Time and the Politics of Nostalgia

Abstract

This article engages with the temporal and spatial features of nostalgic discourse in general, and `The Journey' (a British Conservative Party election broadcast employed in the 1992 general election) in particular, in order to illustrate several ways in which `the past' may be re-articulated so as to legitimize a politicized configuration of the present. The form of this article is as follows: first, `nostalgia' as a conceptual problematic is set in relation to questions concerning discourses of self-identity, community and nation. Next, the historical specificity of party election broadcasts is discussed, as is the production and reception of `The Journey'. A critical analysis of `The Journey' is then provided, with special attention given to its construction of a nostalgic reading of PM Major's personal biography consistent with the ideological imperatives of conservatism as a political philosophy.