PhD Research

Spain's National Cycling Tour and the Politics of National and Regional Identity, 1975-2000

My research is concerned with the development of informal Spanish nationalism in post-Franco Spain between 1975 and 2000. Using a conceptual background of banal nationalism (Billig; 1995) and lieux de mémoire (Nora; 1996) I trace the transformation from the delegitimisation of formal Spanish nationalism and the growth of its informal cousin and then the reappearance of a different kind of formal Spanish nationalism that the political Left and Right has linked to the Habermasian idea of constitutional nationalism. To trace this trend I use Spain’s national cycling tour (La Vuelta Ciclista a España) as my source to track changes in discourse in several key elite newspapers that are taken to represent the main currents of Spanish and Catalan nationalism. A methodology of longitudinal content analysis is followed which provides both detail and breadth. Recent work done on Le Tour de France and football and nationalism in Spain are taken as a background from which I can test current hypotheses and develop my own research questions and answers.

Research Interests

My research interests include most topics within Spanish History, particularly Contemporary issues, as well as Nationalism and the politics of Sport. Other areas of interest are Languages in general and Minority Languages in particular as well as wider issues of Regionalism, Globalisation and Identity.

Languages
English: Native
Spanish: Advanced Fluency (including DELE diplomas B1 and B2)
German: Basic Fluency
Catalan: Conversational and Reading