Paper short abstract:

Scottish National Party activists envision an independent Scotland as a utopian nation in which new community-oriented moral rules flourish. By performatively acting out these utopian imaginations in their everyday lives activists seek to assert the civic nature of the Scottish independence movement

Paper long abstract:

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has historically presented itself as a civic nationalist party, concerned with the political – rather than ethnic – arguments for Scottish independence. Since their rise to power in 2011 they have taken great care in framing their pro-independence discourse around a progressive vision of a caring, community-orientated future Scotland. This community-oriented focus is one that runs deeply through its membership, with SNP activists envisioning an independent Scotland as a utopian nation sustained by the positive civic engagement of its people at a local level. From family care for the elderly to collective beach clean-ups and locally-based economic models, activists imagine an independent future ruled by moral principles centred around ideas of fairness and community care. Yet this utopian vision of independence does not remain confined to the speculative future. Rather, it is approximated into the present by SNP activists who, following the often-cited slogan “Live as if you were in the early days of an independent nation”, performatively act out these visions of a civic future in their everyday lives. Following 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork amongst SNP activist in Edinburgh, this paper will explore the ways in which these performative acts delineated the new moral rules an independent Scotland would offer by showcasing what a better tomorrow might look like. Further, it will show how the enactment of these promised futures helped assert the civic and progressive nature of the movement, informing the movement’s political trajectory as it campaigns for Scottish independence.