1 Introduction

Against dominant narrations produced around national cultural heritages, culturesFootnote 1 of nations, like any culture, undergo a constant process of change, adapting themselves to the ever-changing circumstances of the world. This change, even if opposed or denied in the name of essentialist ideas of national substance, is unequivocal. Migration and mobility processes have always taken part in this change – the customs of incomers influenced local cuisines, traditions, clothing, material culture and intangible cultural heritage. Sometimes the change was introduced forcibly through colonising, at other times in a mode of a mutual exchange of commodities, practices and values. In the present day, the perpetual change of cultures continues, with immigrants’ role in the process still being relevant, if not strengthened by globalisation. This chapter, responding to the core topic of this book, aims to problematise how the inhabitants of the multicultural municipality of Drammen and its surroundings change national culture. Locating the discussion within a Norwegian context, it examines how both immigrant minorities and native Norwegians de facto change the elements of Norwegian Constitution Day celebrations through their micro practices performed in the multicultural setting of the city of Drammen. The chapter asks which elements are changed and which are not, how the change is reflected in a landscape of public celebrations, whether this change is acknowledged in official narrations of the dominant culture, who the agents of non-change are and how they may limit the ongoing cultural transformation.

Bhabha, in the opening to his prominent book The location of culture (2004), states that: “It is the trope of our times to locate the question of culture in the realm of the beyond” (p. 1). In this chapter, I focus on the cultural practices of the actors in the spaces beyond the mainstream but regarding the very core of mainstream culture – which is the national-day celebrations. I show how the various practices of people around Norwegian Constitution Day constitute third spaces, thus questioning the traditionally essentialised character of national heritage. Moreover, I problematise the reductionism of individual identities to their ethno-national dimensions and the reification of ethnic groups present in multicultural societies, arguing that the performances of the actors within the third space may serve as means of resistance against what Brubaker (2004) called “groupism”.

The chapter opens with a section presenting the core theoretical concepts utilised in the analysis: third space and heritage in becoming. I then critically discuss multiculturalism as a system of immigrants’ incorporation into society in international and Norwegian contexts. The third section features the methodology and context of the research, followed by a presentation of the findings. The chapter closes with a joint discussion and conclusion section, where the issues of national-culture change, third-space emergence and resistance against the reductionism of cultural practices are discussed.

2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Heritage in Becoming

To analyse the practices of minorities around Norwegian national-day celebrations as a way of engaging with the heritage of the dominant population, this chapter employs a theoretical perspective originating from heritage studies – and, more specifically, the concept of heritage in becoming (Nikielska-Sekula, 2019). It refers to engaging with the environment by improvising and imitating ancestors’ practices, thus representing a practical implementation of inherited practices in adjustment to the local circumstances within which the individuals and groups find themselves.

Heritage in becoming is inspired by Ingold and Kurttila’s (2000) concept of local traditional knowledge. The authors, analysing the cultural practices of Sami in Lapland, distinguish between “MTK (traditional knowledge enframed in the discourse of modernity) and LTK (traditional knowledge as generated in the practices of locality)” (p. 184). They associate MTK with the genealogical model of cultural heritage represented by the state apparatus and

based on the idea that the rudiments of make-up and identity that go together to constitute a person are received, along one or several lines of descent, from that person’s ancestors, and will in turn be passed on to his descendants. […] This assumption […] isolates the intergenerational transmission of knowledge from environmentally situated experience. (p. 185)

In turn, local traditional knowledge (LTK) is the knowledge of local people, encompassing their skills obtained through engaging with the environment by improvising and imitating their ancestors’ practices. In so doing, they constantly adapt traditional practices to the changing environment, redefining their heritage. Local traditional knowledge is therefore processual. “This process is none other than that of people’s practical engagement with the environment” (Ingold & Kurttila, 2000, pp. 192–193). As the concept of LTK relates to the rural circumstances in which the small communities described by the authors operate, inspired by their work and driven by the necessity of my urban fieldwork, I developed the concept of heritage in becoming, adjusting the LTK concept to the urban setting (Nikielska-Sekula, 2019). Heritage in becoming refers therefore to the recreation of “inherited” practices by people in both rural and urban contexts. I am interested in how individuals respond to the rural and urban settings surrounding them through the technical, structural, cultural and ideological opportunities and limitations inscribed in spaces and places. As such, the concept allows the analysis of heritage practices in a dynamic way and with an acknowledgement of their non-essentialist character and the changing circumstances of the respective environment. Heritage in becoming is an ideal point of departure from which to look upon the individual practices of minorities regarding their engagement in the national heritage of Norway – beyond the official historicised narrations – and is further supported by the concept of a third space.

2.2 The Third Space as a Space of Resistance

The concept of a third space, developed by various scholars under different names, was popularised in social sciences upon a spatial turn, which spoke for the acknowledgement of a spatial dimension of social life. The origins of the third-space concept, as it is understood in this chapter, lie in Lefebvre’s (1991) trialectic of space. Lefebvre distinguished between perceived space – things in space, conceived space – thoughts about space and lived space – space as experienced through individual biographies. The concept of third space resembles the last realm, which Lefebvre also called a representational space: “directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’” (p. 39).

Such defined third space complies with the Foucauldian idea of heterotopias (Borch, 2011, p. 113), which represent spatial alternatives to the dominant reality and are characterised by the otherness inscribed in them. Heterotopias constitute a parallel to the dominant society, are real and existing but, at the same time, are not ordinary in a given socio-cultural environment (Cenzatti, 2008, p. 82).

Inspired by Lefebvre’s and Foucault’s conceptualisations of a third space, Soja (1996) defined it:

as an-Other way of understanding and acting to change the spatiality of human life, a distinct mode of critical spatial awareness that is appropriate to the new scope and significance being brought about in the rebalanced trialectics of spatiality–historicality–sociality. (p. 57)

For Soja, the third space relates to going beyond the binary opposition established in modernity: instead of promoting “an either/or choice” (Soja, 2009, p. 50), the third space opens up for “a both/and also logic”.

Bhabha (2004, p. ix) employed the concept of a third space to problematise the process of cultural-meaning creation at the intersection of various cultural discourses. For him, the third space is closely attached to the locality of cultural translation, where the negotiation of meaning is performed between the sender and the receiver of a cultural message. Within this third space, a new quality is created that can be classified as “neither one nor the other” (p. 180). Bhabha tends to present the third space as lying “in-between”. Nevertheless, this in-betweenness does not imply the reification of the categories of “origin”. Rather, it confirms that all cultures are always under constant negotiation and therefore in flux.

The similarities between Bhabha’s and Soja’s understanding of a third space were well summed up by the latter:

Bhabha’s approach, […] is an excellent example for the understanding of “third space” as a mutual political strategy against all forms of oppression, e.g. in a broader sense to engage with the aforementioned new cultural politics of difference as well as with what I called critical thirding-as-Othering. (Soja, 2009, p. 57)

The problem of oppression inscribed into the third-space conceptualisations is crucial for the analysis presented in this chapter. In her problematisation of space, bell hooks (1989, 2009) presented various alternative spaces that bear the characteristics of what Bhabha (2004) and Soja (2009) called, respectively, third space and thirdspace, Foucault (1986) called heterotopias and Lefebvre (1991) representational spaces. In her account of American porches, Hooks (2009) presented them as places of shelter for females on the margins of patriarchal domestic violence as well as as a liminal space between the racialised world and the safety of home. She came up with a concept of spaces of radical openness, by which she understands the alternative space hosting people from underprivileged communities who, while entering the space of the dominant population, are not willing to melt into the mainstream nor do they want to be trapped in the image of an “exotic other” (2009, p. 19). Spaces of radical openness help them to avoid this fate, allowing the preservation of the signs relating to their background. These alternative spaces are marginal to the culture of domination but the marginality, while being clearly oppressive, nourishes resistance. As hooks puts it: “these margins have been both sites of repression and sites of resistance” (2009, p. 21). Resistance is exercised there by an active representation of otherness for it to be acknowledged as a different but equally legitimate way of being within the dominant culture.

This chapter employs the concept of the third space, defining it as an arena of new meaning creation that goes beyond an either/or categorisation popularised through a dominant culture. Instead, the third space features a unique cultural understanding created by people acting within it. Moreover, it is a space of both oppression and resistance. Its creation is fuelled by the oppression which people with certain positionalities experience in mainstream society. Simultaneously, acting within this space allows resistance.

In what follows, I explore the emergence of such a third space through the alternative cultural practices around the Norwegian national-day celebrations. Oppression here refers to the reductionism of identity and ethnicity reification in multicultural societies.

3 Multiculturalism and the Norwegian Context

Multiculturalism, understood in this chapter as a policy of immigrants’ inclusion (rather than viewed from the perspective of political philosophy), has been surrounded by heated public and academic debates in Europe and beyond, gaining a significant number of both critics and defenders. In this chapter, I do not present these debates in their complexity (but see Martiniello, 2018; Meer & Modood, 2012; Stokke & Lybæk, 2018; Zapata-Barrero, 2017). Instead, acknowledging the ambivalence of multiculturalism, including both the opportunities the system creates and its problems, I discuss some of the limitations of multiculturalism that were identified by scholars in the national contexts of the settler societies of Australia, Canada and the US (Ahmed, 2000; Bissoondath, 1994; Hollinger, 1995). I then relate them to the context of Norway, which implemented an integration policy labelled as de facto multicultural (Akkerman & Hagelund, 2007, pp. 197–198).

Scholars argue that multicultural policies have contributed to facilitating the voice-making of immigrants within the cultural industry. For instance, Sievers (2018), concerning literary studies, points out that multiculturalism has encouraged inclusive cultural policies in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Sweden, resulting in immigrant literature’s recognition within national literary discourses. Without undermining the undoubtedly positive impact of multiculturalism on immigrants’ inclusion into national cultural discourses, along with its positive outcomes regarding access to civic and socio-economic rights (Meer & Modood, 2012, p. 176), this chapter takes a closer look at some of the drawbacks of multiculturalism recognised, amongst others, by Ahmed (2000) in the context of Australia, Bissoondath (1994) in Canada and Hollinger (1995) in the US. Ahmed (2000, p. 96) claimed that multicultural nations tend to incorporate immigrants into their societies to use their difference to legitimate diversity, yet without acknowledging their alternative ways of being as a norm. Immigrants fit the nation by being different and therefore contribute to the produced discourse on multiculturalism. Bissoondath (1994) described Canadian multiculturalism as favouring minority over a common Canadian identity, hence creating an obstacle in recognising immigrants as Canadians, rather than ensuring equality (see also Martiniello, 1997, p. 639; Ley, 2010, p. 195). Both Bissoondath (1994) and Ahmed (2000) reached the similar conclusion that multiculturalism welcomes minority folklore over more complex cultural practices and systems of values. Immigrants are supposed to fit an image of an “exotic other” (Hooks, 2009). Ahmed (2000, p. 110) states that “multiculturalism can only allow those differences that can be neutralized and accommodated within ‘one’ culture”. Differences that cannot be assimilated are considered a betrayal of the nation (Ahmed, 2000). Hollinger (1995), whose work is based in the US, points out that multiculturalism, conceptualised to facilitate the inclusion of immigrants, may counter this aim, because it favours the existence of primordial ethnic groups and strengthens the boundaries between them. In other words, multiculturalism may enforce groupism (Brubaker, 2004; Meer & Modood, 2012, p. 177).

The analyses above come from countries where multiculturalism has a broader meaning than it does in Europe, where the term is limited to “a post-immigration urban mélange and the politics it gives rise to” (Meer & Modood, 2012, p. 179). Nevertheless, the issues described above are relevant in a Norwegian context, too. While acknowledging that multicultural policies can effectively support minority rights, as shown in the extant literature (Meer & Modood, 2012, p. 176; Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010, pp. 3–4), I focus on the described drawback of multiculturalism by presenting three claims and relating them to the Norwegian context.

Firstly, while given rights and opportunities to participate in society, immigrants are still seen through the prism of ethnicity and are not accepted as fully fledged members of a dominant group, which negatively influences their integration outcomes. In Norway, this problem was described by so-called second-generation members of immigrant communities, who have been constantly asked where they really come from (Nikielska-Sekula, 2018) despite being born and raised in Norway. Secondly, the folkloristic aspects of cultural expression are favoured over more-complex cultural customs. This claim goes even further in a Norwegian context. As Brochmann and Djuve (2013, p. 239) pointed out, the idea of granting immigrants the right to be different included in the first formulations of the Norwegian integration policy was borrowed from Sweden and was foreign to the Norwegian population, who have traditionally favoured sameness over individuality. The very idea of freedom of choice was interpreted in Norway as an inability to adjust to the dominant norm in the way that many Norwegians do, proving a profound difference between the newcomers and the Norwegians (Brochmann & Djuve, 2013, p. 239). Of course, this somewhat essentialist understanding of both Norwegian and immigrant culture has changed over time in favour of a more open approach to cultural difference but its residuum is still present in Norwegian society today. Finally, dominant and minority cultures are often regarded as homogeneous rather than processual. As a consequence, hybrid practices that emerge in a third space as an interplay between minority and dominant cultural expressions are often overlooked (see Sect. 9.6).

There is an ongoing discussion about whether the presented shortcomings can be assigned to multiculturalism itself or are, instead, the result of other structural, cultural and political processes (see Ley, 2010; Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010), targeting multiculturalism as “the only target that is visible” (Ley, 2010, p. 201). This chapter cannot solve this debate. Instead, it acknowledges the presented shortcomings as part of immigrants’ everyday experiences in so-called multicultural societies and uses them as a background for analysing migrants’ practices around Norwegian national-day celebrations.

4 Methodology and Context

The findings presented in this chapter are based on the following types of data: (1) visual ethnography of the children’s parades held on Constitution Day in Drammen over 3 years (2014, 2015 and 2016); (2) 10 unstructured interviews with the users of Norwegian-Turkish facilities conducted during 2015 Constitution Day in Drammen; (3) 12 in-depth interviews with second- and third-generation Norwegian Turks conducted between 2013 and 2014 in Drammen; and (4) 18 interviews using a photo-elicitation technique conducted in 2020 with Poles settled in Drammen, Norway and its surroundings. Additionally, (5) I analysed an 8-hour-long live-streaming of 2020 Constitution Day celebrations in Drammen which, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, were held mostly online and without a city-wide parade and (6) I examined the content published on a public Facebook page promoted by Drammen Municipality as a place where people could share pictures from their private celebrations of 2020 Constitution Day as a substitute for a city-wide parade. The data detailed above come from several research projects and are not comprehensively presented here. Instead, I selected and analysed the content regarding Norwegian Constitution Day celebrations by minorities. The rest of the data serve as context. The respective research projects obtained the relevant ethical approvals from Telemark University College Ethical Committee and the Norwegian Center for Data Research and the participants gave informed consent to participate. The collected interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic coding (Bryman, 2012) along with the pictures garnered (both researcher- and respondent-generated), ethnographic data (field notes) and online materials. The methodological approach relied on qualitative methods employing ethnography, interviewing and visual sociology techniques. The composition of the interviewees was as follows: Norwegian Turks represented the so-called second and third generation, aged 18–45, of Sunni and Alevi religious background, whose members were from the working and lower-middle classes. The Poles were all first-generation immigrants, aged 27–49 – mostly highly educated professionals, some were skilled workers and one worked as an unskilled worker despite having a higher-education diploma from Poland.

In the data collection process, I mixed two methodological stances common in urban studies focusing on migration (Wessendorf, 2014, p. 14). I combined data collected in the studies – where respondents were recruited with regard to the community of belonging, based on self-categorisation (Norwegian Turks and Poles in Norway) – with data obtained through the focus on particular spaces: the city of Drammen, its Stromsø neighbourhood and the city-wide event of the Constitution Day children’s parade in Drammen. In naming respondents’ origins, I followed an inductive approach recreating their identification as Polish and Turkish. Concerning Turks, I referred to them as Norwegian Turks as my extensive research on this group (Nikielska-Sekula, 2018) proved their strong belonging to Norway, which I wanted to acknowledge.

A qualitative approach requires a researcher to disclose her positionality. I am of Polish origin, had been settled in Norway for 9 years at the time of writing and belong to the Norwegian-Polish community. I have extended experience of studying, working and living in Turkey and a good command of the Turkish language and culture. My positionality can therefore be described as an insider (concerning the Polish respondents) and an insider by proxy (for Norwegian Turks) (Carling et al., 2014). This positionality helped me to prompt more-critical and honest attitudes towards Norwegian society, facilitated the recruitment of Poles and gave me a deep insight into the cultural patterns of the Poles and, to a lesser extent, the Norwegian Turks. It may have limited, however, my understanding of the way of being typical in Norway, which I attempted to fill in through desk research on the topic, conversations with native Norwegians, receiving academic supervision at a Norwegian university and following the relevant academic courses.

Norwegian Constitution Day is widely celebrated on 17 May throughout the entire country and beyond. The celebrations involve public parades of schoolchildren, music corps and other associations and are streamed live in local and national media. The attention given to the celebrations by both the minority and the majority population is significant and the celebrations have a symbolic meaning for the dominant society. It is common to celebrate wearing traditional Norwegian folk dresses and waving Norwegian national flags.

Drammen is a mid-sized city located near Oslo, the capital of Norway. It is one of the most diverse municipalities in Norway with 28.5% of its population made up of immigrants and Norwegians born to immigrant parents (SSB Statistics Norway, 2021). The area of Stromsø is a business district with many immigrant-owned shopping facilities. Over the years, Drammen municipality has enforced a narration of diversity as a resource (conversation with an expert from Drammen municipality). It has patronised and financed several initiatives aimed at giving visibility to minority culture, including the Globus Food Festival and Interkultur, a national competence centre for multicultural communication.

5 An Emerging Third Space in Private Settings

The findings from my research conjure up an image of a wide range of private celebrations of Constitution Day that involve the multicultural character of Drammen. In these celebrations, minorities prevail but native Norwegians are also present and contributing to the cultural change. I classified performed practices into five categories, placing them on a scale from full engagement in official narrations of Constitution Day to the celebration of minority culture. The categories are as follows: (1) celebrations with explicit reference to Norwegian heritage and following celebration patterns traditionally associated with Norwegian Constitution Day, (2) celebrations with explicit reference to Norway and following alternative celebration patterns, (3) practices following minority celebration patterns and with limited reference to Norwegian heritage, (4) instrumental practices lacking engagement in Norwegian heritage and, (5), reactionary practices. The categories are ideal types and the actual celebrations of the respondents often combined practices from different categories.

Celebrations with Explicit Reference to Norwegian Heritage and Following Celebration Patterns Traditionally Associated with Norwegian Constitution Day

A Polish couple, Anna and Grzegorz, were eagerly engaging with Constitution Day celebrations. They admitted decorating their house with Norwegian flags, preparing food for the day – including a cake in the colours of the Norwegian flag – and participating in a local parade with their child. They also showed me a picture of their daughter wearing a bunad, the Norwegian folk costume popular among adults (especially women) and children. Another Polish couple with children also reported celebrating in a customary way together with Norwegian families, including breakfast with champagne:

Usually, we are invited to join a Norwegian family. And we are celebrating as it should be – with a parade and so on (…) We do not hang a Norwegian flag though. We haven’t got soaked in here that much yet but our children have flags. (Katarzyna, female, 37; Wojtek, male, 39)Footnote 2

Cansu, a Turkish respondent who usually celebrates Constitution Day in a Turkish ethnic association, revealed a deeper attachment to and meaning of the event at an individual level:

17 May is very important to me because I live in Norway and I feel that I have to respect the country that gives me bread. I have to be a part of them. (Cansu, female, 24)

Additionally, the members of the Turkish association which organises the yearly celebrations of Constitution Day admitted that the gathering takes place after a city-wide parade, which most of the participants attend.

The celebrations presented here are performed by minorities in a way that attempts to recreate practices traditionally associated with Constitution Day. The change of national culture is therefore limited here to the overall change which cultural practices undergo along temporal lines. They feature the negotiation of Norwegian heritage by minorities and hence constitute a third space. Interestingly, many respondents adopted these new practices as part of their heritage, enriching the sets of their cultural practices originating from their background cultures.

Celebrations with Explicit Reference to Norway and Following Alternative Celebration Patterns

Kemal, a Norwegian-Turkish respondent, stated that his private celebrations involve wide reference to Norwegian nationalism, even though the food he eats is ethnic: “We hang up flags and celebrate, even though we do not eat 100% Norwegian food.” (Kemal, male, 27)

Interestingly, some native Norwegians follow similar celebration patterns (Fig. 9.1). The landscape of Drammen is filled with ethnic restaurants and many native Norwegians reserve tables for a Constitution Day dinner in local ethnic restaurants, de facto celebrating Norway over ethnic meals (and often wearing bunads). Most probably these actions are not meant to transform the Norwegian heritage but, rather, represent the mere act of adjusting inherited practices to present circumstances – i.e. heritage in becoming (Ingold & Kurttila, 2000; Nikielska-Sekula, 2019). Nevertheless, they de facto change culture. These negotiations of heritage by both minorities and natives, with their unique, hybrid outcome, definitely constitute a third space.

Fig. 9.1
A photograph captures the inviting entrance of a restaurant, bustling with activity as numerous patrons enjoy their meals at outdoor tables and chairs.

A woman in Norwegian traditional costume entering a Turkish Restaurant in Drammen on Norwegian Constitution Day. (Photo: Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła)

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Practices Following Minority Celebration Patterns and with Limited Reference to Norwegian Heritage

Respondents of Turkish background often described Constitution Day gatherings as involving an extended family meeting accompanied by Turkish food. Several respondents stated that these meetings resemble the gatherings organised on other occasions, including Ramazan and Kurban Bayramı – Islamic holidays widely celebrated in Turkey. Some Turkish associations organise common celebrations at their premises. They order food from a local Turkish restaurant and spend time dining together. The celebrations are accompanied by customary occasional congratulations; however, more elaborate references to Norwegian nationalism such as flags are not purposely involved. Moreover, Turkish ethnic clubs open early in the morning on Constitution Day, waiting for their members to go and spend time together in a way which is common in these places – drinking tea, chatting and playing board games. These ethnic clubs, which welcome mostly Sunni males of Turkish origin, are set up to recreate a culture of çayhane (teahouse) popular in Turkey (see Nikielska-Sekula, 2016). Since these are, however, private places rather than teahouse businesses, they remain closed on weekdays during working hours. Norwegian Constitution Day is an occasion to gather there after (or during) the city parade, even if Norwegian nationalism is not explicitly celebrated during these gatherings.

A practice of organising alternative celebrations was also observed among Poles in Norway. Some respondents reported organising a yearly “traditional 17 May barbecue” – where the adjective “traditional” relates to the repetitive character of the event, rather than to the tradition of Constitution Day itself. I had the occasion to participate in one such event. It featured a barbecue, regarded by Polish respondents as traditionally Polish, even if the food served – grilled pork neck and beer – resembled similar barbecue practices in Europe generally. There were no explicit references to Norwegian nationalism other than the napkins in the colours of the Norwegian flag and the customary (in Norway) congratulations on the day at the beginning. However, the conversations did not focus on Constitution Day and the event was reported as a mere social gathering. However, the invitation referenced the national day of Norway. During the meeting, I asked whether this event is organised on the occasion of Constitution Day: – “No… but actually yes. We are not celebrating Norway here but we meet exactly on the occasion of 17 May” (Jola, female, 33, field notes) was the answer. Wanting to push further, I asked why this meeting is not organised on Polish Constitution Day, celebrated on 3 May. Another person replied, “We don’t have a day off on 3 May.” (Jan, male, 37, field notes). Another one added, “But even if we had, we wouldn’t celebrate Poland with flags and red and white cakes anyway. There would be the same meeting as this one, with sausages and Polish people around.” (Jola, field notes). The event that I experienced was like those reported by other Polish respondents, who stated that they “are just trying to eat something good. We’re grilling and [eating] some dessert.” (Anna, female, 38; Grzegorz, male, 41).

Marking Norwegian Constitution Day through a gathering within an ethnic group, even if lacking elaborated reference to Norwegian nationalism, has become part of a tradition shared by the respondents, gaining a repetitive character over the years and allowing the performance of customary festivities common among Poles in Norway and beyond. These celebratory practices, different in character from ethnic Norwegian 17 May celebrations but containing reference to the day and performed on its occasion, create a third space within which alternative meanings of Norwegian heritage are performed. Additionally, the tradition of Constitution Day celebrations is adjusted to the circumstances of where it is celebrated (within ethnic communities), gaining characteristics of heritage in becoming (Nikielska-Sekula, 2019).

Instrumental Practices

Less-engaged attitudes towards Constitution Day were also present among the respondents. Some declared a more instrumental attitude, participating in public celebrations regularly but from the standpoint of an “external observer” (Can, male, 23) and out of necessity imposed by their children’s schools. Others fully refrained from public celebrations, benefiting actively from a day off:

I do not run with a Norwegian flag, I do not wear Norwegian national costume because I am not a Norwegian. […] I am more of an observer. […] I’m glad it’s a day off. […] [I’m] more like an observer. (Artur, male, 42)

Here, engagement with the celebrations is either absent or is limited to an observer stance. This adds to the variety of attitudes which people, both minorities and native Norwegians, take towards the Constitution Day celebrations but does not imply an active change of national culture. I labelled these practices as instrumental, as they serve as a way of not standing out against the mainstream population in Norway and of fulfilling what is expected from the inhabitants of Norway and especially from school children’s parents on this day – to participate in the parade or at least to show respect for the celebrations.

Reactionist Practices

For some respondents, Constitution Day celebrations tend to activate their own patriotic feelings towards the ancestral homeland, feelings which translate into actions either on Constitution Day or on other occasions. Interestingly, these were mostly Poles – perhaps due to the fact that they settled in Norway only recently. While exposing foreign national flags on Constitution Day is uncommon, there were a few cases of people doing so during private celebrations or on the facades of their houses. What is more, some respondents were organising small celebrations of Polish traditions privately and at their workplaces – not only on national days (Fig. 9.2a) but also on Fat Thursday (Fig. 9.2b) and Women’s Day. Others were committed to presenting positive aspects of ancestral culture through wearing clothing that referenced Polish folklore (Fig. 9.3). Some of the Polish respondents openly stated that they very much enjoy seeing how Norwegians are proud of their nation and they would like to see this kind of pride free from political battles in their ancestral homeland too. Their attitudes towards national-day celebrations in Poland were complex. These celebrations were imposed by the government in the communist era and their disgust with this compulsion restrained many from participating after 1989. Today, in turn, national-day celebrations are claimed by right-wing policy supporters. Simultaneously, representatives of other political options, including leftists, are making constant attempts to reclaim them, which altogether entangles Polish national days in political disputes.

Fig. 9.2a
A photograph of two candles burning and placed on a plate.

Decoration for a celebration of Polish Independence Day in the colours of the Polish flag. (Photo: Anna – research participant)

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Fig. 9.2b
A photograph of food on the plate.

Food for a Polish Fat Thursday celebration decorated with Polish flags. (Photo: Anna – research participant)

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Fig. 9.3
A photograph of a woman wearing a Polish-inspired outfit. The face of the woman is not present in the photo.

Everyday outfit inspired by Polish folklore. (Photo: Justyna – research participant)

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These practices reflect Foucaldian heterotopias, constituting yet another third space in Norwegian society. They are parallel to the dominant society – real and existing but not ordinary in a Norwegian socio-cultural environment, yet created in close association with it. They are triggered by both a feeling of foreignness in Norway and admiration for the Norwegian nationalism that the actors attempt to recreate. In contrast to the respondents who, out of symphaty for the Norwegian celebrations of Constitution Day, joined the mainstream replicating Norwegian heritage, here the positive reception of Norwegian nationalism was channeled into a mild reactionist nationalism of origin. Sometimes these acts are met with criticism from both fellow immigrants and, less often, from mainstream society, as reported by my respondents.

The Private Celebration of Constitution Day: Summary

No matter whether it is celebrated with elaborate or limited reference to Norway, Constitution Day is marked by the inhabitants of Drammen municipalitiy and the surrounding area, often through a mix of joining in with mainstream events and combining them with private ones, shared within the ethnic group. They make use of Norwegian heritage, adjusting it to the surrounding circumstances: be they mainstream celebrations with native Norwegians and/or members of ethnic minorities, minority festivity patterns or the diverse setting of Drammen. These negotiations of heritage reflect how the genealogical idea of Norwegian national heritage is adjusted to the cultural, structural and spatial circumstances which individuals have created and\or within which they act. They represent heritage in becoming (Nikielska-Sekula, 2019). The alternative festivity practices performed on that day contribute to the emergence of third spaces on the backstage of Norwegian society and with alternative meanings surrounding the Constitution Day celebrations. These practices have taken on a repetitive nature over the years and are part of an ongoing change of the national heritage of Norway.

6 Third-Space Recreation in the Public Sphere

Children’s Parades in the City of Drammen in Pre-pandemic Times

While the emergence of various third spaces in private settings is evident, the question I attempt to answer in this section is whether these third spaces are visible in the public, city-wide celebrations. My data from the yearly observation of the parades over 3 years in the city of Drammen show that signs of minority identity were featured during the parades, reflecting the ethnic diversity of the city’s inhabitants. These signs included visibly and sensually observable elements of clothing, hairstyles and languages spoken. The impression was that the initiatives taken by some participants in the parade were freely recreating the third spaces of alternative meanings and practices in private spaces. Some highlights from the parades included a group of Indian dancers in traditional Indian clothing (Fig. 9.4), school children wearing ethnic or religious elements of clothing (Figs. 9.5 and 9.6), variations on traditional Norwegian folk dresses, including combining the bunad with Islamic hijabs (Fig. 9.7) – the latter representing a telling visual example of heritage in becoming. These public performances of alternative engagement with Norwegian heritage pave the way for a wider acknowledgment of the practices, currently happening in the third space on the backstage of Norwegian society, within the national heritage of Norway. These practices are both unbarred and unobtrusive – giving a visible voice to minority identities but also generally refraining from involving foreign national symbols in the celebrations of Norwegian heritage, with a few exceptions. A lack of foreign flags in celebrations intensifies the impression that these not-obvious interpretations of Norwegian heritage belong nowhere else but to Norway. This strong statement, however, does have a few doubts associated with it, one being: To what extent are alternative practices acknowledged and accepted in official narrations of the event? The answer remained blurred until the 2020 celebrations, which were conducted according to a strict sanitary regime and hence with little space for the free public initiatives of individuals.

Fig. 9.4
A photograph exhibits Indian dancers performing while Indian musicians play the instruments on the road surrounded by spectators.

Indian dancers at the parade for the Norwegian Constitution Day. (Photo: Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła)

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Fig. 9.5
A photograph of a parade on the road exhibits people of different age groups.

Schoolchildren at the parade wearing ethnic elements of clothing. (Photo: Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła)

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Fig. 9.6
A photograph of a parade on the road exhibits people of different age groups.

Schoolchildren at the parade wearing religious elements of clothing. (Photo: Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła)

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Fig. 9.7
A photograph of a parade on the road exhibits people of different age groups. Two men walking in the front hold a banner.

Variations on traditional Norwegian folk dresses, including combining the bunad with Islamic hijabs. (Photo: Karolina Nikielska-Sekuła)

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2020 “Corona” Celebrations of a National Day in Drammen

Employing sensitising concepts to steer my attention towards visual, sensory and verbal references to diversity, I analysed an 8-hour-long live streaming of the 2020 Constitution Day celebrations in Drammen produced by the Drammen municipality (Drammen municipality, 2020a). The streaming was meant as a substitute for public celebrations, featuring some typical activities traditionally held in the city with a wide audience: remembrance ceremonies at heritage sites, music performances and – the highlight of the day – the children’s parade. The latter took the form of short videos prepared by each school in Drammen municipality featuring children waving Norwegian flags, singing and performing other activities typical of Constitution Day celebrations. The analysis of this live streaming showed that the references to diversity were limited in the 2020 celebrations compared to what I observed during the city-wide parades. There were a few oral mentions of diversity. One was made by Drammen’s Mayor, who acknowledged Drammen as one of the most diverse municipalities in the country, stating that diversity “gives us strength”. The selection of guests invited to the studio, as well as people featured during transmissions from outside it, did not reflect the composition of the diverse population of Drammen, giving voice mostly to white Norwegians. The streaming lacked expressive (Jakobson, 1972) – that is, intentional – reference to ethnic identities besides the Norwegian one; people wore either traditional Norwegian folk dresses or globalised elegant festive outfits such as suits and dresses. An important exception here was a second TV host: a person of colour who admitted having a minority background (half Somali, half Norwegian). The host wore Norwegian folk dress and had no expressive signs of Somali identity inscribed in her appearance but her presence helped to break the dominance of whiteness on the screen. The most visibly presented diversity were the videos from schools replacing the children’s parades. In these videos, signs of diversity were common and visible, with many children of colour present, reflecting the actual diversity of Drammen but only in a phatic (Jakobson, 1972) or unintentional way, and with some signs of religious belonging – the most commonly, Islamic veils. Expressive ethnic references like flags and folk costumes were not visible at all and diversity was displayed literally against the background of a Norwegian flag. Additionally, some of the performers invited to the studio were of minority background. They also followed a mainstream pattern of wearing common festivity clothes with no ethnic reference. They performed work from a classical international canon of music. An image of the difference accommodated within Norwegian culture was observed during the physical children’s parades in previous years. The difference between the physical parades from pre-pandemic years and the 2020 streaming, however, was that the reflection of the rich and diverse practices around Constitution Day celebrations performed in third spaces of private celebrations during physical parades in previous years disappeared from the live streaming. Nor did the members of minorities take the opportunity to share their alternative modes of celebration on a Facebook page promoted by the municipality of Drammen on the occasion (Drammen municipality, 2020b). The Facebook feed featured mostly white, native Norwegians’ celebrations, with just a small number of pictures representing people of other ethnic backgrounds but still within a setting of a mainstream-style celebration, e.g. waving Norwegian flags.

Altogether, diversity during the live streaming of the 2020 celebrations was used to legitimate Drammen as an open, multicultural municipality, within the course of its official narration of multiculturalism as a resource. This worked especially through the presence of a person of colour in the main role of a TV host, which broke with the assumption that whitness is inscribed in the definition of Norwegianness.Footnote 3 Unfortunately, further diverse cultural content was neglected. Interestingly, individuals acting within the described third spaces have themselves not used this opportunity to mark their presence either. A question that arises here is whether they did not want to share the alternative cultural practices or were trying to protect themselves from hate speech on social media, as experienced by Sahfana M. Ali in 2016, when she posted a picture of herself posing in a Norwegian folk costume and wearing a hijab (Nettavisen, 2016). My data are too limited to answer this question but the actors from the municipality responsible for the 2020 celebrations, along with the commenters against Sahfana M. Ali, may have acted as the agents of non-change safeguarding the national heritage of Norway from the ongoing de facto transformation described earlier. The possibility of accepting ethnic and racial minorities as Norwegians has been discussed and acknowledged in many circles in Norway.

The current challenge for the Norwegian approach to diversity is to accommodate a minority heritage within the national heritage of Norway and this seems to be something which not many people are ready to do quite yet.Footnote 4 In that sense, the municipal actors acted as the agents of non-change in relation to the content of Norwegian national culture, which was kept within national frames. In other words, while the construction of Norwegianness opens up for people of colour and ethnic minorities, the national cultural heritage in its official, institutionalised version has not acknowledged the change of culture that is happening in the described third spaces.

7 Discussion and Conclusions

7.1 Spaces of Radical Openness vs Identity Reduction in Multicultural Societies

There is an inconsistency between a wide range of alternative practices around Norwegian Constitution Day celebrations – which constitute heritage in becoming and are exercised within the described third spaces – and the extent to which they are acknowledged in official narrations of the event. What Ahmed (2000), and Bissoondath (1994) criticised about Australian and Canadian multiculturalism seems to be true for the municipality of Drammen’s idea of accommodating diversity within the national-day celebrations. They both pointed out a paradox present in the respective countries, where cultural difference is accommodated within a common discourse to legitimise the multicultural character of the nation. However, this is done in a superficial way and with no recognition of alternative cultural practices. My data show that the municipality of Drammen, in its design of the 2020 celebrations, prioritised sameness in relation to cultural practices throughout the streaming, omitting alternative celebration practices popular among the ethnically diverse population of Drammen. Featuring the diversity focused mostly on a (somewhat limited) inclusion of minorities in the live streaming: a presenter of colour, performers of minority background and a few oral references to the diversity as a source of Drammen’s strength. Omitting the alternative cultural practices of minorities and yet using their image to reference Drammen as a municipality proud of its multicultural character may be interpreted as an example of using minorities to legitimise the open and multicultural character of Drammen without, however, making space for alternative cultural practices exercised by these people in official narrations of Constitution Day celebrations.

In turn, the findings from the physical children’s parades held in pre-pandemic times exemplified that ethnic references, as well as individual hybrid interpretations of Norwegian national heritage, were common and visible there. Inspired by hooks (2009), I interpret these expressions of alternative understandings and patterns of Constitution Day celebrations as a formation of spaces of radical openness, even if the need for resistance is not equally conscious among the respondents. Hooks (1989, p. 19) states:

this place of radical openness is a margin – a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a ‘safe’ place. One is always at risk. One needs a community of resistance.

Alternative practices around Constitution Day celebrations are indeed located at the margins of the dominant culture. Bringing them into the city’s streets requires courage and self-confidence. Not all these practices are approved by the dominant discourse. Changing the meaning of Norwegian folk dress by adding Islamic veils (Kvam, 2020; Nettavisen, 2016; Rossing, 2016), using foreign flags in national-day celebrations (Bai, 2018; Brakstad & Ripegutu, 2018) and – perhaps the least controversial – involving minority folk dresses in the celebrations sparked some public discussions. Since these activities, held in a public space, openly refer to alternative identities, a conclusion may be drawn that the actors seek recognition of their difference within the framework of Norwegian heritage celebrations. They resist through occupying the marginal spaces on the edges of a dominant cultural norm and with a difference incorporated into their ways of being, talking and physical appearance. The critical voices towards these manifestations prove that this margin is, indeed, not a safe place, as per hooks (2009). The resistance, whether conscious or not, opposes the reductionist approaches of accommodating cultural difference superficially, an approach demonstrated in the 2020 Constitution Day celebrations when the power over what was displayed in public was centralised.

7.2 Towards Cultural Change

The alternative practices described here, along with the attempts at their manifestation in a public space of dominant cultural discourse, initiate the de facto change of the Norwegian national heritage. This change happens through the everyday negotiations of cultural difference (Neal et al., 2013, p. 310; see also Vertovec, 2015) by the actors. Individuals, of both minority and native background, engage with the national heritage of Norway, adapting it to the multicultural setting of the localities which they inhabit. Through their practices, the third space emerges, featuring what I call a “heritage in becoming” (Nikielska-Sekula, 2019): individual interpretations of the genealogical model of national heritage adjusted to the current circumstances of the present, whether spatial, cultural, structural or other. Along with the agents of change, those of non-change are active in the form of powerful actors shaping official narrations of Norwegian heritage, as well as bottom-up commentators and the media opposing or criticising the change.

Both Bhabha (2004) and Soja (2009, p. 58) indicate that the third space resembles the space of cultural difference beyond the universalist frameworks of liberal democracies. The third space, therefore, goes beyond the generalised oppositions in a given social setting, revealing the alternative social and cultural formations that can be classified neither as a majority nor as an “opposition”. The alternative practices presented in this chapter can be assumed to be neither mainstream nor entirely relating to the minority culture – going, therefore, beyond the either/or discourse on Norwegianness and otherness. As the streaming from the 2020 Constitution Day celebrations shows, these alternative ways are not fully recognised within the official Constitution Day narratives. The process of culture change finds, therefore, a place on the backstage of Norwegian society – beyond, if not against, the institutionalised heritage. The 2020 live streaming of Constitution Day in Drammen presents an incorrect, reductionist picture of diversity, limiting it to the presence of some representatives of racial and ethnic minorities but profoundly omitting any diverse cultural content. This coincides with the problems the regimes of cultural difference accommodation in multicultural societies may produce (Ahmed, 2000; Bissoondath, 1994; Hollinger, 1995). The conclusion one can draw is that a non-settler multicultural country such as Norway is not free from the problem of reductionism identified in multicultural settler societies such as Australia, Canada and the USA. This further calls for both academics and practitioners to continue their efforts to target the downplaying of minorities’ complex cultural customs and values in favour of mere folklore at both a normative and an empirical level.