This article interrogates boundaries of the everyday nation, based on how young people in Norway experience and reflect upon first impressions. The data consists of 289 texts written by pupils and 33 focus groups with the same youth. First impressions are conceptualized as boundaries of the everyday nation, characterized by heteronomy and multiplicity, as embodied encounters with emotional dimensions. Perspectives from both the observed and the onlooker shed light on relationality here. Everyday encounters trigger both automatic reactions and conscious reflections, which may be managed by the individual. Visibility and race are crucial to the dynamics of first impressions as sites where boundaries are (re)produced, harboring potential for both recognition and exclusion. Beyond mere boundary-making instances, first impressions, as situated encounters, hold potential to be sites for normative reflection on the nation and its boundaries. Relationality, we find, may contradict or trump, visibility as a taken-for-granted boundary-making mechanism.

This article draws on 60 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2015 to explore how ordinary people produce and reproduce boundaries of Norwegian nationhood in their everyday lives. This is achieved by unpacking the entangled relationship between individuals' perceptions of nationhood and their everyday experiences. The finding is that individuals are inconsistent when producing and reproducing boundaries of nationhood in their everyday lives, drawing on various symbolic resources at different times and places. Exposing the inconsistency-both within and between individuals-challenges the structures and preconceived notions of a fixed and stable boundary demarcating Norwegian nationhood. When boundaries are produced or reproduced, they are clear; however, by approaching boundary-making as a contingent event, the uncertainty of where, why and if a boundary will be produced and/or reproduced blurs people's perceptions and experiences of these very boundaries. The study examines this contingency through individuals' unique and changing circumstances and along public and private dimensions.

This article contributes to the debate on human rights education in diverse societies. It is concerned with the relationship between participation and the coconstruction of national belonging. Our data consists of 289 pupil texts and 33 focus group discussions in 6 upper secondary schools in Norway. The role of the school in nation-building is well-known, often emphasizing policy documents or curricula. However, it is in the interaction between pupils and their teachers that the production and re-production of the nation occurs. Participatory exercises in our focus groups functioned as pedagogical interventions, helping pupils to reflect on how they understand, discuss and co-construct national belonging. We find that the potential for co-construction of national belonging, through pedagogical interventions, depends on who is acknowledged as a legitimate participant. Notwithstanding power hierarchies, it can be argued that group discussions are concrete ways to help young people in diverse classrooms co-construct national belonging.Abstract: This article contributes to the debate on human rights education in diverse societies. It is concerned with the relationship between participation and the coconstruction of national belonging. Our data consists of 289 pupil texts and 33 focus group discussions in 6 upper secondary schools in Norway. The role of the school in nation-building is well-known, often emphasizing policy documents or curricula. However, it is in the interaction between pupils and their teachers that the production and re-production of the nation occurs. Participatory exercises in our focus groups functioned as pedagogical interventions, helping pupils to reflect on how they understand, discuss and co-construct national belonging. We find that the potential for co-construction of national belonging, through pedagogical interventions, depends on who is acknowledged as a legitimate participant. Notwithstanding power hierarchies, it can be argued that group discussions are concrete ways to help young people in diverse classrooms co-construct national belonging.

This article examines the centrality of contributing to questions of belonging in Norway. Building on the diversity of individuals living within a shared national space, the study identifies how everyday acts of contributing were conceived of by the participants as 'admission tickets' to belong. The study further investigates the participants' motivations and desires for contributing and unveils how, given their migration background (internal, international or non-migrant), they respond to expectations of contributing from different positions of ontological security. The participants reveal ontological (in)security at different geographical scales, and they seek to manage this less secure position of national or local belonging through their acts of contributing in everyday life.

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