Fragmented Nationhood: Post-Devolution Scottish Identity and the Politics of Belonging in the Fiction of Ali Smith and Jackie Kay

Abstract

The establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 inaugurated a new cultural and political landscape that continues to reshape how Scottish writers imagine nationhood and belonging. This paper examines how Ali Smith and Jackie Kay, two of Scotland’s most influential contemporary voices, interrogate the complexities of post-devolution identity through narrative experimentation and thematic engagement with fragmentation, plurality, and transnationalism. Both writers resist the notion of a singular, essentialized Scottish identity, instead foregrounding hybrid subjectivities shaped by gender, sexuality, race, and migration.

Ali Smith’s formally innovative works, such as Hotel World (2001) and Autumn (2016), destabilize linear narratives of national identity, instead offering polyphonic voices that reflect the disjointed temporality of a nation negotiating its place in Britain and Europe. Her novels engage with the cultural uncertainty of post-devolution Scotland, blending local rootedness with global interconnectedness. Jackie Kay’s fiction, particularly Trumpet (1998) and her later short stories, situates Scottishness within a diasporic and multicultural framework, foregrounding the intersections of Black and queer identities. Kay’s narratives highlight how race, sexuality, and memory complicate traditional notions of Scottish nationhood while simultaneously expanding the cultural imagination of what “belonging” can mean.

Drawing on political criticism, cultural studies, and reception history, this paper argues that Smith and Kay articulate a post-devolution Scottish identity that is deliberately fragmented, embracing multiplicity over homogeneity. Their works demonstrate how contemporary Scottish fiction moves beyond nostalgia for a unified national self, instead constructing a literature of negotiation that mirrors the realities of globalization, migration, and diversity in twenty-first-century Scotland. Ultimately, the study positions Smith and Kay as central to understanding how Scottish literature reflects—and actively participates in—the ongoing redefinition of national identity in the wake of devolution.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199392045.2025.51-64