Personas and Places: Negotiating Myths, Stereotypes and National Identities

Personas and Places: Negotiating Myths, Stereotypes and National Identities explores the intersections between representations of places and people. It interrogates the methods through which national myths are constructed, and examines the limitations of national identities. It offers critical reflection on the issues of race, gender, and disability/ability in the national imaginary. The contributors to this book offer a series of fascinating case studies that take us from the migrant and settler shores of Australia to the American success myth, from the biopic of Jackie Kennedy to the dresses of Michelle Obama, and from colonial myths, New Zealand celebrity activism, to the photographic representations of Zambia. The book presents an investigation of the ways in which public personalities both reflect and challenge national identities, and questions dominant media representations that emerge from the Global North. Nations construct meanings around (and through) which its members locate sites of identification and signification. As high profile individuals possessive of signifying potential, celebrities represent issues that are both micro and macro in nature; simultaneously embodying both the personal and national. They are called upon to both ‘glue’ the social imaginary together and to outwardly represent what the nation state wants to be seen it is made of. A must read for anyone who wants to understand national identities.