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{{BibEntry
 
|BibType=ARTICLE
 
|BibType=ARTICLE
|Author(s)=William Housley; Richard Fitzgerald;  
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|Author(s)=William Housley; Richard Fitzgerald;
 
|Title=Categorisation, narrative and devolution in Wales
 
|Title=Categorisation, narrative and devolution in Wales
|Tag(s)=EMCA; Membership Categorization Analysis; Identity; Narratives;  
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|Tag(s)=EMCA; Membership Categorization Analysis; Identity; Narratives;
 
|Key=Housley2001
 
|Key=Housley2001
 
|Year=2001
 
|Year=2001
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|Volume=6
 
|Number=2
 
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|URL=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.5153/sro.601
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|DOI=10.5153/sro.601
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|Abstract=Within this paper we examine the use of extended story turns, within the accomplished context of a radio news debate, that display various accounts of national identity in relation to a proposal for devolved democratic institutions within the United Kingdom. In this sense, they display a ‘world view’. These various positions are displayed through the use of various categories, inferences and connections in order to lend support to and promote positions of For and Against the proposal of the establishment of a devolved democratic assembly for Wales. In this sense the topics of national identity and political re- organisation are omni-relevant topics (Sacks 1992). However, our particular focus and interest is upon the various detailed ways such positions routinely rely on methods of categorisation and moral assessment in their construction, configuration and promotion of arguments. Furthermore, the analysis of such category work contributes to our understanding of the moral organisation of Welsh identity in relation to devolved forms of political organisation and representation.
 
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Categorisation, narrative and devolution in Wales
 
 
William Housley and Richard Fitzgerald
 
 
ABSTRACT
 
 
Within this chapter we examine the use of extended story turns, within the accomplished context of a radio news debate, that display various accounts of national identity in relation to a proposal for devolved democratic institutions within the United Kingdom. In this sense, they display a ‘world view’. These various positions are displayed through the use of various categories, inferences and connections in order to lend support to and promote positions of For and Against the proposal of the establishment of a devolved democratic assembly for Wales. In this sense the topics of national identity and political re-organisation are omni-relevant topics (Sacks 1992). However, our particular focus and interest is upon the various detailed ways such positions routinely rely on methods of categorisation and moral assessment in their construction, configuration and promotion of arguments. Furthermore, the analysis of such category work contributes to our understanding of the moral organisation of Welsh identity in relation to devolved forms of political organisation and representation.
 
 
 
 
 
Key words: Wales, devolution, categorization, identity, interaction, narrative.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Introduction
 
In recent years questions surrounding national identity have received much sociological attention (Delanty, 1996, Treanor, 1997, Rex, 1996, Archard, 1993, Condor, 1999, Thompson and Fevre, 1999). Routinely, this attention has focussed upon the relationship between national identity, social structures and processes. However, very little sociological attention has focussed upon the manner through which such relevance’s are produced, recognised and used within the realms of everyday interaction and the micro-sociological dimensions of institutions and their associated practices.
 
 
During the course of this chapter we utilise some principles of membership categorisation and conversation analysis (Baker 1984, Hester and Francis (forthcoming), Hester and Eglin 1997, Housley 2000, Lepper, 2000, Silverman, 1998, Watson 1978, 1997) in order to provide an ethnomethodological reading of the accomplishment of different accounts and forms of argumentation within a political radio debate. This debate concerns the topic of devolution and the establishment of the Welsh Assembly.
 
 
The setting examined in this chapter provides an interactional context within which the social organisation and accomplishment of political positions and opinions in relation to national identity can be explored. Whilst it represents a single case analysis it is our contention that such an analysis, in conjunction with others, provides a plethora of thick description that opens up new forms of enquiry and analysis into an area of study that has not received as much attention as it might. However, in recent years a number of studies have began to explore the interactional accomplishment and display of national identity within a number of settings (Hester and Housley, 2001, Rapley and Augoustinos, 2001 Widmer, 2001, Leudar and Nekvapil, 2001). These studies have employed various versions of Harvey Sacks membership categorisation analysis (1992, a) in order to examine the interactional specifics of members work in accomplishing and organising identities in terms of ‘national’ deviced based properties.
 
 
Within the data examined, in this chapter, we can observe a number of characteristics associated with the organisation of talk and interaction within broadcast settings (Hutchby, 1996, Clayman 1992, Housley, 2001). For example, asymmetrical turn types between the interviewer and the interviewee, footing techniques, methods for generating debate and formalised question/ response turn allocation have all been identified as important aspects of talk-in-interaction within such settings. Whilst these are important features of such settings the analysis here focuses on the specific, particular and local accomplishment of forms of argumentation, description and boundaries-of-relevance configured around issues of national identity and proposed political reorganisation within the United Kingdom.
 
 
Argumentation, description and narrative
 
As much of the literature surrounding radio news debates demonstrates, participants usually respond to questioning via extended turn types (Hutchby, 1996). Furthermore, much ethnomethodological analyses of talk and interaction have examined the character of extended turn types in terms of story organisation and accounts (Sacks, 1992 a, b, Lynch and Bogen, 1996, Hester, 1994, Housley, 2000).  Stories and accounts can be understood to be organised in terms of a story opening (preface), the story proper and story closings.
 
 
The story proper consists of a designed collection of categories, which are chosen or displayed in order to facilitate and realise the design potential of the story, such designs may resemble Sacks’ (1992a: 299) description of ‘request formats’. Request formats may consist of a story in which the categories displayed within the story proper facilitate and ‘point to’ the information that the ‘story teller’ wants to be heard. Such a method exhibits Sacks’ observation that stories are primarily designed, as a conversational format, for the listener. This ‘recipient design’ means stories are deemed newsworthy for the members present and concern themselves about something in particular.
 
 
Stories as normative assessments, descriptions and accounts of reality
 
A further dimension of the occasioned and locally produced character of stories in members’ talk is the work that they do. This work is not necessarily tied to mentalistic conceptualisations of intention or personal goals but is an emergent property of the mutually constitutive character of members’ interaction. Lynch and Bogen (1996:280) note how certain moral entitlements are routinely accorded to story tellers. These entitlements can be understood to be categorially organised and consist of a normative and moral set of inferences that are derived from the story and accorded to the teller. These may consist of the teller having lived through an experience or having a unique or privileged access to an event or occurrence. Furthermore, these moral entitlements are also routinely tied to the various occasioned activities that the production of stories may occur within. For example, stories may be used as vehicles to recount experiences central to a criminal investigation or cross examination. They may also be elicited and deployed by members during activities within which matters relating to the truth and actual events are crucial (as in the Iran Contra Hearings elegantly analysed and explored by Lynch and Bogen). However, it must be emphasised that such activities are accomplished in and through the sequential and categorial organisation of talk and the moral-inferential apparatus of culture-in-action accomplished and displayed in and through members talk. As Lynch and Bogen (1996:278) state:
 
 
Numerous conversation-analytic studies have examined stories in conversation and their constituent structures. In the present study we focus more on issues of narrative design, moral entitlement, and the social distribution of stories; these are themes that also were central to Sacks’ work on stories, but they have been given less attention within conversation analysis... The storyteller’s presence in the story goes well beyond specific mentions of ego and of subjective meaning. For example, the selection of predicates to describe and juxtapose scenic details, the temporal ordering and sequencing of narrative phases, and the grammatical tense of the story all serve to establish the teller’s place within events and to provide grounds for inferences regarding what happened and what its significance might be. Story tellers commonly deploy spatial and temporal predicates that are relative to the teller’s and audience’s past and present relations to the events in the story.
 
 
Stories can therefore be understood to be deployed in a variety of settings during the course of a number of activities. However, stories have been routinely shown to be part of a methodological apparatus deployed by members (in and through category and sequence in talk) that accounts for events through various discursive modalities (e.g. moral assessment, description or the sequential placement of an extended turn). Furthermore these ‘assemblages’ are often oriented towards the interactional accomplishment of specific forms of moral categorisation and inference (Jayussi, 1992).
 
 
The data analysed in this chapter is taken from a simultaneous BBC TV and Radio 4 broadcast concerning the proposed establishment of a devolved Welsh ‘Assembly’. The programme is a ‘phone-in’ with a single topic for discussion and consists of a host and two guests present in the studio with callers being invited to phone in and give their opinions on the topic and debate with the guests. Within the introduction of the programme the host has topically positioned the guests into two ‘opposed’ camps i.e. one side being in favour and the other not in favour of devolution in Wales. Furthermore, the guests do not just hold these contrasting opinions, indeed they have been actively involved in the political campaign for their respective points of view. Our analysis of this event is concerned with the way participants construct narratives in order to promote their views and defend those views when challenged.
 
 
National identity, democracy and category juxtaposition: contrast as a downgrading method
 
In the following extract decentralisation and nationhood are topics that are constituted within an extended turn format. This can be understood as a kind of categorially organised ‘policy equation’, Namely, devolution for Wales. The issue for the guest (G1)1 is that the proposed Assembly will interfere with the political balance of the status quo in two principle ways. Firstly, through the creation of conflict between the ‘nations’ making up the United Kingdom and secondly through the dis-empowering of local democracy within the nation of Wales.
 
 
Extract One
 
 
01G1: its the fault of decentralisation here is actually empowering nations .hh and I-I can
 
02 see no way in which that that will not lead to national conflict, so yeah and the other
 
03 thing of course is that the Welsh Assembly is likely to usurp the powers further
 
04 it seems to us of local authorities we’ve already just gone through authorities
 
05 reorganisation in Wales and there is a fear actually amongst local authority
 
06 workers and councillors that there is going to be reorganisation again. The talking
 
07 shop won’t have very much to do except interfere in local democracy it seems
 
08 to me
 
 
Initially, G1 characterises the causal device of decentralisation by referring to the notion they ‘see no way in which that that will not lead to national conflict’ (L.01). In this way, the practice of democracy is tied to the device of a ‘centralised United Kingdom’ whilst the result of the proposed decentralisation of this democracy is mapped to the predicate of ‘conflict’.  Thus, in this stretch of talk, decentralisation as a democratic process leads to national empowerment (through the setting up of democratic structures) which is then tied to inevitable conflict because of this very self same democratic process. The narrative continues through further characterisation and description work. In this case the proposed Welsh assembly being likely ‘to usurp powers further’. That is, the future actions of an elected institution are predicated in terms of ‘usurping powers’. The recognisable tension between the descriptions here can be understood to be achieved through a particular form of category juxtaposition. The juxtaposed tension is produced as a result of democracy with empowerment at national level (leading to conflict) being contrasted with dis-empowerment at a local level (leading to loss of local democratic control). Thus, in this way the devolution of democratic accountability in Wales (i.e., from management by central Government to one where responsibility is passed to an elected body within Wales) is one that is portrayed as dangerous and treacherous at a number of levels. As suggested earlier, the account morally contrasts local democracy (safe) with the emergence of national democratic representation at the Welsh level (unsafe). Indeed, local authority workers and councillors are described as ‘fearful’ (L.05) about potential reorganisation. The proposed assembly is then described as a talking shop that will be primarily oriented to interference with local democracy. Thus, democracy is legitimate at the level of the United Kingdom and the local level but morally dangerous and problematic when associated with the national identity device of ‘Wales’. Modes of predication that tie democracy to Wales are constituted in terms of conflict, the usurping of powers, promoting fear amongst sections of the population and interfering at the local level. This story is therefore one that is constituted in moral terms. Different categorial configurations of democracy are contrasted as a means of downgrading configurations within which democracy, devolution and Wales are co-flated. 
 
 
The story proper: utilising diversity as a categorial resource for problematising the proposal for democracy in Wales
 
During the course of the following extract the second half of the policy equation is discussed by G1, namely the national identity device Wales.
 
 
Extract Two
 
 
09H: and [what about ] yes
 
10G1:       [ and the seco ]nd point to talk about diversity. I think that whats
 
11 interesting people sometimes forget in nineteen seventy nine ur North Wales
 
12 welsh speaking Wales voted against devolution just as heavily as south Wales
 
13 did um that is to say there has been a peculiar argument developed here that if
 
14 you are Welsh and proud of being Welsh you sh should actually support
 
15 devolution. It’s much more complicated than that is Wales .hh we don’t have a
 
16 simple ur unified sense of our identity. Southwalians are very different from
 
17 northwalians Welsh speakers can be different from English speakers (.) hh and I
 
18 think what Mari is doing is actually underestimating those difficulties and
 
19 many people in Wales do not wish to be part of a political unit in with people
 
20 that we feel are we are slightly different to an:d actually a lot of us feel we’ve
 
21 got more in common for example in industrial South Wales with say the
 
22 people of Newcastle. That is our worry.
 
23H: Ok well….
 
 
This extract comprises the second part of the response by the speaker (G1) to two points raised in the previous question. In this case, whether the diversity of Wales presents problems to ideas and policies committed to a single political devolved entity. As a story it conforms to Sacks’ notion that stories are characterised by a preface, the story proper, and closing. The preface can be heard at line ten. We are informed that the topic of diversity is about to be addressed and that an asymmetrical extended turn is about to be taken.  The story proper is introduced through a provision of a description of what follows as something that is ‘interesting’ (L.11). After the provision of the story proper the speaker provides a closing utterance that includes a further description of what has been presented (L.22) and contextualises the argument/narrative as something that is possessed by a recognisable collective (i.e. that is our worry). Within the story the topic of diversity is used as a resource for problematising the proposal for devolution in Wales. Through further analysis of this story it is possible to explore how the speaker builds his argument against devolution through the construction and use of this topic/device. That is, the device is used as a resource for a particular practical deconstruction of the national identity device ‘Wales’.
 
 
In the first instance, the device of ‘Wales’ is connected to two membership categories, namely ‘North’ and South’. In terms of our membership of this category we hear this not merely as a geographical category but as one through which further predicates may be tied (e.g. relative to population there are a greater number of Welsh speakers in the North of Wales than the South).  This mode of predication is displayed in Lines 11-12 when North Wales is tied to a further category ‘Welsh speaking Wales’. Furthermore, we are told that members of these specific categories of the device ‘Wales’ voted ‘just as heavily against devolution’ as South Wales during a previous referendum on devolution in 1979. The co-flation of North Wales with ‘Welsh Speaking Wales’ is one that is contestable. For example, it does not include West Wales or parts of South Wales that have a significant number of Welsh speakers. This categorial display and set of linkages is then presented in another format (L.13). We are told that the inference that can be made from these linkages is that the argument that a vote for devolution is an expression of national pride can be understood to be ‘peculiar’. In many respects this is an insertion of a ‘red herring’ with respect to the local specifics and topic of the talk. However, it does display a sense of Wales and Welshness within which Welsh speaking is translatable into a state of possessing more national pride than non-welsh speaking (national pride being mapped to linguistic pride). The fact that North Wales, ‘Welsh speaking Wales’, voted against devolution in 1979 as heavily as South Wales is used as an argument with which to make unwarrantable the claim that national pride in being Welsh should be associated with voting for the ‘Yes’ campaign in the forthcoming referendum on devolution. However, at the heart of this categorial display are forms of categorisation within which the ability to speak the Welsh language is tied more positively (closer) to the membership of the device of ‘Wales’ than other forms of linguistic practice. This is the first move in building the speakers argument against devolution in Wales through the use of diversity as a categorial resource and device.
 
 
The speaker continues through further use of the diversity device. We are informed that the situation in Wales is ‘much more complicated’. In one sense we may understand complexity as a device of organisation to which diversity can recognisably belong.  It is at this point that the main part of the story, the news of this rebuttal account, is delivered (Lines 15, 16). The speakers states ‘ ...we don’t have a simple ur unified sense of identity’. The sequential location of this utterance is, we believe, significant, in terms of the character and practical logic of the argument. Diversity needn’t be a problem, indeed, hypothetically, it may be argued that diversity is a strength and that devolution, as a principle of political organisation (rather than nationalism per se) not only accommodates this but is also a product of it’s recognition (i.e. devolution being a recognition of an aspect of diversity within the United Kingdom). However, the sequential positioning of the utterance, as well as the categorial linkages and display that get us there, sequentially reaffirms the use of the diversity device as a tool for problematising both Wales and devolution. The sequential positioning of the utterance affirms the categorial use of diversity, in this instance categorially recast as fragmented identities, as a resource to problematise the relationship between Wales and devolution.  Thus the existence of many Welsh identities and the method of narrative through categorial description, elaboration and proliferation is used to downgrade the category of a coherent Wales and thus the political concept of Wales. The fact that the device, ‘diversity in Wales’, can be tied to many categories and is in fact, category rich, is used in an attempt to enframe and constitute the national device ‘Wales’ in a specific way. In this case, when tied to notions of democracy and representation it is presented as fragile, as opposed to, say, support of sport teams, cultural events, pop music and so forth which might be cited as more cogent categorial orders where the national identity device of Wales and Welsh is not problematised or contested.
 
 
This is recognisably reinforced (in terms of the weak form of recognisability) through the utterance ‘… a lot of us feel we’ve got more in common for example in industrial South Wales with say the people of Newcastle. This is our worry’ [L.21,22]. Through the use of this category construction the speaker is able to reinforce the problematic narrative of devolution by placing himself as a member of a category group in which similar features are co-constituted. This elaborates the fear of concerning representation and the Assembly by providing an illustrative category of people, namely ‘us’, who as a category of population have more in common with others in similar economic (as opposed to ethnic, political, civil, national or linguistic) circumstances. Thus, whilst not necessarily including ourselves in the category he nonetheless provides a means of categorial reflection upon our own possible category dis-junctures with the national identity device of Wales.
 
 
More specifically, the use of and inclusion of the speaker within this category is offered as ‘an example’, an example which invites the listener to place themselves in the same frame, though not necessarily making the same connections as the speaker. This categorial manoeuvre may be seen in terms of what Sacks refers to when he suggests that ‘talking about whatever, it comes home to us’ (Sacks 1995: 563). What Sacks suggests is that we talk about events in so far as they happen to us and affect us, we place ourselves in the frame of the story. Moreover, the use of the personal category membership for ‘him’ within this part of the narrative is constructed in such a way as to invite us to place ourselves in the frame to see how events will affect us. Thus, a personal category identification is offered as a device to which listeners may, upon their own personal categorial reflection, include themselves or not. That is, the listener is being offered a device frame within which they can reflect upon identity groups with common interests to them but which are not in Wales.
 
 
In summary of this section, within the course of this story the existence of many Welsh identities and the scope for diversity is used to downgrade the proposition for devolution in Wales. Thus, through the provision of category complexity, the notion of a unified Welsh identity is deconstructed and the proposal for devolution as an expression of national self determination is downgraded through the problematisation of the second part of the policy equation, namely the device ‘Wales’. This is displayed through an account that asserts that Wales is characterised by a number of identities as opposed to a single or uniform cultural or national configuration. Therefore, as stated previously, diversity is constituted as a problematic category for devolution in Wales and is used a resource to downgrade and problematise the proposal.
 
 
Geography, Identity and Warrantability: Using hierarchies of categorisation in debates concerning national identity and devolution.
 
 
In this section we develop the discussion of categorial work in a political debate by examining the way identity and geography may be tied to a notion of warrantability to speak on a topic. Of particular interest here is the suggestion by a caller that her category membership precludes her from offering an opinion on Welsh devolution and subsequently the way the guests then set out to configure the topic as one of inclusion or exclusion of her category. In this way, the local categorial membership and predicates of the caller becomes a political issue approached by the guests through configuring hierarchies of category membership.
 
 
 
Extract Three (a)
 
 
68H: double four our next caller is Betty Lawson from Norfolk
 
69C: I think Wales should vote no(.) and the reason, I live in Norfolk so perhaps
 
70 they think I shouldn’t have a say, but they already have too many quangos and
 
71 if you have a secretary of state for Wales who is a member of the Cabinet and
 
72 without such a big majority would be accountable to the House of Commons
 
73 in debate they will know what’s going on this way they will not know what’s
 
74 going on and if you get little clans of people people like you’ve got in these
 
75 various quangos now they are simply ur ur feeding their own interests and it
 
76 would be a state where Scotland would be on its own Wales [would be on its own]
 
77H:                                                                                                   [ well lets  just  just  ]
 
78 let me ask you Betty Lawson just ur r ur ask you why you think that as someone
 
79 from Norfolk you should have a say in the [way that Wales] is governed
 
80C:                                                                     [because I think]                 
 
81 whether you like(.) well if you look at the Balkans and that’s the example I would
 
82 make they had all these Serbs, Cro[ats and Muslims]
 
83H:                                                       [but that doesn’t] that doesn’t quite address
 
84 [the  point  of  wh]y you as as somebody from England should have a say ur in the
 
85C: [it’s the same thing]
 
86H: affairs of Wales
 
87C: well how much money has Scotland and Wales had from England
 
89H: well let let me put that to Mari James in that case cos that is a point there is that
 
90 feeling [isn’t there]
 
91G2:             [ in in fact ] one one of the early callers mentioned that that if if you look
 
92 at the breakdown of public expenditure um figures in Wales Wales gets no
 
93 greater share of public expenditure than its proportion of the population would
 
94 warrant um I d-don’t think that’s quite the case for Scotland I I think the that there
 
95 is probably more money going into Scotland its to do with the defence
 
96 procurement spending in both countries um but I I don’t have a problem with with
 
97 people in England having a view on on the system in Wales um obviously what
 
98 matters is is that the people who vote in Wales must have views on it as well
 
99 whether they’re English or Welsh or whatever nationality so I don’t think
 
100 nationality is the case here its just where people are living and how we can
 
101 decid[e to vote]
 
102H:         [ just  to ] comment on the two points there one about the money do you
 
103 accept that it isn’t a disproportionate amount that [goes to Wales and two ]about
 
104G1:                                                                     [no  I  think  what  what]
 
105H: people in the rest of the country having a say
 
106G1:  yeah I mean there’s an academic ur debate going on at the moment [that’s
 
107H:                                                                                                               [ I know
 
108G1:  politic]ally important but um basically the argument is that because there isn’t
 
109H:   ha ha]
 
110G1:  any defence spending in Wales that we only have what we deserve by head of
 
111 population actually public spending through local authorities is higher in
 
112 Wales the second point is that the disgraceful thing about the whole debate
 
113 is that here we are ripping up the British political system and the English
 
114 are not being asked their views now that is just wrong it’s rather like a
 
115 jigsaw puzzle but take two pieces out of the jigsaw puzzle you change the
 
116 shape and you try to jam them back in again it ain’t gona work its gona cause
 
117 trouble and I think you know the debate should’ve been had six months ago
 
118 its been rushed it doesn’t involve the English that is profoundly unfair and
 
119 unwise
 
120H: well I’d [liketo go back now yes  do  yes yes  ]
 
121G2: [can I I don’t know if we can can ask] caller in cos there has been
 
121 has been I don’t know if Mrs Lawson’s aware there has been a consultation
 
122 process in England going on recently ur to do with the setting up of a regional
 
123 [  development    agencies    in    ]England
 
124C: [I’m not worried about that aspect]                I don’t I I don’t have anything
 
125 against the people of Wales getting more money if they’re part of the United
 
126 Kingdom but the fact remains that this is going to cause trouble because of you
 
127 you said (.) various issues are going to come u and its gona split the whole country up 128 [ an]d put people
 
129G1: [well]
 
130C: against other people[thats the problem we have]
 
131G1:                     [ I I      ((inaudible))        ]
 
132G2:                     [ du du du ((inaudible))    ]
 
133H:                                 [ Tim(( ))you had your say ] lets hear what Mari James has to
 
134 [say about this]
 
135G2:[    the point    ] the point I wanted to finish was that if the consultation process
 
136 in England had also been involving voters in England then then I think that some
 
137 of the anxiety about ur people in England not being involved in the process at the
 
138 moment might might have been allayed and I would very much encourage that
 
139 voters in England should be involved in the process in England as[ soon as possible]
 
140H:                                                                                                           [    yeah lets go  ]
 
141 to leave England now and go back to Cardiff Peter Goodall
 
142C: thank you ur
 
 
 
In the first utterance by the caller she offers an answer to the omni-present question that the programme is premised upon. For the caller, the vote should be ‘no’ to devolution. Thus, the caller at this point has placed herself into one of the opposing ‘sides’ of the debate. Having now given her opinion she then begins to offer an account for why she holds this particular view. However, before finishing the first point she has embarked upon she suggests that ‘they’ (we suggest that the ‘they’ refers primarily to the two guests but also to their supporters and possibly in the broadest sense, all those in Wales) might question the legitimacy of her having an opinion on this topic because of her geographical location. Thus, although she rings the programme, gets on air and offers an opinion she suggests that her opinion may be seen as unwarrantable because of her category membership. That is to say, she suggests that she does not occupy a relevant category for this topic, which presumably would be someone from Wales and that because of this, her opinion may be unwarrantable. In this way, the caller offers a view of the debate in which warrantability to speak within the debate is organised in terms of geographic categories.
 
 
The caller then continues with a point about the accountability of the Secretary of State for Wales in relation to a Westminster Parliament and her concern with the self serving nature of appointments to quango’s in Wales and the ‘separation’ of Scotland and Wales from England.
 
 
The point the host picks up on to initiate debate with the caller is the geographical location of the caller and the legitimacy of her having an opinion. Thus, although she has provided some footing concerning possible characterisations of the opinion she has concerning Welsh devolution, the host’s question seeks to explore the grounds of her own account that questions her legitimacy to speak due to her self professed ‘problematic’ geographical category incumbency. For the host, she has not provided a reason as to why she feels she, as a member of a category incumbency that may be seen as an irrelevant position for this topic, should be seen as having a legitimate opinion.
 
 
The host’s question reformulates the category membership of the caller by placing the caller’s, ‘I live in Norfolk’ to ‘someone from Norfolk’. Consequently, the caller’s self-proposed problematic category relationship to the topic is not treated as a matter peculiar to Betty Lawson but in terms of the caller as a member of the category device of ‘those who live in Norfolk’. The reformulated category device ‘anyone from Norfolk’ subsumes the individual category membership into a generalised device. (L.78, 79). The question is heard to categorise the caller in terms of her geographical location and also her nationality through her geographical position as somewhere that is not in Wales. Thus, when the host asks the caller a ‘follow up’ question it can be heard as a repeat question, although the geographical term for the caller is now England as opposed to Norfolk having a say in the affairs of Wales (L.84). Building upon Sacks’ consistency rule, whereby mention of one category allows further categories to be seen as members of the same device, the use by the host of the categories Norfolk and then England can be seen to build upon the device of geographical areas outside Wales. Moreover, further use of the consistency rule would suggest that as these geographical categories are 1) part of the United Kingdom and 2) not Wales they could also include the categories of Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is not then that Norfolk is in a problematic relationship to having a say on Welsh Devolution, but that Norfolk is a category within the device England and England is a category within the device ‘not in Wales’.  The topical issue being people within the device ‘not in Wales’ having a say on Welsh devolution. This topic of warrantability, configured around category membership of political and geographical devices, is then taken up by each guest in turn.
 
 
Extract Three (b)
 
89H: Well let let me put that to Mari James in that case cos that is a point there is that
 
90 feeling [isn’t there]
 
91G2:    [ In in fact ] one one of the early callers mentioned that that if if you look
 
92 at the breakdown of public expenditure um figures in Wales Wales gets no
 
93 greater share of public expenditure than its proportion of the population would
 
94 warrant um I d-don’t think that’s quite the case for Scotland I I think the that there
 
95 is probably more money going into Scotland its to do with the defence
 
96 procurement spending in both countries um but I I don’t have a problem with with
 
97 people in England having a view on on the system in Wales um obviously what
 
98 matters is is that the people who vote in Wales must have views on it as well
 
99 whether they’re English or Welsh or whatever nationality so I don’t think
 
100 nationality is the case here its just where people are living and how we can
 
101 decid[e to vote]
 
 
 
Initially, the answer to the moral problem of geography and warrantability of making claims about the proposal for democracy for Wales is formulated in terms of how much money the countries of Wales and Scotland have had from England (L.87). The question posed by the caller is now put to the first guest.  The guest (G2) begins to addresses the caller’s question by referring back to a previous caller who addressed this issue, pointing out that differential amounts of money are given to Scotland and Wales and accounting for why this should be so. The guest (G2) then goes onto address the issue of the geographical category of the caller and the apparent disjuncture this presents for a valid opinion predicate being successfully mapped to the caller. The guest (G2) suggests that she has no problem with people from England having a view on Welsh devolution, but that it is the people in Wales who should have an opinion. In her response the guest draws upon the category relevance proposed previously in which a separation between people in Wales and people in the rest of the United Kingdom was made. Within the categorial organisation displayed, she suggests that people in England do not occupy a problematic relationship between their category membership and this topic and that members of this device are welcome to have opinions on the topic. However, what matters to this guest is that members of the category ‘in Wales’ should also have opinions and it is these opinions which are important. The guest (G2), then, has configured boundaries of relevance around a geographical device whose members are those who are eligible to vote. That is, it is not that Welsh people per se should have an opinion but anyone who lives in the geographical area of Wales, whatever nationality they are should have an opinion(i.e. those eligible to vote as this may include English people who are resident in Wales). Thus the caller’s geographical location, turned into a national identity by the host has now been reverted back to a simple, for this guest (G2), geographical issue. In this way, the guest (G2) is able to use the category configurations of the caller to accept her opinions as valid whilst making them irrelevant as the caller, and by extension all those ‘not in Wales’, do not have the vote. Consequently, this then configures the categorial relevance to one of agency (those who can vote) and dismisses the relevance of national identity. This story therefore detaches issues of Welsh political identity from questions of notions of ethnicity, language and so forth as relevance to the debate is a matter of predicated agency and residential location.
 
 
After this the host then invites the other guest (G1) to address the issues raised by the caller. The guest (G1) first of all provides further flesh to the difference in government spending in Scotland and Wales (L.110 B 111) then goes onto address the issue of the grounds for someone from England as a relevant category for a valid opinion.
 
 
Extract Four
 
102H: [ Just  to ] comment on the two points there one about the money do you
 
103 accept that it isn’t a disproportionate amount that [goes to Wales and two ]
 
104G1:                                                                   [no I think what what    ]
 
105H: about people in the rest of the country having a say
 
106G1:  Yeah I mean there’s an academic ur debate going on at the moment [that’s    ]
 
107H:                                                                                                               [ I know ]
 
108G1:  [politic] ally important but um basically the argument is that because there isn’t
 
109H:   [ ha ha ]
 
110G1:  any defence spending in Wales that we only have what we deserve by head of
 
111 population actually public spending through local authorities is higher in
 
112 Wales the second point is that the disgraceful thing about the whole debate
 
113 is that here we are ripping up the British political system and the English
 
114 are not being asked their views now that is just wrong it’s rather like a
 
115 jigsaw puzzle but take two pieces out of the jigsaw puzzle you change the
 
116 shape and you try to jam them back in again it ain’t gona work its gona cause
 
117 trouble and I think you know the debate should’ve been had six months ago
 
118 its been rushed it doesn’t involve the English that is profoundly unfair and
 
119 unwise
 
120H: Well I’d [like to go back now yes do yes yes]
 
 
For guest 1, (G1), who occupies a position against devolution, the issue does involve the English, not in a peripheral capacity, but as a part of a device with a central concern to this topic. For this guest the issue concerns not just those who live in Wales, and by category extension have a vote in the forthcoming referendum, but those who live within the device of the British political system. This particular form of political organisation subsumes the geographical organisation of the British Isles and Northern Ireland as relevant to the debate and thus now includes the English, and by extension the caller, as relevant and having a relevant and valid opinion. Thus, the category of the caller in relation to the relevance of Welsh devolution is now intimately connected with the topic, such that geography is turned into political geography and in that sense the caller’s nationality is made relevant to the debate. The caller then, in one sense, has now been categorised as part of a device (the British political system) which is of central importance to this debate. Indeed not to recognise this has been ‘profoundly unfair’ to the English. Thus, the reconfiguration of category topic relevance is achieved whereby the national identity of the caller is made as centrally important to the debate as people who live in Wales.
 
 
Vertical categorisation and the devolution debate: The British political system and devolution
 
In response to the reconfiguration of category relevance that now include the caller’s category incumbency the other guest (G2) requests that she be allowed to bring the caller into the discussion to ask whether she is aware of consultations going on in England concerning the setting up of regional development agencies.
 
 
Extract Five
 
 
120H: well I’d [liketo go back now yes  do  yes yes  ]
 
121G2:            [can I I don’t know if we can can ask] caller in cos there has been
 
121 has been I don’t know if Mrs Lawson’s aware there has been a consultation
 
122 process in England going on recently ur to do with the setting up of a regional
 
123 [  development    agencies    in    ]England
 
124C: [I’m not worried about that aspect]                I don’t I I don’t have anything
 
125 against the people of Wales getting more money if they’re part of the United
 
126 Kingdom but the fact remains that this is going to cause trouble because of you
 
127 you said (.) various issues are going to come u and its gona split the whole country up 128 [ an]d put people
 
129G1: [well]
 
130C: against other people[thats the problem we have]
 
131G1:                     [ I I      ((inaudible))        ]
 
132G2:                     [ du du du ((inaudible))    ]
 
133H:                                 [ Tim(( ))you had your say ] lets hear what Mari James has to
 
134 [say about this]
 
135G2:[    the point    ] the point I wanted to finish was that if the consultation process
 
136 in England had also been involving voters in England then then I think that some
 
137 of the anxiety about ur people in England not being involved in the process at the
 
138 moment might might have been allayed and I would very much encourage that
 
139 voters in England should be involved in the process in England as[ soon as possible]
 
140H:                                                                                                           [    yeah lets go  ]
 
141 to leave England now and go back to Cardiff Peter Goodall
 
142C: thank you ur
 
 
 
In response to guest 1’s discussion with the caller guest 2 requests that she be allowed to bring the caller into the discussion to ask whether she is aware of consultations going on in England concerning the setting up of regional development agencies. This then, offers a relevance to the caller within her geographical location. The caller however dismisses this going on to address her previous question concerning the allocation of spending to Wales (L.125). She now says she has nothing against the people of Wales getting more money, if they are part of the United Kingdom, thereby once again invoking the categories of political geography and the possible outcome of this for the United Kingdom. At this point guest 1 attempts to gain the floor shortly followed by guest 2 who is then followed by the host allocating next turn position. Guest 2 asks that she be allowed to finish her original point embarked upon in the previous turn. This point again attempts to address the issue of the relevance of the caller’s category to this topic by appealing to a consultation process that should have involved the English but did not. This is not however a consultation process concerning Welsh devolution but one involving the English in setting up possible regional development agencies. This can be understood as a reconfiguring of the topical relevance of the caller’s category incumbency back to a position of peripheral relevance to the topic of Welsh devolution and into a topic which is of relevance to the English and hence the caller. However, it also a means of introducing a further device in response to the notion of the British political system. Namely that devolution is a process that is occurring across the British political system (in one form or another) and is not the sole preserve of Wales. Furthermore, this form of argumentation extends and develops the notion of a form of political identity in Wales that fuses conceptualisations of nationhood and democratic accountability not with Welsh Speakers, ethnicity or ‘culture’ but notions of rights, voting, eligibility (people who live in Wales) and so forth. In short the category of devolved Welsh citizenship is a displayable feature of this narrative. In asserting this point we assume that citizenship is a membership category that is readily available to everyday conversations, debates and so forth concerning political matters. In this sense the notion of citizenship is a readily available analytical category of a democratic political culture.
 
 
Time, Categorisation and devolution in Wales
 
The discourse of ‘time’ within media broadcasts has been approached through a number of studies, most notably Bell (1995, 1998) Moores (1995) Allan et al (1995) Schokkenbroek (1999). In Bell’s study he sets out to explore the organisation of narrative within news stories as compared to standard temporal organisation of narrative as discussed by Labov and Waletzky (1967). The research by Bell (1995, 1998) and Schokkenbroek (1999) suggest that news narrative is not necessarily organised along linear temporal lines, rather events are placed out of order and constantly returned back to. This, Bell suggests, is for editorial purposes, so that a news story may be cut from below at any sentence but still maintain the essential elements of the story. Time, in this sense is then approached as the shuffling of the temporal organisation of events when relating events through broadcast news. That is, the elements of narrative identified by Labov and Welatzky: abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and coda do not necessarily appear in order of happening. By unpacking the discourse of time within narrative on news broadcasts light is cast upon the connection between time and the elements of narrative in the media. That is, the elements of narrative can be usefully explored through their intersection with time and temporality in order to explore the complexities of narrative and the use stories may be put to in broadcast media. Whilst it is beyond the bounds of this chapter to explore all the constituent parts of narrative in relation to the data the notion of ‘evaluation’ can be initially highlighted and developed upon as an oriented to resource utilised by the participants in this radio show.
 
 
Evaluation is the part of a story, which contains the significance of the story, ‘why’ it is interesting or being told. When applied to the study of media discourse evaluation can be seen as an integral part as the reason why something is newsworthy. Also part of the evaluation section of news stories is evaluation of the future in respect to present and past occurrences. Thus, part of the evaluative content of the media is the projection of possibilities emanating from present circumstances; what might happen in the future and why this will continue to be newsworthy. Temporality, then, may be approached as a constitutive part of media discourse through projection of future events from past or present events. Moreover, as the future has not yet occurred projections of future possibilities are open to those who have voice in the media. This may include politicians, political pundits news presenters, journalists and indeed ordinary members of the public given access to media output. Each then has the potential to interpret past and present events in different ways and so too projections of future implications and developments of present occurrences. Moreover, projections of the future may involve attempts to define or set the agenda for future news, what is going to be news.
 
 
An initial way to begin to open this area up for further study is an examination of the way interviewees and interviewers attempt to evaluate the significance of present and past events by presenting a scenario of the future which is both politically motivated and seeks to place this scenario on the agenda for future discussion. Within the data examined the notion of time and future is of central importance as the discussion concerns the question ‘should Wales vote for the Assembly or not’. The discussion, then, centres on what might happen with a vote either way i.e., with prediction and projection as well as with the present and past. Furthermore, related to the use of temporal projection is the use that this may be put to in a political sense, whereby speakers may attempt to project a scenario of the future for political gain and at the same time attempt to define the agenda for future discussion.
 
 
As indicated above, in terms of the issue at stake in the extract below, time can be understood in terms of the past, present and future. To this extent the process of devolution and associated topics can be understood to be organised in both temporal and spatial terms. Moreover the temporal scenario presented by the caller can be seen to be organised through a device ‘a future’ in which associated problematic topics/or categories are collected.
 
 
Extract Six
 
 
68 double four our next caller is Betty Lawson from Norfolk
 
69C: I think Wales should vote no(.) and the reason I live in Norfolk so perhaps
 
70 they think I shouldn’t have a say but they already have too many quangos and
 
71 if you have a secretary of state for Wales who is a member of the Cabinet and
 
72 without such a big majority would be accountable to the House of Commons
 
73 in debate they will know what’s going on this way they will not know what’s
 
74 going on and if you get little clans of people people like you’ve got in these
 
75 various quangos now they are simply ur ur feeding their own interests and it
 
76 would be a state where Scotland would be on its own Wales [would be on its own]
 
77H:                                                                                                 [ well lets  just  just  ]
 
 
During the course of this stretch of talk a particular presentation of a future avenue that devolution will lead toward is displayed. The present political situation in Wales is viewed as unaccountable. This state of affairs is characterised by there being ‘... too many Quangos’. However, despite the proposal to set up a democratic devolved institution the future is one within which accountability is still not present. The proposed assembly is projected forward in time and predicated in terms of ‘... little clans of people like you’ve got in these various quangos now, they are simply ur ur feeding their own interests and it would be a state where Scotland would be on its own Wales would be on its own’ (L.75 B 76). This version of the future can be heard to be a continuation of the present set of circumstances. The future is co-flated with the present; devolution as a process is characterised as one that will reproduce the same set of internal conditions of unaccountability. Thus a sense of stability through non-accountability is maintained. This can be understood as a mode of categorisation and predication that invokes a sense of stability through the ‘nothing changes’ device. This contrasts significantly with the other modes of predication that are also oriented to problematising the proposal for devolution in Wales. Indeed, the self-same caller (L.81 B 82) projects a further future scenario through a comparison with the Balkan conflict. Thus nothing changes is ascribed to Wales from within and conflict, dislocation and people against other people (L.127 B 130) characterises a Welsh future in relation to other parts of Britain. This projection of the future organised around the contrastive device has been noted previously in the chapter where G1 seeks to place the assembly in a middle position of causing conflict with nations outside Wales and interference with local democracy within Wales.
 
 
The evaluation component of a story, the why it is being told, can be seen in this instance to incorporate or indeed depend upon a temporal scenario categorially organised. The evaluation is bound up not only with present and past occurrences or interpretation of the past but also a projection of the future derived from the evaluation of the past. In this way, the ‘why’ of the story is placed firmly in the future by way of an ‘evaluative projection’ and that such a projection may incorporate or even depend upon a common sense categorial organisation. An organisation in which the categories of future action, or inaction, are placed in the device of ‘yes vote’. The use of an evaluative projection of the future is further evident in the next extract in which the speaker (G1) offers different categories of a future scenario. Again, evident is the way a future is treated as a device by the speaker who then proceeds to collect different categories within the device.
 
 
The spectre of bureaucracy, interference and inertia writ large
 
During the course of this extract an account of devolution and decentralisation within the context of the United Kingdom is displayed.
 
 
Extract Seven
 
01G1: its the fault of decentralisation here is actually empowering nations .hh and I-I can
 
02 see no way in which that that will not lead to national conflict, so yeah and the other
 
05 thing of course is that the Welsh Assembly is likely to usurp the powers further
 
06 it seems to us of local authorities we’ve already just gone through authorities
 
05 reorganisation in Wales and there is a fear actually amongst local authority
 
06 workers and councillors that there is going to be reorganisation again. The talking
 
07 shop won’t have very much to do except interfere in local democracy it seems
 
08 to me
 
 
This account is organised in terms of a mode of predication that projects the assembly into the future. This future is characterised by a usurping of powers that, it is inferred, should morally reside within the device ‘local authorities’. The moral work is developed through a further mode of predication that is mapped onto the Assembly and the process of devolution, namely ‘fear’ and ‘interference’. Thus, the predicated future for Wales is one within which the proposed Assembly is at odds with local forms of democratic accountability (lines 7-8) and represents an institutional manifestation (predication) of national conflict. One of the interesting features of predicating an argument in terms of future events is that it minimises the effects of counter arguments. Firstly, through the everyday common-sense principle that the future cannot be known and secondly that any response (via the principle of recipient design) has to take into consideration and orient towards the specific categorial configuration, predication and articulation of the future displayed by a first speaker. The predication of the future through condensed story formats (Housley, 2000) is an effective rhetorical resource. 
 
 
Conclusion
 
During this chapter we have noted the manner through which stories and description, moral assessments, configurations, predication and so forth are fundamental to the business of argumentation and debate. Furthermore, we propose that talk concerning national identity devices are inferentially rich. Whilst this study represents a single case analysis it is our contention that categories and devices of national identity are not merely casual, abstract or merely local specific forms of categorisation. Whilst we accept that categorisation is local and situated in terms of the accomplishment of the radio news debate the category Wales is contested and accomplished through the invocation of contrasting categorial ‘logics’. These logics, if they are to appeal to listeners, the audience or ‘public’ (a design feature of radio debate talk) are oriented to a wider sense(s) of social structure and organisation. Clearly, national identity is a category explicit resource through which such a strategy can be practically achieved. A primary and fundamental predicate of national identity devices is there character as a population (n category) device. This is an integral and unavoidable cultural feature of such devices. However, it is also important to note how national identity devices, within the debate talk analysed here, are enframed, accomplished and resourced within a local environment. Categories of national identity can be understood as rich categories due to the possibility to ascribe, associate and tie such devices to a wide range of activities and practices as well as subsume other devices (that become membership categories within a device of national identity) within a collection. This being the case, it is interesting to observe the process of category inclusion and exclusion. As noted in example three, the issue of exclusion, inclusion and so forth is mobilised within an accomplished context of relevance. The opinions expressed are again designed in terms of a situated logic of sense. However, the issue of relevance and the speakers’ rights on the topic of devolution and Wales is dealt with through the invocation of further modes of categorisation. Namely, in this case, the inclusive device of the British political system is deployed. This is a device that incorporates both Wales and Norfolk whilst those eligible to vote in the referendum on devolution in Wales does not include those residing in Norfolk.
 
 
Furthermore, the tension between sense and nonsense is a practical concern that informs the recipient design of argumentation. This is compounded within talk where a ‘public issue’ is at stake due to the fact that different opinions within a debate context are laying claim to the true version of events, realities of the situation and projections of the future. Thus, in understanding this talk and the design and use of various category configurations within argument-narrative the audience is omni-present. Furthermore, the audience is not merely a passive group of listeners. Indeed, they are there not only to be convinced but are also revealed as interested parties through the activity of ‘phoning in’.  Furthermore, the audience can also be understood to be tied to the device ‘the public’. In this sense, the talk about the proposed establishment of a national assembly in Wales can be understood as an, albeit local and situated, accomplishment and display of the public sphere. The sphere is characterised by ‘actors’ and ‘forms of agency’ (politicians expressing views, quangos, institutions with ‘powers’, concerned members of the public phoning in, a radio news debate programme, the audience and so forth.). However, the debate can be understood as an opportunity to furnish the object of the debate with various categorisations, predications and assessments. The centrality and import of categorisation work to understanding, communicating and constituting accounts of devolution and Wales stands in contrast to traditional accounts of the public sphere, politics and institutions. In this sense, whilst it is feasible to identify various structures, functions and processes within a ‘public sphere’ (e.g. the media, political institutions, democracy) the organic character of the ‘public sphere’ is suffused with forms of moral practice and mundane actions. These practices are often hidden from view in traditional accounts of identity, political change and the public sphere. This is consistent with ethnomethodological approaches to the conceptualisation of social structure as a members phenomenon (Coulter, 1982, Zimmerman and Boden, 1993). In this case, a particular aspect of social structure, namely nation.
 

Latest revision as of 08:28, 18 October 2019

Housley2001
BibType ARTICLE
Key Housley2001
Author(s) William Housley, Richard Fitzgerald
Title Categorisation, narrative and devolution in Wales
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Membership Categorization Analysis, Identity, Narratives
Publisher
Year 2001
Language
City
Month
Journal Sociological Research Online
Volume 6
Number 2
Pages
URL Link
DOI 10.5153/sro.601
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Within this paper we examine the use of extended story turns, within the accomplished context of a radio news debate, that display various accounts of national identity in relation to a proposal for devolved democratic institutions within the United Kingdom. In this sense, they display a ‘world view’. These various positions are displayed through the use of various categories, inferences and connections in order to lend support to and promote positions of For and Against the proposal of the establishment of a devolved democratic assembly for Wales. In this sense the topics of national identity and political re- organisation are omni-relevant topics (Sacks 1992). However, our particular focus and interest is upon the various detailed ways such positions routinely rely on methods of categorisation and moral assessment in their construction, configuration and promotion of arguments. Furthermore, the analysis of such category work contributes to our understanding of the moral organisation of Welsh identity in relation to devolved forms of political organisation and representation.

Notes