The Discursive Construction of Citizenship, Nation and Belonging

In an increasingly fractured global landscape, ideas of nation, citizenship, and belonging appear more salient than ever, challenging predictions of the nation-state’s decline and the emergence of a cosmopolitan or post-national imaginaries. Instead, questions of who “we” are—and, critically, who is positioned as not belonging—remain central sites of contestation.

This panel invites contributions that examine the discursive construction of nation, citizenship, and belonging across diverse contexts. While informed by insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA), we welcome papers that engage broadly with discourse and meaning making, without requiring a strict methodological commitment to CDA.

Drawing on Billig’s (1995) concept of banal nationalism, we are particularly interested in the subtle and often unnoticed ways in which national belonging is routinely “flagged.” Rather than focusing solely on explicit constructions of the national Self / migrant Other dichotomy, we encourage analyses of the everyday discursive practices through which belonging and unbelonging are normalised and reproduced.

We seek papers that explore how ideas of citizenship are discursively constructed, including the delineation of “good” and “bad” citizens, and how these constructions shape understandings of the nation and its boundaries. Contributions may engage a range of empirical settings and scales, from local to transnational contexts.