March 6 – 8, 2014
By Emily Katzman
My stay in
Brisbane has been defined by meal times—good conversation over good,
home-cooked food. The conversations I share with my host mum, Lauri, while we
break bread have opened my mind to her particular concerns and convictions and
have also afforded me a window into Australian society.
Over breakfast
and a pot of tea, we listen to ABC radio and discuss the news: the larrikin
antics of a bra-snapping male politician, controversies in the coal industry,
families separated due to immigration policies, the triumphs of heroic sporting
figures, and the anticipation of the royal family’s upcoming visit Down Under.
As I put my ear to the radio and consider everything the LC group have seen and
learned so far in Australia, I can’t help but think this radio broadcast is quintessential Australia.
The Australian
nation is a young one—I’d liken it to a person in his early adulthood: that
awkward, confusing stage following adolescence when you’re still working out your
identity, solidifying your values, and feeling exceedingly self-conscious. When
I listen to the radio and watch television, I notice programs like Australian Story. A brief glance at the
newspaper headlines and I see there is renewed debate over changing the
Australian national flag. My point is Australia seems a bit unsure of its
national identity.
National
identity is a social construction, an aggregation of founding myths and symbols
which serve to unite a nation, which is itself imagined, and distinguish it from
other nations. National identity is the answer to the question, “what does it
mean to be Australian?”
The Australian
national identity is a story of mateship and egalitarianism. It is the story of
rugged, masculine, anti-authoritarian individuals coming together and forging a
nation from the bush. Through teamwork and “hard yakka” (labor), these men
overcame the challenges the harsh environment imposed on them, and in doing so,
shed their unfavorable British characteristics (e.g. class hierarchy,
urbanization, femininity) and thus became Australian.
References to Australia’s founding myth are everywhere today.
The founding
myths exclude from the Australian story Indigenous Australians, women, and
people who immigrated more recently. When the media, lawmakers, and individuals
grapple with the question “what does it mean to be Australian?” and they look
to Australia’s founding myths for an answer, do these excluded groups become
any less “Australian?”
Realistically,
Australia is highly urbanized and socio-economically stratified (so much for
the bush ethos and egalitarianism!). One third of Australians were born
overseas or their parents were born overseas. The populace simply do not fit
the founding myths, and so Australians question and debate the validity of their
national identity.
The beautiful
thing about traveling around and really coming to know another country, is that learning requires a certain amount of
comparison and analysis of the home country; it forces the traveler to turn her
critical eyes to her own country and view that place with the same curiosity
and objectivity she uses to understand Australia. I think that has been the
experience of many of us here this semester. As we dissect the components of
the Australian national identity, we can’t help but consider what is America’s
national identity? Is it as fraught as the Australian national identity?
We have so much
to learn about our own home countries. For some of us, it took traveling 7,286
miles to remember that.
-Emily
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