People telling stories of national identity, land and spirituality contribute to the local formation of the nation. I explore this view of nationhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand from Māori and Pākehā perspectives. Theorising this exploration, I form my own national identity concept for guiding analysis, that of locally narrated roots. Locally narrated roots is, essentially, a way of looking at national identity through the everyday narration of land, spirituality and history/ancestry by individuals. Supporting the production of this term is Smith’s (2003) theory of revised ethno-symbolism, which links religion, nationalism, land and history/ancestry, and Thompson’s (2001) grounded, everyday approach summed up as local production of national identity. Research methods draw upon Thompson’s people-focussed approach in conjunction with a narrative approach inspired by life story and Kaupapa Māori Research practices, which informed the conducting of twelve semi-structured interviews. From these interviews, six Māori and six Pākehā stories of history, ancestry, spirituality, land and identity were generated. These narratives revealed that colonial settler society, romanticism and whakapapa (genealogy) are central to this research and vital for further exploration on national identity. I close with the suggestion that participants’ stories enact a process of locally authenticating one’s national identity. I also suggest this local authentication is a secular spirituality, an idea that combines both patent secularism and spirituality, and is expressed through land, history and ancestry in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

This thesis engages with aspects of Witi Ihimaera's oeuvre that demonstrate influences from cultures other than Maori. These may be overt in the fiction, such as plot settings in Venice, Vietnam and Canada, or implicit in his writing mode and style, influenced by English romanticism, Pakeha cultural nationalism, Katherine Mansfield's modernist epiphanies, and Italian verismo opera. In revealing Ihimaera's indebtedness to cultural and aesthetic influences commonly seen as irrelevant to contemporary Maori literature, this thesis reveals a depth and richness in Ihimaera's imaginary that is frequently overlooked and undervalued in New Zealand literary interpretation. Illuminating cross-cultural influence in Ihimaera's works calls into question the applicability of biculturalism as a comprehensive manner of accounting for both Maori cultural ambitions of self-determination and the Maori relationship with Pakeha on the national level. Far from an "us-versus-them" dialectic based on a separatist notion of two individually self-sufficient and complete cultures, Ihimaera's fiction shows Maori culture to have been shaped by a long history of interaction and influence with the colonial British and the Pakeha. This is manifest in the way that the Maori sovereignty and renaissance movements, which gathered force in the 1970s, have been inspired by European concepts of modernity, the structures of nation building and, more recently, by Western globalization described in the theories of transculturation and diaspora. Similarly, in New Zealand literature, Maori writing is commonly considered a parallel genre which describes a distinctive Maori worldview and literary style. Contrary to the familiar interpretation of Ihimaera's fiction from this standpoint, this thesis argues that an emphasis on difference tends to lose sight of fiction's capacity to bring into play issues of differentiation, originality and hybridity through its very form and function. In effect, Maori negotiation of its sovereign space in its literature takes place in its forms rather than in its storyline, for example in multiple linguistic significations, in the text's unstable relationship with reality, and the way that imagery escapes concrete, definitive explanation. In this optic, this thesis analyses little-discussed aspects of Ihimaera's fiction, including his love of opera, the extravagance of his baroque lyricism, his exploration of the science-fiction genre, and his increasing interest in taking Maori into the international arena. While reading against the grain of current New Zealand literary practice, this thesis does not intend to contest such reading. Rather, it endeavours to present an additional, complementary analytical framework, based on a conviction that contemporary Maori-Pakeha cultural and literary negotiation and contestation is far from unique, but a local manifestation of other international and historical efforts for recognition and respect.

This thesis is a study of dominant forms of Pākehā banal nationalism within Aotearoa/New Zealand. A diverse range of contemporary non-fiction texts from Aotearoa/ New Zealand are analysed in order to explore the ways in which notions of a ‘New Zealand national identity’ are created. These texts include television programmes, advertisements, opinion columns, editorials and letters to the editor. The analysis of these texts reveals a complex circulation of ideas around innocence and guilt, history and nostalgia, childhood and good motherhood/bad motherhood. These ideas, as this thesis demonstrates, are central to the functioning of nationalism. Yet they also serve as a focus for the anxieties of nationalism: anxieties which arise from the impossibility of securing the desired nation. Drawing on Freudian psychoanalytic concepts such as repression and projection, and on Kristeva’s notion of abjection, this thesis examines the way in which attempts to secure a comfortable, homelike nation are forever undermined by the return of repressed elements of the nation’s past and present. Within Pākehā nationalism, a nostalgic vision of a unified, innocent, childlike nation is used as a defence against undesired knowledge of national disunity. National discomforts, which are generated by the impossibility of repressing the nation’s history, are projected onto those assigned an abject position in the nation. As a result of this process of projection, mediated by the association of national identity with childhood and home, the fantasised figure of the ‘bad Maori mother’ emerges as the ultimate uncanny element within the nation.

My thesis grows out of a reflection on Cuban literature, race, and national identity within the broader framework of the canon and its marginal literature. It explores the dynamics of the Cuban canon and specific visions of race and nation, and studies one play, two novels, a book of poems and a radio script from four different moments in Cuban history. Fernández Vilarós´s play Los negros catedráticos (1868) sets for the first time the topic of race at the center of the national debate, immediately before the first and longest Cuban independence war. The play contrasts with Cecilia Valdés (1882), arguably the most canonical Cuban novel, with its subversive remake, Sofía (1891) and analyzes how the former seeks to conceal the nation’s racially-mixed character and present the mulata condition as a mere border-line. Sofía, however, erases this line and expands the mulata condition to everyone. Following this reading, it seeks to identify a set of markers that configures a mulato discourse in Regino Boti´s Arabescos mentales (1913). It proposes that the characteristic tendency toward elitism in Latin American Modernismo is actually a racial device to accomplish racial equality. And so language (and poetry) emerges in Boti as the most efficient vehicle to resolve racial deficiency. Finally, the thesis studies the script of the most successful Latino American soap opera ever, El derecho de nacer (1948), by Félix B. Caignet. Here Caignet converges the Villaverde´s idea of race as an objective value with Boti’s White idealization. He also proposes symbolic or cultural whitening as the only vehicle of social improvement. In conclusion, the common denominator of all four works is the representation of mulatez as an absolute and objective fact, as opposed to the marginal Sofía, which presents it as relative and subjective. Therefore, despite the traditional national discourse of Cuba as a racially-mixed country, the canon has banned those works that actually support this postulate.

Studien utforskar området mellan den svenska integrationspolitiken som aktivt försöker komma ifrån nationalistiska uttryck och den svenska försvarspolitiken som tycks underhålla dessa. Integrationspolitiken har beskyllts för att ha varit allt för fokuserat på en uppfattning om att invandrare och svenskar har varsin kulturell särart. Detta har lett till en uppdelning om “vi” och “de Andra” och därmed integrationspolitikens misslyckande. Studien undersöker spår av denna uppdelning i försvarspolitiken. Syftet med studien är således att undersöka hur den försvarspolitiska diskursen i offentliga media konstruerar “svenskhet” och “den nationella gemenskapen”. Diskursteoretiska perspektiv används för att utforska hur olika strukturella nivåer påverkar identitetsskapande. Studien har genomförts genom diskursanalys av tidningsartiklar och blogginlägg. För det första konstrueras den nationella identiteten i relation till “signifikanta andra”. Den mest framträdande signifikanta andra i diskursen är Ryssland som konstrueras som en hotbild gentemot vilken Sverige identifierar sig. För det andra interagerar strukturer som Norden, EU och Nato i diskursen, och interpellerar subjektspositioner som solidaritet, neutralitet och nordisk gemenskap. Dessa internationella samarbeten diskuteras i relation till Sveriges roll internationellt samt de delade värderingar som de grundar sig på. För det tredje finns en underliggande hegemoni i nationalismen som grundas i nationalstater och som genomsyrar diskursen och påverkar hur den nationella identiteten konstrueras. / This study explores the area between the Swedish integration policy, which actively tries to get away from expressions of nationalism, and the Swedish defense policy that seems to maintain them. The integration policy has been accused of being too focused on the notion that immigrants and Swedes each have a distinct cultural nature. This has led to a division of "us" and "the Others" and thereby the failure of the integration policy. The study examines the traces of this division in defense policy. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine how the defense policy discourse in the public media constructs "Swedishness" and "the national spirit of community". Theoretical perspectives from discourse theory are used to explore how different structural levels affect the shaping of identity. The study was conducted through a discourse analysis of newspaper articles and blog posts. Firstly the national identity is constructed in relation to "significant others". The most prominent significant other in the discourse is Russia, which is constructed as a threat. This threat is one of the factors which defines what is and isn’t “Swedish”. Secondly, structures like the Nordic geopolitical area, the EU and NATO interact in the discourse, and interpellate subject positions such as solidarity, neutrality and a Nordic spirit of community. These international collaborations are discussed in relation to Sweden's role internationally and the shared values which they are based on. Thirdly, there is an underlying hegemony of nationalism which is based in nation states. It permeates the discourse and influences how national identity is constructed.

A look at the historical relationship between Britons and Anglo-Jews through the lens of Tottenham Hotspur supporters' "Yid Army." The influx of Eastern European immigrants in the 1880s, the rise of the British Union of Fascists and the continuing evolution of British national identity speaks to a trend within Anglo-Jewish identity formation. Debates within the Jewish community of how best to live in British society, be it through assimilation or reassertion of Jewishness, have continued to the present day. By looking at the history of the Anglo-Jew in Britain one is able to see that the events surrounding the Y-word in soccer are based in a larger history of the Jewish struggle to form an Anglo-Jewish identity in the midst of an ever-evolving notion of Britishness.

This thesis is an anthropological and historical exploration of Singapore's emergence as a nation state and determines what it means to have a Singaporean national identity today. As a relatively new country, Singapore and its government has worked to carefully construct its national identity in the past fifty years after independence from the British in 1965. This thesis will show Singapore as a distinctive entity in the study of nationalism and nation building, especially in comparison to the decolonization efforts of other countries in the region and throughout the world in the twentieth century. It is a carefully constructed nation state, and its distinctiveness lies in the authoritarian government's neo-colonial policies, its economic success due to its capitalist system, semi-democratic political environment, and its multiethnic population.

The Catalan movement of Independence is a well debated subject in Spanish news for the last decade. This thesis aims to examine what kind of identityarguments that spanish versus catalan newspapers make about the independence movement, in relation to nationalism and national identity. This is to deeper the understanding about the current complex situation in the Iberian Peninsula. The research shows that identityarguments about the independence movement presented by catalonian newspapers clearly put focus on identifying the ethnic and cultural reasons for the growing nationalism in the region, as well as discussing the political possibilities and obstacles of a sovereign Catalonia. In comparison, the identityarguments presented by spanish newspapers has another view of the situation, where the political aspect of the nationalistic catalan movement, identify the process as defying the Spanish Constitution and challenging the traditional historic unity of Spain. Within the debate there is a red line pointing out the importance of achieving and maintaining ones own right to express the meaning of the ’nation’ and the ’national identity’. Spain conquer the political and juridical battles of national values, whereas Catalonia  has power in its collective cultural values, which through the politic arena enhances its symbolic power for Catalonia.

The present thesis was begun in October 1996, with the aim of exploring the relationship between Cyprus television and aspects of the national and cultural identity of Cyprus youth. The thesis consists of seven chapters in all, which can be summarized as follows: In the first chapter, a survey of the historical, political and media realities in Cyprus establishes the ground for the present study, while in the second chapter, a literature review presents the writings on culture and identity, media theories and their development, with a discussion of important theoretical concepts and perspectives, like Cultural Studies, identity theory, globalisation versus localisation, postmodernism with its fragmentation and concepts of "otherness," as well as the relationship of all these concepts to Cyprus realities. A review of the relationship between television and media research to young audiences — internationally and locally - and a final discussion of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, ends Chapter two, foregrounding, at the same time, the third chapter on Methodology. The choice of the mixed paradigm — quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (Text and Discourse analysis of television programmes, and interviews and group discussions with the sample) is discussed, explained and documented in the third chapter. The fourth chapter consists of the presentation, statistical correlation and discussion of the results from the Statistical Field Survey, which rendered insights into the sample's attitudes and mapped the ground for the next two stages — the Programme analysis and the Interviews, by offering cues and clues for these stages. The fifth chapter presents a textual and discourse analysis of the first five programmes leading the sample's preference list in the Field Survey, while chapter six discusses the interviews and group discussions which were both cross-fertilized by the results of the Statistical Survey and the Programme Analysis. Finally, in the seventh chapter the conclusions from the Research are discussed in the light of the initial aims and goals of the study and suggestions are made for future research which can both derive from, and continue to add to the issues which have been investigated in the present project. The present Research Study did not aim at validating or corroborating one or more hypotheses, as it used a mixed paradigm with different methodological approaches, which could not, as a result render thoroughly congruent or consistent results. It did seek, however, through the use of its progressive, longitudinal research model conducted at different time periods, to empirically draw to the surface, as consistently and extensively as possible, answers to the goals and aims established initially in the thesis, which answers have rendered complementary conclusions throughout the stages of the cross-paradigm used.

The goal of this work is to analyse how identity is represented in recent novels by writers of Lithuanian origin living outside the homeland, using a methodology that combines literary, cultural and sociological approaches. With renewed independence in 1990, emigration has strongly increased, as have the number of literary works that refer to problems of identity. The object of the analysis is five novels by three writers: Irena Mačiulyte-Guilford‘s Glebys, 2003 ( The Embrace, l999), Antanas Šileika‘s Bronzinė moteris, 2009 ( Woman in Bronze, 2004) and Pogrindis, 2012 ( Underground, 2011), and Valdas Papievis‘ Vienos vasaros emigrantai, 2009 and Eiti, 2010. Papievis, who grew up in Soviet Lithuania, has continued writing in Lithuanian since settling in Paris in 1995, while the other two writers are second-generation Canadian Lithuanians writing in English. The protagonists of all the novels live between more than one identity. To understand their problems, in addition to postcolonial concepts like mimicry, hybridity and the in-between, and the narratological theory of possible worlds, sociological approaches to identity are also used: the imaginary community, identity negotiations, possible selves and social and collective memory. These help distinguish similarities and differences among the novels; their protagonists may be trapped by historical forces (Pogrindis) or feel they can never reconcile confronting identities (Glebys), or may find a creative solution (Bronzinė... [to full text] / Šios disertacijos tikslas – išanalizuoti tapatumo problematikos akcentus bei kaitą pasirinktų lietuvių išeivių/emigrantų svetur rašytuose literatūriniuose tekstuose. Disertacijos tematika nubrėžia probleminius klausimus, kurių išsamesnis atskleidimas neapseina be tarpdisciplininio teorinio pagrindimo. Taikomas sociologinis metodas, istorinės ir kultūrinės prieigos, kai kurie dekonstrukcijos elementai. 1990 m., Lietuvai atkūrus nepriklausomybę, ženkliai pagausėjo emigracija į kitas šalis, kas iš dalies tapo impulsu kūrybai užsienio šalyse. Šio darbo objektas – lietuvių rašytojų išeivijoje parašyti romanai: Valdo Papievio „Vienos vasaros emigrantai“ (2003 m.) bei „Eiti“ (2010 m.), Irenos Mačiulytės-Guilford „Glėbys“ (2003 m.) ir Antano Šileikos „Bronzinė moteris“ (2009 m.) bei „Pogrindis“ (2012 m.) ir tapatumo išraiškos būdai juose. Valdas Papievis gimė ir pradėjo savo kūrybinį kelią Lietuvoje iki persikėlimo į Paryžių 1995 m. Tuo tarpu du kiti autoriai – antrosios kartos Kanados lietuviai, rašantys jau anglų kalba. Visų analizuojamų romanų protagonistų būtis balansuoja tarp kelių tapatumų. Analizuojant tapatumo problematiką aktualizuota vietos pakeitimo svarba, liminalios erdvės samprata, kito kategorija. Taikomos tokios sąvokos, kaip slenkstis, kultūrinė briauna, kultūrinio hibridiškumo terminas, dalinio subjekto kategorija, naratologinė galimų pasaulių teorija, sociologinės prieigos, galimų tapatybių teorija, kolektyvinės ir socialinės atminties fenomenas. Minėtos teorinės... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]