Strategic Solidarities: Cultural Festivals, Relational Encounters and Diasporic Youth Identities

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cultural festivals have grown in diversity, scale and popularity in many migrant-receiving societies in recent years and schools have increasingly become involved in supporting these for intercultural exchange and celebration. While prior research has found that cultural festivals play a significant role in maintaining and enhancing cultural traditions, much less research has focused on the role that festivals play as sites of conviviality, cross-cultural encounters and solidarity – especially for school-aged young people. In this paper we examine three school-focused cultural festivals held in Aotearoa New Zealand, paying particular attention to how the diverse relational solidarities encouraged through cultural festivals shaped the identities of diasporic youth. A theoretical lens of solidarity was used to analyse the relational bonds formed through festival attendance, and how these might foster new possibilities for identity formation in multicultural nations. Our study revealed how three forms of solidarities (ethnic, trans-ethnic and school-based) served to affirm traditional cultural practices and identities, as well as strategically craft new, often plural identities. We reflect on the productive and inventive nature of such solidarities and how festivals provided a space to articulate counter-narratives about diasporic youth and assertions of status, belonging and citizenship.