Belonging to the nation: Negotiating narratives of national identity in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

One of the most important yet complex contemporary political projects of belonging relate to rapidly diversifying societies. While prior research has tended to focus on how young people work to fit into the nation, this study sought to examine the processes by which ethnic minority young people (re)produced, reimagined and challenged narratives of national belonging. Underpinned by feminist theoretical understandings of citizenship and everyday nation, the study examined how young people (n = 180) attending four superdiverse high schools in Aotearoa New Zealand deliberated and negotiated the parameters of who belonged to the nation. The use of a qualitative participatory strategy – self-directed peer focus groups – opened up opportunities for young people to debate and contest complex ideas about belonging and national identity. Ethnic minority participants expressed widespread dissatisfaction with traditional narrow, monocultural narratives of national identity and drew on illustrations from their own everyday encounters with diverse others to offer more inclusive alternatives. Many employed affective notions of national belonging that centred on ‘feeling’ like, or choosing to be a ‘Kiwi’, rather than being chosen. Their deliberations and dialogue demonstrated agentic ways in which ethnic minority young people were ‘rewriting’ the narratives of national belonging to ensure that they and their peers were located as legitimate citizens of the nation, and in doing so, revealed the formation of their citizenship subjectivities.