Bunad, minorities and belonging in Norway

Abstract

The increase and visibility of non-white Norwegian minorities who wear the national costume, bunad, has generated much debate and rancor in the Norwegian media in recent years. This study employs a content analysis methodology of six cases from national newspapers that approximate the gamut of the discussion. Employing theories of belonging, bunad is broached as a prism that reflects current debates about the future of multiculturalism in a country that has witnessed rapid demographic change in a few decades. The locus of the debate is situated in the interstices between the minority individual’s rationale for wearing the bunad and the positive views of significant Norwegians, such as the King of Norway, on the one hand, and those who refuse to ‘grant’ belonging to non-ethnic Norwegians on the other.