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.
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