The Nursemaid of Nations: The Beginnings of Banal Nationalism in Childhood

ABSTRACT Thirty years ago, Michael Billig's book, Banal Nationalism , recast nationalism as the force that normalises the division of the world into nations through the process of unmindful reminders serving the political project of nationalism, a project that seems ever more salient today. This article argues for the importance of childhood learning in the foundations of this ideology, understood as a process of reality‐building. Childhood is therefore seen as a period that is fundamental for the constitution of the specific characteristics of this form of nationalism—its taken‐for‐grantedness, its affective charge and its elusiveness. This article draws on two different empirical studies to explore how this normalisation of the nation might be transmitted through cultural goods for children and what its implications look like for young children and their understandings of world in national terms. It argues that in the context of increasingly visible bellicose nationalism, it is more important than ever to pay attention to the beginnings of the banal.