Gate-keeping the nation: discursive claims, counter-claims and racialized logics of whiteness. Issue 16 (31st December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Elgenius, Gabriella; Garner, Steve
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 44:Issue 16(2021)
• Page Start: 215
• Page End: 235
• Publication Date: 2021-12-31
• Subjects: National identity -- racialization -- whiteness -- entitlement -- English -- Polish; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1943483
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article analyses the racialization of discourses about national identities, and explores the implications for populations racialized as white. Two extensive datasets have been brought together, spanning a decade and 560 interviews, to explore discursive interplay, the oppositional nature and relationality of majority and minority claims about national belonging. We demonstrate that national identity claims are constructed discursively from positions of relative advantage and disadvantage: here the English majority and Polish minority. Discourses of national identity involve positioning and using resources differentially available. Dominant majority groups, perceiving themselves as entitled through their conceptualization of the nation-state and indigeneity, interpret and police minority claims in ways that equate to a gate-keeping function. The analysis examines the contingent hierarchy of whiteness and the discursive implications for entitlement, deservingness and resentment. The framework of whiteness helps illuminate the construction and contested racialization of hierarchies around national identity and belonging.