Performing identity entrepreneurship during the colonisation of New Zealand: A rhetorical construction of ‘loyal subjects of the Empire’

Abstract

A thematic analysis of New Zealand’s historical Speeches from the Throne (10 speeches, from 1860-1899) investigated rhetorical strategies used by Governors during colonisation, to mobilise both settler and indigenous people’s participation in the British Empire. Identity leadership (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001, https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00246), augmented by critical theories of emotion (Williams, 1977, Marxism and literature. Oxford University Press) under the cultural framework of hierarchical relationalism (Liu, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12058) was applied to show how unequal but reciprocal relationships were invoked by Governors, as representatives of the Crown and advocates for the general public in New Zealand. Governors attempted to mediate a positive shared identity within the British Empire; but at the same time to isolate those who excluded from subjecthood by their hostility to the Crown. Governors alternated between efforts to mobilise people against indigenous Māori who challenged them, and offers to include Māori who conformed to the conventions required of a hierarchical relationship between Crown and subject. We reflect on how these dynamics of rhetorical performance may still be relevant today, especially in contexts of hierarchy and in the domain of leader-follower relations more broadly.

Progovernment militias, identity leadership, and ethnic defection: Evidence from Israel's recruitment of the South Lebanese Army

“…Through these relations, mediators have the legitimacy to “translate” the entrepreneurs' messages and ideas to potential defectors. By doing so, these mediators help the leader to shape the group's identity, while at the same time, they facilitate the construction of the leader and their prototypicality and also strengthen their position (Choi et al., 2022; Gleibs et al., 2018; Turner, 2005). The empirical analysis highlighted the role of intermediaries such as the SLA officers, local mukhtars, and religious leaders.…”

‘Don't forget Tibet’: Understanding the discursive construction of Tibetan national identity through the identity entrepreneurship of the Dalai Lama

“…Identity entrepreneurship has been explored in myriad contexts such as the workplace (Steffens et al., 2018), the BBC prison study (Haslam & Reicher, 2007), commemorative speeches by political leaders (Gkinopoulos, 2020), in the reception of refugees into a community (Driel & Verkuyten, 2020) and in the examination of minority and majority relations such as the colonisation of New Zealand (Choi et al., 2022). It has, however, not been explored in the context of leaders and refugee identities.…”