, Ákos Gocsál, Márk Kékesi,
Zsuzsanna Pressing, Eva Szabo, Hajnalka Szarvas;
Iceland Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir, Kristín Dýrfjörð, Ragný Þóra
Guðjohnsen, Eva Harðardóttir, Halla Kjartansdottir;
Italy Sandra Chistolini, Emilio Lastrucci, Andrea Porcarelli;
Latvia Etina Annuskanc, Marko Bojcun, Zoja Cehlova, Igors Ivashkins,
Catherine Kozjuhina, Anna Liduma, Marina Marcenoka, Sandra Rone,
Anna Tatarinceva, Gerda Vogule;
Lithuania Giedrē Bagdonaitē, Jurgita Norvaišaitē, Alina Petrauskienē,
Irene Zalieskiene, Vaiva Zuzeviciute;
Luxembourg Kris Grimonprez;
Macedonia Aleksandra Arsik, Daniela Bavcandzi, Nedmiran Beqiri, Almat
Hasani, Dmilon Jakupi, Tajna Jovanoska, Mark Levy, Qufli Osmani, Vikam
Sulejmani;
Netherlands Denis Arndt, Erik Bong, Margarita Jeliazkova, Wim
Kratsborn, Joelle Servais;
Norway Solveig Borghund, Kjetl Børhaug, Lars Monsen;
Poland Hanna Ciéslok, Jolanta Desperat, Laura Górecką, Adam Grabowski,
Beata Krzywosz-Rynkiewicz, Agnieszka Kwiatkowska, Agnieszka Lobocka,
Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz, Dorota Misiejuk;
xii Acknowledgments

Portugal Susana Goncalves, Florbela Sousa;

Romania Ciprian Ceobanu, Carmen Ceobanu, Magda Ciubancan,
Magda Danicu, Carmen Dutu, Alin Gavreliuc, Aurora Goia, Tudor
Iordachescu, Simona Laurian, Elena Mazareanu, Eleana Mitu, Monica
Oprescu, Monica Secui;
Slovakia Petra Fridrichová, Iveta Kovalcikova, Ivan Ropovik;
Slovenia Marjanca Pergar-Kušcer, Cveta Pucko, Andrea Sinjur, Tore
Sørensen, Urban Vehovar;
Spain Juan Calmaestra, Melinda Dooly, Roćio Luque Gonealez, Belen
Rafael Hildalgo, Liliana Jacott, Antonio Maldonado, Claudia Vallejo
Rubinstein;
Sweden Erik Anderson, Annika Elm, Nanny Hartsmar, Kia Kimhag,
Maria Olson, Bengt Soderhall;
Switzerland Caterina Gentizon, Rolf Gollob, Christine Imbar, Sabrina
Marruncheddu, Wiltrud Weidinger Meister, Lucie Schaeren; and
Turkey Ahmet, Gökçen Ardıç, Ceren Civelek, Yunus Eryaman, Kevser
Gürel, Kevser Gürel, Alp Kanzik, Şahan Savaş Karataşli, Ebru Aktan
Acar, Marcel Mečiar, Erol Nezih Orhon, Nilüfer Pembecioğlu, Rukiye
Sahin, Nuran Tuncer.

Other colleagues and friends from continental Europe who offered

expert advice and comment include Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir, Angelos
Agalianos, Tilman Allert, Miquel Àngel Essomba, Nanny Hartsmar,
Thomas Huddlestone, Jan Mašek, Elisabet Näsman, Cveta Pucko and
Titi Papoulia Tzelepi.
From my home institution, I have been supported and encouraged by
many friends and colleague, including my research students who have
debated issues with me: Marko Bojcun, Klaus Fischer, Sumi Hollingworth,
Merryn Hutchings, John Gabriel, Norman Ginsberg, Jeffery Haynes, the
late Tözün Issa, Angela Kamara, Carole Leathwood, Mike Newman,
Jayne Osgood, Roushanthi Sivanesan, Wendy Stokes, Cathy Sullivan and
Chris Topley. And others in the UK and USA include Ian Davies, Chris
Gifford, Carole Hahn, Marko Hoare, Ben Kisby, Henry Maitles, Cathie
Holden, Andy Mycock and James Sloam.
 Acknowledgments
   xiii

Thanks to my publishers, particularly Poppy Hull, Vipin Kumar Mani,

Sharla Plant and Rowena Reine.
Thanks to D-Maps for permission to use the outline map of Europe at
https://www.d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=2233&lang=en, on which
the map on page xxiv is based.
A particular debt of gratitude and thanks to my two readers, who com-
mented on and discussed my drafts with insight and great perspicacity,
Merryn Hutchings and Maggie Ross.
Finally, none of this would have been possible without the love and
support of Maggie, who shared my excitement from the beginning, and
discussed the project with me at every stage. Thank you also to David,
Susanna and Sam for their support throughout.
Despite all these thanks and acknowledgments, responsibility for the
errors and idiosyncrasies in the text remains mine.
 Contents

List of Figures and Tables xvii

On the Naming of Places and People xix

Map of the Locations xxiii

1 Locations, Loyalties and Labels   1

2 Values and Issues  45

3 Diversities and Generational Change  97

4 The Contingent and Contextual Resources of Identity

Construction 153

5 Continental Perspectives 183

6 Hierarchies of Cohesion and Diffusion 231

7 How Is It Done? Metaphors for Constructing Identities 277

xv
xvi Contents

Appendix 1: The countries and locations in this study  295

 ppendix 2: Origins and birthplaces of young people

A
in study: jus solis and jus sanguinis  303

 ppendix 3: Estimating the ages and dates of schooling

A
of the cohorts of young people, their parents
and grandparents  311

Bibliography 315

Index 345
 List of Figures and Tables

Fig. 1.1 Responses to the ‘Moreno question’ by country and age

group, May 2013  20
Fig. 2.1 What issues most create a feeling of community among
European Union citizens? Eurobarometer
responses, May 2013 52
Fig. 2.2 Which of the following values are most important for you
personally? Which best represent the European Union?
Eurobarometer responses. May 2013 53

Table 1.1 Occupational groups of parents; and father’s occupation of

those quoted in this text 42
Table 2.1 Use of Eurobarometer categories to indicate various
sets of values 51
Table 3.1 Diversity of the young people in the fieldwork conversa-
tions: their descent and birthplaces, by country of survey,
numbers and percentages of each country/group of countries 99
Table 3.2 Estimated populations of Roma and Sinti in countries in
this study, 2007 105
Table 3.3 Changes in the population of the Baltic States by ethnicity,
1989–2017106
Table 3.4 Binary discourses of Baltic state young people, positioning
their won ethnic origin against the other 119
Table 3.5 Former Yugoslav states: Population 122

xvii
xviii List of Figures and Tables

Table 3.6 Three cohorts of discussion group members, their parents

and their grandparents: periods of school attendance 139
Table 5.1 Government debt as percent of GDP, selected countries
2008 to 2014 217
Table 5.2 Youth unemployment (15–24), selected countries
2007 to 2015 217
 On the Naming of Places and People

Places
The naming of places is sometimes contentious: many European place
names have changed as a result of conquest, occupation or the construc-
tion of national languages, and many places are known by different names
in different languages.
In this book, I have decided to call all de facto countries by their name
in English, and to use the English version of the term employed by the
majority population of the country at the time: hence Macedonia (not
FYROM or North Macedonia), and North Cyprus and the Republic of
Cyprus (for the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus and the Republic of
Cyprus). The name of the Czech Republic formally changed to Czechia in
the summer of 2016: my fieldwork there was before this, so I have retained
the more familiar term, which is still more widely used, even in Czech
official publications. While readers may have been at ease with Deutschland
and España, they are thus spared Hrvatska and Magyarország (apologies
to my Croat and Hungarian readers). The same rules have been applied to
adjectives, languages, citizenships and nationalities of all countries.
I have called most settlements by the name used by the majority of their
inhabitants. The International Phonetic Alphabet has been used to transpose
place names in Bulgaria, Greek-speaking Cyprus and Macedonia (see the list

xix
xx On the Naming of Places and People

below). There are a number of officially bilingual settlement names, but I

have selected that used by the majority language group: no problem in select-
ing Helsinki and Turku rather than Helsingfors and Åbo, but a close call for
Tallinn and Rīga. Tetova in Macedonia is the Albanian form used by the
majority of its inhabitants, rather than the Macedonian name of Tetovo/
Tɛtɔvɔ. Brussels presents a particular problem, and I have chosen Brussels
rather than the Walloon Brussele, the French Bruxelles or the Flemish Brussel.
I have used the alphabets of each respective language, hence København
(Copenhagen) and İstanbul (Istanbul). Local names and forms take prece-
dence: Hannover, Padova and Warszawa. This also means that when I use
Luxembourg I am referring to the country, while Lëtzebuerg refers to the city
in Luxembourgish. In the divided city known in English, Hungarian,
Romanian, Spanish and Swedish as Nicosia (and its close variants in many
other languages) is referred to as Lefkosia in the southern Greek-speaking
part and Lefkoşa in the northern Turkish-speaking part. But: ‘Treaty of
Lisbon’, not ‘Treaty of Lisboa’; ‘Warsaw Pact’, not ‘Warszawa Pact’.
If a young person in a discussion used the current English name of a
place, rather than the name in their own language, I have used the name
that was used: thus where I use Cologne, that was what was said, and if I
use Köln it is either because this was the word used, or that I am writing
about that city.
None of the above refers to any use of non-European place names: the
common English/international name is used.
‘Region’ can refer to a region within a country, or a group of countries
within a continent. I have generally used the term for a group of European
countries (particularly in Chapter 5). For areas within a country I have either
used the local term (Länder, Department, Province, etc) or province.

Table 1 Transliterated place names

Original Transliteration (language)
Благо̀евград Blagòevgrad (Bulgarian)
София Sofija (Bulgarian)
Велико Търново Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgarian)
Λάρνακα Larnaka (Greek)
Λευκωσία Lefkosia (Greek)
Прилеп Prilep (Macedonian)
Скопје Skopje (Macedonian)
Tɛtɔvɔ Tetovo (but Tetova in Albanian) (Macedonian)
 On the Naming of Places and People
   xxi

Table 2 Sample locations in the study, showing rank-size distribution using Doxiadis’s
settlement hierarchy
Settlement category, Number of
descriptive term Size locations Example
Megalopolis >10 million 1 İstanbul, Turkey
Conurbation 3–10 million 2 Berlin, Germany
Metropolis 1–3 million 7 Warszawa, Poland
Large city 300,000–1 23 Skopje, Macedomia
million
Small city 100–300,000 28 Padua, Italy
Large town 20–100,000 30 Veliko-Tarnovo,
Bulgaria
Small town 1,000–20,000 13 Hombrechtikon,
Switzerland
Village 100–1000 3 Püünsi, Estonia

Settlements have often been contextualised with an indication of their

size. Actual population data of each place is given in Appendix 1, but I
have also used in the main text a form of Doxiadis’s (1968) settlement
hierarchy to describe a settlement’s size. These settlements refer to the
location of the school, not where an individual lives. There are several
cases where a young person’s school or college is located in a city or
metropolis, but their home is in a nearby small town or village. All schools
were over 200 students in size: when one is located in a settlement of a
thousand people or less, clearly a proportion of their students will living
in very small rural communities (Table 2).

People
All the young people I spoke with have been give pseudonyms. I have
attempted to allocate pseudonyms that reflected both the individual’s
gender and the current use of given names in the country concerned.
However, when an individual’s given name reflected a different cultural
origin, an appropriate pseudonym from that heritage has been used: for
example, an Afghani-origin young man with a Pashto first name will be
given a Pashto pseudonym. But had that same young man been using a
given name taken from the population of the country he was now living
in, I would use a name from that country as his pseudonym. As my study
xxii On the Naming of Places and People

expanded, I have had to ensure that there was no repetition of names, and
I have thus very occasionally changed the pseudonyms given to some
individuals quoted in earlier publications reporting some of this work
(Ross 2011, 2012a, b, 2013a, b, 2014, 2015, 2016a, b; Ross and
Zuzeviciute 2011). My apologies for any confusion this may cause, but
all two thousand pseudonyms used are now different.
Each young person quoted is also described by their gender and age.
Genders are as given to me by them, and transgender individuals (at least
one) by the gender category of their preferred use. Ages are given as actual
ages on the day of the discussion, and are never rounded up. Sometimes
the birthplace of an individual may be relevant to what is said, and in
such cases this is stated: if there is no such reference, it should be assumed
that they were born in the state in which they were living (this was true
in 93.7 per cent of cases). More frequently, the family origins of the
young person were of possible significance: 27.9 per cent of young people
in the study were of at least partial descent from a country other than the
one in which they were living. It was not sensible to try and collect this
systematically (see the methodological considerations in Chapter 1), but
such material was often volunteered. I have in many cases been told the
origins of the parents, and in sometimes of grandparents or earlier. Where
this information is possibly significant to a particular observation, I have
given this in the form of ‘of xxxx origin’, or ‘of xxxx and yyyy origin’.
When one of the parent’s origins was the country of interview, and the
other not, I have used the form ‘of partial xxxx origin’, and the reader
should assume that the other ‘part’ is a parent of the country of interview.
My intention in all this is to help the reader understand the context in an
unobtrusive but informative manner.
Map of the Locations

xxiii
xxiv Map of the Locations

Akureyri

Reykjavík
ICELAND

Selfoss

Lillehammer

Bergen
NORWAY
Oslo
O l

DK
Slagelse
Dublin Odense
Kolding København
Haslev

Hoogezand
Hannover Berlin
London Amsterdam Hengelo
Zutphen Bielefeld
Holzwicke
Holzwickede Forst
Torhout Tielt Dortmund
Lille
ille Brussels
Roubaix Ath
Lëtzebuerg
Paris
GERMANY Praha
Nantes
FRANCE Hombrechtikon Linz
AT
Vevey Innsbruck
ck
Lyon
Padova
Saint-Clément
PORTUGAL Montpellier Bologna

Segovia Sabadell
Lisboa Bellaterra
Madrid Frascati
SPAIN Roma
ITALY
Faro Sevilla Cordova

Source: https://www.d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=2233&lang=en. Location

points added by author
 Map of the Locations
   xxv

Town or City
FINLAND where
SWEDEN
conversations
Jyväskylä took place
other city
Gävle Turku Helsinki
Capital Cities
Püünsi
Stockholm Tallinn COUNTRY
EESTONIA
STO
Tartu Luunja
Moskvá
Jūrmala Rīga
LATVIA Rēzekne
Malmö LITHUANIA
Kaunas Elektrėnai
Vilnius
Berlin Olsztyn
Minsk
Białystok
Forst POLAND
Warszawa

Hradec KyÏv
Králové Kraków
CZECH Ostrava
SLOVAKIA
SL Prešov
Banská Bystrika
Linz Wien Budapest
Oradea Iași
AUSTRIA
HUNGARYYSzeged
Ljubljana Sostro Pécs
Prade Novo
ovo ROMANIA
Mesto
Koper Zagreb Timișoara
to
Rijeka București

Zadar Veliko Tarnovo

Sofija
BULGARIA
Skopje Blagòevgrad İstanbul Tokat
ITALY Tetova
Matera MK Prilep
Ankara
Çanakkale Eskişehir
Bernalda

TURKEY

Lapta
Lefkosia
Lefkoşa
CYPRUS Larnaka
 1
Locations, Loyalties and Labels

This book examines how young people in some 29 European countries

construct their political identities. This generation of 11–20 year olds are
the first to have been born in an age of widespread internet use, and after
the fall of the Berlin Wall. In many European countries, the school popu-
lation has become much more diverse and mixed than in previous times.
Political identity is a complex and contested area: forty years ago, the
political scientist Bill Mackenzie observed

Those who share a space share an identity. Prima facie this is a fair state-
ment, whether ‘the place’ is taken to be ‘space-ship earth’; or a beloved
land; or a desolate slum or a public housing scheme. Indeed, it is (like the
concept of ‘shared interest’) rhetorically powerful because it appeals to
solid sense, and it should not be allowed to melt away under analysis.
(Mackenzie 1978:130)

This common sense view of a group of individuals having a shared loyalty

to a particular location was developed by David Goodhart (2017), who
divided the British in particular (and Europeans in general) into
‘Anywheres’ – a powerful minority of footloose, urban, social liberals who
do not identify with any particular place, ‘Somewheres’ – rooted in a

© The Author(s) 2019 1

A. Ross, Finding Political Identities, Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90875-5_1
2 A. Ross

specific place, lacking agency and less educated – and ‘Inbetweeners’.

Goodhart asserts that the Anywheres (about 20 per cent of the popula-
tion) have become a deracinated and dominant elite, out of touch with
the 66 per cent of Somewheres, ‘socially conservative and communitarian
by instinct … uncomfortable about many aspects of social and economic
change such as mass immigration [and] an achievement society in which
they struggle to achieve’ (Goodhart 2017: 5). Goodhart’s Anywheres are
like the elite chastised by the UK Prime Minister Teresa May: ‘if you
believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t
understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means’ (May 2016).
Drawing on the narratives of nearly two thousand young people from
across Europe, I will argue that political identities are changing: many peo-
ple, and young Europeans in particular, generally do not see themselves as
members of one of these fixed tribes, but as comfortably constructing flex-
ible and multiple political identities. This book will trace how many young
people identify with a range of political locations, from the local to the
global. These identities are many and contingent: the significance of a loca-
tion changes with the context of their talk: who they are with, the compari-
sons they are making, the values on which they focus, and the events of the
day and the year. I will outline not simply what identities and affiliations
they expressed, but how and why they constructed them.
To do this, this first chapter explores political concepts such as the nation,
citizenship, country, state, Europe and other localities, and how identity
politics relate to studies of young people’s socio-political constructions. The
use and meaning of these terms varies across generations and between differ-
ent states. A variety of models have been used to characterise the plasticity of
social construction, of political and locational identities, including Bauman’s
liquid identities (2000), Balescu’s description of identity as a palimpsest of
successive configurations, each partially written over earlier versions (2009),
and the way that Crenshaw (1989, 1991) and Collins (2015) use intersec-
tionality to describe multiple identities as constructions that explain oppres-
sion and advantage. I also examine how young people are described as
participating (or not participating) in politics, and the way in which they are
sometimes characterised as part of the ‘democratic deficit’.
I then describe how I gathered empirical data of young people talking
about these issues, and how their constructions contingently shift as the
 Locations, Loyalties and Labels 3

lens through which they focus changes. I draw on the 324 discussions
that I have had with small groups of young people in 29 different
European states, carried out between 2011 and 2016. Two thousand
young people, scattered across 104 villages, towns and cities, took part in
these discussions about their sense of political and social identity. The
countries involved (listed in Appendix 1) included 24 members of the
European Union. (Greece and the United Kingdom were not included,
because particular issues each of these countries had with the European
Union at this time would, I felt, have been so dominant to exclude any-
thing else from discussion: they may form the basis of a later study.
Ireland was not included, because any exploration of identities in the
United Kingdom ought to be conducted in parallel with Ireland.) Also
included were two counties who were in the accession process to join the
Union at the time I began (Macedonia and Turkey), and three countries
closely associated with the European Union (Iceland, Norway and
Switzerland). Not a statistically representative sample, it nevertheless
reflects the diversity of views in the various countries: the indigenous
population, those of migrants and settler origin, and the hybridities that
are increasingly characteristic of European societies.
Chapter 2 examines the values and concerns expressed in these discus-
sions: these were the measures they used to construct identifications with
different political institutions, criteria that framed their affiliations. These
values underpin Chapter 3, which analyses their responses to the increas-
ing diversity of the societies in which they are constructing their ideas,
and how they saw these as different from the views of their parents and
grandparents. Migration (from within and without Europe), wars and
boundary changes have led to situations in which many are growing up
in heterogeneous and plural societies: Chapter 3 charts the views of both
indigenous young people and those of different origins about this. Many
young people seem to be developing a range of identities that they see as
very distinct from those of some older people, which many of them char-
acterise as overtly racist and nationalistic. This generation is developing a
new and different availability for political mobilisation, rather as Fulbook’s
analysis of twentieth century German young people showed: this is a
time of ‘transition with respect to the ways in which people can become
involved in new regimes and societies’ (Fulbrook 2011:488).
4 A. Ross

Chapter 4 looks at some of the resources that are drawn on to substan-

tiate and illustrate these ideas. These include understandings and inter-
pretation of political and social events of which they have some immediate
and contemporary knowledge – in the locality or further afield. Talk and
discussion with friends, parents, and sometimes teachers is supplemented
with the critical use of media, both traditional and social.
In Chapter 5 I examine the particularities and differences that are local,
at country and regional level, asking how these resources are filtered through
particular national and regional discourses. Chapter 6 analyses the nesting
hierarchy of geo-political levels around which identities contingently shift,
from the village or city, through the province to the state, the region of
Europe, Europe itself as an entity, and a sense of global identity.
Chapter 7 draws these strands together, to focus particularly on how
young people make sense of these diverse identities. How do they con-
struct coherence between apparent contradictions?

Identities and Places

The particular concern of this study is how young Europeans construct
their identities with respect to particular locations – places that might be
their country, their locality or city, Europe or the world, or all of these. I
argue that there is both contingency and plasticity in this process. The
great majority of these young Europeans confidently manage to express a
variety of identities, and which of these identities are most significant can
change, depending on the context of their discourse.
To illustrate this, and give the reader a sense of these young people’s
narratives, here is an extract from one of my conversations. I was talking
with an articulate group of six 17 and 18 year olds in an upper secondary
school in the small city of Odense, in Denmark (the discussion lasted
53 minutes: the following is about six minutes from the early part of
this). All names are pseudonyms: I have described my use of names for
people and places in the fore note on page xix. Agnethe’s father worked
in robotics, and her mother was a project coordinator; one of Lilli’s par-
ents worked in sales, the other as a nursery teacher. Cæcilie’s father was a
computer programmer and her mother a photographer, and Julius’s par-
ents were unemployed. Evald’s father wrote film sub-titles and his mother
 Locations, Loyalties and Labels 5

was a financial consultant. Hussein’s parents were retired: his father had
been a mechanic. Our conversation was in English, but I was accompa-
nied by a bilingual colleague, a social scientist, who would help interpret
if needed, which was not necessary as they were fluent, and often sophis-
ticated, in their use of English.
Having introduced myself – as a British researcher studying young peo-
ple’s sense of identity in a number of European countries – I asked them
to begin by describing their own identity. Agnethe and Lilli both began by
describing themselves as Danish girls [1], and Cæcilie agreed, adding ‘I
feel – very Danish [laughs] – even though my grandfather immigrated
from Scotland’ [2]. Julius pointed out that all three had said that they were
Danish, rather than European: ‘so … we are nationalists’ [3], which pro-
voked general amusement. Evald then also said he felt Danish, ‘but my
father, and my grandfathers, my grandmother, they emigrated from
Germany, so I also feel some connection with Germany – but I feel mostly
Danish’ [4]; and finally Hussein explained that while his parents origi-
nated in Palestine, ‘I’m born and raised in Denmark – I don’t feel as quite
as Danish as the others, I feel more a bit of both – I feel more European
than Danish – it’s like the same culture as Arabic’ [5]. I responded:

AR … I wonder what it actually means to you, when you say you

‘feel Danish’ or you ‘feel mostly Danish’? [6]
Lilli I feel that it’s mostly about the culture of the country. When I
say I feel Danish it’s not like I feel that I belong in this country,
I could easily move to another country … [7]
Cæcilie I think most of it has to do with the way I was raised – for
example, my mum feels more Scottish than me, so she sort of
raised me to be proud to be Scottish … [8]
Hussein When we talk about different identities, people often mistak-
enly say that there is a clash of cultures, that the youngster
doesn’t know where to put himself. Is he German or Danish or
Palestinian or something? But I see different cultures as being an
advantage- you take the best of both cultures, the best of both
identities and make your own – that’s an advantage, from my
point of view … I don’t fancy the Danish culture as much, but
I’m born and raised in Denmark, so a lot of what I do can be
interpreted as being Danish – but I consider myself as being
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Mr. R. (reads from the newspaper emphatically). “One of the
richest papers on the woman question that has ever emanated from
an official source is the opinion of Solicitor Rayner on the question
whether licenses should be granted women to command
steamboats. He says: ‘Instead of being master in name, while some
one else performs the duties, why does she not let some one else be
master in name? She would not stand her watch at night in the cold.
She would not enforce the discipline on a Mississippi steamer. She
would not tramp to the rooms of shippers and consigners to do the
banking business—’”
Mary (interrupting). Why! that is just what I have been doing for
the last five months.
Mr. R. (reads on). “‘All the accounts concur in describing the lady
who makes this application as one of high character, business
qualifications, and highest worth. But, in the application of what is
with me a principle, the higher the character and worth, the greater
my difficulty in asking that the license asked for to command a
Mississippi steamboat be granted. Because it would be assigning a
position to woman which God, in his providence, never intended her
to fill.
K. Rayner, Solicitor of the Treasury.’”
(Holds out paper to her.)
Mary. What does he mean? I am sure God has permitted me to fill
this position, and (reverently) if He had not permitted it, and helped
me, too, I never could have done it so well. How unjust this man is!
Oh, Mr. Rayner! can you not comprehend that, when a woman can
do a man’s work, she ought to have the legal right? (Comes forward,
takes the paper, and reads to herself. To him) But see, Mr. Romberg.
Here is something else about it; something from the Secretary of the
Treasury. (Reads) “The United States Revised Statutes say that
whenever any person applies to be licensed, the inspectors shall
diligently inquire as to the character of the person, whether male or
female. I see no reason, then, in unwritten or in written law, why
Mistress Miller may not lawfully demand an examination; and, if she
proves herself duly qualified, have a license to serve as master of a
vessel. Let the local inspectors carefully examine her, and if they are
satisfied that she can be safely intrusted with the duties and
responsibilities of a master of a steam vessel, let them grant her a
license, according to section 4439.
Chas. J. Folger, Secretary of the Treasury.”
Bless him for that! He may make it all right. You see, Mr. Romberg,
it is not fully decided. I may get the license yet. (Phus looks up from
his book.) I have been examined; and when I told the inspectors all
about that large boat that got stuck up the river, near Cairo, and that
we had the chance to take off the loaded barges, and how I had
them made fast to us, took the wheel myself, turned the big boat
round, and carried her safely into Cairo, they looked surprised
enough. And one of them said that I did seem to be qualified. Phus
remembers it, the visit of the inspectors; don’t you, Phus?
Phus (jumping up and putting his whole hand in the book for a
mark). O, yes, mis’! dem two gem’man, one wid de black bandanna
on he hat, de oder wid de gaiters! De las’ one, he say, “You culled
pusson, tel’ me troo, your mis’ she no bos’ dis boat?” I say, “Yaas,
saar!” Den de one wid de black bandanna, he say, “But de mate, he
de real cap’n; he stan’ at w’eel, steer, an’ tak’ car’ ob injyne, don’
he?”
Mary. What did you tell him?
Phus. I sez, “No! On’y when mis’ restin’, an’ it’s cam (calm), an’
dere ain’t no snags nor be-yous. She bos’, she steer, she watch
injyne. Pats, he on’y shovel coal, ’bey orders. On’y he mad
sometime, an’ he say he not be bos’ by wimmin. Den de one wid de
gaiters, he say, “You nig tell de trute; she raal cap’n? She bos’
ebryting?” I say, “Yas, saar-e! ebryting! She bos’ steamboat. She
bos’ Pats. She bos’ Hank and me—Phus—dat’s me W’y! mis’ could
bos’ you, bos’ de President ’nited States, be cap’n ob ebrybody.”
Den dey bof laf, an’ I help’ ’em obe de gang-plank.
Mary (sitting). Oh, Phus! you tried to prove too much. But you
make me laugh, in spite of my troubles.
Phus. I does my bes’, mis’. (Sits down, r., and reads.)
 Mr. R. The other owners say, and the newspapers, too, that you
have no chance; and we are all so certain of it that we have agreed
not to take away the boat if you do get the license.
Mary. Do you think yourselves so certain as that? Very well. But I
have faith to believe that you will all wish that you had not made that
promise, unless you really want me to have the boat.
Mr. R. Oh, madam! we’ve no notion you’ll get it. The other owners
scorn the idea of a woman captain, and so do I. It’s ridiculous!
(Walks about.)
Phus (reading to himself). W’ot did Meelissee scramded—no—
squeemed for? ’coz she felt a col’ han’ on her fourhed? Golly! wos
she ’f’aid o’ dat? (Reads) Oh! she was alone in de dark, in de bed,
an’ couldn’t see nobody! I should ’a’ thought she would ’a’
squeemed. (Looks all around in a frightened manner.)
Mr. R. (seating himself near Mary). When did you hear from your
husband last?
Mary. Not for a long time. I can’t think what the reason is. I
expected to find a letter here, but haven’t received any. Phus!
Phus (jumping up in terror, and then relieved). Oh! it’s on’y mis’.
Yaas! yaas!
Mary. Phus, you go to the post-office, and see if there are any
letters. The post-man may not know that we have come in.
Phus. Yaas, mis’. (Puts book on the wheel-house, and exit l.)
Mr. R. He went out with a fishing-fleet, didn’t he, from Gloucester?
Mary. Yes; why?
Mr. R. Well, there have been a good many fishing-boats lost
lately, down at the Banks, that went from Gloucester. What was the
name of his boat?
Mary. The Betsey Ludgitt, Captain Zabulon Miller.
Mr. R. That’s the name of one of them, I think. Here’s the shipping
list. It says (he reads), “Several vessels strayed from the fleet, and
have not been heard from since. It is feared that they are lost.
Among them is the Betsey Ludgitt, Captain Zab—”
Mary (rising in alarm). Merciful Heaven! it cannot be! I should
have heard; something would have told me if such a dreadful thing
had happened to William. I cannot believe it.
Mr. R. He may be safe; but the probabilities are that he is lost.
Mary. Oh! do not say that again. I cannot and will not believe it.
(Goes to the hammock, and bends over it.)
Mr. R. (approaching Mary in an insinuating way). My dear—
madam, if anything should happen to your husband, remember
(smiling) that you have a warm friend in me. I will give you as good a
home as there is on the river, and take your child, too. Yes! yes! I’ll
take your child.
Mary (turning suddenly upon him). Give me a home? Take my
child? What do you mean?
Mr. R. Why, I mean that I’ll marry you!
Mary. Marry me? Who gave you the right to say you’d marry me,
or take my baby? William’s child! How dare you!
Mr. R. I don’t see as you can help yourself. You need the
protection of a man. You can’t have the boat; and you certainly can’t
get a living around here, with your hands tied by that young one. And
you’re too pretty a woman—(Tries to take her hand.)
Mary. (indignantly). Sir! you’ve said enough! You may own my
boat, and you may have the power to take her from me; but you
cannot have the wife of Captain William Miller. I tell you, sir, that I
would rather beg my way home from door to door, with my child in
my arms,—yes, I would starve,—before I would be the wife of any
man but my own husband. Dead or alive, it makes no difference to
me. He is still my husband!
Mr. R. (aside). Those down-East women beat the world. The
spunk they show—Yankee grit they call it—it’s amazing! But, Gad! it
makes her look handsomer than ever. (To her, insinuatingly) You
may change your mind; but, whether you do or not, remember that I
will always be your friend. (Smiling.)
Mary. Sir! I shall never change my mind; and I forbid you ever to
mention this subject to me again. I want no such friendship as yours.
Good-morning! (Turns from him, and goes to the hammock.)
Mr. R. (apologetically). Well, I’m sure I—(Aside) Gad! I want her
more than ever. (To her) You know I said if you did get the license,
we won’t take away the boat. I’m sure you ought not to complain of
that!
Mary (without turning). Very well, sir—then, there is nothing more
to say. Good-morning.
Mr. R. (shamefacedly). Er-er-good-morning. (Exit r.)
Mary (scornfully). So this is the way men protect women! Wretch!
To dare to speak so to me!
(Re-enter Phus, R.)
Phus. O, mis’! dere’s an ol’ gemmen an’ young maars on de warf,
an’ dey bof ax for you.
Mary. Why, who can they be? Ask them to come on deck.
Phus (at r.). Dis way! Dis way!
(Captain Gandy, outside, sings.)

“On Springfield maount’ins there did dwell

A lovelye youth an’ known full well—”

Mary (in great surprise). Father Gandy!

(Enter Capt. G. at r., with J. Q. A., in the uniform of a railroad-train
boy, with a basket on his arm.)
Mary. Why, father! Where did you come from? And John Quincy
Adams! (Rushes into his arms, spilling the basket.)
J. Q. A. Here! Here! What are you about, spilling all my
spondulics! (Puts down his basket, and takes off his hat.)
 Mary. Dear, dear father! where in the world did you come from?
(Throws her arms round him.)
Capt G. Why! from hum, o’ coorse. Whar else should I hail from?
Mary (eagerly). Oh, father! do you know anything about William? I
haven’t heard from him for two months, and I can’t think what the
reason is. You don’t suppose anything could have happened to him,
do you?
Capt. G. Oh! wal, no—I guess not. I saw by the Herald that Zab
Miller’s skewner had strayed from the rest on ’em; but he knows wot
he’s abaout. He ain’t a-gwine ter tell all Glowchester where them
skewls o’ haulibaout hide. (Pats her on the shoulder.) Don’t yer worry
abaout that! There ain’t no telegraph poles on them fishin’ graounds,
an’ the post-man don’t drop in every day in them diggin’s, an’ there
ain’t no delivery if yer do write, nuther.
Mary. I can’t help worrying; and yet I know he must be safe. But,
father, how did you happen to come?
Capt. G. Wal, yer marm was so worrited abaout your trouble that
she made me start off; coz she sed I could act as cap’n, if that was
all the gov’ment wanted, be “master in name” (she read it in the
Globe), so’s you could keep the boat. (Shoves hat on back of head,
puts hands in pockets, and walks about, sailor fashion.)
J. Q. A. I was the first one to think of coming. And I went to Boston
on Jim Rosson’s engine, and got a chance as train-boy to New York.
And when marm found out I was bound to come, she said pup
should go, too. I wanted to come and punch old Romberg’s head.
(Walks about and inspects everything.)
Mary. But where did you get the money to come with, father? and,
John (to J. Q. A.), who paid your fare from New York?
J. Q. A. Why! I paid myself, of course. What do you take me for?
When I got to New York I got another chance as train-boy, all the
way through; and I’ve peddled out water in a big-nosed coffee-pot
from Annisport to New Orleans. And sold books, too! And prize
packages, and things, and magazines. (Calls) “Harper’s! December
Harper’s! Baby Pathfinder! Puck! Peanuts! Gum drops? (Offers his
basket to Mary.)
Mary. You funny boy!
Capt. G. Well, yer see, yer marm—
Mary (interrupting). Sit down, father. (Offers him a camp-stool.)
Capt. G. No, I just ’s lives stand. (Leans against railing.) Yer marm
took boarders all summer, an’ she made me take that money. She
said ’twould never do any more good; an’, then, Leafy Jane, she’s
l’arnt the millinger’s trade, an’ she giv’ me some o’ hern.
J. Q. A. I tried to get a pass for him, part way, at least; but them
railroad men are so mean they’ll never help a fellow along.
Capt. G. Haow is little Nate?
Mary. Oh! he’s all right! Here he is, father. Come and see him.
(They go together to the hammock.) He hasn’t been sick a day this
summer. The dear little fellow! He grows like a weed.
J. Q. A. (at the hammock, aside). A pig weed, I s’pose.
Capt. G. Yer see, Mary, yer trouble has set me ter thinkin’; an’
when you wrote they was goin’ to take away yer boat, just cos yer
was a woman, by the great horn spoon, I was mad: for yer a Gandy
cl’ar through, a sea-cap’n born like all the rest on us. And I’ve made
up my mind that wimmin’s rights must be worth suthin’ to wimmin, as
well as men’s rights to men. An’, as old Pete Rosson said, when he
felt so bad about yer losing the boat, “Sence a woman can’t allus hev
her husband or her father tew take care on her, she ort to have the
right to take care o’ herself, an’ then she can use it or not, as she
wants tew.” An’ so I begin to think that I don’t care if we do let ’em
vote.
J. Q. A. (examining the wheel). Cracky! you can’t make me believe
that. I shall vote in five years, and I’m sure I don’t want Leafy Jane
taggin’ after me to the poles. ’Tain’t any place for girls.
Capt. G. Stop yer gab! Wait till yer ten year older an’ then if yer up
for see-lectman, yer’ll be glad enuf ter have tem vote for yaou!
 J. Q. A. Wouldn’t I make a healthy selectman? Yes, I guess not!
Capt. G. An’—an’, Mary, I want to tell yer suthin’ else. I gin in
about yer mother’s caarf, an’ went an’ bought her back. To be sure,
she ain’t a caarf no longer, but a good likely heifer; but yer mother
sez the principle ’s just as good as if she was jest born, or as old as
Methuselum. An’ she’s tickled enuf abaout it, an’ she said men ain’t
so bad arter all, if yer can onny make ’em see what is wimmin’s jest
dues.
(Enter Phus, l.)
Phus. Oh, mis’! dere’s a s’prise for yer, a golly big one!
Mary. A surprise! What is it?
Phus. Dere’s two ladies talking to Hank; an’ one looks so peart, so
peart, oh, Lor’! (Turns to r. Aside) I wan’ tell her de res’. O, golly! I
can’t keep in.
Mary. Talking to Hank? Some of his lady friends, I suppose.
Phus. O, yes! I forgets. Dey wants ter see you, dey say, and Hank
say he bring’d ’em in.
(Enter Hank, r., in a stage sailor suit, with Mrs. Gandy and Leafy
Jane, the latter very stylishly dressed.)
Mary. Mother! Leafy Jane! (Rushes to them.) Well, this is a
surprise, I should think.
Capt. G. (in great surprise). I vum to vummy, I am beat now!
Phus. Wot I tole yer? Wot I tol yer, mis’? (Aside.) But de odder
one’s bigger!
Capt. G. Waal, I swan to man, Lorany! you’ve got ahead on us this
time. (Goes up to her) Tarnation! haow glad I am ter see yer!
Mary. Why, Leafy Jane, how you’ve grown!
J. Q. A. Yes, and she feels bigger’n you do, and puts on a plaguy
sight more airs. She wants father (she calls him par) to put an e in
Gandy, ’cause she says it’s more genteel.—And say! she don’t lithp
(lisp) any more; the customers laughed at her so for saying “yeth,
thir.”
Capt. G. (to Mrs. G.). Where in the world ’d you come from?
Mrs. G. (deliberately sitting, and removing bonnet, mitts, etc.).
Waal, Nathan, we heerd of an exertion train daown here, at
redooced rates; an’ the boarders,—one on ’em’s writin’ a book,—an’
wanted to be quiet,—said they’d take the haouse furnished for tew
months, and pay in advance. And so Leafy an’ me come right along.
She’s made a lot o’ bunnits this fall on her own accaount, so she’s
quite a haress (heiress).
L. J. Oh, mar!
Mrs. G. Yer see, par, we hadn’t time to write after we’d made up
our mind to start, an’ we cum a leetle sooner’n we should ef it hadn’t
’a’ been for comin’ with—er—with—
L. J. (whispers warningly). Why, mar!
Mrs. G.—with the exertionists. (Aside). Why in the world don’t he
come? I’m tired o’ keepin’ it in. He said he onny wanted to go ter the
bank. (To Mary) An’ then I was afraid you or the baby—why! where
is the baby? Do les see him!
Mary. He’s asleep, mother. Here, come and see him. Isn’t he a
darling? (They go to the hammock.)
L. J. Oh, Mary, what made you name the baby Nathan? I wish you
had called him Herbert, Ernest, or Montmorenci. It’s so much more
genteel.
J. Q. A. Montmorenci Miller! Cracky! wouldn’t that be tony?
L. J. (scornfully). Tony! (Walks off with Hank to the wheel-house.)
Mrs. G. (To Mary) We tole yer young man that looks so much like
Fred Douglass not ta tell yer who we was.
J. Q. A. Marm won’t say “colored man.”
Mrs. G. No, I won’t; I’m sick o’ readin’ on’t in the newspapers.
They’re allus sayin’ such a man, colored, had his leg took off, or
died, or suthin’. What difference does it make, I should like to know,
whether he’s colored or not! He’s hurt all the same, ain’t he? an’ he’s
a man, tew, all the same, ain’t he?
Phus (aside). Golly! I shall bust!
Mary (to Mrs. G.). How long can you stay? a good while, I hope.
Hank (steps forward, drawls). I think we must start in about three
weeks from Monday, if all the signs come right. (To Mary) You see
the excursion don’t last only till then.
Mary (in surprise). We must start! What in the world does this
mean?
Hank. Wal, you see, Leafy and me, we’ve been a-writin’ back and
forth sence the cap’n told me I’d better; an’ she’s agreed to hev me,
an’ go an’ live down to Nantucket. Grandfather’s old, and my marm
wants me to come home an’ settle down an’ see to things. She says
she’s tired o’ housekeeping, and wants to see some young folks
round.
J. Q. A. (To L. J.). ’Fore I’d marry a cook! Anybody that feels as big
as you do. Cookie Mudgitt! How are you, Mrs. Cookie Mudgitt!
Capt. G. Hold your yorp! Hundreds of big men hev ben cooks.
There was the most worshipful G. M. of aour Masonic Lodge, he
used to be cook in Annisport Jail, an’ now he’s a ’surance man, an’
lives in a tarnal big haouse. An’, then, there was a feller cooked on a
ranch five year’, an’ they sent him to Congress.
Mary. Oh, Hank! what shall we do without you?
Hank. I tho’t o’ that. But a nice French Creole feller is takin’ my
place to-day; an’ if he does well, p’r’aps you’ll keep him. If not, I’ll
find somebody else afore we go.
Mary (to L. J.). When are you going to be married?
L. J. (loftily). As soon as we have made the needed preparations.
Henry will explain.
J. Q. A. (to Hank). Then, that’s what you’re so rigged up for, ain’t
it, Bub? in all them sailor slops. You look like a royal tar, a regular old
Britisher.
Hank (sheepishly). Why, yes; you see, Leafy, she likes it. But as
soon as the weddin’ is over (she wants me to be married in ’em here
on the boat), I mean to put the whole rig away in my sea-chist, with
them blasted books that deluded me into goin’ to sea; an’ that will be
the last of my bein’ a sailor. I’ve had enough of it. Darn the bunks! I
want to sleep on a first-rate feather-bed the rest of my life.
L. J. Law! Henry. How you do talk!
Hank. It’s a fact, Leafy, so there! (He goes up to her and tries to
kiss her.)
L. J. (pushing him away). There! that will do, Henry. That’s seven
times to-day since I came.
Hank. Is it? Well, ’tain’t any too many, anyhow!
J. Q. A. You great galloot! Catch me ever being such a fool. Say!
what kind of a necktie you going to wear?
Hank. Oh, a stunner! blue and yallar, I guess. (Looks at L. J.)
Sha’n’t I, Leafy?
L. J. (with dignity). No, Henry; you must have one to match my
dress.
J. Q. A. (to L. J.). ’Fore I’d go taggin’ way down to New Orleans
after a husband!
L. J. You’ll have to tag all round the world before you’ll find any
one fool enough to wed you.
J. Q. A. I don’t think I shall ever “wed.” My affections have been
blighted by a fair damsel from Chicago. She had large feet.
Mrs. G. Stop, John Quincy! Yer as sarsy daown here as yer was
ter hum; ain’t ye l’arnt nothin’ by travellin’?
(Phus, who has been examining J. Q. A.’s basket, attracted by the
peanuts, puts his hand in his pocket for money to buy some, and,
feeling a letter there, draws it forth.)
 Phus. Golly, I forgets dat let’! Mis’! mis’! here’s a let’; seems it
mus’ be dat licens’. Yes! see dis great t’ing on it, big as a hoe-cake
and red as a ’simmon.
Mary (eagerly). Give it to me! (Breaks the seal and hastily reads.)
New Orleans, Feb. 8, 1884.
Mrs. Mary Miller: Dear madam, I take great pleasure in
forwarding to you a captain’s license, for a Mississippi steamboat,
granted according to the decision of Secretary Folger, under Section
4439 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.
Very Respectfully,
Daniel Dumont.
Supervising Inspector-General.
(Mary bursts into tears, and sits down.)
Phus. Is it, mis’? Is it de licens’?
Mary (rising proudly, and holding it out). Yes, it is my license; and
I am Captain Mary Miller! (Hands paper to Capt. G.)
Hank. Hurrah! Three cheers for Captain Mary Miller!
J. Q. A. And a Tiger-r-r-rrr!
(Patsy looks in, then enters and listens).
Capt. G. I thought Charles J. Folger ’d hev the rights on’t.
Mrs. G. Them Folgers could allus be depended on to do the right
thing; believed in ekality from the beginnin’. Old Ben Franklin was
one on ’em, and Lucreshy Mott. They ain’t a bit like some o’ them
Nantucket Halletts—allus on the wrong side of ekality.
Phus. Lor’ bress Cap’n Mary Miller, cap’n of de Keyhole’s Bride.
(Seizes his banjo, sings uproariously, and dances about.)

Bress de men at Washington,—’Lijah cum down,

Dat made a woman cap’n,—’Lijah cum down.
But bress above dem all,—’Lijah cum down.
Good Seketelly Folger,—’Lijah cum down.
May de charyott ob Erlijah swing him softly up to (Slower) Heben,
An’ Mary Miller’s blessin’ be his eberlastin’ crown.
 Mrs. G. (to him, aside). You go’n see ef he ain’t a-comin’. I can’t
hold in much longer. (Exit Phus, r.)
Patsy. Faix, mum, I’ll shthay wid ye as lang as ye varnt.
Mary. But, Patsy, if you do stay, you must expect to obey orders.
Patsy. For sure, mum; I shpects to ’bey a raal laycensed cap’n.
(Goes to wheel and sits by it.)
Mary. And now I am captain of my own vessel in name as well as
in reality. God bless Secretary Folger! He has saved us from want,
protected our little home, and given a woman the right to be captain
of her own boat. If William were only here!
Phus (entering in great excitement). Oh, mis’! here’s de biggest
s’prise in de worl’! (Beckoning.) Dis way! Dis way!
(Enter Captain Miller, l. All rise.)
Capt. M. Mary!
Mary. My dear William! I knew you would come back! (Embraces
him.)
Capt. M. Of course, my darling wife. Why shouldn’t I come back?
Mary. Why, the papers said your vessel had drifted from the rest,
and—
Capt. M. That is true. But we drifted to some purpose, for we
struck a splendid school of halibut, and we stayed till we filled up.
That’s the reason I did not write. And when we landed, I ran up to
Annisport, and found Mother Gandy and Leafy Jane wanted to come
with me, and so we all came along together.
(Shakes hands all round, returns to Mary.)
Mary. But, William, where have you been all this time?
Capt. M. Oh, I had to go to the bank for father to pay the interest
on a note—
Mrs. G. But we thought we’d come right along—
 Mary. Why didn’t you tell me, mother?
Mrs. G. William told me not to. He wanted to s’prise yer.
J. Q. A. She thought she wouldn’t “tell you all at once, for fear you
couldn’t bore it.”
Phus. I seen de cap’n at de pos’-office. He say, “How Mis Miller?” I
say, “Bos’, an’ de baby, too.” Golly, wa’n’t it a big s’prise?
Mary. See, William, here’s my license as captain. I sent to
Washington for a license, and here it is. (Shows it to him.)
Mrs. G. Think of aour Mary’s bein’ a cap’n. Haow lucky! An’,
naow, if anything happens to you, William, she can allus get a livin’,
’cos she can manage her own boat.
J. Q. A. Yes, and she can paddle her own canoe.
L. J. John Quincy Adams Gandy, how very vulgar!
Capt. G. (to William). What’ll you do, neaow Mary’s made capt’n?
Haow’ll you git along?
Mary. Oh, we’ll both be captains.
Capt. M. No! She shall be captain still; and I’ll be her mate. It won’t
be the first time a man has sailed through life under the orders of a
brave and true-hearted woman,—nor the last, I hope. And so,
Captain Mary Miller, I salute you. (Makes a naval salute.)
Phus. Wid a kiss! wid a kiss! Mars cap’n, kiss mis’ cap’n.
Capt. M. Yes, to please you, my good fellow (and myself also), it
shall be with a kiss. (Kisses her hand). My captain!

Disposition of characters:
r. c. l.
Capt. G. Mrs. G. Hank and L. J.
Capt. M. and Mary.
J. Q. A. Phus.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAIN
MARY MILLER ***

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