CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

Whiteness and the Racialised 'Other'

Organisers: Helen Hatchell and Nado Aveling

Whiteness and the Racialised 'Other' I: The Nation, Identity and Whiteness

Phelps, Sandra (University of Sydney, Australia) COLONIAL REPETITION IN THE AUSTRALIAN CIVILISING PROCESS
Robert Young (1996) argues that the repressed history of the nation, as that of the individual, invariably threatens to reappear in order for the nation to deal with its constitutive ambivalence. In Australia it is generally understood that the discourses of reconciliation (and in particular those surrounding an apology) are attempts to heal the racist wounds of colonialism. These discourses are seen as progressive, postcolonial and anti-racist. In this paper I draw on Freud's paper 'The Uncanny' to discuss the underlying racist pathology at the heart of the nation that repeats upon the nation its own unwellness in its attempts to heal. The argument I develop is that reconciliation processes serve to reinstate whiteness as central in nationalist agenda and thus can be seen as functioning from within colonialism itself. Thus I am positing that reconciliation processes within Australian nationalism are currently setting the circumstances for anxiety and decivilisation amongst non-Indigenous Australians.

McDermott, Dennis (University of New South Wales, Australia) HASSAN'S GRAN AND MY MOTHER: STRATEGIC WHITENESS AMONGST AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL AND IMMIGRANT "OTHERS"
Lebanese-born Australian cultural theorist Gassan Hage finds an unexpected linkage between the "anti-intellectual" views and range of worries of his grandmother and the "White-and-very-worried-about-the-nation" backlash most graphically embodied in Pauline Hanson and her One Nation movement. Such linkage is replicable both within this author's family experience and the wider Aboriginal community. Self-constructions of "whiteness" by non-Anglo "others" involves conscious or unconscious pursuance of strategies involving consonance with views Hage characterizes as "fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society", often at significant, if disguised, personal cost. Larbalestier's "…imagined space of 'white Australia'", her core of (white) Australian identity, can only be occupied by "others" through significant behavioural self-censoring and cognitive morphing. Read estimates 100,000 Australians of Aboriginal descent either are denied or deny their Aboriginality This paper will explore the articulation and the consequences of the phenomenon of strategic whiteness for "others", from personal, cultural, psychological and literary perspectives.

Rastas, Anna (University of Tampere, Finland) AM I STILL WHITE?
In my paper I intend to articulate my efforts to understand the different meanings and workings of whiteness during my doctoral research. My study is concerned with the racialisation and othering of young Finns who are regarded as non-Finns in everyday encounters with other people. Most of my participants are recognised as strangers because of their visible difference, their non-whiteness. While trying to understand my participants' experience, I have been forced to reflect on whiteness as my privileged position which also distances me from them and limits my understanding. I have entered this process as a white mother of two non-white children. I suggest that there are means by which we can contest whiteness as an 'ontological condition' both in racial power structures and in the formation of identity. I do this by asking 'Am I still white?'

Martino, Wayne (Murdoch University, Australia) INDIGENOUS BOYS FASHIONING MASCULINITIES IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS
In this paper I focus on Indigenous boys and their experiences of schooling. I am particularly interested in exploring how issues of masculinity impact on these boys' lives because this is something that has not been foregrounded in the literature dealing with the experiences of Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander students in the Australian context (see Prudie et al, 2000; Bourke et al, 2000; Partington, 1998; Groome, 1995; Groome & Edwardson, 1996; Dodson, 1994; Bourke et al, 1994). Two Aboriginal/Torres Islander boys from Western Australia and eighteen boys from North Queensland were interviewed and I draw on these data to explore their perspectives on schooling and its significance for them. I draw on the work of Foucault and Connell to develop a theoretical framework for analysing these boys' social practices of masculinity in the Australian context.

Whiteness and the Racialised 'Other' II: The Invisible White Self: Punctured, Probed and Analysed

Aveling, Nado (Murdoch University, Australia) BEING THE DESCENDANT OF COLONIALISTS: REFLECTIONS ON 'BEING WHITE'
In this paper I take as given that whiteness refers to "a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produced" (Frankenberg, 1993, 6) and that the white western self as a racial being has remained largely unexamined and unnamed. Certainly, in my earlier research it was gender and not 'race' that shaped the focus of my inquiry; I did not consider the fact that the subjects of my research were white to be a salient factor in the way their lives were unfolding. This paper seeks to redress that imbalance and picks up the question of 'being white' with a small group of young, well-educated Australian women whom I first interviewed in 1986. Surprisingly, when I re-interviewed these women in 2000 and asked if they had ever thought about the fact that they were 'white', all reported that they had became aware of being white following what could be classified as a critical incident in their lives. Key issues which emerged during these interviews relate to issues of unearned privilege, guilt, fear and alienation.

Bell, James (Murdoch University, Australia) BLINDED BY THE 'WHITE': EXPLORING TENSIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL PEDAGOGY
Critical pedagogies focusing on anti-racist teaching sometimes valorise the emancipatory in educational practices in ways that invoke the revolutionary modernity they seek to critique (Nandy, 1988, Rizvi, 1990, Bell, 1997, 2000). This paper investigates difficulties involved in framing a critical pedagogy approach to anti-racist teaching that shifts the gaze from the non-white 'Other' in need of 'emancipation'. It challenges constructions of a non-white categorical 'problem' as the object of critical pedagogical activity for the ways these constructions obscure significant processes of white colonial privilege within educational (and other) practices. Western notions of time and history are critiqued for the ways they collude in constructions of the non-white as both 'parochial' and 'non-performing' and therefore of less worth. Indian and Aboriginal notions of time and history are explored for opening new spaces of subject identification and communication through the uses of narrative and myth. The paper investigates three examples of ruptured and rupturing tertiary classroom incidents in view of the above.

Hatchell, Helen (Murdoch University, Australia) MASCULINITIES AND WHITENESS: MARGINALIZATION OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS AT SCHOOL
In this paper I examine whiteness and Australian-ness and show how adolescent male students overlook whiteness and its associated privilege. I acknowledge whiteness as a racial issue and interrogate different forms of whiteness through students' narratives. Central to discussions in this paper is 'Kevin', an Indigenous Australian student from Torres Strait Islands. Issues relating to racial prejudice are explored through a variety of critical incidents. I examine what 'Marilyn', an English teacher, is saying and how she introduces issues of racism into her classroom. I also examine what students are saying and how they perceive racism and racial prejudice. Educational texts, as well as classroom practices, often marginalize Kevin because he is an Indigenous Australian. Kevin is aware of this, yet at the same time he also feels that he is able to remain 'himself' within a situation that he perceives gives him few rights. This paper explicitly shows how Kevin, as an Indigenous Australian, selects from a range of positions made available to him. I found that school texts play a critical role in how students define their own lives and create their own 'visible' meaning of whiteness, but conclude that raised awareness on its own is not sufficient to fashion more permanent societal changes.

Mueller, Ulrike (University of Oregon, USA) WHITE GERMANNESS, GERMAN WHITENESS: CONSTRUCTIONS OF RACE AND NATION AMONG WOMEN'S ACTIVIST GROUPS IN GERMANY
In this paper I examine culturally and historically specific constructions of whiteness among German feminist activists. My central argument is that constructions of national and racial identities are tightly linked in that being German also always means being white. Drawing from interviews conducted during an ethnographic study of feminist activists in Southwestern Germany I depict the particular local form of whiteness in Germany. Whiteness and Germanness are not acknowledged as political institutions by many German left-wing political activists, because concepts such as race and nationality are associated with Germany's Nazi past and are, therefore, avoided. Thus, whiteness as a social location of structural advantage, power and privilege remains largely unnoticed and unacknowledged. On the basis of the interviews I will discuss the complex ways in which feminist activists negotiate their German/white identities within the everyday realities of political activism.

Whiteness and the Racialised 'Other' III: Cultural Constructions of the [Colonial] Other

Löytty, Olli (University of Turku, Finland) THE HEATHEN IN FINNISH MISSIONARY LITERATURE SET IN OWAMBOLAND
The cultural construction of the colonial other has not appeared to be as important question in Finland as in the former colonial powers. There is, however, one interesting case to be studied: The Finnish missionaries in Owamboland (in present day Namibia) since 1870. Because of the literature set in Owamboland (memoirs, novels, reports, pamphlets, children's stories etc) as well as active public speaking over the years, Owamboland 'rings a bell' in Finland. As it provides the only example of the colonial encounter, the Owambo heathen can be seen as the significant other in the cultural construction of the Finnish self. My study focuses on the representations of the heathen in the missionary literature. How the religious and cultural definitions of heathenism interweave and are used to 'back up' one another? For instance, when the pagans are converted to Christianity (and religious difference disappears), their heathenism is defined by cultural terms.

Trienekens, Sandra (Tilburg University, The Netherlands) WHITE ART VERSUS BLACK CULTURE
Northern European nation states such as the Netherlands and Great Britain are in effect multi-ethnic. Whether they acknowledge themselves as multicultural is an entirely different question. Discourse is developing on ethnic diversity and inclusion, and 'enhancing the cultural base and promoting diversity' slowly becomes a focus of arts and cultural policy. But without a reassessment of what is understood as arts and culture and without a change in criteria for funding particular cultural expressions rather than others, has the cultural policy discourse indeed become less Euro-centric? This paper will explore how the white Western cultural self is being reinforced in the discourse and how white high cultural privileges continue to be defended, even though the respective audiences are almost literally dying out. Simultaneously, the "oppressed Other's" cultural expressions are being 'folklorised' even if they flourish artistically outside of the domain of public cultural funding.

Satar, Audrey (Curtin University, Australia) ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME?… IN CONVERSATION WITH V. DA GAMA
In 1498 V. da Gama "discovered" the route that connected Europe to India, travelling past the Cape of Good Hope-o Cabo da Boa Esperanca-giving way to the colonisation of many lands by the Portuguese, the Dutch, English and the French. Since then, history, research and literature which sing the praises and endeavours of colonial masters have filled thousands of library shelves all over the world. These histories have become the 'white' lenses through which colonised peoples become known and talked about. More importantly, however, these colonial constructions have become enmeshed in our everyday lives, the way we began to know and experience ourselves. Nevertheless, these tools of oppression can also be used as tools for insurrection and become a site of struggle which open up a space for acts of insurgency and translation. In this paper, I will go beyond discussing racism to enact my entry into history as a woman of colour, by mapping out my lived experience of 'white' privilege, my journey through remembrance and translation - turning the gaze away from 'otherness' to focus on how women of colour as critical thinkers have made sense of their subject positions and carry out everyday acts of subversion.