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    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23 (3), 2020, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the European Journal of Cultural Studies page: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ECS on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

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‘Queen of Scots’: the Monarch’s Body and National Identities in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/06/2020
<mark>Journal</mark>European Journal of Cultural Studies
Issue number3
Volume23
Number of pages18
Pages (from-to)495-512
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date19/02/20
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

On 20 September 2014, in the wake of the Scottish Independence Referendum, the pro-union, right-wing British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph’s front page was dominated by a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II in the grounds of her Balmoral Estate in the Scottish Highlands, under the headline ‘Queen’s pledge to help reunite the Kingdom’. This article takes the headline as a departure point through which to explore competing discourses of national identity during the Independence Referendum. Understanding the Queen’s body as a site of symbolic struggle over these discourses, this article undertakes visual analysis to unpack the composition of the photograph, in order to understand its social, historical, political and cultural meanings. In so doing, it argues that the use of ‘Queen of Scots’ in The Daily Telegraph at the specific conjunctural moment of the Scottish Independence Referendum reveals the complex intersections between monarchy, power, (geo)politics, symbolism, sovereignty, national identity/identities and landscape in the United Kingdom.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23 (3), 2020, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the European Journal of Cultural Studies page: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ECS on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/