The Decolonizing National Imaginary

This article explores the representational politics of postcolonial national identity in New Zealand/Aotearoa. Specifically, it interrogates the promotional media surrounding the 2005 British and Irish Lions rugby tour as a site in which narratives of nation were enacted. Symptomatic of the emergence of 'corporate nationalisms' advertising emerged as a space in which a selective 'national imaginary' was constructed. This sought to reconcile the challenges of the sociopolitical moment by positing a unified decolonized 'kiwi' culture invoking several interlocking discourses. These included foregrounded representations of indigenous Mori culture as a central symbol of national essence. These representations simultaneously interlock those grounded in a longstanding discourse of Mori as primordial, spiritual, ignoble warrior. Furthermore, symptomatic of an ongoing 'ethnogenesis,' active constructions of White settler-P-identities asserted a unique tie to Aotearoa/New Zealand and distinction from 'the British.' Critically, these discourses operate to account for postcolonial challenges and shifts in reasserting a hegemonic national imaginary.