Articulating minority nationhood: cultural and political dimensions in <scp>Q</scp>uébec's reasonable accommodation debate

Abstract

Abstract Given their precarious position within larger states, national minorities cannot rely on federal governments to affirm their nationhood. Moreover, insofar as nationhood is predicated on a shared history, language and culture, immigrants place additional strains on the maintenance of national distinctiveness and the political claims that derive from it. In 2006–2007, following a series of confrontations over religious practices in the public sphere, Q uébec's provincial government appointed the B ouchard– T aylor C ommission to investigate avenues for the accommodation of immigrant‐related cultural and religious differences. While it failed to generate policy, the commission did provide a discursive space for the (re)assertion of Q uébécois nationhood. Analysing the production of national identity in newspaper debates of the B ouchard– T aylor report, we offer an alternative to the ethnic–civic paradigm in nationalism theory. Rather than treat ethnic and civic as two separate ends of a single continuum, we conceptualise a relationship between two dimensions: one of culture and one of politics. We show that in contemporary articulations of Q uébec national identity, the prerequisites of political membership derive their meaning from a productive tension between blood‐based and adoptive conceptions of national culture.