Conference organiser Professor Lydia Wevers says the one-day event, titled The ‘Imagined Community’ of New Zealand, will encourage audience involvement. “Each of our panel members has been tasked with asking challenging questions to get the audience talking,” she says.
The day will be divided into four panel discussions mapping the social, political and cultural dimensions of our nation’s ‘imagined community’, mostly led by Victoria academics, and will be opened by Vice-Chancellor Professor Grant Guilford.
Professor Wevers says the symposium is partly a response to Professor Guilford’s vision for the University to play a part in shaping New Zealand’s national identity.
“Political historian Benedict Anderson famously suggested the nation is an ‘imagined community’ because a nation is full of so many differences, including race, ethnicity, gender and class and often occupies a wide geographical space. The term national identity is problematic because it suggests that it’s something everyone understands, realises and immediately subscribes to. It also has sinister overtones, suggesting that there’s something out there you have to belong to and fit into in order to be a New Zealander.”
The themes the symposium will address are important for New Zealanders to keep top of mind, Professor Wevers suggests.
“In this day and age, especially since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the idea of a nation has become a hot topic all over again. However, nationalism is one of the most dangerous forces in contemporary politics. Being part of a nation brings with it a whole lot of really sensitive and often difficult questions which we need to keep talking about.”
What: The ‘Imagined Community’ of New Zealand symposium
When: 28 November, 9am–4pm
Where: Alan McDiarmid Building AM102, Kelburn Campus
RSVP to deborah.levy@vuw.ac.nz. Places are limited.
For a copy of the programme visit www.victoria.ac.nz/stout-centre/about/events/publications/Imagined-Community-Programme.pdf