Migration of Cultures Symposium, 10-13 April 2006
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The focus of this symposium was intended to convey the themes of cultural identity and ethnicity which are the focus of the scholars involved, while also indicating their interest in migration and movement. The research interests of the group include Irish, Scottish, German, Celtic, Italian, French, and Greek identities and migrations.
Professor Ros Pesman (Challis Chair in History, University of Sydney) and Dr James Jupp (Director of the Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies in the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University) were the symposium's special guests.
This event was planned as a working symposium, in which everyone took an active part in discussion works in progress.
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Recent Submissions
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ItemAuthenticity of product: Italian heritage and branding in the Australian wine industry. [abstract].( 2006)This paper will discuss the use of cultural markers in branding and marketing techniques of Italian Australian winemakers. A survey of these brands carried out by the author found that Italian wine makers in Australia almost invariably refer to their Italian heritage in their marketing material. The use of this reference, and often their immigrant ‘rags to riches’ stories are utilised in an attempt to add authenticity to their product, to make them stand out from the others in an increasingly competitive and overcrowded market. But does it work? What do we think we are buying when we buy an ‘Italian’ product? What cultural associations do we make as Australian consumers? The commodification of culture is an area of study that would be well adapted to Italians in the wine industry in Australia, and is the focus of this paper.
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ItemMore than a sea change? Post-World War II French migration to South Australia. [abstract].( 2006)The proposed paper seeks to examine the contextual reasons as well as the personal motivations that spurred the French to migrate and settle in South Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. This study constitutes the second stage of the investigation of post-Word War II French migration to South Australia up to the early 1970s, this time from a qualitative perspective. A quantitative study carried out in 2003-2004 produced original demographic and socio-economic data about the French migrants settling in South Australia (see Bouvet & Boudet-Griffin, 2005), however, it did not provide information about the migration process as experienced by individuals.
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ItemCommunity and Church: the Italian "problem" in Australia during the inter-war years. [abstract].( 2006)The mass migration of Italians to Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the USA and Australia, caused a great amount of discontent in religious circles, so much so that Italian migrants have been considered a religious “problem”. This paper will examine the Italian “problem” in Australia. It will establish that the “problem” did exist in Australia before the Second World War, a period that has been considered by scholars to be a period of non-activity and has consequently been neglected. Quite often it is believed that, due to small numbers and remote settlement patterns, Italian migrants did not pose a “real challenge” to the Catholic Church in Australia before the Second World War.
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ItemWorld War I Memorials in the Barossa: Markers of Identity Shift and Dissonance. [abstract].( 2006)In South Australia’s Barossa Valley, war memorials link regional identity and national politics as well as commemorating the dead. Settled by German Lutherans in the 1840s, the Barossa today is a close knit regional community, with a publicly projected image of a distinctively Australian region with German and English antecedents. But the history of the region has not always been one of cross-community harmony, and on closer examination there have been periods of significant disharmony, especially around the two World Wars of the twentieth century. The war memorials are now seen as reflections of the whole community’s commitment to fighting for Australia and the British Empire, but at the time they were erected they represented complex social and political agendas of citizenship and loyalty, acceptance and suspicion.
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ItemWog boy moves: Greek-Australian performance and the transnational masculine, 1955-2000. [abstract].( 2006)Drawing on archival research into Australian theatre history, this illustrated paper explores relations between Australian imaginings of ancient Greek theatre and a culture’s erotic investment in the transnational masculinity enacted among others by Greek-Australian men.
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Item"Materialising" a Diasporic Irish Family on the Frontier of S.E. SA (1852-1860). [abstract].( 2006)This paper interrogates the idea of using fiction to re-imagine local myth. Can the novelist history-writer seeking to construct a narrative from the occluded stories of an 1850s Irish settler family, give just consideration to the essentialisms of modern history? A central concern of the paper is the representation, then and since, of the Irish diaspora on the frontier of S.E. SA. (1852-1860). It calls attention to the complex diversity of Irish immigrants on station settlements dominated by Scots cleared from the Highlands, Prussians fleeing religious persecution, and enterprising English pastoralists. How are Gambierton Irish settlers portrayed, and by whom? What did they carry with them? Where did they spring from, and have some histories fallen through the cracks? Are there contradictions, instabilities?