Jay M. Woodhams’ Political identity in discourse: The voices of New Zealand voters tackles the issue of political behavior and belief by asking how we become political people. Using data collected from semistructured and informal conversations, Woodhams traces the factors that constitute political identity for Wellington residents. The author utilizes critical realist philosophy and discourse analysis to illustrate the links between macro- and micro-level contexts as well as those between material realities and ideologies and discourses. In doing so, Woodhams offers an important and timely contribution to studies of politics and discourse that allows a deeper understanding of our current divisive political moment.

The book introduces the reader to three levels of context for the formation of political identity: the national historical, the subnational or Wellington context, and the interactional. Woodhams begins by explaining ‘political landscapes’ (39), or the long-term historical and social factors that have created what residents know as Aotearoa/New Zealand. This includes the influence of discourses of egalitarianism and power mitigation, formational to New Zealander identities. Crucial to his analysis is the tension between the realities of inequality and an ideology of egalitarianism. This tension along with the foundational impact of a national history is revealed in interactional sociolinguistic analyses of conversations with residents. Following this examination of national context, the book explores local Wellington discourses, focusing particularly on what seems to be a Wellington exceptionalism. Transcripts from interviews illustrate the ways in which national discourses pick up particular features in the Wellington context, laying the groundwork for a multilayered constitution of political identity.

As the capital and center of national politics, Wellington offers important insights into the emergence of political selves. Wellington is suffused with the political as this realm dominates the landscape, job opportunities, and the way residents see themselves. Tying these discourses together and bringing the emergence of political identities into focus is a case study of interactions and conversations between the author and Ashley, a research participant. Woodhams relies on the conceptual analytic of stance to show how political identity is shaped by both macro-level factors and intersubjective negotiation in interaction. Also useful here is Woodhams’ own position as a Wellington resident who can provide insight into the political and social signifiers that Ashley utilizes to establish various stances. Here, interactional sociolinguistics takes center stage as Woodhams shows how discursive features such as alignment, mitigation of conflict, and contextualization cues are meaningful through relation to the landscapes of history and ideology. A crucial and well-illustrated point of the book is the complex and malleable nature of political identity. While constituted in part through longer-term forces, these political selves do not correspond neatly to political platforms or expectations. Additionally, signifiers used to establish identity can have different meanings for different people and can be misinterpreted in interaction. The book provides a valuable contribution to an emerging literature at the intersection of ethnography and discourse analysis that examines the complicated formation of current political identities and political talk.