Press narratives of nation during the 2005 Lions tour of Aotearoa-New Zealand

Abstract

In this essay we examine the ways in which the sporting press establish, define and reinforce the boundaries of national communities. We do so in the context of the flux surrounding nationalism in the white-settler dominated former colony of New Zealand/Aotearoa. We analyse New Zealand nationalism in press coverage of the 2005 British and Irish Lions rugby tour. We gathered 593 articles from a total of six national and regional newspapers throughout the tour and analysed them to tease out narratives of national belonging. We argue that the press selectively constructed the nation in hegemonic terms underpinned by several interlocking dimensions: the construction of male rugby as an embodiment of a fictive ‘national character’; the invocation of key protagonists – players and coaches – as embodying that character; idealized constructions of New Zealandness in conjunction with stigmatizations of ‘the British’; wilful nostalgia that lionizes rural – specifically Pākehā – settler masculinity; and, the construction of an ‘ethnic imaginary’ that assigns Māori a particular role and place within the national community. Our analysis focuses upon how this hegemonic national consciousness takes on a particular potency and nuance within the context of a sporting event which pitted the former colonial centre against the (post)colonizer dominated nation. It also illuminates the ambiguities of (post)colonial belonging by highlighting the unresolved tensions of press constructions of an apparently inclusive, specifically postcolonial, nationhood.