Youth using national symbols in constructing identities

Abstract

Artefacts containing national or ethnic symbols, such as flags and maps, are frequently used by 14-year-old youth in a multiethnic, suburban municipality in Stockholm. Appearing as ornaments or trinkets to outsiders, to the initiated they are distinctive group markers displaying multiple political and ideological affiliations. As visual symbols these artefacts invoke communicative, but non-verbal, processes: they interpellate viewers who answer with their reactions. Thus these objects serve to both banally reproduce nationalism and ethnicity and to serve as identity markers. These identities are primarily inclusive and non-aggressive. The symbols do not seem to be a sign of resistance to mainstream Swedish society in line with much work in the field of youth culture. Instead, they are used as a proud, visual display of additional identities complementing a Swedish identity. Ethnicity research often covers linguistic markers or ethnic and national identities. In contrast, the area of youth consumption of nationalism, in the form of objects featuring national, ethnic and religious symbols, is as yet not well documented. Based on a year-long fieldwork in a junior high school, this paper documents ways in which minority group students handle material artefacts and what these symbols involved mean to them.

Keywords:

• national symbols
• identity
• minority groups
• ethnicity
• youth culture

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the students and teachers for participating in this study and for letting me into their daily lives. I would also heartily thank Prof. Karin Aronsson, Dr Karin Osvaldsson, Prof. Anna Sparrman and Dr Richard Jonsson for their valuable insights and comments. Lastly, I thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

1. Chaldeans are a Christian, ethnic group who speak a variant of Armenian. The group originates from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

2. The Kurdish worker's party commonly known as PKK and their struggle for an autonomous Kurdistan.

3. This statement is dated autumn 2007 when a series of suicide bombings shook Iraq – events that featured prominently in the Swedish media.

4. Here I must also admit that I am not well informed. When I later investigate further I learned that both the Syrian and the Iraqi flag have changed appearance many times, and at times they even had the same flag in a common union.