Invented tradition

'Invented tradition' is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.. In fact, where possible, the normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past....However, insofar as there is such reference to a historic past, the peculiarity of 'invented' traditions is that the continuity with it is largely fictitious. In short, they are responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition (Hobsbawm, 1983: 1-2).




The Invention of Tradition.

Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.