Unified or divided “we-hood”: discursive constructions of heterogeneous national identities under the one country, two systems model

Abstract

By proposing that national identity is not stable and homogeneous, this article explores how mainland Chinese students construct a heterogeneous national identity and negotiate a unified or divided “we-hood” with both Macao locals and other mainlanders under one country, two systems model. Unified we-hood refers to an inclusive China–Chinese nationalism, while a divided we-hood is seen in how mainlanders construct the peoples of the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) as heterogeneous and internal others. This divided we-hood in the state-nationalism-building process is attributed to the outcomes of the two systems, which leads to the blurred consciousness of a mainlander identity, and who or what is Macao. To explain the complex and dynamic process of national identity construction, we further propose both top-down and bottom-up nationalist discourses, within which the frame of produced, contested, transformed, and reproduced strategies works to unpack this process.