The Making of a New Transnational Integration Discourse: The case of the Greek-Australian migrants in the 1940s

Abstract

This paper will present a history of the formation and goals of the Confederation of Greek Organisations in Australia, the first national federation of Greek-Australian community organisations, established in October 1949. The purpose of the proposed organisation was to facilitate and co-ordinate political programs that extended beyond the narrow confines of the power struggles taking place between the Greek Orthodox Community organisations and the Greek Church authorities in Australia. In our paper we will draw upon the history of the Confederation’s formation to show how the transnational discourse of the confederating community organisations on the one hand distinguished them from the Greek Orthodox Community organisations which relied upon an insular nationalist discourse and on the other drew them towards the internationally emerging human rights discourse of the time. Against the background of the historical record we will also make some methodological observations in relation to current diaspora and transnationalism studies.