Bordering on Britishness

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Andrew Canessa

   Pages 1-31

3. “The Beauty of the Inexplicable”

   • Francisco Oda Ángel

   Pages 33-66

4. Cross-Frontier Class Solidarities in Gibraltar and the Campo, 1880–1928 and Beyond

   • Chris Grocott, Gareth Stockey, Jo Grady

   Pages 67-89

5. Us and Them: British and Gibraltarian Colonialism in the Campo de Gibraltar c. 1900–1954

   • Gareth Stockey

   Pages 91-119

6. A New British Subject: The Creation of a Common Ethnicity in Gibraltar

   • Luis G. Martínez Del Campo, Andrew Canessa, Giacomo Orsini

   Pages 121-141

7. Borders, Language Shift, and Colonialism in Gibraltar, 1940–1985

   • Eddie Picardo

   Pages 143-165

8. ‘Franco Lives!’ Spanish Fascism and the Creation of a British Gibraltarian Identity

   • Luis G. Martínez Del Campo, Andrew Canessa, Giacomo Orsini

   Pages 167-193

9. Governing Through the Border: (Post)colonial Governmentality in Gibraltar

   • Giacomo Orsini, Andrew Canessa, Luis G. Martínez Del Campo

   Pages 195-216

10. Conclusions

    • Andrew Canessa

    Pages 217-228

11. Back Matter

    Pages 229-232

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This volume explores how Gibraltarian Britishness was constructed over the course of the twentieth century. Today most Gibraltarians are fiercely proud of their Britishness, sometimes even describing themselves as ‘more British than the British’ and Gibraltar’s Chief Minister in 2018 announced in a radio interview that “We see the world through British eyes.”  Yet well beyond the mid-twentieth century the inhabitants of the Rock were overwhelmingly Spanish speaking, had a high rate of intermarriage with Spaniards, and had strong class links and shared interests with their neighbours across the border.  At the same time, Gibraltarians had a very clear secondary status with respect to UK British people. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, Gibraltarians speak more English than Spanish (with increasing English monolingualism), have full British citizenship and are no longer discriminated against based on their ethnicity; they see themselves as profoundly different culturally to Spanish people across the border. Bordering on Britishness explores and interrogates these changes and examines in depth the evolving relationship Gibraltarians have with Britishness.  It also reflects on the profound changes Gibraltar is likely to experience because of Brexit when its border with Spain becomes an external EU border and the relative political strengths of Spain and the UK shift accordingly.  If Gibraltarian Britishness has evolved in the past it is certain to evolve in the future and this volume raises the question of how this might change if the UK’s political and economic strength – especially with respect to Gibraltar – begins to wane.

• Gibraltar
• history of Gibraltar
• La Línea
• Campo de Gibraltar
• single community
• borders
• border relationships
• industrial relations
• labour organisations
• Spanish Civil War
• nationalism
• communities
• collective identity
• language policy
• education
• civil rights
• sovereignty
• micro state
• security apparatus
• self-governance
• european union politics

“Bordering on Britishness mounts a formidable challenge to much received wisdom about Gibraltar, its inhabitants and the enduring entanglements of empire. Peeling back the layers of sentiment and self-interest over generations, the authors reveal a people and a culture more complex, heterogenous and intriguing than a mere offshore bastion of Britishness. Here, Gibraltar emerges as a community where multiple contradictions are managed on an everyday basis; where changing patterns of linguistic, political and socio-economic differentiation have produced highly mobile subjectivities and intricate genealogies. A must-read for specialists and newcomers alike; or indeed anyoneconcerned with the interplay between memory, forgetting and the circuits of collective selfhood.” (Professor Stuart Ward, Head of the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

• Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

  Andrew Canessa

Andrew Canessa is Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. He is the Principal Investigator of the ESRC-funded project: Bordering on Britishness. An Oral History Study of 20th Century Gibraltar.

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