Global Yokels: Transnationalism, Assimilation and the Limits of Multicultural Governance
Convener: Ashley Carruthers, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University
Panel description: The trajectory of migrant assimilation imagined by modernist nation builders did not go as planned. The pressures of assimilation still act on first generation migrants and their descendants, but the cultural identifications of such groups are increasingly unpredictable and dynamic. The transnationalisation and superdiversification of migrant flows and identifications means that existing multicultural policy no longer necessarily addresses or even recognizes its targets. One way of thinking about the new multicultural subjects is under the playful yet provocative rubric of Global Yokels. This term is put forward as a beginning point for thinking about the contemporary identity paradoxes of migrants in Australia and other Western liberal multicultural nations (it may prove to be useful as a way of thinking about other contexts also). It attempts to encapsulate on the one hand the established nature of migrant claims to belonging and the reality of migrants' local cultural becomings and hybridities; and on the other hand the importance and intensity of migrants' extraterritorial belongings, identifications, mobilities and knowledges. Global Yokels are cosmopolitan but parochial, transnational but local, different but familiar. They occupy cultural worlds that are insular and resistant yet nevertheless have multiple points of articulation to the ‘mainstream’ and to other minoritarian cultural spaces. These subjects dwell between assimilation and transnationalism in a way that poses significant challenges to existing conceptions of multiculturalism and the governance of cultural difference. This panel invites speakers to present ethnographically grounded case studies exploring these governmental and identitarian dynamics in Australia and elsewhere.
Abstracts
Ashley Carruthers, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University - Global Yokels: Indochinese Cosmopolitanisms in Western Sydney
Helen Lee, Sociology and Anthropology, La Trobe University - Ambivalent Youth: The Children of Tongan Migrants
Ghassan Hage, Anthropology, University of Sydney - An Other Otherness
Kalissa Alexeyeff, University of Melbourne - Travelling Parties: Cook Islander ways of doing transnational travel
Dewi Jayanti, Monash University - Place Identity and Transnationalism in Australia: Cross-cultural Participation of Balinese Migrants
Francisca Handoko, Dept. of Linguistics, RSPAS, Australian National University - Assimilation Pressures, Hybrid Identities and Language Use among Ethnic Chinese Indonesians: A Case Study of Transition
Amporn Jirattikorn, University of Texas at Austin - (Pirated) Transnational Broadcasting: The Consumption of Thai Soap Operas among Shan Communities in Burma
Katie Vasey, Monash University - Boundaries of Belonging: Iraqi Refugees in Australia
Nelia Hyndman-Rizik, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University - ‘Balad Niswen-Hukum Niswen: The Perception of Gender Inversions Between Lebanon and Australia’
