OPPapers.com

Sociology

written by Lukasz Dabkowski.

The task of this article is to compare two general articles about national identity. The first one is “National identity in Niagara Falls Canada and the United States” by Thomas Stieve and the other is “Being British: a crisis of identity?” by Frank Bechhofer and David McCrone.
I will try to compare those articles, especially in terms of using term “identity” and “national identity”, but general summary will also be given. Methodology of both articles will be criticized along with the way they cope with doing a research on identity. The meaning of identity and national identity will be in focus, but with a sociological meaning, avoiding political and international relationships context.

The first article, “National identity in Niagara Falls Canada and the United States” by Thomas Stieve, is an attempt to consider national identity in two, neighbouring cities. Author did his research in Niagara Falls, Canada and Niagara Falls, US. He chose those cities for its small distance from each other, and tried to compare national identity shown by citizen in both cities.
A theoretical background in this article were two theories on national identity.
First theory mentioned by Stieve indicates that group identity is based on the differences between one’s group members and the others. Those differences must be known by the members of a group, for the awareness of those differences is essential for the common identity. This theory is called relational, for the fact that relation to others is a main way to build one’s identity.
The other theory mentioned by Stieve in his article says that group identity (in this case – national) is based on traits all, or rather most, of the members of the group share. In this case group identity relies on characteristics the members of the group have in common. Again, those traits must be known, if not visible for all, but this time individual draws attention to similarity in his group,...