The politics of indigeneity,identity and representation in literature from north Australia's Gulf Country

The Aboriginal author Alexis Wright's novels Plains of Promise, Carpentaria and The Swan Book have prompted scholars and critics towards enthusiastic comparisons with the ground-breaking work of a range of international writers. With her novels all set partly in the remote Gulf Country of north Australia, Wright's work arises from intellectual and political commitment to Indigenous people, and aspires to the idea of a distinctive ‘Aboriginal sovereignty of the mind’. Much less known yet, we argue, of complementary significance, are a broader suite of writings about this region, and we address representations of cultural identity and connections to place by authors with both Aboriginal and European ancestries. With our interest in a deliberately cross-disciplinary methodology, ethnographic research complements our focus on texts to facilitate analysis of diverse identities in a setting produced through both the resilience of Indigenous cultural traditions and the legacies of European settler colonialism. We argue that the range of authorial representations arising from this sector of Australian society provides a focus for understanding shared and contested postcolonial imaginaries about place, culture and identity.     

‘Our own Hurricane Katrina’: Aboriginal disadvantage and Australian national identity

Since Prime Minister Howard's declaration in 2007 that child sex abuse in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities was Australia's ‘own Hurricane Katrina’, the trope of natural disaster has been a regular feature of print and television media coverage of Indigenous affairs in Australia. The effect of this rhetorical strategy is to separate what happens to Aboriginal people from the fabric of ‘mainstream’ Australian cultural and political life; to render it alien and unconnected to the relative privilege enjoyed by other Australians. This strategy also produces peculiar temporal effects by erecting a cordon sanitaire around Australian history and the national identity that it supports. Howard's comparison of Aboriginal disadvantage with Katrina, if read alongside his politicization of the teaching of Australian history, demonstrates an unwillingness to incorporate systemic injustice toward Indigenous people within the composition of that history. This article interrogates the relationships between the manifold understandings of Aboriginal disadvantage and attempts to commemorate its violent history, as these aspects of Australian life are both integrated and refused by national identity narratives. Specifically, the paper reinterprets the trope of natural disaster as a means of comprehending Indigenous disadvantage and Australian identity by drawing on Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history. Benjamin's understanding of activism as a constructive retrieval of the past will be developed to reconnect catastrophe to history, and to enable an exploration of responsibility for that history as an integral condition of contemporary Australian identity.     

The importance of Australian national identity to a sense of belonging of Anglo-Celtic and Chinese cultural groups in regional Australia

This study explored the primacy of importance of Australian national identity as underpinning belongingness of Anglo-Celtic and Chinese cultural groups. A mixed-method approach comprised focus groups and interviews was used. Australian national identity did not hold primacy of importance to a sense of belonging in either group, however family identities were of primary importance to both, together with cultural identity of the Chinese. Anglo-Celtic's felt culturally disassociated, whereas Chinese sought majority acceptance through cultural promotion, and bicultural identification. Findings call for further research of Australian national identity of the majority and other minority cultural groups.     

From displaying to becoming national heritage: the case of the Pousadas de Portugal

Nationalism and tourism have long mobilised heritage in the making and marketing of identities. This article examines the social production of the Pousadas de Portugal – a state-owned chain of tourist accommodations operating since 1942 that embodies an idea of national identity – shedding light on the official and intellectual reconfigurations of narratives about the nation's past and its culture. It argues that, from displaying national heritage, the Pousadas have become heritage themselves through a process of renationalisation grounded in long-standing meanings and representations.     

Identity,Othering and belonging: toward an understanding of difference and the experiences of African immigrants to Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to contribute to understanding of difference and knowledge on the analysis of the concepts of identity, Othering and belonging not only from a theoretical perspective, but more importantly by relating them empirically to the Australian context in a way that sheds a better light on the experiences of African immigrants to Australia. It draws on data from interviews conducted with 30 black Africans living in South East Queensland. Their racialized identities impacted on how they felt, were defined, related to and constructed, in Australia. Their accounts suggest that Othering practices can marginalize, exclude and affect migrants and refugees’ ideas and sense of belonging. The findings indicate the need for a more inclusive Australia, the accommodation of difference, the fostering of new identities, the rejection of negative representations and stereotypes of the Other, and the recognition that Othering is one of the important factors to understanding the marginalization, exclusion and challenges of ethnically and racially marked people in Australia.     

Marketing an imagined Muslim woman: Muslim Girl magazine and the politics of race,gender and representation

This article examines the magazine Muslim Girl (started publication 2007) and explores how the representations on the magazine's pages construct a particular type of identity for Muslim women: an ‘idealized’ Muslim woman who is both North American/Western and Muslim. Such a woman is portrayed as liberal, educated, fashionable, a ‘can-do’ woman, who is also committed to her faith. This ‘ideal’ woman is situated squarely as a neo-liberal subject in an increasingly consumerist world: she is ‘marketable’ (and marketed) as the ‘good Muslim’ (Mamdani, 2004) and is positioned as the ‘familiar stranger’ (Ahmed, 2000) in North America. This so-called ‘modern’ Muslim (read: ‘good Muslim’) is juxtaposed both against the ‘fundamentalist’ Muslim (read: ‘bad Muslim’) and the ‘normalized’ white North American subject. Against the discourse of post 9/11 nationalism and within the context of (gendered) Orientalism, this article argues that such idealized representations present easily recognizable tropes, which serve important political, ideological and cultural purposes within North American society. An analysis of these representations – and the purposes which they serve – provides an important window into the nuances of the structured discourses that seek to control and discipline the gendered Muslim body. On the one hand, the representations in Muslim Girl focus on the so-called ‘integrated North American Muslim’ – a ‘modern’ or ‘good’ Muslim – within the context of the multicultural, neo-liberal and post 9/11 nation-state. On the other hand, these representations also highlight examples of Muslim women, who seemingly remain committed to their faith and community. Such representations of hybridized North American Muslims speak powerfully to the forces – ideological, cultural, political and social – that are at play in the post 9/11 world. In analyzing the representations found in Muslim Girl, this paper provides an insight into some of these forces and their implications.     

How the host nation's boundary drawing affects immigrants’ belonging

Across Western democracies, the place for newcomers in the host society is debated, involving often a questioning of immigrants’ belonging to their new nation. This article argues that immigrants’ feeling of host national belonging depends on how the host nation imagines its community and its concomitant boundaries. Utilising survey and country level data in multilevel regressions, immigrants’ belonging is found to vary significantly across the 19 countries included. A central contribution is the finding that citizenship policies do not explain this cross-national variation. Instead, what matters is the informal boundary drawing produced in the majority population's conception of what is important for being part of the national ‘us'. Thus, immigrants’ belonging is significantly greater when the majority population prioritises attainable criteria of national membership. In addition, these priorities are shown to have deep historical roots as immigrants’ belonging is greater in settler countries and in nations which democratised early. By showing that national imageries have consequences for a country's welcoming capacities, and by showing that these welcoming capacities are historically path dependent, the study contributes to the debate within nationalism studies about national identity's causal significance.     

达斡尔族人口城市化及其对民族发展的影响

实行改革开放20多年来,由于人口迁移、自然增长和地方改建城镇制的原因,达斡尔族城市人口及其占全部人口的比例增长较快,达斡尔族城市人口比例在全国各民族中的排序为第六位。达斡尔族人口城市化进程的加快,是民族素质提高的表现,也为城市各项事业的发展和文化多样性作出了贡献,对于达斡尔族进一步提高文化教育水平,提高物质文化生活质量,发挥聪明才智都产生了积极的影响。同时我们也应看到,城市化对于人口比较少的达斡尔族来说,加剧了人口的分散,也出现了保留民族语言和传统文化的困境。     

To see ourselves as others see us: identity and attitudes towards immigration amongst civic nationalists

ABSTRACT

This article examines how different conceptions of national identity can be linked to attitudes towards cultural pluralism. The tensions between more culturally pluralistic societies and sustained support for nationalism represent an important political issue in modern western European politics. Such tensions are of particular relevance for stateless nationalist and regionalist parties (SNRPs) for whom national/regional identity is a major political driver. This article empirically tests the relationship between different conceptions of national identity and attitudes towards cultural pluralism in two SNRPs—the Scottish National Party and the Frisian National Party. The article draws upon evidence from two unique full party membership studies and is supported with evidence from documentary analysis. A key finding is that the manner in which members conceptualise national identity has significant implications for their attitudes towards cultural pluralism, which has the potential of becoming a source of tension within SNRPs. A key implication of the article is that there is evidence that attitudes of general members and officially stated party positions and narratives diverge on issues relating to cultural pluralism and national identity. These tensions could potentially be harmful for the party's overall civic image.     

Exploring Greek-Cypriot media representations of national identities in ethnically divided Cyprus: the case of the 2002/2004 Annan Plan negotiations

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Greek-Cypriot media representations of national identities during negotiations on a United Nation Plan (the Annan Plan), aiming to reunite ethnically divided Cyprus under a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. The study analyzed thematically 57 editorials and lead commentaries published in all the daily Greek-Cypriot Press from the presentation of the Annan Plan in November 2002 to April 2004, at which point two simultaneous referenda were held. The study’s findings are consistent with ideas that national identifications are not static and provides an in-depth exploration of exclusive forms of Cypriot identities vis-à-vis more inclusive forms and vis-à-vis hellenocentric identifications.     

Diversity in place: narrations of diversity in an ethnically mixed,urban area

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the implications of representations of places as ‘diverse’, particularly for those who live in them. Arising from an interdisciplinary research project, the paper takes one neighbourhood in Manchester (Cheetham Hill) and explores some of the narratives about it produced by residents and those who have a ‘professional’ stake in the area. These are put in the context of public narratives of the area, as well as Census data. The paper examines how different types of data generate different stories and how different methodological approaches can produce varied understandings of place, which have implications for how a place comes to be known and for the potential impact on the distribution of resources. Cheetham Hill is known as ‘diverse’, or even ‘super-diverse’, but the paper examines how this label serves to obscure lived experience and inequalities and can reveal ambivalences over the ethnic difference and urban living.     

Arrivals and Arrivals: Royal Travel at Botany Bay

This article looks at how the sites of the beach and the airport have functioned as chronotopes of 'arrivalism' in Australian history. I suggest that narratives surrounding Queen Elizabeth's 1970 royal tour of Australia, initiated and terminated at Sydney Airport, drew on existing structures of primitivism and modernity at the site of the beach. A re-enactment of Cook's landing at Botany Bay on Australia Day 1970 thus re-inscribed the nation within global space: it showed aboriginal people bearing witness to the (re-)arrival of the colonists. This narrative of national progress linked the British colonial project and Australian economic development — just as Cook 'discovered' Australia, the Queen's flight 'discovered' anew the international space of air travel and trade. A second re-enactment by trade unions and environmental protestors nearby on Australia Day 1976 contested this narrative, and offered an alternative nationalist vision at the site of the beach.     

Everyday space,mobile subjects and place-based belonging in suburban Sydney

ABSTRACT

In the contemporary age of international migration, the mobilities of people into and out of cities are increasingly diverse. Correspondingly, it has been claimed that forms of belonging are becoming increasingly flexible, strategic and characterised by multiple place attachments. This paper examines these claims in empirical detail by investigating how different scales of belonging and mobility come together in the context of migrant incorporation processes in a hyperdiverse, transitional suburban locality in Sydney, Australia. Drawing on several migrant biographies, I flesh out the lived dimensions of mobility and emplacement and the various routes and roots that characterise cities of diversity. This article uses grounded portrayals of individual experiences of place and everyday mobility across a range of migration statuses and ethnic backgrounds to examine the spatial practices of belonging for mobile (and relatively immobile) migrant subjects in the city. As such, this work contributes to research that highlights the mutual constitution of place and movement, by considering the role of migrants in the everyday production of urban space.     

Changing patterns of mobility,citizenship and conflict in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Mobility and migration are inherent ingredients of Indonesian cultures. In an archipelago with thousands of islands of various size, character and nature, mobility is an important means to make a living and to survive by migration. The right to free movement in Indonesia is constitutionally granted. It can create mobility and give expression to equal citizenship rights at the same time as it can trigger the enforcement of borders among cultural groups and the ethnification of local and regional politics. Mobility thus always comes along with immobility. Physical mobility of one group of people might cause immobility of another group or it might create cultural and political immobility in the same group. In places such as Eastern Indonesia, people have developed reciprocal means to integrate newcomers. Whereas the immigrants are usually disadvantaged citizens with regards to land and customary rights, those living in the area for generations have nonetheless become integral parts of quite peaceful local settings, one way or the other. The advancement of decentralization, democratization and direct elections of political representatives can lead to political empowerment, the promotion of ethnicity as election capital and changing patterns of belonging. This paper illustrates these ambivalences by looking at mobility in Indonesia more generally and how changing national policies and laws lead to reinterpretations of mobility patterns and trigger changes in relations between local population groups and existing mechanisms of cultural and political inclusion and exclusion. Butonese migrants in Maluku will here serve as a case study.     

‘What better advertisement could Australia have?’ Encyclopaedias and nation-building

In the early twentieth century, Australians committed to nation-building had to be inventive. With neither a foundation myth nor a unique defining history to resort to, other cultural products were created to succour Australia's postcolonial development. Whereas one such cultural product, the Sydney Bulletin, has been examined in Australian historiography, the role of encyclopaedias has been neglected. It is argued here that the Australian Encyclopaedia (1925–26) plumped the cheeks of the nation; and that encyclopaedias, despite their claims to objectivity, are surprisingly effective in the communication of political ideas.     

Diversities of National Identity in a Multicultural Society: The Australian Case

During the past half-century Australian immigration policy has moved from the assimilationist doctrine of Anglo-conformity, whereby non-British settlers were expected to adopt the Australian way-of-life, to a policy of multiculturalism that accepts and respects the cultures and traditions of newcomers, governed only by an overriding commitment to the basic institutions of Australian society. Newcomers are encouraged to take out Australian citizenship, which is available to immigrants after two years' residence, provided that they meet some other requirements, for example, the ability to speak and understand basic English. Notwithstanding changes in official policy, the population at large has a more diverse range of understandings of what it means to be 'truly Australian'. In this paper, I validate an earlier typology of such understandings and explore the social and attitudinal correlates of beliefs about Australian identity among four broad groupings of Australians: dogmatic nativists; literal nativists; civic nationalists; and moderate pluralists. Data are drawn from modules on Australian identity from the 1995 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and the 1996 Australian Electoral Survey (AES). I explore the substance of these different understandings in terms of the beliefs and attitudes that Australians of various persuasions hold about a range of current social and political issues, such as levels of immigration, the effect immigrants have on the economy and society, views about the monarchy versus a Republic, the role of trade unions, and related issues.     

The Search for the National in Canadian Multilateral Cinematographic Co-productions

According to opinions expressed in the trade literature, international co-productions-made to appeal to a wide audience - are less likely to be identified as 'national productions' than domestic films. Yet in the past, co-productions not only helped the emergence and guaranteed the very existence of national film industries but, in some countries, they have also been seen as 'a mechanism for nation building'. The concepts of 'nation' and 'identity' have become increasingly problematic but, as a close examination of the reception of Canadian films made under the co-production agreements with France and the UK in the last decade shows, in the age of commercial mediation, even internationally-made cultural products can be turned into symbolic bearers of national identity.     

Orgasm and the West. A history of pleasure from the sixteenth century to the present

ABSTRACT

This study analyses the experiences of exiles within international rugby union in Britain. The emphasis is on challenging existing sociological assumptions surrounding national identity and sports labour migration. Eight international rugby exiles were invited to take part in semi-structured interviews and several themes emerged. The major findings from the study demonstrate that exiles are subject to an array of cultural attachments and personal experiences which shape their national identities. As migrants, their repositioning in relation to the nation is increasingly deemed to be the norm in rugby union. However, additional influences were also shown to persist to varying degrees.     

The identity of memory and the memory of identity in the age of commodification and democratization

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between secularization and commodification of culture on one hand, and national identity always represented as Christian mystery on the other. Focusing on three case studies, Poland, Quebec and Zaire, the author analyses the place of an ordinary object (commodity) as a vehicle of representation of people's affirmation of belonging to a ‘nation’. He stresses the disposable nature of such an affirmation of belonging which allows everyone to alter or cast off the symbols of belonging while changing their social or political contexts.     

以人为本构建民族地区和谐社会

和谐社会既是社会发展的理想目标,也是社会主义社会的基本价值取向.当前,民族地区社会生产力发展水平和教育科技文化发展水平普遍都不高,构建和谐社会也是对民族地区的发展提出了更高的要求,赋予了新的使命.要加快民族地区的发展,必须坚持以人为本的发展观,协调各方资源,从经济、政治、文化教育等方面加大投入,努力构建民族地区和谐社会.