ABSTRACT
The ambiguous results of elections and referendums in which the aspirations of peripheral nationalists were at issue should have led to a more careful and empirical analysis, to a consideration of the multiple and different types of identity and of the very imperfect correspondence between them and the political expressions of nationalism. Data collected in the various peripheries of Spain and in the French Basque country will allow us to explore more systematically some of the complexities involved. Galicia would be a prime example of the region where the distinctiveness of the population leads to an affirmation of primordial elements rather than to a territorial definition of membership in the community. Birth and descent are mentioned by large numbers in all groups, but slightly more among those with a dual Spanish and Galician identity. The relatively small proportion identifying only as Galicians is more likely than the rest of the population to emphasize “living and working.”
