Minority Identities on Display: Youth Experiences from Three Multicultural Events

The chapter reports from three different multicultural celebrations where young people participated in events highlighting cultural and linguistic diversity: an international community festival, a multicultural school event and a celebration of the Sámi National Day. The three celebrations serve as telling cases for discussing how the young people experienced being part of a multicultural event and how their experiences may shed light on not only the intercultural potential, but also the possible pitfalls, of celebrating cultural and linguistic diversity through multicultural events. The chapter starts by seeing the phenomenon of multicultural events in a historical context. Furthermore, it presents research on contemporary multicultural events, before the perspectives of the young participants are introduced and analysed. By taking the participants’ emic perspective as a point of departure, the chapter nuances criticism against multicultural events and encourages schools and communities to rethink how they can host such events, while ensuring that they are free of essentialist and stereotypical framing.