Empire building

Posted on | April 26, 2005 | 4 Comments

Last Friday afternoon I went to a talk by Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology at UTS. It was called ‘This Mongrel Breed: Cultural Diversity and the Australian Empire Project’, and it summarised a book project he’s working on (more details here) that describes the specific nature of Australian Empire. He argues that Australia is best viewed as a continuing imperial project with its own cultural economy distinct from both the British and US Empires (it’s what you might call a ‘mini-me’ Empire, he said at one point). This realisation can be discomforting if recognised, because it is usually disguised within ideology and discourses of nationalism on both the Left and Right. The nation (and federation) are merely institutional moments in the cultural economy of Australian Empire, which succeeds like any other by reimagining itself in each generation (the seamless mythology that links Gallipoli to Iraq, for instance), subordinating indigenous peoples and normalising incoming populations.

Watching the ANZAC Day coverage last night reminded me of some of his key points, for instance how difficult was it to see any non-white faces speaking at major events (tho it was great to see Andrew Lovett win the ANZAC Day medal in only his third game of AFL. I really like the line in Rohan Connolly’s article, ‘…the resounding theme of this Anzac Day clash wasn’t old warriors performing heroic deeds, but the excitement of precocious youth’). If multiculturalism was having any impact (after how many years?!) then key positions in Australian culture would be more representative, which is really to say accessible for those other than the traditionally appointed servants of Empire. In a previous study Andrew traced the fallacy of multiculturalism rhetoric by counting the actual participants in three sites – Federal politics, The High Court and the board of the ABC.

Reading some of the responses to the events yesterday makes me want to ask Andrew for more detail about how even dissenters can still be attracted to the ideal of nation, when its incorporation in imperial ventures is fairly evident. Where is the space of refusal?

Anyway, the talk ended with the fascinating suggestion that rather than becoming more inclusive, Australia is actually demonstrating increased segregation as a society, and that people are quite happy to accept it. The main example for this is State funding of independent schools. As Andrew argues, this is a move away from the historical function of public schooling to assist in assimilation, forcing many cultures to find a way to get along. In the future, kids will be increasingly less likely to have learned skills in interacting with people that are ‘different’.

Andrew is looking for feedback on the project, so by all means share responses to my hopefully not too shoddy summary.

Category: Events, Politics

Comments

4 Responses to “Empire building”

  1. Sandy
    April 26th, 2005 @ 6:48 pm

    Maybe I am missing the point, but surely without a (discredited) ideal of progress the idea of Australia becoming either more or less inclusive is incoherent? It’s like the nation is a coherent object that moves forward or back on a linear index of inclusivity but things are actually much more dispersed in ways that don’t really correspond to an inclusive/segregated distinction (which seem to me to involve teleological ways of thinking).

  2. melgregg
    April 26th, 2005 @ 7:32 pm

    Hey Sandy, no I don’t think you’re missing the point (I don’t think I eventually managed to make one) but I guess from a sociological perspective one of the ways things get measured is through structural evidence like what kinds of people get jobs and from what backgrounds. So if a discourse or policy or alleged good like multiculturalism is having any effect it should be reflected at an institutional level – thru the sites Andrew has studied. I don’t think this is teleological so much as an attempt to assess government policy (or does that then make it teleological? I don’t know). In the last comment I think he’s saying that if there are already clear structural dimensions which keep particular kinds of people in powerful positions then these divisions will only consolidate when there are fewer opportunities for dialogue or empathy between competing cultures.

  3. Mark Bahnisch
    April 27th, 2005 @ 11:46 am

    James Jupp, I think, has made the point about the summits of power, before – and it’s also been done in sociological work.

    Have a think about the surnames of prominent pollies at the top of the tree – Hawke, Keating, Fraser, Whitlam, Howard, Costello, Beattie, Carr, etc. Bracks is the only “ethnic” Premier, and it’s downplayed.

    It works the same way when you start thinking about Ministers.

  4. Larvatus Prodeo
    April 27th, 2005 @ 11:48 am

    Anglo-Celtic Dreaming?

    There’s been some discussion of my reference to Anglo-Celts on my previous post about sectarianism and history where I wrote:

    One of the great right-wing myths is that Australia was some sort of Anglo-Celtic homogenous country prior to Calwell’s …

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