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Communicating Identity in Intercultural Communication 427

show their individual identity through a specific styling as more or less fashion-
conscious, more or less status-conscious and much more. In Russia such a
woman will possibly be immediately identified as coming from the West. Wear-
ing low-heeled shoes and not using much makeup can, for example, become
symbolic difference markers for this type of woman, indices of a cultural mem-
bership that is not in a strict sense national. West-East could become a flexible
demarcation line for the female yuppie. Such habitus phenomena of clothing
and body presentation are sometimes divested of their status as normality in
the foreign culture. Something that does not attract attention at home suddenly
indicates elsewhere cultural difference. The space in which normalities go un-
challenged can range from a close ‘community of practice’ to diffuse commu-
nities with comparable consumption habits, lifestyles, attitudes and values (e.g.
‘Asian cultures’ or ‘the West’).
In this section we wish to go into the communication of national and ethnic
identity. Language plays a role in the attribution of ethnic and national identity.
As was pointed out in the first part of this chapter, we do not view identity as
something constructed through institutions, individuals and ‘discourse’ within
an ‘imagined community’, but as situated in the life world. In many sciences,
national identity is utilized as a category for causal and/or variable analysis,
often generating important statistical data for various policy requirements and
institutional actors. As Hester and Housley (2002: 2) point out, the emergence
of national identities has been located within important social and economic
transformations, developments and historical fissures. They regard the work of
Billig (1995) on the everyday routines and practices of ‘banal nationalism’ as
the most notable attempt to move beyond the theoretical matrix surrounding the
social reproduction of nationalism and identity. The two authors also recom-
mend Bechhofer, McCrone, Kiely and Steward (1999) as a study which inves-
tigated national identity among Scottish landowners and the Scottish cultural
elite. Bechhofer et al. (1999: 530) state:
It is relatively straightforward to argue that national identities are not essentially
fixed or given. This is usually taken to mean that such identities are open to manipu-
lation, most obviously by the state and its institutions so that people come to think of
themselves as ‘nationals’ in a fairly unproblematic way […] Our argument, on the
other hand, is that national identities depend critically on the claims which people
themselves make in different contexts at different times. But the processes of identity
work rest not simply on the claims made, but on how such claims are received, that is
validated or rejected by significant others.
Nationality and ethnicity can overlap. Often there are political disputes about
which ethnic group can imagine itself as bearing the state. Right-wing circles
often avail themselves of such slogans as ‘France for the French’ and thereby
contribute to the marginalization of immigrants (see chapter 18 by Reisigl in
this volume).