Enacting national selves: Authenticity, adventure, and disaffection in the Portuguese Diaspora

Disparate and, at times, contradictory enactments of “Portugueseness” are explored in relation to debates whose scope is local, national, and transnational. The focus is on how the national self‐representations of Portuguese migrants in Europe resonate with the hegemonic definitions of belonging in Portugal, Germany, and the newly emerging “Europe,” and how the differing images structure inclusion and exclusion within these polities. Descriptions of three localized events are juxtaposed to reveal what is at stake in these arguments over how to “be Portuguese” and why particular “knowledges, images, and discourses are … authorized” (Bhabha 1994: 270).