En nationell njutning: Kropp och kön i kungliga årsböcker

Abstract

This article analyses how representations of gender, sexuality and women's bodies are intertwined with constructions of national identity in Swedish contemporary discourse on monarchy. A number of royal yearbooks from the period 1973- 2000 are studied. These books deal with happenings within the royal family during the passed year, from visits of state and the Nobel Prize ceremonies, to anniversaries and children's birthdays. Their content is conventional, sentimental and banal. As an institution monarchy is dependent upon the royal family successfully reproducing itself. In the yearbooks it is clear how the female body is made to reproduce both the Swedish monarchy and conceptions of the Swedish nation. Through the body giving birth, a sense of national community and populär participation is established, and royal children are considered being bom for the sake of the nation, for "our" sake. While women's bodies are necessary for reproducing monarchy, the Swedish nation is represented and symbolized by a male head of state, the king. The queen is given another function. In the studied yearbooks the queens body and her proclaimed physical beautyareused asmeansofconstructingand legitimating the heterosexuality and virility both of her husband and of the national community. This means that national identity is linked to a male sexual desire of a (beautiful) female body. One important conclusion is that monarchy naturalises established conceptions of history, gender, heterosexuality and corporeality at the same time as these conceptions also naturalise monarchy. This reproduces a nationalistic and heteronormative national identity. It also supports the emotional and sentimental underpinnings of national identity by means of making an identification with the royal family appear totally natural: "they" are ordinary people just like "us".