Friday, March 14, 2014
Empire (Omni Shoreham)
How do young elites define national identity, and how do these definitions vary by national context and ethnic background? In this paper I compare definitions of ‘what it means to be British’ and ‘what it means to be American’ among undergraduates at Oxford University and at two US Ivy League universities. I find that US students express stronger, more definitive national identities, rooted in civic inclusion as well as in the economic opportunity structure, while British students express more ambivalence about national identity. Many British students, and some US students, express ascriptive understandings of national identity, but not as a means for exclusion—rather, ascriptive definitions are invoked as everyday, happenstance understandings of national identity when students struggle to come up with a definition. Finally, many students in both national contexts invoke multiculturalism or diversity as central attributes to national identity. Thus, while I find important cross-national differences, students in both national contexts express inclusive ideologies with respect to inclusion in the nation state. Through an analysis of 144 in-depth interviews I contribute to the literature on national identity by providing a window into the complexity of everyday understandings of national identity among emerging elites.
