Nationalism and the Grammar of Belonging and Othering

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962–2024) left behind an extraordinary interdisciplinary legacy defined by his commitment to building bridges and connections, between disciplines and topics, theory and practice, and academia and public life. This piece revists the grammar of belonging and othering through the lense of Eriksen's work, a theme he explored in a 2014 lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science entitled The Grammar of Iinclusion and Exclusion. While belonging and othering are often intertwined in processes of boundary-making, they are not synonymous and belonging can be framed inclusively, yet in nationalist projects coexists with mechanisms of othering. The concern with how societies construct and sustain boundaries was central to Eriksen's scholarship on nationalism and identity politics and reflects his enduring interest in these dynamics in an increasingly interconnected world. Framing belonging and othering as a grammar draws attention to the semiotic and institutional mechanisms through which inclusion and exclusion are enacted via language, symbols, rituals and institutions. Rather than treating belonging as fixed it is negotiated and performative, revealing how everyday practices perform boundary-work and distinguish between 'us' and 'them'. This perspective offers a lens for examining how national imaginaries are reproduced and negotiated in everyday life, linking micro-level practices to macro-level structures of power and ideology. These patterned forms are constitutive of this grammar and shape the lived experiences of identity and difference in ways that sustain or challenge nationalist projects. Dominant narratives of belonging, along with symbolic markers such as language, dress and religion, sustain societal hierarchies, favouring some experiences and perceptions at the expense of minoritized ones. Eriksen's memorable metaphor of the ‘inverted refrigerator’ illustrates how self-defined groups also tend to overcommunicate their differences to outsiders, radiating coldness externally while generating warmth internally, capturing the dynamics of group identity and boundary-making. Eriksen's seminal texts, Ethnicity and Nationalism (Eriksen 1993a) and Us and Them in Modern Societies (Eriksen 1993b), remain foundational in the study of identity politics. These works offer critical insights into how ethnic and national identities are constructed, maintained and negotiated within plural societies. Drawing on fieldwork for instance in Mauritius, Trinidad and Norway, Eriksen examined the social mechanisms and symbolic boundaries that define membership and difference in diverse contexts. Identity is never fixed but is constantly negotiated in everyday life, and the outcome is a hybrid and fluid compromise shaped by historical, political and cultural conditions, and embedded within structures of power and ideology. My early work on national symbols and ceremonies as markers of nationbuilding and claims to political authority, emphasising the assertion of one distinct identity by privileging the domineering population at the expense of others (Elgenius 2011), drew inspiration from Eriksen's scholarship on symbolic boundaries and the grammars that sustain these. His emphasis on the patterned and performative nature of national rituals resonated with research on how these reproduce national imaginings while simulatenously negotiate contestation and change. The tension between local practices and global phenomena is a related theme of Eriksen's scholarship. His widely read introduction for anthropology students aptly titled Small Places, Large Issues (Eriksen 1995), emphasised the interconnectedness of micro-level experiences and macro-level systems. Thus, boundaries in multicultural societies may be blurred but the grammar of belonging continues to govern institutional practices, shaping access, legitimacy and recognition. The tension within accelerating global processes became even more pronounced in Eriksen's later work on overheating and climate change, where he examined how intensification and acceleration sharpen identity politics and exclusionary practices. Eriksen's analysis highlighted how globalisation produced new forms and grammars of marginalisation and exclusion (Eriksen 2016). The discourse of the ‘left behind’ used during the Brexit campaign comes to mind, referring to the less educated, disenfranchised and economically disadvantaged, a term that racialised class and socioeconomic inequalities by positioning the ‘white English working class’ as victims of globalisation, while migrants and their descendants, many British citizens, were discursively excluded from rights and ‘left-out’, demoted to ‘migrants’ and blamed for shared structural disadvantages (Bhambra 2017; Richards et al. 2020). Contemporary political discourse also reflects the exclusionary grammar, particularly in the rhetoric of radical right-wing parties and the anti-migrant framing portraying migrants and their descendants as illegitimate competitors for resources, as burdens on the welfare state, threats to national identity, liberal values, safety and order (Elgenius and Rydgren 2019, 2024). Such rhetoric echoes the claims of ethnic nationalism, where the nation is framed as an ethnically homogeneous community betrayed by metropolitan and international elites (Elgenius and Rydgren 2022, 2024). Inevitably, the push towards uniformity will mean that certain languages, customs or worldviews are deemed less valid or backward (Eriksen 2016, 2021). Exclusionary grammar is not confied to cultural or political domains; Eriksen later demonstrates its reach into ecological debates. In his later work on the Anthropocene, Eriksen (2021) extended the grammar of inclusion and exclusion beyond societies to encompass both cultural diversity and ecological belonging. He explored how traditions and species were selectively preserved or erased, depending on their perceived value within dominant systems. Eriksen observed that cultural and ecological simplification are deeply intertwined and just as certain cultures are deemed obsolete or irrelevant, so too are certain species treated as expendable. The Anthropocene thus represents a case of ‘parallel othering’ of nature and culture, driven by ideological grammar that prioritises control, uniformity and efficiency over diversity and coexistence. Ultimately, as Eriksen argued, the ways in which societies frame the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ fundamentally shape their responses to change and crisis, whether through solidarity or division. To counter dominant exclusionary grammars, he advocated for semiotic freedom and the capacity to create and interpret meaning beyond imposed boundaries. This vision calls for alternative grammars of belonging, grounded in local practices yet sustained by networked, pluralistic models of coexistence (Eriksen and Vistentin 2023). The commitment to openness was mirrored by Eriksen's approach to method. He argued that just as conceptual grammars should allow for flexiblity and plurality, so too should research methods, embracing ethnographic research that were temporal, multiscale, heterogeneous and positional. Understanding the interconnectedness of lived local realities and global systems, requires a combination of methods that are both context-sensitive and analytically flexible, capable of capturing the complexity of lived experience within broader structural frameworks. Eriksen writes: A proper grasp of the global condition requires both a proper command of an ethnographic field and sufficient contextual knowledge – statistical, historical, macro-sociological – to allow the ethnographer to enter the broad conversation about humanity at the outset of the twenty-first century. Since human lives are lived in the concrete here and now, not as abstract generalizations, no account of globalization is complete unless it is anchored in a local life world – but understanding local life is also in itself inadequate, since the local reality says little about the system of which it is a part. The tension between the anthropological focus on the non-scalable, local and unique and a historical and macro-sociological perspective on large-scale systems connecting and sometimes clashing with these worlds, should not be seen as an obstacle, but as a resource. (Eriksen 2016, 481). It is fitting to conclude with a mention of Thomas' penultimate book, Seven Meanings of Life: The Threads That Connect (Eriksen 2022) where he explored the meaning of life through the ‘threads that connect’, as the relationships, shared experiences and commitment to others. These threads are personal, social and cultural but also global as meaning is created with others through empathy and mutual engagement locally about global concerns. Thomas Hylland Eriksen's legacy endures through his extensive body of work, which continues to inspire, but also through the web of such connecting threads between individuals and groups, the local and the global. This sense of connection also shaped his interactions with colleagues and students. I remember meeting Thomas at the London School of Economics during a lecture he gave for the student-led association ASEN (Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism) while I was working on my PhD. As doctoral students of nationalism, we engaged with Thomas's work on how local communities respond to the pressures of modernisation and the enduring significance of ethnic and national identities at the weekly nationalism seminars. These seminars, initially led by Anthony D. Smith, and later by John Hutchinson and John Breuilly, provided an invaluable intellectual space, and I remain grateful to them and to my fellow doctoral students. I am also grateful for having had the opportunity to collaborate with Thomas around various book projects and conferences, and especially one memorable conference in Bamako, Mali, in 2010, organised around the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of independence for 17 African states. I will always remember his generosity to younger scholars. The many tributes to Thomas' life not only acknowledge his outstanding scholarly contributions but also remember his generosity and unwavering committment to mentorship and intellectual exchange across disciplinary boundaries. His legacy lives on in these connections, in the scholarship he inspired, and in the generosity he extended to others.