School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications
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ItemBeefeaters, bobbies, and a new Varangian Guard? Negotiating forms of “Britishness” in suburban Australia( 2004)The recent emergence of “Britfests” provides a point of departure for investigating the complex transitional narratives of migrancy, ethnicity, and “belonging” among British migrants in modern Australia. We argue that the recreational representation of “Britishness” at these events reflects broader trends in the re-imagination of “Britishness” in Australia now a source of popular and scholarly debate. Such events are seen as representative of a newly-emergent sense of identity among British migrants — an organic reawakening of “community” pride, nationhood, and sense of privilege in a society that publicly proclaims a multiculturally-hued nationalism. We explore the ramifications for identity formation among British migrants, particularly as located in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston, as a situated example of how ethnic and national identities may be expressed. Local contexts can shed new light not only on the ways in which conceptions of “Britishness” are formed and negotiated by migrants in an Australian context, but also on the broader British diaspora in nations shaped by the historical processes and legacies of British imperialism, colonization, and migration.
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ItemWhen good neighbours become good friends: the Australian embrace of its millionth migrant(University of Melbourne, 2004-10)The arrival of Australia's 'millionth' post Second World War migrant in 1955 provided the occasion for a nationally choreographed embrace of a young British woman posed as both culmination and promise for an immigrant nation. This article traces various treatments of this event and explores the transitional national, political and cultural narratives produced and negotiated. It examines the way in which the story of the millionth migrant was taken up as a matter of national interest in Australia and reveals how the British migrants the nation apparently embraced were processed and deployed as salves for anxiety about national identity and in the development of notions of Australian community. It argues that for many British migrants, this process was often fraught: assumed to be willing, welcome and easily assimilated, their identity as migrants was too often smothered by an embrace that ignored broader migratory experiences.
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ItemFrom Queen of Agriculture to Miss Showgirl: embodying rurality in twentieth-century Australia(University of Queensland Press, 2001)The first Miss Showgirl was an urban event, held at a major metropolitan show, featuring many ‘city girls’ amongst its participants. The significance of the contest lies in the ways it was embraced by rural communities, becoming a leading event at the several hundred agricultural shows held annually throughout Australia. The cultural meanings of the Miss Showgirl contests are embedded in the evolving concepts and values that exist or are constructed by and in relation to rural communities and, in particular, to rural womanhood.
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ItemBeauty contest for the British bulldogs? Negotiating (trans)national identities in suburban Melbourne(Melbourne University Press, 2003-11)‘Britfest’ is a local festival held in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston. Like the numerous festivals of ethnicity in Australia that simultaneously celebrate cultural distinction and national incorporation, Britfest offers a historically specific reaction to the re-imagining of the nation. This article examines this new expressive tendency within the context of recent debates about Britishness in Australia, and explores the ramifications for identity formation and cultural affiliation among British migrants. By locating this analysis in Frankston, we aim to provide a situated example of the ways in which British ethnic identities are being negotiated. Such localised and specific responses, however, are operating within and are influenced by the broader context of shifting representations of a diverse British diaspora. Like British-Australians, members of this diaspora also inhabit nations shaped by the legacies of British imperialism, colonisation and migration. Shifting meanings of Britishness also represent and inform a more general ‘crisis of whiteness’, indicating how culturally embedded the colonial equation of Britishness with whiteness has been for those who imagine themselves at the core of the contemporary Australian nation.
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ItemUn-stitching the lips of a migrant nation(University of Melbourne, 2002)Outlining some of the features of migrant belonging brought into relief by debate over refugees and asylum seekers in 2001, this article challenges Australian historians to produce histories based as much on the fact of migrancy as the myth of nation. Such histories, it is argued, provide scope for the remembrance of loss, disinheritance and the lack of a sense of belonging, which might in turn encourage us to react with empathy to those seeking refuge in Australia today.