Journal articles: 'Boston University. School of Religious Education and Social Service' – Grafiati (2024)

Abstract:

A survey of psychological security among pre-service teachers is significant for policy-makers in health and education services sectors to certify skilled teachers to work with children. So, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the level of psychological security of Jordanian pre-service special education and early childhood teachers. A descriptive method design was adopted. A survey was used to collect data about the level of psychological security of Jordanian pre-service teachers. Participants of the study were 216 special education and early childhood teachers. Results showed that teachers cited average levels of PS and 10.6 % of all participants had a low level of PS. Teachers rated thinking about the future, life being interesting, love between people, and unknown things as problematic issues in PS. Results revealed no statistically significant mean differences due to gender, average achievement or religious commitment. Recommendations for field and future research are presented.

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In honor of World Day of Social Justice, on February 24, 2014, Shia RightsWatch and American University held the first-ever conference devoted to presentingnew paradigms for exploring how the rights of the minority Shia Muslimcommunity can be protected against such entrenched realities assubordination, injustice, violence, discrimination, and marginalization. Socialscientists define minority as a culturally, ethnically, religiously, or racially distinctgroup that coexists with, but is subordinate to, a more dominant group.This subordinancy, the chief defining characteristic of any minority, has nothingto do with numbers, a fact perhaps most vividly illustrated by South Africaunder apartheid (c. 1950-91).The conference, held at American University, was cosponsored by theMohammed Said Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace. Well-known and high caliberpolicymakers, professors, and researchers shared their findings in order tooffer solutions designed to foster peace, tolerance, and religious freedom forthis group and the regions in which they reside.In his capacity as the first occupant of the endowed Mohammed SaidFarsi Chair of Islamic Peace as well as the founder of the university-wideCenter for Global Peace, Abdul Aziz Said (School of International Service,American University) welcomed everyone. He remarked that peace is farmore than the absence of war, that it is, in fact, inclusive of social justice, ecologicalsustainability, sustainable economics, and cultural diversity (peace asthe absence of structural violence). Thus, conflict resolution is one of the buildingblocks of peace. Given that the ends we seek and the means that we employin the study of peace and conflict resolution are interconnected, teachingthese two fields must be based on a pedagogy that is itself peace and notmerely a process of certification. He argued that education about peace andconflict resolution and education for peace and conflict resolution are twosides of the same coin. Peace and conflict resolution education combine informationwith liberation and procedure with transformation. He concluded ...

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The authors present results of researches whose aim was to determine the factors that may substantially influence population reproduction in the Republic of Serbia, taking into consideration all specific factors, like cultural background, economic situation, health education, health service organization, religious and historical factors, etc. The research was based on the population census from 1981. Seventeen regions of the inner part of the Republic of Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo were included in this research. Stratification was made according to the place of living (village, town) age, occupation (farmer, housewife, non and half-qualified, qualified and highly qualified workers) and education (without education, with unfinished or finished primary school, with secondary school, with college or university degree). In this way 2,141 women were questioned with 101 questions by the method of interview. Interviews were conducted exclusively by doctors - gynaecologists. We determined the frequency of the use of contraceptives, intentional abortions, spontaneous abortions, pre-term deliveries, marriage infertility and term deliveries. Thus, 57.4% of women had basic knowledge of contraception, but only 15.9% of them used it; 58.9% of women had intentional abortions; 16.2% of women had spontaneous abortions, 5.1% of them had pre-term deliveries, and 67% of women had term deliveries. Marriage infertility was found in 8.6% of women. When evaluating population health and behavior, we obtained some information and data concerning addicted diseases (alcohol, smoking, drugs, tranquilizers) homosexuality and ways of sexual intercourse. It was concluded that enormous differences existed among certain regions in the Republic of Serbia, which were conditioned by the diversity of the above mentioned influences. Proposals for the measures to be undertaken in the Republic of Serbia in order to regulate population policy, are given.

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Since colonial times, social inequality is the reality that insists on persisting in the country, even with the great economic advances obtained over the centuries. Faced with these problems, there are several responsible for acting on their resolutions and / or mitigations. The important role of government (federal, state, and municipal), justice, NGOs, and even religious institutions are the most popular forms of action outside the scientific community, but universities in extension actions to be an important vector for generating ideas and solutions so that we have a more egalitarian society. It was with this in mind that, in 2008 at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), the Nucleus of Social Attendance of the Faculty of Engineering (NASFE) was created to allow the generation of social projects of engineering and architecture, but also to enable the students to live practical experiences, acting in real cases and developing skills and competences essential for their academic formation. NASFE is currently an extension project that aims at good engineering practice in order to improve the quality of life of poor communities through the provision of free advisory services to engineering projects. With the guidance of teachers, students from the 2nd to 10th period of Engineering, Architecture, Arts and Design, and Social Service of the UFJF it is made possible to offer such services. Since November 2016 actions have been developing in partnership with the Center of Legal Practices of the Faculty of Law of the UFJF providing experience in multiprofessional and multidisciplinary activities. In addition to these services, students are organized into sectors to advance the practice of developing leadership skills so that they are able to assume leadership roles in the labor market and in public power. In this sense, NASFE is divided into three sectors: CIA (Communication, Infrastructure, and Service), Human Resources, and Quality and Projects, each of which is overseen by an academic member. Organization and opening of the requests, training, and management of the members and, finally, development, monitoring, and delivery of projects are the main activities of each sector, respectively. In 2016 and 2017, 71 consultations were carried out, divided into usucapian projects, proletarian projects, regularizations and architectural projects, mapping of risk areas, and technical surveys. Thus, even with the reduced number of students and professors facing the high demand of society for public engineering, a satisfactory productivity was obtained, as well as allowing members a practical vision of the social responsibility of their future professions. In addition, in view of the great problem of cities with natural disasters, the NASFE-EDUCATION sector was implemented in March 2018 with the aim of promoting prevention through the learning of elementary school children and the school community, regarding social and environmental risks, and to bring up the discussion on the subject and necessary care. The development of educational actions in public schools has partners such as the Fire Department and City Hall of Juiz de Fora.

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Religious tolerance is a supporter of social harmony and brings a country to a better life. Instilling tolerance in early childhood is a challenge for early childhood educators. This study aims to describe the transformation of religious tolerance values ​​by teachers in early childhood education. This research is a type of qualitative case study research model with researchers as observer participants. This research produces the following findings, that (1) transformation of tolerance values ​​among religious communities, is explicitly not taught in Early Childhood Education (ECE) on the grounds that all students are of the same religion, (2) transformation of tolerance of values among religious students taught through learning integrated with other lessons, (3) although explicitly the values ​​of tolerance among religious students are not taught, but the values ​​of togetherness such as greeting, sharing something that is owned, and helping the needs of other students are taught by practicing at the same time. Keywords: Early Childhood Education, Tolerance Values in Religion References: Adams, K. (2019). Navigating the spaces of children’s spiritual experiences: influences of tradition(s), multidisciplinarity and perceptions. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(1), 29–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1619531 Adams, K., Bull, R., & Maynes, M. L. (2016). Early childhood spirituality in education: Towards an understanding of the distinctive features of young children’s spirituality. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(5), 760–774. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.996425 Atamturk, N. (2018). The role of English as a foreign language classes in tolerance education in relation to school management practices. Quality and Quantity, 52, 1167–1177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0575-7 Banerjee, K., & Bloom, P. (2015). “Everything Happens for a Reason”: Children’s Beliefs About Purpose in Life Events. Child Development, 86(2), 503–518. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12312 Bano, M., & Ferra, E. (2018). Family versus school effect on individual religiosity: Evidence from Pakistan. International Journal of Educational Development, 59(August 2017), 35–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.10.015 Coleman, E. B., & Eds, K. W. (2011). Religious Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum. In Religious Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-412-6 Elza, Y., Handini, M. C., & Abdurrahman, M. (2018). The Effects of Storytelling Method with Audiovisual Media and Religiosity toward Clean and Healthy Living Program Behaviour ( CHLB ) of Early Childhood. International Journal of Multidisciplinary and Current Research, 6(June), 547–552. Ene, I., & Barna, I. (2015). Religious Education and Teachers’ Role in Students’ Formation towards Social Integration. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 180(November 2014), 30–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.02.081 Ergun, S. J., & Rivas, M. F. (2019). The effect of social roles, religiosity, and values on climate change concern: An empirical analysis for Turkey. Sustainable Development, 27(4), 758–769. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.1939 Faas, D., Smith, A., & Darmody, M. (2018). Children’s Agency in Multi-Belief Settings: The Case of Community National Schools in Ireland. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 32(4), 486–500. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2018.1494645 Firdaus, E. (2018). The Learning of Religious Tolerance among Students in Indonesia from the Perspective of Critical Study. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 145(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/145/1/012032 Ganjvar, M. (2019). Islamic Model of Children’s Spiritual Education (CSE); its influence on improvement of communicational behaviour with non-coreligionists. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(2), 124–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1624254 Granqvist, P., & Nkara, F. (2017). Nature meets nurture in religious and spiritual development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 35(1), 142–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12170 Heiphetz, L., Lane, J. D., Waytz, A., & Young, L. L. (2016). How Children and Adults Represent God’s Mind. Cognitive Science, 40(1), 121–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12232 King, U. (2013). The spiritual potential of childhood: Awakening to the fullness of life. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 18(1), 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2013.776266 Kirschenbaum, H. (2019). Models of Values Education and Moral Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 8(2), 103–109. Lehtonen, M. (2019). The Development of Religious Tolerance: Co-operative Board Games with Children and Adolescents. IATL Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2(2). Retrieved from https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/ Łowicki, P., & Zajenkowski, M. (2019). Empathy and Exposure to Credible Religious Acts during Childhood Independently Predict Religiosity. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 00(00), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2019.1672486 Maussen, M., Bader, V., Dobbernack, J., Modood, T., Olsen, T. V., Fox, J., & Vidra, Z. (2012). Tolerance and cultural diversity in schools Comparative report. Amsterdam. Miedema, S., & Bertram-Troost, G. (2008). Democratic citizenship and religious education: Challenges and perspectives for schools in the Netherlands. British Journal of Religious Education, 30(2), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200701830970 Moore, D. . (2007). Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education. US: Palgrave Macmillan. Niculescu, R. M., & Norel, M. (2013). Religious Education an Important Dimension of Human’s Education. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 338–342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.09.200 Pandya, S. P. (2019). Spiritual education programme (SEP) for enhancing the quality of life of kindergarten school children. Pastoral Care in Education, 37(1), 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2018.1562493 Parekh, B. (2019). Ethnocentric Political Theory. Ethnocentric Political Theory, 263–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11708-5 Sari, A. D. P., & Indartono, S. (2019). Teaching Religious Tolerance Through Social Studies Education Based On Multicultural Approach. 323(ICoSSCE 2018), 214–219. https://doi.org/10.2991/icossce-icsmc-18.2019.40 Scheiner, P. (2015). Crossings and Crosses: Borders, Educations, and Religions in Northern Europe. Boston/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Inc. Scott, K. (2014). Inviting young adults to come out religiously, institutionally and traditionally. Religious Education, 109(4), 471–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/00344087.2014.924790 Stockinger, H. (2019). Developing spirituality–an equal right of every child? International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 24(3), 307–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2019.1646218 Thibodeau, R. B., Brown, M. M., Nancarrow, A. F., Elpers, K. E., & Gilpin, A. T. (2018). Conceptual Similarities among Fantasy and Religious Orientations: A Developmental Perspective. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 18(1–2), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340021 Tratner, A. E., Sela, Y., Lopes, G. S., Ehrke, A. D., Weekes-Shackelford, V. A., & Shackelford, T. K. (2017). Individual differences in childhood religious experiences with peers. Personality and Individual Differences, 119, 73–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.06.045 UNESCO. (2015). Second UNESCO Forum on Global Citizenship Education: Building Peaceful and Sustainable Societies (Paris, 28-30 January 2015). Final Report. (January), 1–22. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/FinalReport-GCED_21April.pdf Uzefovsky, F., Döring, A. K., & Knafo-Noam, A. (2016). Values in Middle Childhood: Social and Genetic Contributions. Social Development, 25(3), 482–502. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12155 Van Der Walt, J. L. (2014). Towards an instrument for measuring religious tolerance among educators and their students worldwide (Potchefstroom Campus-North-West University). Retrieved from https://www.driestar-educatief.nl/medialibrary/Driestar/Engelse-website/Documenten/2014-VanderWalt-Measuring-religious-tolerance-in-education.pdf Yulianti, E., Sutarto, J., & Sugiyo. (2019). Sentra Nasima Learning Strategies to Enhance Religious Nationalist Characters in Kindergarten. Journal of Primary Education, 8(69), 238–247.

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Abstract Carl Dawson's development as a sociologist reflected a general trend in sociology's evolution out of theology and social work. Trained as a minister, Dawson rejected the religious vocation at some point after World War I to become a social scientist. Appointed to McGill in 1922, he strove to establish research as the foundation for understanding society, questioning the efficacy of social reform. His convictions stemmed from his Maritime Baptist background, wartime experience and education at the University of Chicago. In 1914, Dawson left the Maritime region where he had been born and raised to attend the divinity school of the University of Chicago. In so doing, he was following a well travelled route: poor economic conditions drove numerous people out of the Maritime provinces between 1910 and 1929, and the lack of doctoral programmes in Canada compelled many students to attend American graduate schools. With its strong reputation for research, the University of Chicago was a popular choice. Its divinity school, a Baptist stronghold, was attractive to adherents of that faith. That a number of its faculty members were Canadians also attested to the institutional ties that had long linked Baptists in Canada and the northern United States. In 1918, Dawson recessed from graduate studies for war service and resumed his studies in 1919 - his interests now sharply turned towards sociology. This shift was partly influenced by the Chicago divinity school's close ties with the sociology department - a result of the historic link between the social gospel and sociology generally - but was also the product of the school's position as a leader in liberal and radical theological doctrine. The modernists within the institution stressed that all studies of society, including religion, must accord with modern empirical methods. That, in addition to their acceptance of the ideas of John Dewey and the Chicago School regarding social development, led some to the conclusion that religion itself was but a form of group behaviour. In reflecting all those currents of thought, Dawson's Ph.D. thesis, "The Social Nature of Knowledge," hinted at the reasons for his departure from the ministry for a career in social science. Showing that all culture and knowledge, morals and ideals had social origins, Dawson concluded that even fact was not fixed truth but represented the decision of individuals to agree on certain points and issues. This explained why Dawson believed that research - a collection of facts - would aid in understanding society. The thesis was also marked by an opposition to social action, stemming from what Dawson had witnessed during the war and the upheaval which followed, but also, it must be argued, from the antiauthoritarian and antihierarchial strain in the Baptist faith. The fact that Dawson eschewed social action in much the same way as did Harold Innis, another Baptist educated at Chicago, suggests that there exists a tradition in the development of Canadian social science quite different from the one which Brian McKillop has traced in A Disciplined Intelligence, and it was that legacy which Dawson's brand of sociology represented.

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Carrier, Roch. The Hockey Sweater: 30th Anniversary Edition. Illus. Sheldon Cohen. Trans. Sheila Fischman. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2014. PrintWhat can one say about “The Hockey Sweater”? Could we simply say it is “most beloved”? No, that was used by Ken Dryden. How about “undeniably a Canadian classic” or “iconic depiction of a truly Canadian experience”? Nope, both done ( by Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau respectively). Maybe, “will always stand the test of time”? That was taken by Cassie Campbell-Pascall. Could we even go all out and call it the “Bible” of “the Canadian religion”? Roy MacGregor claimed that one. Indeed, the 30th Anniversary Edition has these and more fascinating testimonials by a Who’s Who of Canadian culture.Perhaps, one could highlight why you would add the 30th anniversary edition to your collection (not already having it is reason enough!). This full reproduction of the 1984 illustrated version includes some interesting background by Roch Carrier himself. For example, he reflects on the unexpected popularity of the story (it was originally a last-minute essay for a CBC radio time slot that couldn’t be cancelled) and also relates the challenge for Sheldon Cohen to come up with only thirteen illustrations out of the 10,000 he used for the animated film (the illustrated book – though not the published short story from the radio essay – came after the film). I don’t know about your copies, but mine are a flimsy paperback and a VHS tape, so a longer-lasting hard-cover and DVD would be good (did I mention a DVD of the National Film Board film is included)?If you need more, how about inspiration to do some historical digging? I was inspired to see if the University of Alberta library had the Eaton’s catalogue for the winter of 1946. Fortunately, we do have it on a microfilm (which is always fun to use); unfortunately, the focus is not great. I wasn’t sure whether to look in the Fall/Winter 1945-46 catalogue (if Roch’s story took place in January/February 1946) or in the Fall/Winter 1946-47 (if it was November/December 1946) but that’s the sort of thing historians tend to worry about. The entries are almost identical except the price had increased from $1.65 to $1.75 for “boys’ sizes 28 to 34-inch chest” – so hopefully Monsieur Eaton sent Mrs. Carrier the correct change she asked for. The catalogue text says “many a Canadian boy has his idol in the N.H.L. and wants to have a sweater to represent his favorite team or player.” How intriguing is it that this almost summarizes the story perfectly. Also, only four team jerseys are offered for sale (Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, and New York but not Boston or Chicago); why was that? I won’t even get into whether “jersey” or “sweater” is correct (hint: Eaton’s uses both).It turns out there is lots of material on the internet as well. Here are just a few:Roch Carrier reading the whole story (not the abridged text in the film) and Peter Gzowski responding with his own hockey story. From the CBC digital archives http://www.cbc.ca/player/Digital+Archives/ID/1752124840/A virtual museum exhibit on the history of Canadian mail-order catalogues with a whole section on Roch Carrier and The Hockey Sweater. From the Canadian Museum of History http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cpm/catalog/cat2208e.shtml#050A 2014 CBC interview with Roch Carrier for the 30th Anniversary Edition of the book. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/the-hockey-sweater-by-roch-carrier-celebrates-30-years-1.2845752The 1980 film itself. From NFB https://www.nfb.ca/film/sweater (or in French https://www.nfb.ca/film/chandail_le) A cleaner digitization (than the microfilms in our library) of the hockey sweater page from Eaton’s Fall and Winter 1948-1949 catalogue. However, the entry is completely different than 1946 with all six NHL jerseys offered and price jump to $2.15. From Library and Archives Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cmc/009002-119.01-e.php?&page_ecopy=nlc003958.490&&&&&&PHPSESSID=t03oo56jrsil3o0q9v5esobn02There are some things I’m still wondering about. Is the story as iconic in French as it is in English? If not, is there something about Sheila Fischman’s translation that makes it so special? (translators seldom get enough credit). The short story version appears in two collections (one English, one French) before the film and illustrated book came out, so was it immediately popular or was it the animations, illustrations, and Roch Carrier’s own beautifully accented narration that created the magic? And, where can I see the symphony version composed by Abigail Richardson who was apparently introduced to it “in grade three when a librarian read it to [her] school class”?I guess there is a lot to say, after all. Like, Roch Carrier was the National Librarian of Canada. He has written many other great stories. A quote from “The Hockey Sweater” and “Le Chandail de hockey” (or is it from “Une abominable feuille d’érable sur la glace”) was on the five-dollar bill. And more …, but I will stop here and let you explore on your own - if you even got this far without jumping up to go read and watch and listen to the real thing. Which you should do. Now. Stop reading and go! P.S., it was suggested I add a short synopsis.Young Quebec boy outgrows his favourite Montreal Canadians jersey. His mom orders a new one. Eaton’s mistakenly sends a Toronto Maple Leafs one. Boy has temper tantrum. Pragmatic mother convinces him to wear it. Boy is ostracized at the local rink; throws another tantrum. The young curate orders him to church to pray for forgiveness. Boy prays for “a hundred million moths” instead.Hmm, Carrier and Cohen’s version is much better. Read and watch theirs instead!Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: David SulzDavid is a Public Services Librarian at University of Alberta and liaison librarian to Economics, Religious Studies, and Social Work. He has university studies in Library Studies, History, Elementary Education, Japanese, and Economics; he formerly taught in schools and museums. His interests include physical activity, music, home improvements, and above all, things Japanese.

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Welcome to spring for many of our readers - except those of us in northern Alberta where winter, beautiful winter, just won’t let go this year. You can be sure that we will appreciate spring all the more when it finally takes hold.On a sad note, Andrea Deakin (for whom this publication is named), informed us that Jan Ormerod recently passed away. The Guardian’s obituary of Sunday, February 3, 2013 reminds us that Jan Ormerod “brought a fresh vision to children's picturebooks with her luminous images, storytelling genius and understanding of how children behave” and that she was “admired for her ability to cut away all that was unnecessary in her stories.” (www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/03/jan-ormerod).Although too late for interested groups to participate in the voting this year, the Rocky Mountain Book Award winners will be announced on April 23, 2013. This is a readers’ choice award in its 13th year where groups of students in grades 4-7 read, then vote for, their favourite book from a shortlist of “exemplary Canadian literature” chosen by a committee of teachers, librarians, parents, and students. The award is sponsored in part by the Lethbridge (Alberta) school district and the University of Lethbridge. All the information about participating and pervious winners is at http://rmba.lethsd.ab.ca/index.htm (although the website design is a little challenging to use).As indicated in our last issue, the various 2013 awards from the Association for Library Service to Children division of the American Library Association have been announced. The 2013 Newbery Medal (contribution to American literature for children) winner was The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. The 2013 Caldecott Medal (picture book artist) winner wasThis Is Not My Hat, written and illustrated by Jon Klassen. For other medal winners as well as “honor book” recognition, see www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia.By the way, if keeping track of book awards is a favourite past-time, have a look at the Canadian Children’s Award Index posted by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre at www.bookcentre.ca/awards/canadian_awards_index. I hope you have lots of free time if you want to keep track of them all.On that note, have a wonderful spring and start setting aside piles of books for your summer reading pleasure.David Sulz, Communications EditorDavid is a Public Services Librarian at University of Alberta and liaison librarian to Economics, Religious Studies, and Social Work. He has university studies in Library Studies, History, Elementary Education, Japanese, and Economics; he formerly taught in schools and museums. His interests include physical activity, music, home improvements, and above all, things Japanese.

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Introduction The genealogy of Feminist Standpoint Theory in the 1970s prioritised “locationality”, particularly the recognition of social and historical locations as valuable contribution to knowledge production. Pioneering figures such as Sandra Harding, Dorothy Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, Alison Jaggar, and Donna Haraway have argued that the oppressed must have some means (such as language, cultural practices) to enter the world of the oppressor in order to access some understanding of how the world works from the privileged perspective. In the essay “Meeting at the Edge of Fear: Theory on a World Scale”, the Australian social scientist Raewyn Connell explains that the production of feminist theory almost always comes from the global North. Connell critiques the hegemony of mainstream Northern feminism in her pyramidal model (59), showing how theory/knowledge is produced at the apex (global North) of a pyramid structure and “trickles down” (59) to the global South. Connell refers to a second model called mosaic epistemology which shows that multiple feminist ideologies across global North/South are juxtaposed against each other like tiles, with each specific culture making its own claims to validity.However, Nigerian feminist Bibi Bakare-Yusuf’s reflection on the fluidity of culture in her essay “Fabricating Identities” (5) suggests that fixing knowledge as Northern and Southern—disparate, discrete, and rigidly structured tiles—is also problematic. Connell proposes a third model called solidarity-based epistemology which involves mutual learning and critiquing with a focus on solidarity across differences. However, this is impractical in implementation especially given that feminist nomenclature relies on problematic terms such as “international”, “global North/South”, “transnational”, and “planetary” to categorise difference, spatiality, and temporality, often creating more distance than reciprocal exchange. Geographical specificity can be too limiting, but we also need to acknowledge that it is geographical locationality which becomes disadvantageous to overcome racial, cultural, and gender biases — and here are few examples.Nomenclatures: Global-North and Global South ParadigmThe global North/South terminology differentiating the two regions according to means of trade and relative wealth emerged from the Brandt Report’s delineation of the North as wealthy and South as impoverished in 1980s. Initially, these terms were a welcome repudiation of the hierarchical nomenclature of “developed” and “developing” nations. Nevertheless, the categories of North and South are problematic because of increased socio-economic heterogeneity causing erasure of local specificities without reflecting microscopic conflicts among feminists within the global North and the global South. Some feminist terms such as “Third World feminism” (Narayan), “global feminism” (Morgan), or “local feminisms” (Basu) aim to centre women's movements originating outside the West or in the postcolonial context, other labels attempt to making feminism more inclusive or reflective of cross-border linkages. These include “transnational feminism” (Grewal and Kaplan) and “feminism without borders” (Mohanty). In the 1980s, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality garnered attention in the US along with Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), which raised feminists’ awareness of educational, healthcare, and financial disparities among women and the experiences of marginalised people across the globe, leading to an interrogation of the aims and purposes of mainstream feminism. In general, global North feminism refers to white middle class feminist movements further expanded by concerns about civil rights and contemporary queer theory while global South feminism focusses on decolonisation, economic justice, and disarmament. However, the history of colonialism demonstrates that this paradigm is inadequate because the oppression and marginalisation of Black, Indigenous, and Queer activists have been avoided purposely in the homogenous models of women’s oppression depicted by white radical and liberal feminists. A poignant example is from Audre Lorde’s personal account:I wheeled my two-year-old daughter in a shopping cart through a supermarket in Eastchester in 1967, and a little white girl riding past in her mother’s cart calls out excitedly, ‘oh look, Mommy, a baby maid!’ And your mother shushes you, but does not correct you, and so fifteen years later, at a conference on racism, you can still find that story humorous. But I hear your laughter is full of terror and disease. (Lorde)This exemplifies how the terminology global North/South is a problem because there are inequities within the North that are parallel to the division of power and resources between North and South. Additionally, Susan Friedman in Planetary Modernisms observes that although the terms “Global North” and “Global South” are “rhetorically spatial” they are “as geographically imprecise and ideologically weighted as East/West” because “Global North” signifies “modern global hegemony” and “Global South” signifies the “subaltern, … —a binary construction that continues to place the West at the controlling centre of the plot” (Friedman, 123).Focussing on research-activism debate among US feminists, Sondra Hale takes another tack, emphasising that feminism in the global South is more pragmatic than the theory-oriented feminist discourse of the North (Hale). Just as the research-scholarship binary implies myopic assumption that scholarship is a privileged activity, Hale’s observations reveal a reductive assumption in the global North and global South nomenclature that feminism at the margins is theoretically inadequate. In other words, recognising the “North” as the site of theoretical processing is a euphemism for Northern feminists’ intellectual supremacy and the inferiority of Southern feminist praxis. To wit, theories emanating from the South are often overlooked or rejected outright for not aligning with Eurocentric framings of knowledge production, thereby limiting the scope of feminist theories to those that originate in the North. For example, while discussing Indigenous women’s craft-autobiography, the standard feminist approach is to apply Susan Sontag’s theory of gender and photography to these artefacts even though it may not be applicable given the different cultural, social, and class contexts in which they are produced. Consequently, Moroccan feminist Fatima Mernissi’s Islamic methodology (Mernissi), the discourse of land rights, gender equality, kinship, and rituals found in Bina Agarwal’s A Field of One’s Own, Marcia Langton’s “Grandmothers’ Law”, and the reflection on military intervention are missing from Northern feminist theoretical discussions. Moreover, “outsiders within” feminist scholars fit into Western feminist canonical requirements by publishing their works in leading Western journals or seeking higher degrees from Western institutions. In the process, Northern feminists’ intellectual hegemony is normalised and regularised. An example of the wealth of the materials outside of mainstream Western feminist theories may be found in the work of Girindrasekhar Bose, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, founder of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society and author of the book Concept of Repression (1921). Bose developed the “vagina envy theory” long before the neo-Freudian psychiatrist Karen Horney proposed it, but it is largely unknown in the West. Bose’s article “The Genesis and Adjustment of the Oedipus Wish” discarded Freud’s theory of castration and explained how in the Indian cultural context, men can cherish an unconscious desire to bear a child and to be castrated, implicitly overturning Freud’s correlative theory of “penis envy.” Indeed, the case of India shows that the birth of theory can be traced back to as early as eighth century when study of verbal ornamentation and literary semantics based on the notion of dbvani or suggestion, and the aesthetic theory of rasa or "sentiment" is developed. If theory means systematic reasoning and conceptualising the structure of thought, methods, and epistemology, it exists in all cultures but unfortunately non-Western theory is largely invisible in classroom courses.In the recent book Queer Activism in India, Naisargi Dev shows that the theory is rooted in activism. Similarly, in her essay “Seed and Earth”, Leela Dube reveals how Eastern theories are distorted as they are Westernised. For instance, the “Purusha-Prakriti” concept in Hinduism where Purusha stands for pure consciousness and Prakriti stands for the entire phenomenal world is almost universally misinterpreted in terms of Western binary oppositions as masculine consciousness and feminine creative principle which has led to disastrous consequences including the legitimisation of male control over female sexuality. Dube argues how heteropatriarchy has twisted the Purusha-Prakriti philosophy to frame the reproductive metaphor of the male seed germinating in the female field for the advantage of patrilineal agrarian economies and to influence a homology between reproductive metaphors and cultural and institutional sexism (Dube 22-24). Attempting to reverse such distortions, ecofeminist Vandana Shiva rejects dualistic and exploitative “contemporary Western views of nature” (37) and employs the original Prakriti-Purusha cosmology to construct feminist vision and environmental ethics. Shiva argues that unlike Cartesian binaries where nature or Prakriti is inert and passive, in Hindu Philosophy, Purusha and Prakriti are inseparable and inviolable (Shiva 37-39). She refers to Kalika Purana where it is explained how rivers and mountains have a dual nature. “A river is a form of water, yet is has a distinct body … . We cannot know, when looking at a lifeless shell, that it contains a living being. Similarly, within the apparently inanimate rivers and mountains there dwells a hidden consciousness. Rivers and mountains take the forms they wish” (38).Scholars on the periphery who never migrated to the North find it difficult to achieve international audiences unless they colonise themselves, steeping their work in concepts and methods recognised by Western institutions and mimicking the style and format that western feminist journals follow. The best remedy for this would be to interpret border relations and economic flow between countries and across time through the prism of gender and race, an idea similar to what Sarah Radcliffe, Nina Laurie and Robert Andolina have called the “transnationalization of gender” (160).Migration between Global North and Global SouthReformulation of feminist epistemology might reasonably begin with a focus on migration and gender politics because international and interregional migration have played a crucial role in the production of feminist theories. While some white mainstream feminists acknowledge the long history of feminist imperialism, they need to be more assertive in centralising non-Western theories, scholarship, and institutions in order to resist economic inequalities and racist, patriarchal global hierarchies of military and organisational power. But these possibilities are stymied by migrants’ “de-skilling”, which maintains unequal power dynamics: when migrants move from the global South to global North, many end up in jobs for which they are overqualified because of their cultural, educational, racial, or religious alterity.In the face of a global trend of movement from South to North in search of a “better life”, visual artist Naiza Khan chose to return to Pakistan after spending her childhood in Lebanon before being trained at the University of Oxford. Living in Karachi over twenty years, Khan travels globally, researching, delivering lectures, and holding exhibitions on her art work. Auj Khan’s essay “Peripheries of Thought and Practise in Naiza Khan’s Work” argues: “Khan seems to be going through a perpetual diaspora within an ownership of her hybridity, without having really left any of her abodes. This agitated space of modern hybrid existence is a rich and ripe ground for resolution and understanding. This multiple consciousness is an edge for anyone in that space, which could be effectively made use of to establish new ground”. Naiza Khan’s works embrace loss or nostalgia and a sense of choice and autonomy within the context of unrestricted liminal geographical boundaries.Early work such as “Chastity Belt,” “Heavenly Ornaments”, “Dream”, and “The Skin She Wears” deal with the female body though Khan resists the “feminist artist” category, essentially because of limited Western associations and on account of her paradoxical, diasporic subjectivity: of “the self and the non-self, the doable and the undoable and the anxiety of possibility and choice” (Khan Webpage). Instead, Khan theorises “gender” as “personal sexuality”. The symbolic elements in her work such as corsets, skirts, and slips, though apparently Western, are purposely destabilised as she engages in re-constructing the cartography of the body in search of personal space. In “The Wardrobe”, Khan establishes a path for expressing women’s power that Western feminism barely acknowledges. Responding to the 2007 Islamabad Lal Masjid siege by militants, Khan reveals the power of the burqa to protect Muslim men by disguising their gender and sexuality; women escape the Orientalist gaze. For Khan, home is where her art is—beyond the global North and South dichotomy.In another example of de-centring Western feminist theory, the Indian-British sitar player Anoushka Shankar, who identifies as a radical pro-feminist, in her recent musical album “Land of Gold” produces what Chilla Bulbeck calls “braiding at the borderlands”. As a humanitarian response to the trauma of displacement and the plight of refugees, Shankar focusses on women giving birth during migration and the trauma of being unable to provide stability and security to their children. Grounded in maternal humility, Shankar’s album, composed by artists of diverse background as Akram Khan, singer Alev Lenz, and poet Pavana Reddy, attempts to dissolve boundaries in the midst of chaos—the dislocation, vulnerability and uncertainty experienced by migrants. The album is “a bit of this, and a bit of that” (borrowing Salman Rushdie’s definition of migration in Satanic Verses), both in terms of musical genre and cultural identities, which evokes emotion and subjective fluidity. An encouraging example of truly transnational feminist ethics, Shankar’s album reveals the chasm between global North and global South represented in the tension of a nascent friendship between a white, Western little girl and a migrant refugee child. Unlike mainstream feminism, where migration is often sympathetically feminised and exotified—or, to paraphrase bell hooks, difference is commodified (hooks 373) — Shankar’s album simultaneously exhibits regional, national, and transnational elements. The album inhabits multiple borderlands through musical genres, literature and politics, orality and text, and ethnographic and intercultural encounters. The message is: “the body is a continent / But may your heart always remain the sea" (Shankar). The human rights advocate and lawyer Randa Abdel-Fattah, in her autobiographical novel Does My Head Look Big in This?, depicts herself as “colourful adjectives” (such as “darkies”, “towel-heads”, or the “salami eaters”), painful identities imposed on her for being a Muslim woman of colour. These ultimately empower her to embrace her identity as a Palestinian-Egyptian-Australian Muslim writer (Abdel-Fattah 359). In the process, Abdel-Fattah reveals how mainstream feminism participates in her marginalisation: “You’re constantly made to feel as you’re commenting as a Muslim, and somehow your views are a little bit inferior or you’re somehow a little bit more brainwashed” (Abdel-Fattah, interviewed in 2015).With her parental roots in the global South (Egyptian mother and Palestinian father), Abdel-Fattah was born and brought up in the global North, Australia (although geographically located in global South, Australia is categorised as global North for being above the world average GDP per capita) where she embraced her faith and religious identity apparently because of Islamophobia:I refuse to be an apologist, to minimise this appalling state of affairs… While I'm sick to death, as a Muslim woman, of the hypocrisy and nonsensical fatwas, I confess that I'm also tired of white women who think the answer is flashing a bit of breast so that those "poor," "infantilised" Muslim women can be "rescued" by the "enlightened" West - as if freedom was the sole preserve of secular feminists. (Abdel-Fattah, "Ending Oppression")Abdel-Fattah’s residency in the global North while advocating for justice and equality for Muslim women in both the global North and South is a classic example of the mutual dependency between the feminists in global North and global South, and the need to recognise and resist neoliberal policies applied in by the North to the South. In her novel, sixteen-year-old Amal Mohamed chooses to become a “full-time” hijab wearer in an elite school in Melbourne just after the 9/11 tragedy, the Bali bombings which killed 88 Australians, and the threat by Algerian-born Abdel Nacer Benbrika, who planned to attack popular places in Sydney and Melbourne. In such turmoil, Amal’s decision to wear the hijab amounts to more than resistance to Islamophobia: it is a passionate search for the true meaning of Islam, an attempt to embrace her hybridity as an Australian Muslim girl and above all a step towards seeking spiritual self-fulfilment. As the novel depicts Amal’s challenging journey amidst discouraging and painful, humiliating experiences, the socially constructed “bloody confusing identity hyphens” collapse (5). What remains is the beautiful veil that stands for Amal’s multi-valence subjectivity. The different shades of her hijab reflect different moods and multiple “selves” which are variously tentative, rebellious, romantic, argumentative, spiritual, and ambitious: “I am experiencing a new identity, a new expression of who I am on the inside” (25).In Griffith Review, Randa-Abdel Fattah strongly criticises the book Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks, a Wall-Street Journal reporter who travelled from global North to the South to cover Muslim women in the Middle East. Recognising the liberal feminist’s desire to explore the Orient, Randa-Abdel calls the book an example of feminist Orientalism because of the author’s inability to understand the nuanced diversity in the Muslim world, Muslim women’s purposeful downplay of agency, and, most importantly, Brooks’s inevitable veil fetishism in her trip to Gaza and lack of interest in human rights violations of Palestinian women or their lack of access to education and health services. Though Brooks travelled from Australia to the Middle East, she failed to develop partnerships with the women she met and distanced herself from them. This underscores the veracity of Amal’s observation in Abdel Fattah’s novel: “It’s mainly the migrants in my life who have inspired me to understand what it means to be an Aussie” (340). It also suggests that the transnational feminist ethic lies not in the global North and global South paradigm but in the fluidity of migration between and among cultures rather than geographical boundaries and military borders. All this argues that across the imperial cartography of discrimination and oppression, women’s solidarity is only possible through intercultural and syncretistic negotiation that respects the individual and the community.ReferencesAbdel-Fattah, Randa. Does My Head Look Big in This? Sydney: Pan MacMillan Australia, 2005.———. “Ending Oppression in the Middle East: A Muslim Feminist Call to Arms.” ABC Religion and Ethics, 29 April 2013. <http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/29/3747543.htm>.———. “On ‘Nine Parts Of Desire’, by Geraldine Brooks.” Griffith Review. <https://griffithreview.com/on-nine-parts-of-desire-by-geraldine-brooks/>.Agarwal, Bina. A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. 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Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.Hale, Sondra. “Transnational Gender Studies and the Migrating Concept of Gender in the Middle East and North Africa.” Cultural Dynamics 21.2 (2009): 133-52.hooks, bell. “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance.” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.Langton, Marcia. “‘Grandmother’s Law’, Company Business and Succession in Changing Aboriginal Land Tenure System.” Traditional Aboriginal Society: A Reader. Ed. W.H. Edward. 2nd ed. Melbourne: Macmillan, 2003.Lazreg, Marnia. “Feminism and Difference: The Perils of Writing as a Woman on Women in Algeria.” Feminist Studies 14.1 (Spring 1988): 81-107.Liew, Stephanie. “Subtle Racism Is More Problematic in Australia.” Interview. music.com.au 2015. <http://themusic.com.au/interviews/all/2015/03/06/randa-abdel-fattah/>.Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” Keynoted presented at National Women’s Studies Association Conference, Storrs, Conn., 1981.Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam. Trans. Mary Jo Lakeland. New York: Basic Books, 1991.Moghadam, Valentine. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003.Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Aboriginal Women and Feminism. 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Abstract:

IntroductionThe National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program (NSCSWP) has been one of the most controversial Australian news topics in the past eight years. Newspaper representations of the NSCSWP have been prolific since the Program began in 2006/07. In my previous research into the NSCSWP, I found that initially the Program was well received. Following the High Court Challenge campaign, however, which began in late 2010, newspaper reports portrayed the NSCSWP in a predominantly negative light. These negative portrayals of the NSCSWP persisted in the lead up to the second High Court Challenge from 2013 until June 2014. During this time, newspaper representations portrayed the Program as an illegitimate form of counseling for state school students. However, I would argue that it was the newspaper representations of the NSCSWP that were in fact illegitimate. In this article, I contend that illegitimate representations of the NSCSWP became hegemonic because of a lack of evidence-based research conducted into the Program’s operation within state schools. Evidence-based research would have appropriately evaluated the Program’s progress and contributed to a legitimate and fair representation of chaplains in online newspapers. My analysis acknowledges the overwhelming prejudice against the NSCSWP. Whether chaplains were indeed a legitimate or illegitimate form of counseling is not my argument. My argument is that newspaper representations of the NSCSWP were illegitimate because news articles were presenting biased and incomplete information to the Australian community. Defining IllegitimacyIllegitimacy as a term has a long history dating back to early modern England, when it was commonly used to refer to children born out of wedlock (Pritchard 19). However, the definition of illegitimacy extends beyond this social phenomenon. Katie Pritchard states:The understanding of illegitimacy encompasses a kind of theoretical illegitimacy that is nothing to do with birth, referring to a kind of falseness or unsuitability that can be applied in many circumstances. (21)For this article, I will be using the term ‘illegitimate’ to describe how the newspaper representations of the NSCSWP were unsuitable because they were biased and lacked valuable information. Newspaper reports, which can be accessed online via the newspaper company’s website, include important authoritative voices. However, these voices expressed a certain opinion or concern, rather than delivering information that contributed to society’s understanding of the NSCSWP. Therefore, newspapers did not present legitimate facts, but instead a range of subjective opinions.The Illegitimacy of Newspaper ReportingThe ideological bias of newspapers has been recently examined regarding News Corp, the owner of national title The Australian, and many of the major Australian state newspapers: The Daily Telegraph; The Courier Mail, Herald Sun; The Advertiser; and Sunday Times. This organisation has recently been accused of showing bias in its newspaper articles (Meade). Meade quotes Mark Scott, the ABC Managing Director, who states:Given the aggressive editorial positioning of some of their mastheads and their willingness to adopt and pursue an editorial position, an ideological position and a market segmentation, you could argue that News Corporation newspapers have never been more assertive in exercising media power. (1)The market domination enjoyed by large organisations such as News Corp, and even Fairfax Media, leads to consistency in journalists’ writing on political, social, religious, and economic issues, which may predominate over the articles published by smaller newspapers. There is the concern that over time a particular point of view will be favoured. According to Mark Scott “a range of influential voices [is] essential to ensure a fair and open media” (Meade 1). Scott cites Rupert Murdoch who stated, back in 1967, that “freedom of the press mustn’t be one-sided just for a publisher to speak as he pleases, to try and bully the community” (Meade 1). Therefore, it has been acknowledged that a biased news article is illegitimate, and national news articles are to present facts, not the opinions of the newspaper.A Methodological Framework For this article I will utilise Norman Fairclough’s theory of Critical Discourse Analysis. Fairclough states:By ‘critical’ discourse analysis I mean discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes. (132-133)This method of analysis examines three assumptions: Existential, Propositional and Value. Existential assumptions make claims about what exists with regards to the problem, and refers to social phenomena such as globalisation or social cohesion (56). Propositional assumptions make predictions about what is or will be (55). Value assumptions simply evaluate things as good or bad, needed or not needed (57). These assumptions can be identified through analysis of the various direct quotes included within online newspaper articles.Direct quotations in newspaper articles available online often represent polarised views demonstrating whether people agree or disagree with the topic being discussed. The selection, or framing, of dominant voices within an article can be used to construct or re-present certain ideologies (Entman, 165). Entman explains that “we can define framing as the process of culling a few elements of perceived reality and assembling a narrative that highlights connections among them to promote a particular interpretation” (164). The framing of direct quotes within an article, therefore, assists the reader in identifying the article’s bias. The National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare ProgramThe National School Chaplaincy Program was first established in 2006 by the Howard Government, and in 2011 Julia Gillard included secular youth workers, expanding it from 2012 to become the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program. According to the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Guidelines, the Program aimed to “assist school communities to provide pastoral care and general spiritual, social and emotional comfort to all students, irrespective of their faith or beliefs” (6). Chaplaincy in Australia has been a predominantly Christian counseling service with Christianity being the most commonly practiced religion in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics). However, there have been chaplains representing other faiths such as Islam, Judaism and Buddhism (Australian Government 8). Chaplains were chosen by their respective schools and were partly funded by the Government to provide support to students and staff.State Newspaper Articles Online: Representations 2013-2014My sample of articles came from nine state newspapers with an online presence: The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Courier Mail, Adelaide Advertiser, Melbourne Age, Northern Times, The Australian, The West Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Mercury. A total of 36 articles were collected, from the newspaper’s Website, for 2013 and 2014, and were divided into two categories.The two categories are Supportive (of the Program) and Unsupportive (of the Program). In 2013, two articles were supportive of the Program, whereas in 2014 there were four. In 2013 three articles were unsupportive of the Program, whereas in 2014 there were 27 unsupportive articles, representing the growing interest in the scheme in the final lead up to the High Court Challenge in 2014. An online newspaper article from 2013, which portrays the NSCSWP and in particular chaplains as illegitimate, is Call for Naked School Chaplain to Be Defrocked (Domjen). This article explains how an off-duty school chaplain was preaching naked in the main street of a country town in NSW. The NSW Teachers Federation President Maurie Mulheron, and Parents and Citizens Association publicity officer Rachael Sowden were quoted in this article. It is through their direct quotes that the illegitimacy of chaplaincy is framed. President Mulheron states:We believe the chaplaincy program is wrong and that money should be used for an increase in school-based counsellors. Obviously the right checks and balances are not in place. (1)When President Mulheron states “We” it is unclear to the reader as to whether he is referring to all NSW Teachers or the organisation’s administrators. The reader is left to make their own assumptions about whom he is referring to. The President also makes a value assumption that the money would be better spent on school-based counselors, thus expressing his own opinion that they are a better option. A propositional assumption is made when he claims that the “right checks and balances are not in place”, but is he basing his claim on this one incident or is there other research to support this assumption?Perhaps this naked chaplain appeared fine when the school hired him, perhaps he does not have a previous record of inappropriate behaviour, perhaps it was an isolated incident. The reader is not given any background information on this chaplain and is therefore meant to take the President’s assumptions as legitimate fact. Ms Sowden, representing the Parents’ and Citizens’ Association, also expresses the same assumptions and concerns. Ms Sowden states:We have great concerns about the chaplain scheme - many parents do. We are concerned about whether they go through the same processes as teachers in terms of working with children checks and their suitability to the position, and this case highlights that.Ms Sowden makes a propositional assumption that many parents and citizens are concerned about the Program. It would be interesting to know what the Parents and Citizens Association was doing about this, considering the choice to have a chaplain is a decision made by the school community? Ms Sowden also asks whether chaplains “go through the same processes as teachers in terms of working with children checks and their suitability to the position”. Chaplains do not go through the same process as teachers in their training as they have a different role in the school. However, chaplains do require a Certificate IV in Pastoral Care as well as a Working with Children Check because they are in close proximity to children, and are being paid for their school counseling service (Working with Children Check). Ms Sowden’s value assumption that chaplains are unsuitable for the position is based on her own limited understanding of their qualifications, which she admits to not knowing. In fact, to be appointed to represent parents and citizens and to even voice their concerns, but not know the qualifications of chaplains in her community, is an interesting area of ignorance.This article has been framed to evaluate the actions of all chaplains through the example of a publicly-naked chaplain, discussed without context in this article. The Program is portrayed as hiring unsuitable and thus illegitimate chaplains. However, the quotes are based on concerns and assumptions that are unfounded, and are fears presented as facts. Therefore the representation is illegitimate because it does not report any information that the public can use to better understand the NSCSWP, or even to understand the circumstances surrounding the chaplain who preached naked in the street. Another article from 2014, which represents chaplains as illegitimate, is Push to Divert Chaplain Cash to School Councillors (Paine). This article focuses on the comments of the Tasmanian Association of State School Organisations President Jenny Eddington, and the Australian Education Union President Angelo Gavrielatos. These dominant voices within the Tasmanian and Australian communities are chosen to express their opinion that the money once used for chaplains should now be used to fund psychologists in schools. AEU President Angelo Gavrielatos states: Apart from undermining our secular traditions, this additional funding should have been allocated to schools to better meet the educational needs of students with trained, specialist staff.Mr Gavrielatos makes a propositional assumption that chaplains are untrained staff and are thus illegitimate staff. However, chaplains are trained and specialise in providing counseling services. Thus, through his call for “trained, specialist staff” he aims to delegitimize the training of chaplains. Mr Gavrielatos also makes a value assumption when he claims that the funding put towards the NSCSWP undermines “our secular traditions”. “Secular traditions” is an existential assumption in positioning that Australians have secular traditions, and that these do not involve chaplaincy because the Australian Government is not supposed to support religion. The Australian Bureau of Statistics states:Enlightenment principles promoted a secular government, detached from the church, that encouraged tolerance and supported religious pluralism, including the right to practice no religion. By Federation, this diversity was enshrined in the Australian Constitution, which says that the Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. (1)The funding of the Program was a contentious issue from the time of its inception; although it could be argued that it was the prerogative of the Government to support the practice of diverse cultural and religious beliefs by allowing schools to hire religious counselors of their choice. Given that not every student is Christian some would perhaps benefit from chaplains or counselors representing other faiths.These news articles have selected dominant voices to construct and promote an ideology of chaplains as an illegitimate resource for school communities. In these newspaper reports existential, propositional and value assumptions were expressed by dominant voices who expressed concern about the role and behaviour of chaplains in schools. However, research into the Program and its operation within each state may have avoided the representation of unfounded and illegitimate assumptions.Evidence-Based Research: Avoiding Illegitimacy Over the course of the Chaplaincy Program various resources, such as reports and journal articles attempted to provide evidence of how the NSCSWP was funded and operated within state schools.The Department of Education received frequent progress reports by state schools who hired chaplains, although this information was not made available to the public. However, in 2011 then Education Minister Peter Garrett released a discussion paper informing Australians about the current set up of the Program and how the community could have their say on the Program’s fulfillment from 2012-2014. The discussion paper was reported on by The Australian, which portrayed the Program as not catering to the needs of Australian youth because chaplains are predominantly Christian (Ferrari). The newspaper report focuses on the concerns of Australian communities regarding the funding, and qualifications of chaplains, and the cost of the Program. Thus, the Program appeared illegitimate and as though it could not cater to the Australian community’s expectations.Reports conducted by organisations external to the Education Department tried to examine schools communities’ expectations and experiences of the Program. One such report was written in 2009 by Dr Philip Hughes and Professor Margaret Sims from Edith Cowan University who aimed to examine how Australian schools evaluated the Program, and the role of chaplains, but their report excluded the state of NSW.Hughes and Sims state that chaplains’ “contribution was widely appreciated” by schools (6). This report attempted to provide a legitimate and independent account of the Program, however, the report was deemed biased by NSW Greens MLC, Dr John Kaye who remarked that the study was “deeply flawed” and lacked independence (Thielking & MacKenzie 1). According to critics, the study focussed on the positive benefits of chaplains, but the only benefit that was unique to them was that they were religious (The Greens). The study also neglected to report that Hughes was an employee of the Christian Research Association and that his background could impede his objectivity. In the same year, 2009, ACCESS ministries published a report titled: The value of chaplains in Victorian schools. The independent research conducted by Social Compass covers: “the value of chaplains; their social, spiritual and academic impacts; the difference made to the health, well being and quality of life of students; and the contributions made to strengthen communities” (2).This study promoted a positive view of chaplaincy within schools and tried to report on a portion of the community’s experiences with chaplains. However, it was limited in that it pertains only to Victorian schools and received very little media attention online. Even if this information were available online it would have only related to Victoria. Further research conducted into chaplaincy has been published in the Journal of Christian Education. This journal contains many articles on chaplaincy, but these are not easily available online as they require a subscription. The findings from these articles have not been published in newspaper articles online and have therefore not been made available to the general public. The Christian bias of the journal may have also contributed to its contents being neglected by news articles made available online, although they might have assisted in providing a more balanced representation of the NSCSWP.The extent of the research conducted into The National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program has not been entirely delineated here, but these are some of the prominent resources. Nonetheless, the rigorous evaluation of the contribution of the NSCSWP was minimal, and the quality of its evaluation predominantly biased.Robert Slavin states that school program evaluations must “produce reliable, unbiased, and meaningful information on the strength of evidence behind each program” (1). Unfortunately, the research conducted into the Chaplaincy Program was not free from bias, consistent or properly designed in a way that legitimately evaluated the NSCSWP. According to Monica Thielking and David MacKenzie:The fact is that the provision of support services for students in Australian schools has never been subjected to serious research and evaluation, and any analysis is made more difficult by the fact that the various states and territories deploy somewhat different models. (1)Thus, the information on the Chaplaincy Program’s progress and the responsibilities of chaplains in schools was not comprehensive or accurate enough to be appropriately reported in newspapers available online. Therefore, newspaper articles used quotes and information based on a limited understanding of the Program, which in turn produced illegitimate representations of the NSCSWP.ConclusionNewspaper reports available online drew conclusions about the Program’s effectiveness, which had not been appropriately tested. If research had been made available to the public, or published within state-based media online, Australians would have had a more legitimate understanding of the Program’s operation within state education, even if that understanding could not have changed the High Court ruling.The Chaplaincy Program demonstrates how a lack of evidence-based research allows the media to construct illegitimate representations based on promoting the assumptions of dominant, and I would argue the loudest, voices, in society. The bias represented in a consistent approach adopted by newspapers owned by dominant media companies, is a factor in the re-presentation and promotion of certain ideologies. This was made evident by the fact that, in 2014, across nine state newspapers available online, 27 articles were unsupportive of the Program as opposed to only four articles that were supportive. Audiences need to be presented with facts rather than opinions, which are based on very little research. Hopefully newspaper reporting will change in the future to offer audiences a more legitimate representation of news events. ReferencesACCESS Ministries. The Value of Chaplains in Victorian Schools. NSW, 2009. Australian Bureau of Statistics. "Reflecting a Nation: Stories from the 2011 Census, 2012–2013." 2012. Australian Government. National School Chaplaincy Program: A Discussion Paper. Australia: Commonwealth of Australian, 2011. Chaplaincy Australia. "Training." n.d. Commonwealth of Australia. National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program Guidelines. Australia: Australian Government, 2012. Domjen, Briana. “Call for Naked School Chaplain to Be Defrocked.” The Australian 3 Feb. 2013: 1.Entman, Robert. "Framing Bias: Media in the Distribution of Power." Journal of Communications 1 (2007): 163-73.Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Longman, 2003.Ferrari, Justine. "School Chaplains Not Representative." The Australian 12 Feb. 2011: 1.Hughes, Philip, and Margaret Sims. The Effectivess of Chaplaincy: As Provided by the National School Chaplaincy Association to Government Schools in Australia. Perth: Edith Cowan University, 2009.Meade, Amanda. "Mark Scott: News Corp Papers Never More Aggressive than Now." The Guardian 3 Oct. 2014: 1.Paine, Michelle. “Push to Divert Chaplain Cash to School Councillors.” The Mercury 21 Jun. 2014: 1.Pritchard, Katie. "Legitimacy, Illegitimacy and Sovereignty in Shakespeare’s British Plays." U of Manchester, 2011.Slavin, Robert. "Perspectives on Evidence-Based Research in Education: What Works? Issues in Synthesizing Educational Program Evaluations." Educational Researcher 37.1 (2008): 5-14. The Greens. "Chaplaincy Program Study 'Flawed and Biased': Conclusions Not Justified." n.d. Thielking, Monica, and David MacKenzie. “School Chaplains: Time to Look at the Evidence.” 2011. Working with Children Check. "Categories of Work." 2008.

Abstract:

As a former teacher and current researcher, I have personally heard as well as read about many different reasons why homosexuality, bisexuality, and, more generally, sexuality other than heterosexuality should not be discussed in the classroom. There is the argument that sexuality is the domain of the parent, not the teacher, and about the numerous religions that do not condone homo/bisexuality. I have read about teachers’ sense of discomfort with discussing sexuality and sexual orientation. Most frequently, I have come up against the argument that students are not certain of their sexual orientation until adulthood, that teaching about the range of sexualities might confuse ‘impressionable’ adolescents and that there are ‘no gay students in my class’ so such education is unnecessary. Contrary to this last point, research with same-sex attracted (SSA) adolescents has shown that they are first aware of their attractions to members of the same sex as early as 10 years of age (D’Augelli, Pilkington, and Hershberger) and begin to feel concrete about their sexual orientation between the ages of 14 and 16 years old (Rosario, et al.). As far as numbers of young people who are attracted to members of the same sex, recent research using random samples of secondary-school aged students has placed percentages between 2.5% (Garofalo, et al.) and 6.3% (Smith, Lindsay, and Rosenthal). However, as Savin-Williams points out, ‘the vast majority of youths who will eventually identify themselves as lesbian, bisexual or gay seldom embrace this socially ostracized label during adolescence…’, leading to speculation that reported percentages of SSA young people are actually conservative estimates rather than true figures (Savin-Williams 262). To date, no research has shown that adolescents have become homosexual because they were exposed to homosexuality as a topic within the school curriculum. In fact, it is quite the opposite, with many SSA students coming to terms with their homo/bisexuality despite it being pathologised within the curriculum and punishable by sanctioned victimisation within the school environment. The fact that heterosexuality is ‘policed’ and reinforced with the school context is not surprising. In his History of Sexuality, Volume 1, Foucault writes about sexuality as a locus of social control and points out that throughout history individual’s sexual thoughts, beliefs, and, ultimately, actions have been impacted by socially constructed sexual norms. Educational sociologists have taken this idea into the classroom, viewing heterosexuality as a part of the ‘hidden curriculum’, the social norms that students learn without them being part of the formal lesson (Plummer). In this sense, heterosexuality becomes part of students’ unspoken and assumed identity in the classroom and, because of socially sanctioned homophobia/heterosexism, being heterosexual becomes a form of cultural and social capital. In line with some teachers’ reluctance to discuss homo/bisexuality in the classroom are their attitudes toward homosexuality. A number of studies have highlighted the homophobic attitudes of pre-service teachers, primary and secondary school teachers, and counsellor trainees as well as their reluctance and discomfort with discussing homo/bisexuality in the classroom (Sears; Warwick, Aggleton, and Douglas; Barrett and McWhirter; Cahill and Adams). These negative attitudes can manifest themselves in a variety of ways detrimental to SSA students, from simply avoiding homosexual topics or issues to discussing these issues or topics in a negative manner. Recent research with same-sex attracted secondary school students spoke to this trend. When asked about ways in which homosexuality was discussed in the classroom, three main points were consistently raised: sexuality which is not heterosexuality is presented in a reduced form (i.e., male homosexuality); homosexuality is pathologised as either a mental illness or a precursor to infection; and, teachers exhibited prejudice against non-heterosexual sexualities that would not be tolerated in the instance of a racial or gender issue (Ellis and High, 221-2). Research in this area has also investigated the attitudes of secondary school students toward homosexuality, with results showing high levels of homophobia and strict gender role beliefs (Van de Ven; Price; Smith; Hillier; Thurlow); however, recent research has shown some improvement in students’ attitudes (Smith, et al.). Knowing what we know about the ways in which homosexuality is presented within the school setting (or in many cases simply not presented), coupled with the attitudes of the school community members toward homosexuality and gender roles, as reflective of societal norms, it is not surprising these sentiments manifest themselves in the form of victimisation for SSA students and students who are perceived to be SSA. While the ‘hidden curriculum’ reinforces heterosexuality as a covert form of victimisation, overt forms of victimisation of SSA students occur with alarming regularity. Research has highlighted stories of SSA students’ experiences of verbal and physical abuse, property damage, and social isolation within the school setting with a common theme being a lack of intervention on the part of the adult school staff (Jordan, Vaughan, and Woodworth; Flowers and Buston; Kosciw and Cullen). A good deal of research has positioned SSA young people as ‘at-risk’, using data which places heterosexual-identifying adolescents as a ‘control group’ and citing elevated drug and alcohol use, suicide attempts/ideation, and risky sexual practices among the population of SSA young people. This type of research problematises the SSA young people themselves, rather than the environments which they are subject to and the harassment they may be experiencing therein. A far smaller body of research has examined correlates of victimisation for SSA students, the results being exactly what one would expect. At-school victimisation of SSA students has been positively correlated with general risk outcomes such as negative mental health effects (D’Augelli, Pilkington and Hershberger; Rivers), drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide attempts (Bontempo and D’Augelli). Smaller still is the body of research that examines school-related outcomes for SSA students. Victimisation of these students has been positively correlated with their frequency of missed school days as a result of personal safety fears (Bontempo and D’Augelli) as well as their reported academic outcomes and educational aspirations (Kosciw). In light of the body of literature on how SSA students experience the school environment, a logical path seems to emerge. Societal norms surrounding sexuality contribute to adult school staff members’ attitudes toward homosexuality. These norms, coupled with the palpable attitudes of staff, effect the overall tenor of the school environment toward homosexuality which, in turn, contributes to students’ attitudes toward homosexuality. The sentiments of students and staff undoubtedly have a significant impact on how or if sexuality is discussed within the classroom, victimisation of SSA students, and whether or not this victimisation is punished or ignored by staff members. Consequently, victimisation of SSA students has been found to be correlated with both general risk outcomes as well as decreased academic outcomes. Clearly there is cause for concern. If SSA students are more likely to report decreased school outcomes and higher risk behaviours the more they report being victimised within the school setting, then the solution seems rather obvious – protect SSA students from incidences of at-school victimisation. Without doing so, schools are allowing an inequitable school experience for SSA students and students who are perceived to be SSA as well as breaching their classroom duty of care. That said, adolescents cannot be told simply to stop ‘teasing gay kids’. Instead, a school culture must be created wherein homophobia is not tolerated, and heterosexism is recognised as such and the power it has over individual’s thoughts and actions is brought to light. Towards that end, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender topics, issues, and historical/prominent figures must be discussed in the classroom and the historical discrimination of SSA persons should be taught in the same way that racial/ethnic histories of discrimination are part of the curriculum. Through education, homophobia can begin to be viewed in the same way as racism and religious discrimination are viewed – as ignorant and entirely unacceptable. Perhaps this sounds like some gay utopian dream, but I believe that at a future date society will progress to this level and that education is fundamental to the process. By silencing sexualities, educators are marginalising and disenfranching a definite population of their SSA students, not to mention the effects this has on students who have SSA family members or friends. Teachers are uncomfortable discussing homosexuality in the classroom? I am uncomfortable with SSA students missing school because they are afraid, leaving school early because they do not feel that they belong, and reporting decreased marks and lowered aspirations for tertiary education. Silencing (homo)sexualities is a bad idea, not only for SSA persons but for any society which has illusions of being civilised, modernised, or unified. References Barrett, Kathleen, and Benedict McWhirter. “Counselor Trainees Perceptions of Clients Based on Client Sexual Orientation.” Counselor Education and Supervision 41.3 (2002): 219-30. Bontempo, Daniel, and Anthony D’Augelli. “Effects of at-School Vicitimization and Sexual Orientation on Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual Youths’ Health Risk Behavior.” Journal of Adolescent Health 30 (2002): 364-74. Cahill, Betsy, and Eve Adams. “An Exploratory Study of Early Childhood Teachers’ Attitudes toward Gender Roles.” Sex Roles 36.7/8 (1997): 517-29. D’Augelli, Anthony, Neil Pilkington, and Scott Hershberger. “Incidence and Mental Health Impact of Sexual Orientation Victimization of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths in High School.” School Psychology Quarterly 17.2 (2002): 148-160. Ellis, Viv, and Sue High. “Something More to Tell You: Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Young People’s Experiences of Secondary Schooling.” British Educational Research Journal 30.2 (2004): 213-25. Flowers, Paul, and Kate Buston. “‘I Was Terrified of Being Different’: Exploring Gay Men’s Accounts of Growing Up in a Heterosexist Society.” Journal of Adolescence 24 (2001): 51-65. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Garofalo, Robert, et al. “The Association between Health Risk Behaviors and Sexual Orientation among a School-Based Sample of Adolescents.” Pediatrics 101.5 (1998): 895-903. Hillier, Lynne. “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Unsure: The Rural Eleven Percent.” Health in Difference: Proceedings of the First National Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual Health Conference, 3-5 October 1996. Ed. Anthony Smith. Sydney: Australian Centre for Lesbian and Gay Research, 1997. 90-94. Jordan, K, J Vaughan, and K Woodworth. “I Will Survive: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths’ Experience of High School.” School Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Youth: The Invisible Minority. Ed. M Harris. Binghamton: The Harrington Park Press, 1997. Kosciw, J. The 2003 National School Climate Survey: The School-Related Experiences of Our Nation’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. New York: GLSEN, 2004. Kosciw, J, and M Cullen. The 2001 National School Climate Survey: The School-Related Experiences of Our Nation’s, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. New York: GLSEN, 2002. Plummer, Ken. “Lesbian and Gay Youth in England.” Gay and Lesbian Youth. Ed. G Herdt. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1989. 195-216. Price, James. “High School Students’ Attitudes toward Homosexuality.” Journal of School Health 52 (1982): 469-74. Rivers, Ian. “Long-Term Consequences of Bullying.” Issues in Therapy with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Clients. Ed. Dominic Davies. Vol. 3. Pink Therapy. Buckingham: Open UP, 2000. 146-59. Rosario, Margaret, et al. “The Psychosexual Development of Urban Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youths.” Journal of Sex Research 33.2 (1996): 113-26. Savin-Williams, Ritch. “Verbal and Physical Abuse as Stressors in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay Male, and Bisexual Youths: Associations with School Problems, Running Away, Substance Abuse, Prostitution and Suicide.” Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology 62.2 (1994): 261-9. Sears, James. “Educators, Homosexuality and Homosexual Students: Are Personal Feelings Related to Professional Beliefs?” Coming out of the Classroom Closet. Ed. K Harbeck. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1992. Smith, Anthony, Jo Lindsay, and Doreen A. Rosenthal. “Same-Sex Attraction, Drug Injection and Binge Drinking among Australian Adolescents.” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 23.6 (1999): 643-46. Smith, Anthony, Jo Lindsay, and Doreen A. Rosenthal. Secondary Students and Sexual Health 2002: Results of the 3rd National Survey of Australian Secondary Students, Hiv/Aids and Sexual Health. Melbourne: Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, 2003. Smith, George. “”The Ideology of ‘Fag’: The School Experience of Gay Students.” The Sociological Quarterly 39.2 (1998): 309-35. Thurlow, Crispin. “Naming the ‘Outsider Within’: Homophobic Pejoratives and the Verbal Abuse of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual High-School Pupils.” Journal of Adolescence 24 (2001): 25-38. Van de Ven, Paul. “Comparisons among Homophobic Reactions of Undergraduates, High School Students, and Young Offenders.” Journal of Sex Research 31.2 (1994): 117-135. Warwick, Ian, Peter Aggleton, and Nicola Douglas. “Playing It Safe: Addressing the Emotional and Physical Health of Lesbian and Gay Pupils in the U.K.” Journal of Adolescence 24 (2001): 129-40. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Mikulsky, Jacqueline. "Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School ... A Very Bad Idea." M/C Journal 8.1 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/06-mikulsky.php>. APA Style Mikulsky, J. (Feb. 2005) "Silencing (Homo)Sexualities in School ... A Very Bad Idea," M/C Journal, 8(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/06-mikulsky.php>.

Abstract:

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Abstract:

Introduction I think the Privacy Act is a huge edifice to protect the minority of things that could go wrong. I’ve got a good example for you, I’m just trying to think … yeah the worst one I’ve ever seen was the Balga Youth Program where we took these students on a reward excursion all the way to Fremantle and suddenly this very alienated kid started to jump under a bus, a moving bus so the kid had to be restrained. The cops from Fremantle arrived because all the very good people in Fremantle were alarmed at these grown-ups manhandling a kid and what had happened is that DCD [Department of Community Development] had dropped him into the program but hadn’t told us that this kid had suicide tendencies. No, it’s just chronically bad. And there were caseworkers involved and … there is some information that we have to have that doesn’t get handed down. Rather than a blanket rule that everything’s confidential coming from them to us, and that was a real live situation, and you imagine how we’re trying to handle it, we had taxis going from Balga to Fremantle to get staff involved and we only had to know what to watch out for and we probably could have … well what you would have done is not gone on the excursion I suppose (School Principal, quoted in Balnaves and Luca 49). These comments are from a school principal in Perth, Western Australia in a school that is concerned with “at-risk” students, and in a context where the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 has imposed limitations on their work. Under this Act it is illegal to pass health, personal or sensitive information concerning an individual on to other people. In the story cited above the Department of Community Development personnel were apparently protecting the student’s “negative right”, that is, “freedom from” interference by others. On the other hand, the principal’s assertion that such information should be shared is potentially a “positive right” because it could cause something to be done in that person’s or society’s interests. Balnaves and Luca noted that positive and negative rights have complex philosophical underpinnings, and they inform much of how we operate in everyday life and of the dilemmas that arise (49). For example, a ban on euthanasia or the “assisted suicide” of a terminally ill person can be a “positive right” because it is considered to be in the best interests of society in general. However, physicians who tacitly approve a patient’s right to end their lives with a lethal dose by legally prescribed dose of medication could be perceived as protecting the patient’s “negative right” as a “freedom from” interference by others. While acknowledging the merits of collaboration between people who are working to improve the wellbeing of students “at-risk”, this paper examines some of the barriers to collaboration. Based on both primary and secondary sources, and particularly on oral testimonies, the paper highlights the tension between privacy as a negative right and collaborative helping as a positive right. It also points to other difficulties and dilemmas within and between the institutions engaged in this joint undertaking. The authors acknowledge Michel Foucault’s contention that discourse is power. The discourse on privacy and the sharing of information in modern societies suggests that privacy is a negative right that gives freedom from bureaucratic interference and protects the individual. However, arguably, collaboration between agencies that are working to support individuals “at-risk” requires a measured relaxation of the requirements of this negative right. Children and young people “at-risk” are a case in point. Towards Collaboration From a series of interviews conducted in 2004, the school authorities at Balga Senior High School and Midvale Primary School, people working for the Western Australian departments of Community Development, Justice, and Education and Training in Western Australia, and academics at the Edith Cowan and Curtin universities, who are working to improve the wellbeing of students “at-risk” as part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) project called Smart Communities, have identified students “at-risk” as individuals who have behavioural problems and little motivation, who are alienated and possibly violent or angry, who under-perform in the classroom and have begun to truant. They noted also that students “at-risk” often suffer from poor health, lack of food and medication, are victims of unwanted pregnancies, and are engaged in antisocial and illegal behaviour such as stealing cars and substance abuse. These students are also often subject to domestic violence (parents on drugs or alcohol), family separation, and homelessness. Some are depressed or suicidal. Sometimes cultural factors contribute to students being regarded as “at-risk”. For example, a social worker in the Smart Communities project stated: Cultural factors sometimes come into that as well … like with some Muslim families … they can flog their daughter or their son, usually the daughter … so cultural factors can create a risk. Research elsewhere has revealed that those children between the ages of 11-17 who have been subjected to bullying at school or physical or sexual abuse at home and who have threatened and/or harmed another person or suicidal are “high-risk” youths (Farmer 4). In an attempt to bring about a positive change in these alienated or “at-risk” adolescents, Balga Senior High School has developed several programs such as the Youth Parents Program, Swan Nyunger Sports Education program, Intensive English Centre, and lower secondary mainstream program. The Midvale Primary School has provided services such as counsellors, Aboriginal child protection workers, and Aboriginal police liaison officers for these “at-risk” students. On the other hand, the Department of Community Development (DCD) has provided services to parents and caregivers for children up to 18 years. Academics from Edith Cowan and Curtin universities are engaged in gathering the life stories of these “at-risk” students. One aspect of this research entails the students writing their life stories in a secured web portal that the universities have developed. The researchers believe that by engaging the students in these self-exploration activities, they (the students) would develop a more hopeful outlook on life. Though all agencies and educational institutions involved in this collaborative project are working for the well-being of the children “at-risk”, the Privacy Act forbids the authorities from sharing information about them. A school psychologist expressed concern over the Privacy Act: When the Juvenile Justice Department want to reintroduce a student into a school, we can’t find out anything about this student so we can’t do any preplanning. They want to give the student a fresh start, so there’s always that tension … eventually everyone overcomes [this] because you realise that the student has to come to the school and has to be engaged. Of course, the manner and consequences of a student’s engagement in school cannot be predicted. In the scenario described above students may have been given a fair chance to reform themselves, which is their positive right but if they turn out to be at “high risk” it would appear that the Juvenile Department protected the negative right of the students by supporting “freedom from” interference by others. Likewise, a school health nurse in the project considered confidentiality or the Privacy Act an important factor in the security of the student “at-risk”: I was trying to think about this kid who’s one of the children who has been sexually abused, who’s a client of DCD, and I guess if police got involved there and wanted to know details and DCD didn’t want to give that information out then I’d guess I’d say to the police “Well no, you’ll have to talk to the parents about getting further information.” I guess that way, recognising these students are minor and that they are very vulnerable, their information … where it’s going, where is it leading? Who wants to know? Where will it be stored? What will be the outcomes in the future for this kid? As a 14 year old, if they’re reckless and get into things, you know, do they get a black record against them by the time they’re 19? What will that information be used for if it’s disclosed? So I guess I become an advocate for the student in that way? Thus the nurse considers a sexually abused child should not be identified. It is a positive right in the interest of the person. Once again, though, if the student turns out to be at “high risk” or suicidal, then it would appear that the nurse was protecting the youth’s negative right—“freedom from” interference by others. Since collaboration is a positive right and aims at the students’ welfare, the workable solution to prevent the students from suicide would be to develop inter-agency trust and to share vital information about “high-risk” students. Dilemmas of Collaboration Some recent cases of the deaths of young non-Caucasian girls in Western countries, either because of the implications of the Privacy Act or due to a lack of efficient and effective communication and coordination amongst agencies, have raised debates on effective child protection. For example, the British Laming report (2003) found that Victoria Climbié, a young African girl, was sent by her parents to her aunt in Britain in order to obtain a good education and was murdered by her aunt and aunt’s boyfriend. However, the risk that she could be harmed was widely known. The girl’s problems were known to 6 local authorities, 3 housing authorities, 4 social services, 2 child protection teams, and the police, the local church, and the hospital, but not to the education authorities. According to the Laming Report, her death could have been prevented if there had been inter-agency sharing of information and appropriate evaluation (Balnaves and Luca 49). The agencies had supported the negative rights of the young girl’s “freedom from” interference by others, but at the cost of her life. Perhaps Victoria’s racial background may have contributed to the concealment of information and added to her disadvantaged position. Similarly, in Western Australia, the Gordon Inquiry into the death of Susan Taylor, a 15 year old girl Aboriginal girl at the Swan Nyungah Community, found that in her short life this girl had encountered sexual violation, violence, and the ravages of alcohol and substance abuse. The Gordon Inquiry reported: Although up to thirteen different agencies were involved in providing services to Susan Taylor and her family, the D[epartment] of C[ommunity] D[evelopment] stated they were unaware of “all the services being provided by each agency” and there was a lack of clarity as to a “lead coordinating agency” (Gordon et al. quoted in Scott 45). In this case too, multiple factors—domestic, racial, and the Privacy Act—may have led to Susan Taylor’s tragic end. In the United Kingdom, Harry Ferguson noted that when a child is reported to be “at-risk” from domestic incidents, they can suffer further harm because of their family’s concealment (204). Ferguson’s study showed that in 11 per cent of the 319 case sample, children were known to be re-harmed within a year of initial referral. Sometimes, the parents apply a veil of secrecy around themselves and their children by resisting or avoiding services. In such cases the collaborative efforts of the agencies and education may be thwarted. Lack of cultural education among teachers, youth workers, and agencies could also put the “at-risk” cultural minorities into a high risk category. For example, an “at-risk” Muslim student may not be willing to share personal experiences with the school or agencies because of religious sensitivities. This happened in the UK when Khadji Rouf was abused by her father, a Bangladeshi. Rouf’s mother, a white woman, and her female cousin from Bangladesh, both supported Rouf when she finally disclosed that she had been sexually abused for over eight years. After group therapy, Rouf stated that she was able to accept her identity and to call herself proudly “mixed race”, whereas she rejected the Asian part of herself because it represented her father. Other Asian girls and young women in this study reported that they could not disclose their abuse to white teachers or social workers because of the feeling that they would be “letting down their race or their Muslim culture” (Rouf 113). The marginalisation of many Muslim Australians both in the job market and in society is long standing. For example, in 1996 and again in 2001 the Muslim unemployment rate was three times higher than the national total (Australian Bureau of Statistics). But since the 9/11 tragedy and Bali bombings visible Muslims, such as women wearing hijabs (headscarves), have sometimes been verbally and physically abused and called ‘terrorists’ by some members of the wider community (Dreher 13). The Howard government’s new anti-terrorism legislation and the surveillance hotline ‘Be alert not alarmed’ has further marginalised some Muslims. Some politicians have also linked Muslim asylum seekers with terrorists (Kabir 303), which inevitably has led Muslim “at-risk” refugee students to withdraw from school support such as counselling. Under these circumstances, Muslim “at-risk” students and their parents may prefer to maintain a low profile rather than engage with agencies. In this case, arguably, federal government politics have exacerbated the barriers to collaboration. It appears that unfamiliarity with Muslim culture is not confined to mainstream Australians. For example, an Aboriginal liaison police officer engaged in the Smart Communities project in Western Australia had this to say about Muslim youths “at-risk”: Different laws and stuff from different countries and they’re coming in and sort of thinking that they can bring their own laws and religions and stuff … and when I say religions there’s laws within their religions as well that they don’t seem to understand that with Australia and our laws. Such generalised misperceptions of Muslim youths “at-risk” would further alienate them, thus causing a major hindrance to collaboration. The “at-risk” factors associated with Aboriginal youths have historical connections. Research findings have revealed that indigenous youths aged between 10-16 years constitute a vast majority in all Australian States’ juvenile detention centres. This over-representation is widely recognised as associated with the nature of European colonisation, and is inter-related with poverty, marginalisation and racial discrimination (Watson et al. 404). Like the Muslims, their unemployment rate was three times higher than the national total in 2001 (ABS). However, in 1998 it was estimated that suicide rates among Indigenous peoples were at least 40 per cent higher than national average (National Advisory Council for Youth Suicide Prevention, quoted in Elliot-Farrelly 2). Although the wider community’s unemployment rate is much lower than the Aboriginals and the Muslims, the “at-risk” factors of mainstream Australian youths are often associated with dysfunctional families, high conflict, low-cohesive families, high levels of harsh parental discipline, high levels of victimisation by peers, and high behavioural inhibition (Watson et al. 404). The Macquarie Fields riots in 2005 revealed the existence of “White” underclass and “at-risk” people in Sydney. Macquarie Fields’ unemployment rate was more than twice the national average. Children growing up in this suburb are at greater risk of being involved in crime (The Age). Thus small pockets of mainstream underclass youngsters also require collaborative attention. In Western Australia people working on the Smart Communities project identified that lack of resources can be a hindrance to collaboration for all sectors. As one social worker commented: “government agencies are hierarchical systems and lack resources”. They went on to say that in their department they can not give “at-risk” youngsters financial assistance in times of crisis: We had a petty cash box which has got about 40 bucks in it and sometimes in an emergency we might give a customer a couple of dollars but that’s all we can do, we can’t give them any larger amount. We have bus/metro rail passes, that’s the only thing that we’ve actually got. A youth worker in Smart Communities commented that a lot of uncertainty is involved with young people “at-risk”. They said that there are only a few paid workers in their field who are supported and assisted by “a pool of volunteers”. Because the latter give their time voluntarily they are under no obligation to be constant in their attendance, so the number of available helpers can easily fluctuate. Another youth worker identified a particularly important barrier to collaboration: because of workers’ relatively low remuneration and high levels of work stress, the turnover rates are high. The consequence of this is as follows: The other barrier from my point is that you’re talking to somebody about a student “at-risk”, and within 14 months or 18 months a new person comes in [to that position] then you’ve got to start again. This way you miss a lot of information [which could be beneficial for the youth]. Conclusion The Privacy Act creates a dilemma in that it can be either beneficial or counter-productive for a student’s security. To be blunt, a youth who has suicided might have had their privacy protected, but not their life. Lack of funding can also be a constraint on collaboration by undermining stability and autonomy in the workforce, and blocking inter-agency initiatives. Lack of awareness about cultural differences can also affect unity of action. The deepening inequality between the “haves” and “have-nots” in the Australian society, and the Howard government’s harshness on national security issues, can also pose barriers to collaboration on youth issues. Despite these exigencies and dilemmas, it would seem that collaboration is “the only game” when it comes to helping students “at-risk”. To enhance this collaboration, there needs to be a sensible modification of legal restrictions to information sharing, an increase in government funding and support for inter-agency cooperation and informal information sharing, and an increased awareness about the cultural needs of minority groups and knowledge of the mainstream underclass. Acknowledgments The research is part of a major Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project, Smart Communities. The authors very gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the interviewees, and thank *Donald E. Scott for conducting the interviews. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1996 and 2001. Balnaves, Mark, and Joe Luca. “The Impact of Digital Persona on the Future of Learning: A Case Study on Digital Repositories and the Sharing of Information about Children At-Risk in Western Australia”, paper presented at Ascilite, Brisbane (2005): 49-56. 10 April 2006. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/ 06_Balnaves.pdf>. Dreher, Tanya. ‘Targeted’: Experiences of Racism in NSW after September 11, 2001. Sydney: University of Technology, 2005. Elliot-Farrelly, Terri. “Australian Aboriginal Suicide: The Need for an Aboriginal Suicidology”? Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health, 3.3 (2004): 1-8. 15 April 2006 http://www.auseinet.com/journal/vol3iss3/elliottfarrelly.pdf>. Farmer, James. A. High-Risk Teenagers: Real Cases and Interception Strategies with Resistant Adolescents. Springfield, Ill.: C.C. Thomas, 1990. Ferguson, Harry. Protecting Children in Time: Child Abuse, Child Protection and the Consequences of Modernity. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Ed. Colin Gordon, trans. Colin Gordon et al. New York: Pantheon, 1980. Kabir, Nahid. Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History. London: Kegan Paul, 2005. Rouf, Khadji. “Myself in Echoes. My Voice in Song.” Ed. A. Bannister, et al. Listening to Children. London: Longman, 1990. Scott E. Donald. “Exploring Communication Patterns within and across a School and Associated Agencies to Increase the Effectiveness of Service to At-Risk Individuals.” MS Thesis, Curtin University of Technology, August 2005. The Age. “Investing in People Means Investing in the Future.” The Age 5 March, 2005. 15 April 2006 http://www.theage.com.au>. Watson, Malcolm, et al. “Pathways to Aggression in Children and Adolescents.” Harvard Educational Review, 74.4 (Winter 2004): 404-428. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kabir, Nahid, and Mark Balnaves. "Students “at Risk”: Dilemmas of Collaboration." M/C Journal 9.2 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/04-kabirbalnaves.php>. APA Style Kabir, N., and M. Balnaves. (May 2006) "Students “at Risk”: Dilemmas of Collaboration," M/C Journal, 9(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/04-kabirbalnaves.php>.

Abstract:

“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them [...] life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” (Garcia Marquez 165) Introduction The refugee experience is, at heart, one of rebirth. Just as becoming a new, distinctive being—biological birth—necessarily involves the physical separation of mother and infant, so becoming a refugee entails separation from a "mother country." This mother country may or may not be a recognised nation state; the point is that the refugee transitions from physical connectedness to separation, from insider to outsider, from endemic to alien. Like babies, refugees may have little control over the timing and conditions of their expulsion. Successful resettlement requires not one rebirth but multiple rebirths—resettlement is a lifelong process (Layton)—which in turn require hope, imagination, and energy. In rebirthing themselves over and over again, people who have fled or been forced from their homelands become both mother and child. They do not go through this rebirthing alone. A range of agencies and individuals may be there to assist, including immigration officials, settlement services, schools and teachers, employment agencies and employers, English as a Second Language (ESL) resources and instructors, health-care providers, counsellors, diasporic networks, neighbours, church groups, and other community organisations. The nature, intensity, and duration of these “midwives’” interventions—and when they occur and in what combinations—vary hugely from place to place and from person to person, but there is clear evidence that post-migration experiences have a significant impact on settlement outcomes (Fozdar and Hartley). This paper draws on qualitative research I did in 2012 in a regional town in New South Wales to illuminate some of the ways in which settlement aides ease, or impede, refugees’ rebirth as fully recognised and participating Australians. I begin by considering what it means to be resilient before tracing some of the dimensions of the resettlement process. In doing so, I draw on data from interviews and focus groups with former refugees, service providers, and other residents of the town I shall call Easthaven. First, though, a word about Easthaven. As is the case in many rural and regional parts of Australia, Easthaven’s population is strongly dominated by Anglo Celtic and Saxon ancestries: 2011 Census data show that more than 80 per cent of residents were born in Australia (compared with a national figure of 69.8 per cent) and about 90 per cent speak only English at home (76.8 per cent). Almost twice as many people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander as the national figure of 2.5 per cent (Australian Bureau of Statistics). For several years Easthaven has been an official “Refugee Welcome Zone”, welcoming hundreds of refugees from diverse countries in Africa and the Middle East as well as from Myanmar. This reflects the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s drive to settle a fifth of Australia’s 13,750 humanitarian entrants a year directly in regional areas. In Easthaven’s schools—which is where I focused my research—almost all of the ESL students are from refugee backgrounds. Defining Resilience Much of the research on human resilience is grounded in psychology, with a capacity to “bounce back” from adverse experiences cited in many definitions of resilience (e.g. American Psychological Association). Bouncing back implies a relatively quick process, and a return to a state or form similar to that which existed before the encounter with adversity. Yet resilience often requires sustained effort and significant changes in identity. As Jerome Rugaruza, a former UNHCR refugee, says of his journey from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Australia: All the steps begin in the burning village: you run with nothing to eat, no clothes. You just go. Then you get to the refugee camp […] You have a little bread and you thank god you are safe. Then after a few years in the camp, you think about a future for your children. You arrive in Australia and then you learn a new language, you learn to drive. There are so many steps and not everyone can do it. (Milsom) Not everyone can do it, but a large majority do. Research by Graeme Hugo, for example, shows that although humanitarian settlers in Australia face substantial barriers to employment and initially have much higher unemployment rates than other immigrants, for most nationality groups this difference has disappeared by the second generation: “This is consistent with the sacrifice (or investment) of the first generation and the efforts extended to attain higher levels of education and English proficiency, thereby reducing the barriers over time.” (Hugo 35). Ingrid Poulson writes that “resilience is not just about bouncing. Bouncing […] is only a reaction. Resilience is about rising—you rise above it, you rise to the occasion, you rise to the challenge. Rising is an active choice” (47; my emphasis) I see resilience as involving mental and physical grit, coupled with creativity, aspiration and, crucially, agency. Dimensions of Resettlement To return to the story of 41-year-old Jerome Rugaruza, as related in a recent newspaper article: He [Mr Rugaruza] describes the experience of being a newly arrived refugee as being like that of a newborn baby. “You need special care; you have to learn to speak [English], eat the different food, create relationships, connections”. (Milsom) This is a key dimension of resettlement: the adult becomes like an infant again, shifting from someone who knows how things work and how to get by to someone who is likely to be, for a while, dependent on others for even the most basic things—communication, food, shelter, clothing, and social contact. The “special care” that most refugee arrivals need initially (and sometimes for a long time) often results in their being seen as deficient—in knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capacities as well as material goods (Keddie; Uptin, Wright and Harwood). As Fozdar and Hartley note: “The tendency to use a deficit model in refugee resettlement devalues people and reinforces the view of the mainstream population that refugees are a liability” (27). Yet unlike newborns, humanitarian settlers come to their new countries with rich social networks and extensive histories of experience and learning—resources that are in fact vital to their rebirth. Sisay (all names are pseudonyms), a year 11 student of Ethiopian heritage who was born in Kenya, told me with feeling: I had a life back in Africa [her emphasis]. It was good. Well, I would go back there if there’s no problems, which—is a fact. And I came here for a better life—yeah, I have a better life, there’s good health care, free school, and good environment and all that. But what’s that without friends? A fellow student, Celine, who came to Australia five years ago from Burundi via Uganda, told me in a focus group: Some teachers are really good but I think some other teachers could be a little bit more encouraging and understanding of what we’ve gone through, because [they] just look at you like “You’re year 11 now, you should know this” […] It’s really discouraging when [the teachers say] in front of the class, “Oh, you shouldn’t do this subject because you haven’t done this this this this” […] It’s like they’re on purpose to tell you “you don’t have what it takes; just give up and do something else.” As Uptin, Wright and Harwood note, “schools not only have the power to position who is included in schooling (in culture and pedagogy) but also have the power to determine whether there is room and appreciation for diversity” (126). Both Sisay and Celine were disheartened by the fact they felt some of their teachers, and many of their peers, had little interest in or understanding of their lives before they came to Australia. The teachers’ low expectations of refugee-background students (Keddie, Uptin, Wright and Harwood) contrasted with the students’ and their families’ high expectations of themselves (Brown, Miller and Mitchell; Harris and Marlowe). When I asked Sisay about her post-school ambitions, she said: “I have a good idea of my future […] write a documentary. And I’m working on it.” Celine’s response was: “I know I’m gonna do medicine, be a doctor.” A third girl, Lily, who came to Australia from Myanmar three years ago, told me she wanted to be an accountant and had studied accounting at the local TAFE last year. Joseph, a father of three who resettled from South Sudan seven years ago, stressed how important getting a job was to successful settlement: [But] you have to get a certificate first to get a job. Even the job of cleaning—when I came here I was told that somebody has to go to have training in cleaning, to use the different chemicals to clean the ground and all that. But that is just sweeping and cleaning with water—you don’t need the [higher-level] skills. Simple jobs like this, we are not able to get them. In regional Australia, employment opportunities tend to be limited (Fozdar and Hartley); the unemployment rate in Easthaven is twice the national average. Opportunities to study are also more limited than in urban centres, and would-be students are not always eligible for financial assistance to gain or upgrade qualifications. Even when people do have appropriate qualifications, work experience, and language proficiency, the colour of their skin may still mean they miss out on a job. Tilbury and Colic-Peisker have documented the various ways in which employers deflect responsibility for racial discrimination, including the “common” strategy (658) of arguing that while the employer or organisation is not prejudiced, they have to discriminate because of their clients’ needs or expectations. I heard this strategy deployed in an interview with a local businesswoman, Catriona: We were advertising for a new technician. And one of the African refugees came to us and he’d had a lot of IT experience. And this is awful, but we felt we couldn't give him the job, because we send our technicians into people's houses, and we knew that if a black African guy rocked up at someone’s house to try and fix their computer, they would not always be welcomed in all—look, it would not be something that [Easthaven] was ready for yet. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (Refugees and Employment) note that while Australia has strict anti-discrimination legislation, this legislation may be of little use to the people who, because of the way they look and sound (skin colour, dress, accent), are most likely to face prejudice and discrimination. The researchers found that perceived discrimination in the labour market affected humanitarian settlers’ sense of satisfaction with their new lives far more than, for example, racist remarks, which were generally shrugged off; the students I interviewed spoke of racism as “expected,” but “quite rare.” Most of the people Colic-Peisker and Tilbury surveyed reported finding Australians “friendly and accepting” (33). Even if there is no active discrimination on the basis of skin colour in employment, education, or housing, or overt racism in social situations, visible difference can still affect a person’s sense of belonging, as Joseph recounts: I think of myself as Australian, but my colour doesn’t [laughs] […] Unfortunately many, many Australians are expecting that Australia is a country of Europeans … There is no need for somebody to ask “Where do you come from?” and “Do you find Australia here safe?” and “Do you enjoy it?” Those kind of questions doesn’t encourage that we are together. This highlights another dimension of resettlement: the journey from feeling “at home” to feeling “foreign” to, eventually, feeling at home again in the host country (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, Refugees and Employment). In the case of visibly different settlers, however, this last stage may never be completed. Whether the questions asked of Joseph are well intentioned or not, their effect may be the same: they position him as a “forever foreigner” (Park). A further dimension of resettlement—one already touched on—is the degree to which humanitarian settlers actively manage their “rebirth,” and are allowed and encouraged to do so. A key factor will be their mastery of English, and Easthaven’s ESL teachers are thus pivotal in the resettlement process. There is little doubt that many of these teachers have gone to great lengths to help this cohort of students, not only in terms of language acquisition but also social inclusion. However, in some cases what is initially supportive can, with time, begin to undermine refugees’ maturity into independent citizens. Sharon, an ESL teacher at one of the schools, told me how she and her colleagues would give their refugee-background students lifts to social events: But then maybe three years down the track they have a car and their dad can drive, but they still won’t take them […] We arrive to pick them up and they’re not ready, or there’s five fantastic cars in the driveway, and you pick up the student and they say “My dad’s car’s much bigger and better than yours” [laughs]. So there’s an expectation that we’ll do stuff for them, but we’ve created that [my emphasis]. Other support services may have more complex interests in keeping refugee settlers dependent. The more clients an agency has, the more services it provides, and the longer clients stay on its books, the more lucrative the contract for the agency. Thus financial and employment imperatives promote competition rather than collaboration between service providers (Fozdar and Hartley; Sidhu and Taylor) and may encourage assumptions about what sorts of services different individuals and groups want and need. Colic-Peisker and Tilbury (“‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”) have developed a typology of resettlement styles—“achievers,” “consumers,” “endurers,” and “victims”—but stress that a person’s style, while influenced by personality and pre-migration factors, is also shaped by the institutions and individuals they come into contact with: “The structure of settlement and welfare services may produce a victim mentality, leaving members of refugee communities inert and unable to see themselves as agents of change” (76). The prevailing narrative of “the traumatised refugee” is a key aspect of this dynamic (Colic-Peisker and Tilbury, “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement”; Fozdar and Hartley; Keddie). Service providers may make assumptions about what humanitarian settlers have gone through before arriving in Australia, how they have been affected by their experiences, and what must be done to “fix” them. Norah, a long-time caseworker, told me: I think you get some [providers] who go, “How could you have gone through something like that and not suffered? There must be—you must have to talk about this stuff” […] Where some [refugees] just come with the [attitude] “We’re all born into a situation; that was my situation, but I’m here now and now my focus is this.” She cited failure to consider cultural sensitivities around mental illness and to recognise that stress and anxiety during early resettlement are normal (Tilbury) as other problems in the sector: [Newly arrived refugees] go through the “happy to be here” [phase] and now “hang on, I’ve thumped to the bottom and I’m missing my own foods and smells and cultures and experiences”. I think sometimes we’re just too quick to try and slot people into a box. One factor that appears to be vital in fostering and sustaining resilience is social connection. Norah said her clients were “very good on the mobile phone” and had links “everywhere,” including to family and friends in their countries of birth, transition countries, and other parts of Australia. A 2011 report for DIAC, Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals, found that humanitarian entrants to Australia were significantly more likely to be members of cultural and/or religious groups than other categories of immigrants (Australian Survey Research). I found many examples of efforts to build both bonding and bridging capital (Putnam) in Easthaven, and I offer two examples below. Several people told me about a dinner-dance that had been held a few weeks before one of my visits. The event was organised by an African women’s group, which had been formed—with funding assistance—several years before. The dinner-dance was advertised in the local newspaper and attracted strong interest from a broad cross-section of Easthaveners. To Debbie, a counsellor, the response signified a “real turnaround” in community relations and was a big boon to the women’s sense of belonging. Erica, a teacher, told me about a cultural exchange day she had organised between her bush school—where almost all of the children are Anglo Australian—and ESL students from one of the town schools: At the start of the day, my kids were looking at [the refugee-background students] and they were scared, they were saying to me, "I feel scared." And we shoved them all into this tiny little room […] and they had no choice but to sit practically on top of each other. And by the end of the day, they were hugging each other and braiding their hair and jumping and playing together. Like Uptin, Wright and Harwood, I found that the refugee-background students placed great importance on the social aspects of school. Sisay, the girl I introduced earlier in this paper, said: “It’s just all about friendship and someone to be there for you […] We try to be friends with them [the non-refugee students] sometimes but sometimes it just seems they don’t want it.” Conclusion A 2012 report on refugee settlement services in NSW concludes that the state “is not meeting its responsibility to humanitarian entrants as well as it could” (Audit Office of New South Wales 2); moreover, humanitarian settlers in NSW are doing less well on indicators such as housing and health than humanitarian settlers in other states (3). Evaluating the effectiveness of formal refugee-centred programs was not part of my research and is beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, I have sought to reveal some of the ways in which the attitudes, assumptions, and everyday practices of service providers and members of the broader community impact on refugees' settlement experience. What I heard repeatedly in the interviews I conducted was that it was emotional and practical support (Matthews; Tilbury), and being asked as well as told (about their hopes, needs, desires), that helped Easthaven’s refugee settlers bear themselves into fulfilling new lives. References Audit Office of New South Wales. Settling Humanitarian Entrants in New South Wales—Executive Summary. May 2012. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/245/02_Humanitarian_Entrants_2012_Executive_Summary.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y>. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2011 Census QuickStats. Mar. 2013. 11 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0>. Australian Survey Research. Settlement Outcomes of New Arrivals—Report of Findings. Apr. 2011. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/settlement-outcomes-new-arrivals.pdf>. Brown, Jill, Jenny Miller, and Jane Mitchell. “Interrupted Schooling and the Acquisition of Literacy: Experiences of Sudanese Refugees in Victorian Secondary Schools.” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 29.2 (2006): 150-62. Colic-Peisker, Val, and Farida Tilbury. “‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ Resettlement: The Influence of Supporting Services and Refugees’ Own Resources on Resettlement Style.” International Migration 41.5 (2004): 61-91. ———. Refugees and Employment: The Effect of Visible Difference on Discrimination—Final Report. Perth: Centre for Social and Community Research, Murdoch University, 2007. Fozdar, Farida, and Lisa Hartley. “Refugee Resettlement in Australia: What We Know and Need To Know.” Refugee Survey Quarterly 4 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/search?fulltext=fozdar&submit=yes&x=0&y=0>. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera. London: Penguin Books, 1989. Harris, Vandra, and Jay Marlowe. “Hard Yards and High Hopes: The Educational Challenges of African Refugee University Students in Australia.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 23.2 (2011): 186-96. Hugo, Graeme. A Significant Contribution: The Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation Humanitarian Entrants—Summary of Findings. Canberra: Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011. Keddie, Amanda. “Pursuing Justice for Refugee Students: Addressing Issues of Cultural (Mis)recognition.” International Journal of Inclusive Education 16.12 (2012): 1295-1310. Layton, Robyn. "Building Capacity to Ensure the Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups." Creating Our Future conference, Adelaide, 28 Jul. 2012. Milsom, Rosemarie. “From Hard Luck Life to the Lucky Country.” Sydney Morning Herald 20 Jun. 2013. 12 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.smh.com.au/national/from-hard-luck-life-to-the-lucky-country-20130619-2oixl.html>. Park, Gilbert C. “’Are We Real Americans?’: Cultural Production of Forever Foreigners at a Diversity Event.” Education and Urban Society 43.4 (2011): 451-67. Poulson, Ingrid. Rise. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008. Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Sidhu, Ravinder K., and Sandra Taylor. “The Trials and Tribulations of Partnerships in Refugee Settlement Services in Australia.” Journal of Education Policy 24.6 (2009): 655-72. Tilbury, Farida. “‘I Feel I Am a Bird without Wings’: Discourses of Sadness and Loss among East Africans in Western Australia.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 14.4 (2007): 433-58. ———, and Val Colic-Peisker. “Deflecting Responsibility in Employer Talk about Race Discrimination.” Discourse & Society 17.5 (2006): 651-76. Uptin, Jonnell, Jan Wright, and Valerie Harwood. “It Felt Like I Was a Black Dot on White Paper: Examining Young Former Refugees’ Experience of Entering Australian High Schools.” The Australian Educational Researcher 40.1 (2013): 125-37.

Abstract:

Introduction In an era of upheaval and uncertainty for higher education institutions around the world, scholars, like those in many in other professions, are increasingly using social media to build communities around mutual support and professional development. These communities appear to offer opportunities for participants to exert more positive influence over the types of interactions they engage in with colleagues, in many cases being valued as more altruistic, transformational, or supportive than established academic structures (Gibson, and Gibbs; Mewburn, and Thomson; Maitzen). What has been described as ‘digital scholarship’ applies social media to “different facets of scholarly activity in a helpful and productive way” (Carrigan 5), with online scholarly communities being likened to evolutions of face-to-face practices including peer mentoring (Ferguson, and Wheat) or a “virtual staffroom” (Mewburn, and Thomson). To a large extent, these accounts of scholarly practice adapted for digital media have resonance. From writing groups (O’Dwyer, McDonough, Jefferson, Goff, and Redman-MacLaren) to conference attendance (Spilker, Silva, and Morgado) and funding (Osimo, Priego, and Vuorikari), the transformational possibilities of social media have been applied to almost every facet of existing academic practices. These practices have increasingly attracted scrutiny from higher education institutions, with social media profiles of staff both a potential asset and risk to institutions’ brands. Around the world, institutions use social media for marketing, student recruitment, student support and alumni communication (Palmer). As such, social media policies have emerged in recent years in attempts to ensure staff engage in ways that align with the interests of their employers (Solberg; Carrigan). However, engagement via social media is also still largely considered “supplementary to ‘real’ scholarly work” (Mussell 347).Paralleling this trend, guides to effectively managing an online profile as a component of professional reputation have also become increasingly common (e.g. Carrigan). While public relations and management literatures have approached reputation management in terms of how an organisation is regarded by its multiple stakeholders (Fombrun) this is increasingly being applied to individuals on social media. According to Gandini a “reputation economy” (22) has come to function for knowledge workers who seek to cultivate a reputation as a good community member through sociality in order to secure more (or better) work.The popularity of professional social media communities and scrutiny of participants raises questions about the work involved in building and participating in them. This article explores these questions through analysis of tweets from the first year of #ECRchat, a Twitter group for early career researchers (ECRs). The group was established in 2012 to provide an opportunity for ECRs (typically within five years of PhD completion) to discuss career-related issues. Since it was founded, the group has been administered through partnerships between early career scholars using a Twitter account (@ECRchat) and a blog. Tweets, the posts of 140 characters or fewer, which appear on a user’s profile and in followers’ feeds (Twitter) are organised into a ‘chat’ by participants through the use of the hashtag ‘#ECRchat’. Participants vote on chat topics and take on the role of hosting on a volunteer basis. The explicit career focus of this group provides an ideal case study to explore how work is represented in an online professionally-focused community, in order to reflect on what this might mean for the norms of knowledge work.Digital Labour The impact of Internet Communication Technologies (ICT), including social media, on the lives of workers has long been a source of both concern and hope. Mobile devices, wireless Internet and associated communications software enable increasing numbers of people to take work home. This flexibility has been welcomed as the means by which workers might more successfully access jobs and manage competing commitments (Raja, Imaizumi, Kelly, Narimatsu, and Paradi-Guilford). However, hours worked from home are often unpaid and carry with them a strong likelihood of interfering with rest, recreation and family time (Pocock and Skinner). Melissa Gregg describes this as “presence bleed” (2): the dilutions of focus from everyday activities as workers increasingly use electronic devices to ‘check in’ during non-work time. Moving beyond the limitations of this work-life balance approach, which tends to over-state divisions between employment and other everyday life practices, a growing literature seeks to address work in online environments by analysing the types of labour being practiced, rather than seeing such practices as adjunct to physical workplaces. Responding to claims that digital communication heralds a new age of greater freedom, creativity and democratic participation, this work draws attention to the reliance of such networks on unpaid labour (e.g. Hearn; Hesmondhalgh) with ratings, reviews and relationship maintenance serving business’ economic ends alongside the individual interests which motivate participants. The immaterial, affective, and often precarious labour that has been observed is “simultaneously voluntarily given and unwaged, enjoyed and exploited” (Terranova). This work builds particularly on feminist analysis of work (see McRobbie for a discussion of this), with behind the scenes moderator, convenor, and community builder roles largely female and largely unrecognised, be they activist (Gleeson), creative (Duffy) or consumer (Arcy) groups. For some, this suggests the emergence of a new ‘women’s work’ of affective immaterial labour which goes into building transformational communities (Jarrett). Yet, digital labour has not yet been foregrounded within research into higher education, where it is largely practiced in the messy intersections of employment, unpaid professional development, and leisure. Joyce Goggin argues that convergence of these spheres is a feature of digital labour. Consequently, this article seeks to add a consideration of digital labour, specifically the cultural politics of work that emerge in these spaces, to the literature on digital practices as a translation of existing academic responsibilities online. In the context of widespread concerns over academic workload and job market (Bentley, Coates, Dobson, Goedegebuure, and Meek) and the growing international engagement and impact agenda (Priem, Piwowar, and Hemminger), it raises questions about the implications of these practices. Researching Twitter Communities This article analyses tweets from the publicly available Twitter timeline, containing the hashtag #ECRchat, during scheduled chats, from 1 July 2012 to 31 July 2013 (the first year of operation). Initially, all tweets in this time period were analysed in anonymised form to determine the most commonly mentioned topics during chats. This content analysis removed the most common English language words, such as: the; it; I; and RT (which stands for retweet), which would otherwise appear as top results in almost any content analysis regardless of the community of interest. This was followed by qualitative analysis of tweets, to explore in more depth how important issues were articulated and rationalised within the group. This draws on Catherine Driscoll’s and Melissa Gregg’s idea of “sympathetic online cultural studies” which seeks to explore online communities first and foremost as communities rather than as exemplars of online communications (15-20). Here, a narrative approach was undertaken to analyse how participants curated, made sense of, and explained their own career stories (drawing on Pamphilon). Although I do not claim that participants are representative of all ECRs, or that the ideas given the most attention during chats are representative of the experiences of all participants, representations of work articulated here are suggestive of the kinds of public utterances that were considered reasonable within this open online space. Participants are identified according to the twitter handle and user name they had chosen to use for the chats being analysed. This is because the practical infeasibility of guaranteeing online anonymity (readers need only to Google the text of any tweet to associate it with a particular user, in most cases) and the importance of actively involving participants as agents in the research process, in part by identifying them as authors of their own stories, rather than informants (e.g. Butz; Evans; Svalastog and Eriksson).Representations of Work in #ECRchat The co-creation of the #ECRchat community through participant hosts and community votes on chat topics gave rise to a discussion group that was heavily focused on ‘the work’ of academia, including its importance in the lives of participants, relative appeal over other options, and negative effects on leisure time. I was clear that participants regarded participation as serving their professional interests, despite participation not being paid or formally recognised by employers. With the exception of two discussions focused on making decisions about the future of the group, #ECRchat discussions during the year of analysis focused on topics designed to help participants succeed at work such as “career progression and planning”, “different routes to postdoc funding”, and “collaboration”. At a micro-level, ‘work’ (and related terms) was the most frequently used term in #ECRchat, with its total number of uses (1372) almost double that of research (700), the next most used term. Comments during the chats reiterated this emphasis: “It’s all about the work. Be decent to people and jump through the hoops you need to, but always keep your eyes on the work” (Magennis).The depth of participants’ commitment comes through strongly in discussions comparing academic work with other options: “pretty much everyone I know with ‘real jobs’ hates their work. I feel truly lucky to say that I love mine #ECRchat” (McGettigan). This was seen in particular in the discussion about ‘careers outside academia’. Hashtags such as #altac (referring to alternative-academic careers such as university research support or learning and teaching administration roles) and #postac (referring to PhD holders working outside of universities in research or non-research roles) used both alongside the #ECRchat hashtag and separately, provide an ongoing site of these kinds of representations. While participants in #ECRchat sought to shift this perception and were critically aware that it could lead to undesirable outcomes: “PhDs and ECRs in Humanities don’t seem to consider working outside of academia – that limits their engagement with training #ECRchat” (Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester), such discussions frequently describe alternative academic careers as a ‘backup plan’, should academic employment not be found. Additionally, many participants suggested that their working hours were excessive, extending the professional into personal spaces and times in ways that they did not see as positive. This was often described as the only way to achieve success: “I hate to say it, but one of the best ways to improve track record is to work 70+ hours a week, every week. Forever. #ecrchat” (Dunn). One of the key examples of this dynamic was the scheduling of the chat itself. When founded in 2012, #ECRchat ran in the Australian evening and UK morning, eliding the personal/work distinction for both its coordinators and participants. While considerable discussion was concerned with scheduling the chat during times when a large number of international participants could attend, this discussion centred on waking rather than working hours. The use of scheduled tweets and shared work between convenors in different time zones (Australia and the United Kingdom) maintained an around the clock online presence, extending well beyond the ordinary working hours of any individual participant.Personal Disclosure The norms that were articulated in #ECRchat are perhaps not surprising for a group of participants seeking to establish themselves in a profession where a long-hours culture and work-life interference are common (Bentley, Coates, Dobson, Goedegebuure, and Meek). However, what is notable is that participation frequently involved the extension of the personal into the professional and in support of professional aims. In the chat’s first year, an element of personal disclosure and support for others became key to acting as a good community member. Beyond the well-established norms of white collar workers demonstrating professionalism by deploying “courtesy, helpfulness, and kindness” (Mills xvii), this community building relied on personal disclosure which to some extent collapsed personal and professional boundaries.By disclosing individual struggles, anxieties, and past experiences participants contributed to a culture of support. This largely functioned through discussions of work stress rather than leisure: “I definitely don’t have [work-life balance]. I think it’s because I don’t have a routine so work and home constantly blend into one another” (Feely). Arising from these discussions, ideas to help participants better navigate and build academic careers was one of the main ways this community support and concern was practiced: “I think I’m often more productive and less anxious if I'm working on a couple of things in parallel, too #ecrchat” (Brian).Activities such as preparing meals, caring for family, and leisure activities, became part of the discussion. “@snarkyphd Sorry, late, had to deal with toddler. Also new; currently doing casual teaching/industry work & applying for postdocs #ecrchat” (Ronald). Exclusively professional profiles were considered less engaging than the combination of personal and professional that most participants adopted: “@jeanmadams I’ve answered a few queries on ResearchGate, but agree lack of non-work opinions / personality makes them dull #ecrchat” (Tennant). However, this is not to suggest that these networks become indistinguishable from more informal, personal, or leisurely uses of social media: “@networkedres My ‘professional’ online identity is slightly more guarded than my ‘facebook’ id which is for friends and family #ECRchat” (Wheat). Instead, disclosure of certain kinds of work struggles came to function as a positive contribution to a more reflexive professionalism. In the context of work-focused discussion, #ECRchat opens important spaces for scholars to question norms they considered damaging or at least make these tacit norms explicit and receive support to manage them. Affective Labour The professional goals and focus of #ECRchat, combined with the personal support and disclosure that forms the basis for the supportive elements in this group is arguably one of its strongest and most important elements. Mark Carrigan suggests that the practices of revealing something of the struggles we experience could form the basis for a new collegiality, where common experiences which had previously not been discussed publicly are for the first time recognised as systemic, not individual challenges. However, there is work required to provide context and support for these emotional experiences which is largely invisible here, as has typically been the case in other communities. Such ‘affective labour’ “involves the production and manipulation of affect and requires (virtual or actual) human contact, labour in the bodily mode … the labour is immaterial, even if it is corporeal and affective, in the sense that its products are intangible, a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement or passion” (Hardt, and Negri 292). In #ECRchat, this ranges from managing the schedule and organising discussions – which involves following up offers to help, assisting people to understand the task, and then ensuring things go ahead as planned –to support offered by members of the group within discussions. This occurs in the overlaps between personal and professional representations, taking a variety of forms from everyday reassurance, affirmation, and patience: “Sorry to hear - hang in there. Hope you have a good support network. #ECRchat” (Galea) to empathy often articulated alongside the disclosure discussed earlier: “The feeling of guilt over not working sounds VERY familiar! #ecrchat” (Vredeveldt).The point here is not to suggest that this work is not sufficiently valued by participants, or that it does not parallel the kinds of work undertaken in more formal job roles, including in academia, where management, conference convening or participation in professional societies, and teaching, as just a few examples, involve degrees of affective labour. However, as a consequence of the (semi)public nature of these groups, the interactions observed here appear to represent a new inflection of professional reputation work, where, in building online professional communities, individuals peg their professional reputations to these forms of affective labour. Importantly, given the explicitly professional nature of the group, these efforts are not counted as part of the formal workload of those involved, be they employed (temporarily or more securely) inside or outside universities, or not in the paid workforce. Conclusion A growing body of literature demonstrates that online academic communities can provide opportunities for collegiality, professional development, and support: particularly among emerging scholars. These accounts demonstrate the value of digital scholarly practices across a range of academic work. However, this article’s discussion of the work undertaken to build and maintain #ECRchat in its first year suggests that these practices at the messy intersections of employment, unpaid professional development, and leisure constitute a new inflection of professional reputation and service work. This work involves publicly building a reputation as a good community member through a combination of personal disclosure and affective labour.In the context of growing emphasis on the economic, social, and other impacts of academic research and concerns over work intensification, this raises questions about possible scope for, and impact of, formal recognition of digital academic labour. While institutions’ work planning and promotion processes may provide opportunities to recognise work developing professional societies or conferences as a leadership or service to a discipline, this new digital service work remains outside the purview of such recognition and reward systems. Further research into the relationships between academic reputation and digital labour will be needed to explore the implications of this for institutions and academics alike. 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Abstract:

Introduction As the country with the fifth largest population in the world, Indonesia is a massive potential market for mobile technology adoption and development. Despite an annual per capita income of only $1,280 USD (World Bank), there are 63 million mobile phone users in Indonesia (Suhartono, sec. 1.7) and it is predicted to reach 80 million in 2007 (Jakarta Post 1). Mobile phones are not only a symbol of Indonesian modernity (Barendregt 5), but like other communication technology can become a platform through which to explore socio-political issues (Winner 28). In this article we explore the role mobile phone technology in contemporary forms of social, intimate, and sexual relationships in Indonesia. We argue that new forms of expression and relations are facilitated by the particular features of mobile technology. We discuss two cases from contemporary Indonesia: a mobile dating service (BEDD) and mobile phone pornography. For each case study, we first discuss the socio-political background in Indonesia, then describe the technological affordances of the mobile phone which facilitate dating and pornography, and finally give examples of how the mobile phone is effecting change in dating and pornographic practices. This study is placed at a time when social relations, intimacy, and sexuality in Indonesia have become central public issues. Since the end of the New Order whilst many people have embraced the new freedoms of reformasi and democratization, there is also a high degree of social anxiety, tension and uncertainty (Juliastuti 139-40). These social changes and desires have played out in the formations of new and exciting modes of creativity, solidarity, and sociality (Heryanto and Hadiz 262) and equally violence, terror and criminality (Heryanto and Hadiz 256). The diverse and plural nature of Indonesian society is alive with a myriad of people and activities, and it is into this diverse social body that the mobile phone has become a central and prominent feature of interaction. The focus of our study is dating and pornography as mediated by the mobile phone; however, we do not suggest that these are new experiences in Indonesia. Rather over the last decade social, intimate, and sexual relationships have all been undergoing change and their motivations can be traced to a variety of sources including the factors of globalization, democratization and modernization. Throughout Asia “new media have become a crucial site for constituting new Asian sexual identities and communities” (Berry, Martin, and Yue 13) as people are connecting through new communication technologies. In this article we suggest that mobile phone technology opens new possibilities and introduces new channels, dynamics, and intensities of social interaction. Mobile phones are particularly powerful communication tools because of their mobility, accessibility, and convergence (Ling 16-19; Ito 14-15; Katz and Aakhus 303). These characteristics of mobile phones do not in and of themselves bring about any particular changes in dating and pornography, but they may facilitate changes already underway (Barendegt 7-9; Barker 9). Mobile Dating Background The majority of Indonesians in the 1960s and 1970s had arranged marriages (Smith-Hefner 443). Education reform during the 70s and 80s encouraged more women to attain an education which in turn led to the delaying of marriage and the changing of courtship practices (Smith-Hefner 450). “Compared to previous generations, [younger Indonesians] are freer to mix with the opposite sex and to choose their own marriage,” (Utomo 225). Modern courtship in Java is characterized by “self-initiated romance” and dating (Smith-Hefner 451). Mobile technology is beginning to play a role in initiating romance between young Indonesians. Technology One mobile matching or dating service available in Indonesia is called BEDD (www.bedd.com). BEDD is a free software for mobile phones in which users fill out a profile about themselves and can meet BEDD members who are within 20-30 feet using a Bluetooth connection on their mobile devices. BEDD members’ phones automatically exchange profile information so that users can easily meet new people who match their profile requests. BEDD calls itself mobile social networking community; “BEDD is a new Bluetooth enabled mobile social medium that allows people to meet, interact and communicate in a new way by letting their mobile phones do all the work as they go throughout their day.” As part of a larger project on mobile social networking (Humphreys 6), a field study was conducted of BEDD users in Jakarta, Indonesia and Singapore (where BEDD is based) in early 2006. In-depth interviews and open-ended user surveys were conducted with users, BEDD’s CEO and strategic partners in order to understand the social uses and effects BEDD. The majority of BEDD members (which topped 100,000 in January 2006) are in Indonesia thanks to a partnership with Nokia where BEDD came pre-installed on several phone models. In management interviews, both BEDD and Nokia explained that they partnered because both companies want to help “build community”. They felt that Bluetooth technology such as BEDD could be used to help youth meet new people and keep in touch with old friends. Examples One of BEDD’s functions is to help lower barriers to social interaction in public spaces. By sharing profile information and allowing for free text messaging, BEDD can facilitate conversations between BEDD members. According to users, mediating the initial conversation also helps to alleviate social anxiety, which often accompanies meeting new people. While social mingling and hanging out between Jakarta teenagers is a relatively common practice, one user said that BEDD provides a new and fun way to meet and flirt. In a society that must balance between an “idealized morality” and an increasingly sexualized popular culture (Utomo 226), BEDD provides a modern mode of self-initiated matchmaking. While BEDD was originally intended to aid in the matchmaking process of dating, it has been appropriated into everyday life in Indonesia because of its interpretive flexibility (Pinch & Bjiker 27). Though BEDD is certainly used to meet “beautiful girls” (according to one Indonesian male user), it is also commonly used to text message old friends. One member said he uses BEDD to text his friends in class when the lecture gets boring. BEDD appears to be a helpful modern communication tool when people are physically proximate but cannot easily talk to one another. BEDD can become a covert way to exchange messages with people nearby for free. Another potential explanation for BEDD’s increasing popularity is its ability to allow users to have private conversations in public space. Bennett notes that courtship in private spaces is seen as dangerous because it may lead to sexual impropriety (154). Dating and courtship in public spaces are seen as safer, particularly for conserving the reputation young Indonesian women. Therefore Bluetooth connections via mobile technologies can be a tool to make private social connections between young men and women “safer”. Bluetooth communication via mobile phones has also become prevalent in more conservative Muslim societies (Sullivan, par. 7; Braude, par. 3). There are, however, safety concerns about meeting strangers in public spaces. When asked, “What advice would you give a first time BEDD user?” one respondent answered, “harus bisa mnilai seseorang krn itu sangat penting, kita mnilai seseorang bukan cuma dari luarnya” (translated: be careful in evaluating (new) people, and don’t ever judge the book by its cover”). Nevertheless, only one person participating in this study mentioned this concern. To some degree meeting someone in a public may be safer than meeting someone in an online environment. Not only are there other people around in public spaces to physically observe, but co-location means there may be some accountability for how BEDD members present themselves. The development and adoption of matchmaking services such as BEDD suggests that the role of the mobile phone in Indonesia is not just to communicate with friends and family but to act as a modern social networking tool as well. For young Indonesians BEDD can facilitate the transfer of social information so as to encourage the development of new social ties. That said, there is still debate about exactly whom BEDD is connecting and for what purposes. On one hand, BEDD could help build community in Indonesia. One the other hand, because of its privacy it could become a tool for more promiscuous activities (Bennett 154-5). There are user profiles to suggest that people are using BEDD for both purposes. For example, note what four young women in Jakarta wrote in the BEDD profiles: Personal Description Looking For I am a good prayer, recite the holy book, love saving (money), love cycling… and a bit narcist. Meaning of life Ordinary gurl, good student, single, Owen lover, and the rest is up to you to judge. Phrenz ?! Peace?! Wondeful life! I am talkative, have no patience but so sweet. I am so girly, narcist, shy and love cute guys. Check my fs (Friendster) account if you’re so curious. Well, I am just an ordinary girl tho. Anybody who wants to know me. A boy friend would be welcomed. Play Station addict—can’t live without it! I am a rebel, love rock, love hiphop, naughty, if you want proof dial 081********* phrenz n cute guyz As these profiles suggest, the technology can be used to send different kinds of messages. The mobile phone and the BEDD software merely facilitate the process of social exchange, but what Indonesians use it for is up to them. Thus BEDD and the mobile phone become tools through which Indonesians can explore their identities. BEDD can be used in a variety of social and communicative contexts to allow users to explore their modern, social freedoms. Mobile Pornography Background Mobile phone pornography builds on a long tradition of pornography and sexually explicit material in Indonesia through the use of a new technology for an old art and product. Indonesia has a rich sexual history with a documented and prevalent sex industry (Suryakusuma 115). Lesmana suggests that the country has a tenuous pornographic industry prone to censorship and nationalist politics intent on its destruction. Since the end of the New Order and opening of press freedoms there has been a proliferation in published material including a mushrooming of tabloids, men’s magazines such as FHM, Maxim and Playboy, which are often regarded as pornographic. This is attributed to the decline of the power of the bureaucracy and government and the new role of capital in the formation of culture (Chua 16). There is a parallel pornography industry, however, that is more amateur, local, and homemade (Barker 6). It is into this range of material that mobile phone pornography falls. Amongst the myriad forms of pornography and sexually explicit material available in Indonesia, the mobile phone in recent years has emerged as a new platform for production, distribution, and consumption. This section will not deal with the ethics of representation nor engage with the debate about definitions and the rights and wrongs of pornography. Instead what will be shown is how the mobile phone can be and has been used as an instrument/medium for the production and consumption of pornography within contemporary social relationships. Technology There are several technological features of the mobile phone that make pornography possible. As has already been noted the mobile phone has had a large adoption rate in Indonesia, and increasingly these phones come equipped with cameras and the ability to send data via MMS and Bluetooth. Coupled with the mobility of the phone, the convergence of technology in the mobile phone makes it possible for pornography to be produced and consumed in a different way than what has been possible before. It is only recently that the mobile phone has been marketed as a video camera with the release of the Nokia N90; however, quality and recording time are severely limited. Still, the mobile phone is a convenient and at-hand tool for the production and consumption of individually made, local, and non-professional pieces of porn, sex and sexuality. It is impossible to know how many such films are in circulation. A number of websites that offer these films for downloads host between 50 and 100 clips in .3gp file format, with probably more in actual circulation. At the very least, this is a tenfold increase in number compared to the recent emergence of non-professional VCD films (Barker 3). This must in part be attributed to the advantages that the mobile phone has over standard video cameras including cost, mobility, convergence, and the absence of intervening data processing and disc production. Examples There are various examples of mobile pornography in Indonesia. These range from the pornographic text message sent between lovers to the mobile phone video of explicit sexual acts (Barendregt 14-5). The mobile phone affords privacy for the production and exchange of pornographic messages and media. Because mobile devices are individually owned, however, pornographic material found on mobile phones can be directly tied to the individual owners. For example, police in Kotabaru inspected the phones of high school students in search of pornographic materials and arrested those individuals on whose phones it was found (Barendregt 18). Mobile phone pornography became a national political issue in 2006 when an explicit one-minute clip of a singer and an Indonesian politician became public. Videoed in 2004, the clip shows Maria Eva, a 27 year-old dangdut singer (see Browne, 25-6) and Yahya Zaini, a married 42 year-old who was head of religious affairs for the Golkar political party. Their three-year affair ended in 2005, but the film did not become public until 2006. It spread like wildfire between phones and across the internet, however, and put an otherwise secret relationship into the limelight. These types of affairs and relationships were common knowledge to people through gossip, exposes such as Jakarta Undercover (Emka 93-108) and stories in tabloids; yet this culture of adultery and prostitution continued and remained anonymous because of bureaucratic control of evidence and information (Suryakusuma 115). In this case, however, the filming of Maria Eva once public proves the identities of those involved and their infidelity. As a result of the scandal it was further revealed that Maria Eva had been forced by Yayha Zaini and his wife to have an abortion, deepening the moral crisis. Yahya Zaini later resigned as his party’s head of Religious Affairs (Asmarani, sec. 1-2), due to what was called the country’s “first real sex scandal” (Naughton, par. 2). As these examples show, there are definite risks and consequences involved in the production of mobile pornography. Even messages/media that are meant to be shared between two consenting individuals can eventually make their way into the public mobile realm and have serious consequences for those involved. Mobile video and photography does, however, represent a potential new check on the Indonesian bureaucratic elite which has not been previously available by other means such as a watchdog media. “The role of the press as a control mechanism is practically nonexistent [in Jakarta], which in effect protects corruption, nepotism, financial manipulation, social injustice, and repression, as well as the murky sexual life of the bureaucratic power elite,” (Suryakusuma 117). Thus while originally a mobile video may have been created for personal pleasure, through its mass dissemination via new media it can become a means of sousveillance (Mann, Nolan and Wellman 332-3) whereby the control of surveillance is flipped to reveal the often hidden abuses of power by officials. Whilst the debates over pornography in Indonesia tend to focus on the moral aspects of it, the broader social impacts of technology on relationships are often ignored. Issues related to power relations or even media as cultural expression are often disregarded as moral judgments cast a heavy shadow over discussions of locally produced Indonesian mobile pornography. It is possible to move beyond the moral critique of pornographic media to explore the social significance of its proliferation as a cultural product. Conclusion In these two case studies we have tried to show how the mobile phone in Indonesia has become a mode of interaction but also a platform through which to explore other current issues and debates related to dating, sexuality and media. Since 1998 and the fall of the New Order, Indonesia has been struggling with blending old and new, a desire of change and nostalgia for past, and popular desire for a “New Indonesia” (Heryanto, sec. Post-1998). Cultural products within Indonesia have played an important role in exploring these issues. The mobile phone in Indonesia is not just a technology, but also a product in and through which these desires are played out. Changes in dating and pornography practices have been occurring in Indonesia for some time. As people use mobile technology to produce, communicate, and consume, the device becomes intricately related to identity struggle and cultural production within Indonesia. It is important to keep in mind, however, that while mobile technology adoption within Indonesia is growing, it is still limited to a particular subset of the population. As has been previously observed (Barendregt 3), it is wealthier, young people in urban areas who are most intensely involved in mobile technology. As handset prices decrease and availability in rural areas increases, however, no longer will mobile technology be so demographically confined in Indonesia. The convergent technology of the mobile phone opens many possibilities for creative adoption and usage. As a communication device it allows for the creation, sharing, and viewing of messages. Therefore, the technology itself facilitates social connections and networking. As demonstrated in the cases of dating and pornography, the mobile phone is both a tool for meeting new people and disseminating sexual messages/media because it is a networked technology. The mobile phone is not fundamentally changing dating and pornography practices, but it is accelerating social and cultural trends already underway in Indonesia by facilitating the exchange and dissemination of messages and media. As these case studies show, what kinds of messages Indonesians choose to create and share are up to them. The same device can be used for relatively innocuous behavior as well as more controversial behavior. With increased adoption in Indonesia, the mobile will continue to be a lens through which to further explore modern socio-political issues. 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Mann, Steve, Jason Nolan, and Barry Wellman. “Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments.” Surveillance and Society 1.3 (2003): 331-55. Naughton, Philippe. “Video Sex Scandal Claims Indonesian MP.” The Times Online 8 Dec. 2006. Pinch, Trevor J., and Wiebe E. Bijker. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other.” The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Direction in the Sociology and History of Technology. Eds. W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T.J. Pinch. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. 17-51. Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. “The New Muslim Romance: Changing Patterns of Courtship and Marriage among Educated Javanese Youth.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 36.3 (2005): 441-59. Suhartono, Harry. “Mobile Penetration to Drive Market Leader’s Profit Gain.” Reuters News 27 Oct. 2006. Sullivan, Kevin. “Saudi Youth Use Cellphone Savvy to Outwit the Sentries of Romance.” The Washington Post 6 Aug. 2006: A01. Suryakusuma, Julia. “The State and Sexuality in New Order Indonesia.” Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia. Ed. Laurie J. Sears. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1996. 92-119. Utomo, Iwu Dwisetyani. “Sexual Values and Early Experiences among Young People in Jakarta: Youth, Courtship and Sexuality.” Coming of Age in South and Southeast Asia. Eds. Lenore Manderson and Pranee Liamputtong. Surey: Curzon, 2002. 207-27. Winner, Langdon. “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Social Shaping of Technology. 2nd ed. Eds. Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman. Buckingham, UK: Open UP, 2002. 28-40. World Bank. 2004 Indonesia Data & Statistics. 4 Jan. 2006. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/INDONESIAEXTN/0,,menuPK:287097~pagePK: 141132~piPK:141109~theSitePK:226309,00.html>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Humphreys, Lee, and Thomas Barker. "Modernity and the Mobile Phone: Exploring Tensions about Dating and Sex in Indonesia." M/C Journal 10.1 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/06-humphreys-barker.php>. APA Style Humphreys, L., and T. Barker. (Mar. 2007) "Modernity and the Mobile Phone: Exploring Tensions about Dating and Sex in Indonesia," M/C Journal, 10(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/06-humphreys-barker.php>.

Abstract:

“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media? How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use? What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation? What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”? Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation? Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators? How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1976. Barlow, Aaron. The Rise of the Blogosphere. Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Block, Peter. Flawless Consulting. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000. Boriss, Steve. “Citizen Journalism Is Dead. Expert Journalism Is the Future.” The Future of News. 28 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://thefutureofnews.com/2007/11/28/citizen-journalism-is-dead- expert-journalism-is-the-future/>. Brooks, Jr., Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. Rev. ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. Campbell, Vincent. Information Age Journalism: Journalism in an International Context. New York: Arnold, 2004. Carlile, Paul R., and Clayton M. Christensen. “The Cycles of Building Theory in Management Research.” Innosight working paper draft 6. 6 Jan. 2005. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.innosight.com/documents/Theory%20Building.pdf>. Caverly, Doug. “Hyperlocal News Site Takes A Hit.” WebProNews.com 6 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/06/hyperlocal-news- sites-take-a-hit>. Chenoweth, Neil. Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001. Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis Johnson, and Michael Horn. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Curtis, Adam. The Mayfair Set. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1999. Etherington, Kim. Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Ourselves in Research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004. Festinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. 3rd ed. London: Verso, 1993. Finnemore, Martha. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Ghoshal, Sumantra. “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 4.1 (2005): 75-91. Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. London: Viking, 2003. Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Cool-Hunt.” The New Yorker Magazine 17 March 1997. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_03_17_a_cool.htm>. Gross, Daniel. Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy. New York: Collins, 2007. Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York: Harper, 1951. Howe, Jeff. “Did Assignment Zero Fail? A Look Back, and Lessons Learned.” Wired News 16 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_ zero_final?currentPage=all>. Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. Choices, Values and Frames. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday Currency, 2007. Khurana, Rakesh. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007. Kolodzy, Janet. Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting across the News Media. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Koppelman, Charles. Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. Upper Saddle River, NJ: New Rider, 2004. Leadbeater, Charles, and Paul Miller. “The Pro-Am Revolution”. London: Demos, 24 Nov. 2004. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy>. Loomis, Carol J. “Bloomberg’s Money Machine.” Fortune 5 April 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/16/ 8404302/index.htm>. Lynch, Peter, and John Rothchild. Beating the Street. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Maister, David. True Professionalism. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Maister, David, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. The Trusted Advisor. New York: The Free Press, 2004. Mensching, Leah McBride. “Citizen Journalism on Its Way Out?” SFN Blog, 30 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.sfnblog.com/index.php/2007/11/30/940-citizen-journalism- on-its-way-out>. Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. McConnell, Steve. Professional Software Development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Mintzberg, Henry. Managers Not MBAs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004. Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organisation. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. Newsvine. “Msnbc.com Acquires Newsvine.” 7 Oct. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/07/1008889-msnbccom- acquires-newsvine>. Niederhoffer, Victor, and Laurel Kenner. Practical Speculation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pearlstine, Norman. Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. Pesce, Mark D. “Mob Rules (The Law of Fives).” The Human Network 28 Sep. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=39>. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge MA: Basic Books, 2002. Rosen, Jay. What Are Journalists For? Princeton NJ: Yale UP, 2001. Shasha, Dennis Elliott. Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists. New York: Copernicus, 1995. Slywotzky, Adrian. Value Migration: How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996. Smith, Steve. “The Self-Image of a Discipline: The Genealogy of International Relations Theory.” Eds. Steve Smith and Ken Booth. International Relations Theory Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995. 1-37. Spar, Debora L. Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007. Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. New York: ReganBooks, 2004. Underwood, Doug. When MBA’s Rule the Newsroom. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Wark, McKenzie. Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP, 1994. Wolfe, Tom, and E.W. Johnson. The New Journalism. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Burns, Alex. "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>. APA Style Burns, A. (Apr. 2008) "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>.

Abstract:

“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media?How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use?What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation?What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”?Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation?Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators?How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. 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Abstract:

Introduction I am a transmigrant who has moved back and forth between the West and the Rest. I was born and raised in a Muslim family in a predominantly Muslim country, Bangladesh, but I spent several years of my childhood in Pakistan. After my marriage, I lived in the United States for a year and a half, the Middle East for 5 years, Australia for three years, back to the Middle East for another 5 years, then, finally, in Australia for the last 12 years. I speak Bengali (my mother tongue), Urdu (which I learnt in Pakistan), a bit of Arabic (learnt in the Middle East); but English has always been my medium of instruction. So where is home? Is it my place of origin, the Muslim umma, or my land of settlement? Or is it my ‘root’ or my ‘route’ (Blunt and Dowling)? Blunt and Dowling (199) observe that the lives of transmigrants are often interpreted in terms of their ‘roots’ and ‘routes’, which are two frameworks for thinking about home, homeland and diaspora. Whereas ‘roots’ might imply an original homeland from which people have scattered, and to which they might seek to return, ‘routes’ focuses on mobile, multiple and transcultural geographies of home. However, both ‘roots’ and ‘routes’ are attached to emotion and identity, and both invoke a sense of place, belonging or alienation that is intrinsically tied to a sense of self (Blunt and Dowling 196-219). In this paper, I equate home with my root (place of birth) and route (transnational homing) within the context of the ‘diaspora and belonging’. First I define the diaspora and possible criteria of belonging. Next I describe my transnational homing within the framework of diaspora and belonging. Finally, I consider how Australia can be a ‘home’ for me and other Muslim Australians. The Diaspora and Belonging Blunt and Dowling (199) define diaspora as “scattering of people over space and transnational connections between people and the places”. Cohen emphasised the ethno-cultural aspects of the diaspora setting; that is, how migrants identify and position themselves in other nations in terms of their (different) ethnic and cultural orientation. Hall argues that the diasporic subjects form a cultural identity through transformation and difference. Speaking of the Hindu diaspora in the UK and Caribbean, Vertovec (21-23) contends that the migrants’ contact with their original ‘home’ or diaspora depends on four factors: migration processes and factors of settlement, cultural composition, structural and political power, and community development. With regard to the first factor, migration processes and factors of settlement, Vertovec explains that if the migrants are political or economic refugees, or on a temporary visa, they are likely to live in a ‘myth of return’. In the cultural composition context, Vertovec argues that religion, language, region of origin, caste, and degree of cultural homogenisation are factors in which migrants are bound to their homeland. Concerning the social structure and political power issue, Vertovec suggests that the extent and nature of racial and ethnic pluralism or social stigma, class composition, degree of institutionalised racism, involvement in party politics (or active citizenship) determine migrants’ connection to their new or old home. Finally, community development, including membership in organisations (political, union, religious, cultural, leisure), leadership qualities, and ethnic convergence or conflict (trends towards intra-communal or inter-ethnic/inter-religious co-operation) would also affect the migrants’ sense of belonging. Using these scholarly ideas as triggers, I will examine my home and belonging over the last few decades. My Home In an initial stage of my transmigrant history, my home was my root (place of birth, Dhaka, Bangladesh). Subsequently, my routes (settlement in different countries) reshaped my homes. In all respects, the ethno-cultural factors have played a big part in my definition of ‘home’. But on some occasions my ethnic identification has been overridden by my religious identification and vice versa. By ethnic identity, I mean my language (mother tongue) and my connection to my people (Bangladeshi). By my religious identity, I mean my Muslim religion, and my spiritual connection to the umma, a Muslim nation transcending all boundaries. Umma refers to the Muslim identity and unity within a larger Muslim group across national boundaries. The only thing the members of the umma have in common is their Islamic belief (Spencer and Wollman 169-170). In my childhood my father, a banker, was relocated to Karachi, Pakistan (then West Pakistan). Although I lived in Pakistan for much of my childhood, I have never considered it to be my home, even though it is predominantly a Muslim country. In this case, my home was my root (Bangladesh) where my grandparents and extended family lived. Every year I used to visit my grandparents who resided in a small town in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). Thus my connection with my home was sustained through my extended family, ethnic traditions, language (Bengali/Bangla), and the occasional visits to the landscape of Bangladesh. Smith (9-11) notes that people build their connection or identity to their homeland through their historic land, common historical memories, myths, symbols and traditions. Though Pakistan and Bangladesh had common histories, their traditions of language, dress and ethnic culture were very different. For example, the celebration of the Bengali New Year (Pohela Baishakh), folk dance, folk music and folk tales, drama, poetry, lyrics of poets Rabindranath Tagore (Rabindra Sangeet) and Nazrul Islam (Nazrul Geeti) are distinct in the cultural heritage of Bangladesh. Special musical instruments such as the banshi (a bamboo flute), dhol (drums), ektara (a single-stringed instrument) and dotara (a four-stringed instrument) are unique to Bangladeshi culture. The Bangladeshi cuisine (rice and freshwater fish) is also different from Pakistan where people mainly eat flat round bread (roti) and meat (gosh). However, my bonding factor to Bangladesh was my relatives, particularly my grandparents as they made me feel one of ‘us’. Their affection for me was irreplaceable. The train journey from Dhaka (capital city) to their town, Noakhali, was captivating. The hustle and bustle at the train station and the lush green paddy fields along the train journey reminded me that this was my ‘home’. Though I spoke the official language (Urdu) in Pakistan and had a few Pakistani friends in Karachi, they could never replace my feelings for my friends, extended relatives and cousins who lived in Bangladesh. I could not relate to the landscape or dry weather of Pakistan. More importantly, some Pakistani women (our neighbours) were critical of my mother’s traditional dress (saree), and described it as revealing because it showed a bit of her back. They took pride in their traditional dress (shalwar, kameez, dopatta), which they considered to be more covered and ‘Islamic’. So, because of our traditional dress (saree) and perhaps other differences, we were regarded as the ‘Other’. In 1970 my father was relocated back to Dhaka, Bangladesh, and I was glad to go home. It should be noted that both Pakistan and Bangladesh were separated from India in 1947 – first as one nation; then, in 1971, Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan. The conflict between Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and Pakistan (then West Pakistan) originated for economic and political reasons. At this time I was a high school student and witnessed acts of genocide committed by the Pakistani regime against the Bangladeshis (March-December 1971). My memories of these acts are vivid and still very painful. After my marriage, I moved from Bangladesh to the United States. In this instance, my new route (Austin, Texas, USA), as it happened, did not become my home. Here the ethno-cultural and Islamic cultural factors took precedence. I spoke the English language, made some American friends, and studied history at the University of Texas. I appreciated the warm friendship extended to me in the US, but experienced a degree of culture shock. I did not appreciate the pub life, alcohol consumption, and what I perceived to be the lack of family bonds (children moving out at the age of 18, families only meeting occasionally on birthdays and Christmas). Furthermore, I could not relate to de facto relationships and acceptance of sex before marriage. However, to me ‘home’ meant a family orientation and living in close contact with family. Besides the cultural divide, my husband and I were living in the US on student visas and, as Vertovec (21-23) noted, temporary visa status can deter people from their sense of belonging to the host country. In retrospect I can see that we lived in the ‘myth of return’. However, our next move for a better life was not to our root (Bangladesh), but another route to the Muslim world of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia. My husband moved to Dhahran not because it was a Muslim world but because it gave him better economic opportunities. However, I thought this new destination would become my home – the home that was coined by Anderson as the imagined nation, or my Muslim umma. Anderson argues that the imagined communities are “to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined” (6; Wood 61). Hall (122) asserts: identity is actually formed through unconscious processes over time, rather than being innate in consciousness at birth. There is always something ‘imaginary’ or fantasized about its unity. It always remains incomplete, is always ‘in process’, always ‘being formed’. As discussed above, when I had returned home to Bangladesh from Pakistan – both Muslim countries – my primary connection to my home country was my ethnic identity, language and traditions. My ethnic identity overshadowed the religious identity. But when I moved to Saudi Arabia, where my ethnic identity differed from that of the mainstream Arabs and Bedouin/nomadic Arabs, my connection to this new land was through my Islamic cultural and religious identity. Admittedly, this connection to the umma was more psychological than physical, but I was now in close proximity to Mecca, and to my home of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mecca is an important city in Saudi Arabia for Muslims because it is the holy city of Islam, the home to the Ka’aba (the religious centre of Islam), and the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him]. It is also the destination of the Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islamic faith. Therefore, Mecca is home to significant events in Islamic history, as well as being an important present day centre for the Islamic faith. We lived in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for 5 years. Though it was a 2.5 hours flight away, I treasured Mecca’s proximity and regarded Dhahran as my second and spiritual home. Saudi Arabia had a restricted lifestyle for women, but I liked it because it was a Muslim country that gave me the opportunity to perform umrah Hajj (pilgrimage). However, Saudi Arabia did not allow citizenship to expatriates. Saudi Arabia’s government was keen to protect the status quo and did not want to compromise its cultural values or standard of living by allowing foreigners to become a permanent part of society. In exceptional circumstances only, the King granted citizenship to a foreigner for outstanding service to the state over a number of years. Children of foreigners born in Saudi Arabia did not have rights of local citizenship; they automatically assumed the nationality of their parents. If it was available, Saudi citizenship would assure expatriates a secure and permanent living in Saudi Arabia; as it was, there was a fear among the non-Saudis that they would have to leave the country once their job contract expired. Under the circumstances, though my spiritual connection to Mecca was strong, my husband was convinced that Saudi Arabia did not provide any job security. So, in 1987 when Australia offered migration to highly skilled people, my husband decided to migrate to Australia for a better and more secure economic life. I agreed to his decision, but quite reluctantly because we were again moving to a non-Muslim part of the world, which would be culturally different and far away from my original homeland (Bangladesh). In Australia, we lived first in Brisbane, then Adelaide, and after three years we took our Australian citizenship. At that stage I loved the Barossa Valley and Victor Harbour in South Australia, and the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast in Queensland, but did not feel at home in Australia. We bought a house in Adelaide and I was a full time home-maker but was always apprehensive that my children (two boys) would lose their culture in this non-Muslim world. In 1990 we once again moved back to the Muslim world, this time to Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. My connection to this route was again spiritual. I valued the fact that we would live in a Muslim country and our children would be brought up in a Muslim environment. But my husband’s move was purely financial as he got a lucrative job offer in Muscat. We had another son in Oman. We enjoyed the luxurious lifestyle provided by my husband’s workplace and the service provided by the housemaid. I loved the beaches and freedom to drive my car, and I appreciated the friendly Omani people. I also enjoyed our frequent trips (4 hours flight) to my root, Dhaka, Bangladesh. So our children were raised within our ethnic and Islamic culture, remained close to my root (family in Dhaka), though they attended a British school in Muscat. But by the time I started considering Oman to be my second home, we had to leave once again for a place that could provide us with a more secure future. Oman was like Saudi Arabia; it employed expatriates only on a contract basis, and did not give them citizenship (not even fellow Muslims). So after 5 years it was time to move back to Australia. It was with great reluctance that I moved with my husband to Brisbane in 1995 because once again we were to face a different cultural context. As mentioned earlier, we lived in Brisbane in the late 1980s; I liked the weather, the landscape, but did not consider it home for cultural reasons. Our boys started attending expensive private schools and we bought a house in a prestigious Western suburb in Brisbane. Soon after arriving I started my tertiary education at the University of Queensland, and finished an MA in Historical Studies in Indian History in 1998. Still Australia was not my home. I kept thinking that we would return to my previous routes or the ‘imagined’ homeland somewhere in the Middle East, in close proximity to my root (Bangladesh), where we could remain economically secure in a Muslim country. But gradually I began to feel that Australia was becoming my ‘home’. I had gradually become involved in professional and community activities (with university colleagues, the Bangladeshi community and Muslim women’s organisations), and in retrospect I could see that this was an early stage of my ‘self-actualisation’ (Maslow). Through my involvement with diverse people, I felt emotionally connected with the concerns, hopes and dreams of my Muslim-Australian friends. Subsequently, I also felt connected with my mainstream Australian friends whose emotions and fears (9/11 incident, Bali bombing and 7/7 tragedy) were similar to mine. In late 1998 I started my PhD studies on the immigration history of Australia, with a particular focus on the historical settlement of Muslims in Australia. This entailed retrieving archival files and interviewing people, mostly Muslims and some mainstream Australians, and enquiring into relevant migration issues. I also became more active in community issues, and was not constrained by my circumstances. By circumstances, I mean that even though I belonged to a patriarchally structured Muslim family, where my husband was the main breadwinner, main decision-maker, my independence and research activities (entailing frequent interstate trips for data collection, and public speaking) were not frowned upon or forbidden (Khan 14-15); fortunately, my husband appreciated my passion for research and gave me his trust and support. This, along with the Muslim community’s support (interviews), and the wider community’s recognition (for example, the publication of my letters in Australian newspapers, interviews on radio and television) enabled me to develop my self-esteem and built up my bicultural identity as a Muslim in a predominantly Christian country and as a Bangladeshi-Australian. In 2005, for the sake of a better job opportunity, my husband moved to the UK, but this time I asserted that I would not move again. I felt that here in Australia (now in Perth) I had a job, an identity and a home. This time my husband was able to secure a good job back in Australia and was only away for a year. I no longer dream of finding a home in the Middle East. Through my bicultural identity here in Australia I feel connected to the wider community and to the Muslim umma. However, my attachment to the umma has become ambivalent. I feel proud of my Australian-Muslim identity but I am concerned about the jihadi ideology of militant Muslims. By jihadi ideology, I mean the extremist ideology of the al-Qaeda terrorist group (Farrar 2007). The Muslim umma now incorporates both moderate and radical Muslims. The radical Muslims (though only a tiny minority of 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide) pose a threat to their moderate counterparts as well as to non-Muslims. In the UK, some second- and third-generation Muslims identify themselves with the umma rather than their parents’ homelands or their country of birth (Husain). It should not be a matter of concern if these young Muslims adopt a ‘pure’ Muslim identity, providing at the same time they are loyal to their country of residence. But when they resort to terrorism with their ‘pure’ Muslim identity (e.g., the 7/7 London bombers) they defame my religion Islam, and undermine my spiritual connection to the umma. As a 1st generation immigrant, the defining criteria of my ‘homeliness’ in Australia are my ethno-cultural and religious identity (which includes my family), my active citizenship, and my community development/contribution through my research work – all of which allow me a sense of efficacy in my life. My ethnic and religious identities generally co-exist equally, but when I see some Muslims kill my fellow Australians (such as the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005) my Australian identity takes precedence. I feel for the victims and condemn the perpetrators. On the other hand, when I see politics play a role over the human rights issues (e.g., the Tampa incident), my religious identity begs me to comment on it (see Kabir, Muslims in Australia 295-305). Problematising ‘Home’ for Muslim Australians In the European context, Grillo (863) and Werbner (904), and in the Australian context, Kabir (Muslims in Australia) and Poynting and Mason, have identified the diversity within Islam (national, ethnic, religious etc). Werbner (904) notes that in spite of the “wishful talk of the emergence of a ‘British Islam’, even today there are Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Arab mosques, as well as Turkish and Shia’a mosques”; thus British Muslims retain their separate identities. Similarly, in Australia, the existence of separate mosques for the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Arab and Shia’a peoples indicates that Australian Muslims have also kept their ethnic identities discrete (Saeed 64-77). However, in times of crisis, such as the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989, and the 1990-1991 Gulf crises, both British and Australian Muslims were quick to unite and express their Islamic identity by way of resistance (Kabir, Muslims in Australia 160-162; Poynting and Mason 68-70). In both British and Australian contexts, I argue that a peaceful rally or resistance is indicative of active citizenship of Muslims as it reveals their sense of belonging (also Werbner 905). So when a transmigrant Muslim wants to make a peaceful demonstration, the Western world should be encouraged, not threatened – as long as the transmigrant’s allegiances lie also with the host country. In the European context, Grillo (868) writes: when I asked Mehmet if he was planning to stay in Germany he answered without hesitation: ‘Yes, of course’. And then, after a little break, he added ‘as long as we can live here as Muslims’. In this context, I support Mehmet’s desire to live as a Muslim in a non-Muslim world as long as this is peaceful. Paradoxically, living a Muslim life through ijtihad can be either socially progressive or destructive. The Canadian Muslim feminist Irshad Manji relies on ijtihad, but so does Osama bin Laden! Manji emphasises that ijtihad can be, on the one hand, the adaptation of Islam using independent reasoning, hybridity and the contesting of ‘traditional’ family values (c.f. Doogue and Kirkwood 275-276, 314); and, on the other, ijtihad can take the form of conservative, patriarchal and militant Islamic values. The al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden espouses the jihadi ideology of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), an Egyptian who early in his career might have been described as a Muslim modernist who believed that Islam and Western secular ideals could be reconciled. But he discarded that idea after going to the US in 1948-50; there he was treated as ‘different’ and that treatment turned him against the West. He came back to Egypt and embraced a much more rigid and militaristic form of Islam (Esposito 136). Other scholars, such as Cesari, have identified a third orientation – a ‘secularised Islam’, which stresses general beliefs in the values of Islam and an Islamic identity, without too much concern for practices. Grillo (871) observed Islam in the West emphasised diversity. He stressed that, “some [Muslims were] more quietest, some more secular, some more clamorous, some more negotiatory”, while some were exclusively characterised by Islamic identity, such as wearing the burqa (elaborate veils), hijabs (headscarves), beards by men and total abstinence from drinking alcohol. So Mehmet, cited above, could be living a Muslim life within the spectrum of these possibilities, ranging from an integrating mode to a strict, militant Muslim manner. In the UK context, Zubaida (96) contends that marginalised, culturally-impoverished youth are the people for whom radical, militant Islamism may have an appeal, though it must be noted that the 7/7 bombers belonged to affluent families (O’Sullivan 14; Husain). In Australia, Muslim Australians are facing three challenges. First, the Muslim unemployment rate: it was three times higher than the national total in 1996 and 2001 (Kabir, Muslims in Australia 266-278; Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 63). Second, some spiritual leaders have used extreme rhetoric to appeal to marginalised youth; in January 2007, the Australian-born imam of Lebanese background, Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, was alleged to have employed a DVD format to urge children to kill the enemies of Islam and to have praised martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad (Chulov 2). Third, the proposed citizenship test has the potential to make new migrants’ – particularly Muslims’ – settlement in Australia stressful (Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 62-79); in May 2007, fuelled by perceptions that some migrants – especially Muslims – were not integrating quickly enough, the Howard government introduced a citizenship test bill that proposes to test applicants on their English language skills and knowledge of Australian history and ‘values’. I contend that being able to demonstrate knowledge of history and having English language skills is no guarantee that a migrant will be a good citizen. Through my transmigrant history, I have learnt that developing a bond with a new place takes time, acceptance and a gradual change of identity, which are less likely to happen when facing assimilationist constraints. I spoke English and studied history in the United States, but I did not consider it my home. I did not speak the Arabic language, and did not study Middle Eastern history while I was in the Middle East, but I felt connected to it for cultural and religious reasons. Through my knowledge of history and English language proficiency I did not make Australia my home when I first migrated to Australia. Australia became my home when I started interacting with other Australians, which was made possible by having the time at my disposal and by fortunate circumstances, which included a fairly high level of efficacy and affluence. If I had been rejected because of my lack of knowledge of ‘Australian values’, or had encountered discrimination in the job market, I would have been much less willing to embrace my host country and call it home. I believe a stringent citizenship test is more likely to alienate would-be citizens than to induce their adoption of values and loyalty to their new home. Conclusion Blunt (5) observes that current studies of home often investigate mobile geographies of dwelling and how it shapes one’s identity and belonging. Such geographies of home negotiate from the domestic to the global context, thus mobilising the home beyond a fixed, bounded and confining location. Similarly, in this paper I have discussed how my mobile geography, from the domestic (root) to global (route), has shaped my identity. Though I received a degree of culture shock in the United States, loved the Middle East, and was at first quite resistant to the idea of making Australia my second home, the confidence I acquired in residing in these ‘several homes’ were cumulative and eventually enabled me to regard Australia as my ‘home’. I loved the Middle East, but I did not pursue an active involvement with the Arab community because I was a busy mother. Also I lacked the communication skill (fluency in Arabic) with the local residents who lived outside the expatriates’ campus. I am no longer a cultural freak. I am no longer the same Bangladeshi woman who saw her ethnic and Islamic culture as superior to all other cultures. I have learnt to appreciate Australian values, such as tolerance, ‘a fair go’ and multiculturalism (see Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 62-79). My bicultural identity is my strength. With my ethnic and religious identity, I can relate to the concerns of the Muslim community and other Australian ethnic and religious minorities. And with my Australian identity I have developed ‘a voice’ to pursue active citizenship. Thus my biculturalism has enabled me to retain and merge my former home with my present and permanent home of Australia. References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso, 1983. Australian Bureau of Statistics: Census of Housing and Population, 1996 and 2001. Blunt, Alison. Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Cesari, Jocelyne. “Muslim Minorities in Europe: The Silent Revolution.” In John L. Esposito and Burgat, eds., Modernising Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East. London: Hurst, 2003. 251-269. Chulov, Martin. “Treatment Has Sheik Wary of Returning Home.” Weekend Australian 6-7 Jan. 2007: 2. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington, 1997. Doogue, Geraldine, and Peter Kirkwood. Tomorrow’s Islam: Uniting Old-Age Beliefs and a Modern World. Sydney: ABC Books, 2005. Esposito, John. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3rd ed. New York, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Farrar, Max. “When the Bombs Go Off: Rethinking and Managing Diversity Strategies in Leeds, UK.” International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations 6.5 (2007): 63-68. Grillo, Ralph. “Islam and Transnationalism.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.5 (Sep. 2004): 861-878. Hall, Stuart. Polity Reader in Cultural Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Huntington, Samuel, P. The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of World Order. London: Touchstone, 1998. Husain, Ed. The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw inside and Why I Left. London: Penguin, 2007. Kabir, Nahid. Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History. London: Kegan Paul, 2005. ———. “What Does It Mean to Be Un-Australian: Views of Australian Muslim Students in 2006.” People and Place 15.1 (2007): 62-79. Khan, Shahnaz. Aversion and Desire: Negotiating Muslim Female Identity in the Diaspora. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2002. Manji, Irshad. The Trouble with Islam Today. Canada:Vintage, 2005. Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper, 1954. O’Sullivan, J. “The Real British Disease.” Quadrant (Jan.-Feb. 2006): 14-20. Poynting, Scott, and Victoria Mason. “The Resistible Rise of Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Racism in the UK and Australia before 11 September 2001.” Journal of Sociology 43.1 (2007): 61-86. Saeed, Abdallah. Islam in Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2003. Smith, Anthony D. National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991. Spencer, Philip, and Howard Wollman. Nationalism: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage, 2002. Vertovec, Stevens. The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns. London: Routledge. 2000. Werbner, Pnina, “Theorising Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the South Asian Public Sphere in Britain.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.5 (2004): 895-911. Wood, Dennis. “The Diaspora, Community and the Vagrant Space.” In Cynthia Vanden Driesen and Ralph Crane, eds., Diaspora: The Australasian Experience. New Delhi: Prestige, 2005. 59-64. Zubaida, Sami. “Islam in Europe: Unity or Diversity.” Critical Quarterly 45.1-2 (2003): 88-98. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kabir, Nahid. "Why I Call Australia ‘Home’?: A Transmigrant’s Perspective." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/15-kabir.php>. APA Style Kabir, N. (Aug. 2007) "Why I Call Australia ‘Home’?: A Transmigrant’s Perspective," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/15-kabir.php>.

Abstract:

Introduction Utopia has always been countercultural, and ever since technological progress has allowed, utopia has been using alternative media to promote and strengthen its underpinning ideals. In this article, I am seeking to clarify the connections between counterculture and alternative media in utopian contexts to demonstrate their reciprocity, then draw together these threads through reference to a well-known figure of the Rainbow Region–Rusty Miller. His trajectory from iconic surfer and Aquarian reporter to mediator for utopian politics and ideals in the Rainbow Region encompasses in a single identity the three elements underpinning this study. In concluding, I will turn to Rusty’s Byron Guide, questioning its classification as alternative or mainstream media, and whether Byron Bay is represented as countercultural and utopian in this long-running and ongoing publication. Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts Counterculture is an umbrella that enfolds utopia, among many other genres and practices. It has been most often situated in the 1960s and 1970s as a new form of social movement embodying youth resistance to the technocratic mainstream and its norms of gender, sexuality, politics, music, and language (Roszak). Many scholars of counterculture underscore its utopian impulses both in the projection of better societies where the social goals are achieved, and in the withdrawal from mainstream society into intentional communities (Yinger 194-6; McKay 5; Berger). Before exploring further the connections between counterculture and alternative media, I want to define the scope of countercultural utopian contexts in general, and the Rainbow Region in particular. Utopia is a neologism created by Sir Thomas More almost 500 years ago to designate the island community that demonstrates order, harmony, justice, hope and desire in the right balance so that it seems like an ideal land. This imaginary place described in Utopia (1516) as a counterpoint to the social, political and religious shortcomings of contemporary 16th century British society, has attracted accusations of heresy (Molner), and been used as a pejorative term, an insult to denigrate political projects that seem farfetched or subversive, especially during the 19th century. Almost every study of utopian theory, literature and practice points to a dissatisfaction with the status quo, which inspires writers, politicians, architects, artists, individuals and communities to rail against it (see for example Davis, Moylan, Suvin, Levitas, Jameson). Kingsley Widmer’s book Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts reiterates what many scholars have stated when he writes that utopias should be understood in terms of what they are countering. Lyman Tower Sargent defines utopia as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” and utopianism as “social dreaming” (9), to which I would add that both indicate an improvement on the alternatives, and may indeed be striving to represent the best place imaginable. Utopian contexts, by extension, are those situations where the “social dreaming” is enhanced through human agency, good governance, just laws, education, and work, rather than being a divinely ordained state of nature (Schaer et al). In this way, utopian contexts are explicitly countercultural through their very conception, as human agency is required and their emphasis is on social change. These modes of resistance against dominant paradigms are most evident in attempts to realise textual projections of a better society in countercultural communal experiments. Almost immediately after its publication, More’s Utopia became the model for Bishop Vasco de Quiroga’s communitarian hospital-town Santa Fe de la Laguna in Michoacan, Mexico, established in the 1530s as a counterculture to the oppressive enslavement and massacres of the Purhépecha people by Nuno Guzmán (Green). The countercultural thrust of the 1960s and 1970s provided many utopian contexts, perhaps most readily identifiable as the intentional communities that spawned and flourished, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (Metcalf, Shared Lives). They were often inspired by texts such as Charles A. Reich’s The Greening of America (1970) and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), and this convergence of textual practices and alternative lifestyles can be seen in the development of Australia’s own Rainbow Region. Located in northern New South Wales, the geographical area of the Northern Rivers that has come to be known as the Rainbow Region encompasses Byron Bay, Nimbin, Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Clunes, Dunoon, Federal, with Lismore as the region’s largest town. But more evocative than these place names are the “rivers and creeks, vivid green hills, fruit and nut farms […] bounded by subtropical beaches and rainforest mountains” (Wilson 1). Utopian by nature, and recognised as such by the indigenous Bundjalung people who inhabited it before the white settlers, whalers and dairy farmers moved in, the Rainbow Region became utopian through culture–or indeed counterculture–during the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin when the hippies of Mullumbimby and the surfers of Byron Bay were joined by up to 10,000 people seeking alternative ways of being in the world. When the party was over, many Aquarians stayed on to form intentional communities in the beautiful region, like Tuntable Falls, Nimbin’s first and largest such cooperative (Metcalf, From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality 74-83). In utopian contexts, from the Renaissance to the 1970s and beyond, counterculture has underpinned and alternative media has circulated the aims and ideals of the communities of resistance. The early utopian context of the Anabaptist movement has been dubbed as countercultural by Sigrun Haude: “During the reign of the Münster (1534-5) Anabaptists erected not only a religious but also a social and political counterculture to the existing order” (240). And it was this Protestant Reformation that John Downing calls the first real media war, with conflicting movements using pamphlets produced on the new technology of the Gutenberg press to disseminate their ideas (144). What is striking here is the confluence of ideas and practices at this time–countercultural ideals are articulated, published, and disseminated, printing presses make this possible, and utopian activists realise how mass media can be used and abused, exploited and censored. Twentieth century countercultural movements drew on the lessons learnt from historical uprising and revolutions, understanding the importance of getting the word out through their own forms of media which, given the subversive nature of the messages, were essentially alternative, according to the criteria proposed by Chris Atton: alternative media may be understood as a radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media. Alternative media privileges a journalism that is closely wedded to notions of social responsibility, replacing an ideology of “objectivity” with overt advocacy and oppositional practices. Its practices emphasize first person, eyewitness accounts by participants; a reworking of the populist approaches of tabloid newspapers to recover a “radical popular” style of reporting; collective and antihierarchical forms of organization which eschew demarcation and specialization–and which importantly suggest an inclusive, radical form of civic journalism. (267) Nick Couldry goes further to point out the utopian processes required to identify agencies of change, including alternative media, which he defines as “practices of symbolic production which contest (in some way) media power itself–that is, the concentration of symbolic power in media institutions” (25). Alternative media’s orientation towards oppositional and contestatory practices demonstrates clear parallels between its ambitions and those of counterculture in utopian contexts. From the 1960s onwards, the upsurge in alternative newspaper numbers is commensurate with the blossoming of the counterculture and increased utopian contexts; Susan Forde describes it thus: “a huge resurgence in the popularity of publications throughout the ‘counter-culture’ days of the 1960s and 1970s” (“Monitoring the Establishment”, 114). The nexus of counterculture and alternative media in such utopian contexts is documented in texts like Roger Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution and Bob Osterlag’s People’s Movements, People’s Press. Like the utopian newspapers that came out of 18th and 19th century intentional communities, many of the new alternative press served to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the countercultural movements, often focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events (see also Frobert). The radical press in Australia was also gaining ground, with OZ in Australia from 1963-1969, and then from 1967-1973 in London. Magazines launched by Philip Frazer like The Digger, Go-Set, Revolution and High Times, and university student newspapers were the main avenues for youth and alternative expression on the Vietnam war and conscription, gay and lesbian rights, racism, feminism and ecological activism (Forde, Challenging the News; Cock & Perry). Nimbin 1973: Rusty Miller and The Byron Express The 1973 Aquarius Festival of counterculture in Nimbin (12-23 May) was a utopian context that had an alternative media life of its own before it arrived in the Rainbow Region–in student publications like Tharnuka and newsletters distributed via the Aquarius Foundation. There were other voices that announced the coming of the Aquarius Festival to Nimbin and reported on its impact, like The Digger from Melbourne and the local paper, The Northern Star. During the Festival, the Nimbin Good Times first appeared as the daily bulletin and continues today with the original masthead drawn by the Festival’s co-organiser, Graeme Dunstan. Some interesting work has been done on this area, ranging from general studies of the Rainbow Region (Wilson; Munro-Clark) to articles analysing its alternative press (Ward & van Vuuren; Martin & Ellis), but to date, there has been no focus on the Rainbow Region’s first alternative newspaper, The Byron Express. Co-edited by Rusty Miller and David Guthrie, this paper presented and mediated the aims and desires of the Aquarian movement. Though short-lived, as only 7 issues were published from 15 February 1973 to September 1973, The Byron Express left a permanent printed vestige of the Aquarian counterculture movement’s activism and ideals from an independent regional perspective. Miller’s credentials for starting up the newspaper are clear–he has always been a trailblazer, mixing “smarts” with surfing and environmental politics. After graduating from a Bachelor of Arts in history from San Diego State College, he first set foot in Byron Bay during his two semesters with the inaugural Chapman College affiliated University of the Seven Seas in 1965-6. Returning to his hometown of Encinitas, he co-founded the Surf Research accessory company with legendary Californian surfer Mike Doyle, and launched Waxmate, the first specially formulated surf wax in 1967 (Davis, Witzig & James; Warshaw 217), selling his interest in the business soon after to spend a couple of years “living the counterculture life on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai” (Davis, Witzig & James), before heading back to Byron Bay via Bells Beach in 1970 (Miller & Shantz) and Sydney, where he worked as an advertising salesman and writer with Tracks surfing magazine (Martin & Ellis). In 1971, he was one of the first to ride the now famous waves of Uluwatu in Bali, and is captured with Steven Cooney in the iconic publicity image for Albe Falzon’s 1971 film, Morning Of The Earth. The champion surfer from the US knew a thing or two about counterculture, alternative media, advertising and business when he found his new utopian context in Byron Bay. Miller and Guthrie’s front-page editorial of the inaugural issue of The Byron Express, published on 15 February 1973, with the byline “for a higher shire”, expressed the countercultural (cl)aims of the publication. Land use, property development and the lack of concern that some people in Byron had for their impact on the environment and people of the region were a prime target: With this first issue of the Byron Express, we hope to explain that the area is badly in need of a focal point. The transitions of present are vast and moving fast. The land is being sold and resold. Lots of money is coming into the area in the way of developments […] caravan parts, hotels, businesses and real estate. Many of the trips incoming are not exactly “concerned” as to what long term effect such developments might have on the environment and its people. We hope to serve as a focus of concern and service, a centre for expression and reflection. We would ask your contributions in vocal and written form. We are ready for some sock it to ya criticism… and hope you would grab us upon the street to tell us how you feel…The mission of this alternative newspaper is thereby defined by the need for a “focal point” that inscribes the voices of the community in a freely accessible narrative, recorded in print for posterity. Although this first issue contains no mention of the Aquarius Festival, there were already rumours circulating about it, as organisers Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen had been up to Main Arm, Mullumbimby and Nimbin on reconnaissance missions beginning in September 1972. Instead, there was an article on “Mullumbimby Man–Close to the Land” by Nicholas Shand, who would go on to found the community-based weekly newspaper The Echo in 1986, then called The Brunswick Valley Echo and still going strong. Another by Bob McTavish asked whether there could be a better form of government; there was a surf story, and a soul food section with a recipe for honey meade entitled “Do you want to get out of it on 10 cents a bottle?” The second issue continues in much the same vein. It is not until the third issue comes out on 17 March 1973 that the Aquarius Festival is mentioned in a skinny half column on page four. And it’s not particularly promising: Arrived at Nimbin, sleepy hamlet… Office in disused R.S.L. rooms, met a couple of guys recently arrived, said nothing was being done. “Only women here, you know–no drive”. Met Joanne and Vi, both unable to say anything to be reported… Graham Dunstan (codenamed Superfest) and John Allen nowhere in sight. Allen off on trip overseas. Dunstan due back in a couple of weeks. 10 weeks to go till “they” all come… and to what… nobody is quite sure. This progress report provides a fascinating contemporary insight into the tensions–between the local surfies and hippies on one hand, and the incoming students on the other–around the organisation of the Aquarius Festival. There is an unbridled barb at the sexist comments made by the guys, implicit criticism of the absent organisers, obvious skepticism about whether anyone will actually come to the festival, and wonderment at what it will be like. Reading between the lines, we might find a feeling of resentment about not being privy to new developments in their own backyard. The final lines of the article are non-committal “Anyway, let’s see what eventuates when the Chiefs return.” It seems that all has been resolved by the fifth issue of 11 May, which is almost entirely dedicated to the Aquarius Festival with the front page headline “Welcome to the New Age”. But there is still an undertone of slight suspicion at what the newcomers to the area might mean in terms of property development: The goal is improving your fellow man’s mind and nourishment in concert with your own; competition to improve your day and the quality of the day for society. Meanwhile, what is the first thing one thinks about when he enters Byron and the area? The physical environment is so magnificent and all encompassing that it can actually hold a man’s breath back a few seconds. Then a man says, “Wow, this land is so beautiful that one could make a quid here.” And from that moment the natural aura and spells are broken and the mind lapses into speculative equations, sales projections and future interest payments. There is plenty of “love” though, in this article: “The gathering at Nimbin is the most spectacular demonstration of the faith people have in a belief that is possible (and possible just because they want it to be) to live in love, through love together.” The following article signed by Rusty Miller “A Town Together” is equally focused on love: “See what you could offer the spirit at Nimbin. It might introduce you to a style that could lead to LOVE.” The centre spread features photos: the obligatory nudes, tents, and back to nature activities, like planting and woodworking. With a text box of “random comments” including one from a Lismore executive: ‘I took my wife and kids out there last weekend and we had such a good time. Seems pretty organized and the town was loaded with love. Heard there is some hepatitis about and rumours of VD. Everyone happy.” And another from a land speculator (surely the prime target of Miller’s wrath): “Saw guys kissing girls on the street, so sweet, bought 200 acres right outside of town, it’s going to be valuable out there some day.” The interview with Johnny Allen as the centrepiece includes some pertinent commentary on the media and reveals a well-founded suspicion of the mediatisation of the Aquarius Festival: We have tried to avoid the media actually. But we haven’t succeeded in doing so. Part of the basic idea is that we don’t need to be sold. All the down town press can do is try and interpret you. And by doing that it automatically places it in the wrong sort of context. So we’ve tried to keep it to people writing about the festival to people who will be involved in it. It’s an involvement festival. Coopting The Byron Express as an “involved” party effects a fundamental shift from an external reporting newspaper to a kind of proponent or even propaganda for the Aquarius festival and its ideas, like so many utopian newspapers had done before. It is therefore perhaps inevitable that The Byron Express should disappear very soon after the Aquarius festival. Fiona Martin and Rhonda Ellis explain that Rusty Miller stopped producing the paper because he “found the production schedule exhausting and his readership too small to attract consistent advertising” (5). At any rate, there were only two more issues, one in June–with some follow up reporting of the festival–and another in September 1973, which was almost entirely devoted to environmentally focused features, including an interview with Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). Byron Bay 2013: Thirty Years of Rusty’s Byron Guide What Rusty did next is fairly well known locally–surfing and teaching people how to surf and a bit of writing. When major local employer Walkers slaughterhouse closed in 1983, he and his wife, social geographer Tricia Shantz, were asked by the local council to help promote Byron Bay as a tourist destination, writing the first Byron guide in 1983-4. Incorporating essays by local personalities and dedicated visitors, the Byron guide perpetuates the ideal of environmental awareness, spiritual experimentation, and respect for the land and sea. Recent contributors have included philosopher Peter Singer, political journalist Kerry O’Brien, and writer John Ralston Saul, and Miller and Shantz always have an essay in there themselves. “People, Politics and Culture” is the new byline for the 2013 edition. And Miller’s opening essay mediates the same utopian desires and environmental community messages that he espoused from the beginning of The Byron Express: The name Byron Bay represents something that we constantly try to articulate. If one was to dream up a menu of situations and conditions to compose a utopia, Australia would be the model of the nation-state and Byron would have many elements of the actual place one might wish to live for the rest of their lives. But of course there is always the danger of excesses in tropical paradises especially when they become famous destinations. Australia is being held to ransom for the ideology that we should be slaves to money and growth at the cost of a degraded and polluted physical and social environment. Byron at least was/is a refuge against this profusion of the so-called real-world perception that holds profit over environment as the way we must choose for our future. Even when writing for a much more commercial medium, Miller retains the countercultural utopian spirit that was crystallised in the Aquarius festival of 1973, and which remains relevant to many of those living in and visiting the Rainbow Region. Miller’s ethos moves beyond the alternative movements and communities to infiltrate travel writing and tourism initiatives in the area today, as evidenced in the Rusty’s Byron Guide essays. By presenting more radical discourses for a mainstream public, Miller together with Shantz have built on the participatory role that he played in launching the region’s first alternative newspaper in 1973 that became albeit briefly the equivalent of a countercultural utopian gazette. Now, he and Shantz effectively play the same role, producing a kind of countercultural form of utopian media for Byron Bay that corresponds to exactly the same criteria mentioned above. Through their free publication, they aim to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the Rainbow Region, focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events. The Byron Bay that Miller and Shantz promote is resolutely utopian, and certainly countercultural if compared to other free publications like The Book, a new shopping guide, or mainstream media elsewhere. Despite this new competition, they are planning the next edition for 2015 with essays to make people think, talk, and understand the region’s issues, so perhaps the counterculture is still holding its own against the mainstream. References Atton, Chris. “What Is ‘Alternative’ Journalism?” Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism 4.3 (2003): 267-72. Berger, Bennett M. The Survival of a Counterculture: Ideological Work and Everyday Life among Rural Communards. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004. Cock, Peter H., & Paul F. Perry. “Australia's Alternative Media.” Media Information Australia 6 (1977): 4-13. Couldry, Nick. “Mediation and Alternative Media, or Relocating the Centre of Media and Communication Studies.” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 103, (2002): 24-31. Davis, Dale, John Witzig & Don James. “Rusty Miller.” Encyclopedia of Surfing. 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/miller-rusty›. Downing, John. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Davis, J.C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Forde, Susan. Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Independent Media. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2011. ---. “Monitoring the Establishment: The Development of the Alternative Press in Australia” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 87 (May 1998): 114-133. Frobert, Lucien. “French Utopian Socialists as the First Pioneers in Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 35 (2011): 729-49. Green, Toby. Thomas More’s Magician: A Novel Account of Utopia in Mexico. London: Phoenix, 2004. Goffman, Ken, & Dan Joy. Counterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. New York: Villard Books. 2004. Haude, Sigrun. “Anabaptism.” The Reformation World. Ed. Andrew Pettegree. London: Routledge, 2000. 237-256. Jameson, Fredric. Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Martin, Fiona, & Rhonda Ellis. “Dropping In, Not Out: The Evolution of the Alternative Press in Byron Shire 1970-2001.” Transformations 2 (2002). 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_02/pdf/MartinEllis.pdf›. McKay, George. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London: Verso, 1996. Metcalf, Bill. From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality: Cooperative Lifestyles in Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. ---. Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living around the Globe. Forres, UK: Findhorn Press, 1996. Miller, Rusty & Tricia Shantz. Turning Point: Surf Portraits and Stories from Bells to Byron 1970-1971. Surf Research. 2012. Molnar, Thomas. Utopia: The Perennial Heresy. London: Tom Stacey, 1972. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York: Methuen, 1986. Munro-Clark, Margaret. Communes in Rural Australia: The Movement since 1970. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1986. Osterlag, Bob. People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: Anchor, 1969. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1-37. Schaer, Roland, Gregory Claeys, and Lyman Tower Sargent, eds. Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford UP, 2000. Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. Columbia: Columbia UP, 2001. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Ward, Susan, & Kitty van Vuuren. “Belonging to the Rainbow Region: Place, Local Media, and the Construction of Civil and Moral Identities Strategic to Climate Change Adaptability.” Environmental Communication 7.1 (2013): 63-79. Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Wilson, Helen. (Ed.). Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University Press, 2003. Widmer, Kingsley. Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts. Ann Arbor, London: UMI Research Press, 1988. Yinger, J. Milton. Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York: The Free Press, 1982.

Abstract:

Perhaps nothing in media culture today makes clearer the connection between people’s bodies and their homes than the Emmy-winning reality TV program Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Home Edition is a spin-off from the original Extreme Makeover, and that fact provides in fundamental form the strong connection that the show demonstrates between bodies and houses. The first EM, initially popular for its focus on cosmetic surgery, laser skin and hair treatments, dental work, cosmetics and wardrobe for mainly middle-aged and self-described unattractive participants, lagged after two full seasons and was finally cancelled entirely, whereas EMHE has continued to accrue viewers and sponsors, as well as accolades (Paulsen, Poniewozik, EMHE Website, Wilhelm). That viewers and the ABC network shifted their attention to the reconstruction of houses over the original version’s direct intervention in problematic bodies indicates that sites of personal transformation are not necessarily within our own physical or emotional beings, but in the larger surround of our environments and in our cultural ideals of home and body. One effect of this shift in the Extreme Makeover format is that a seemingly wider range of narrative problems can be solved relating to houses than to the particular bodies featured on the original show. Although Extreme Makeover featured a few people who’d had previously botched cleft palate surgeries or mastectomies, as Cressida Heyes points out, “the only kind of disability that interests the show is one that can be corrected to conform to able-bodied norms” (22). Most of the recipients were simply middle-aged folks who were ordinary or aged in appearance; many of them seemed self-obsessed and vain, and their children often seemed disturbed by the transformation (Heyes 24). However, children are happy to have a brand new TV and a toy-filled room decorated like their latest fantasy, and they thereby can be drawn into the process of identity transformation in the Home Edition version; in fact, children are required of virtually all recipients of the show’s largess. Because EMHE can do “major surgery” or simply bulldoze an old structure and start with a new building, it is also able to incorporate more variety in its stories—floods, fires, hurricanes, propane explosions, war, crime, immigration, car accidents, unscrupulous contractors, insurance problems, terrorist attacks—the list of traumas is seemingly endless. Home Edition can solve any problem, small or large. Houses are much easier things to repair or reconstruct than bodies. Perhaps partly for this reason, EMHE uses disability as one of its major tropes. Until Season 4, Episode 22, 46.9 percent of the episodes have had some content related to disability or illness of a disabling sort, and this number rises to 76.4 percent if the count includes families that have been traumatised by the (usually recent) death of a family member in childhood or the prime of life by illness, accident or violence. Considering that the percentage of people living with disabilities in the U.S. is defined at 18.1 percent (Steinmetz), EMHE obviously favours them considerably in the selection process. Even the disproportionate numbers of people with disabilities living in poverty and who therefore might be more likely to need help—20.9 percent as opposed to 7.7 percent of the able-bodied population (Steinmetz)—does not fully explain their dominance on the program. In fact, the program seeks out people with new and different physical disabilities and illnesses, sending out emails to local news stations looking for “Extraordinary Mom / Dad recently diagnosed with ALS,” “Family who has a child with PROGERIA (aka ‘little old man’s disease’)” and other particular situations (Simonian). A total of sixty-five ill or disabled people have been featured on the show over the past four years, and, even if one considers its methods maudlin or exploitive, the presence of that much disability and illness is very unusual for reality TV and for TV in general. What the show purports to do is to radically transform multiple aspects of individuals’ lives—and especially lives marred by what are perceived as physical setbacks—via the provision of a luxurious new house, albeit sometimes with the addition of automobiles, mortgage payments or college scholarships. In some ways the assumptions underpinning EMHE fit with a social constructionist body theory that posits an almost infinitely flexible physical matter, of which the definitions and capabilities are largely determined by social concepts and institutions. The social model within the disability studies field has used this theoretical perspective to emphasise the distinction between an impairment, “the physical fact of lacking an arm or a leg,” and disability, “the social process that turns an impairment into a negative by creating barriers to access” (Davis, Bending 12). Accessible housing has certainly been one emphasis of disability rights activists, and many of them have focused on how “design conceptions, in relation to floor plans and allocation of functions to specific spaces, do not conceive of impairment, disease and illness as part of domestic habitation or being” (Imrie 91). In this regard, EMHE appears as a paragon. In one of its most challenging and dramatic Season 1 episodes, the “Design Team” worked on the home of the Ziteks, whose twenty-two-year-old son had been restricted to a sub-floor of the three-level structure since a car accident had paralyzed him. The show refitted the house with an elevator, roll-in bathroom and shower, and wheelchair-accessible doors. Robert Zitek was also provided with sophisticated computer equipment that would help him produce music, a life-long interest that had been halted by his upper-vertebra paralysis. Such examples abound in the new EMHE houses, which have been constructed for families featuring situations such as both blind and deaf members, a child prone to bone breaks due to osteogenesis imperfecta, legs lost in Iraq warfare, allergies that make mold life-threatening, sun sensitivity due to melanoma or polymorphic light eruption or migraines, fragile immune systems (often due to organ transplants or chemotherapy), cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, Krabbe disease and autism. EMHE tries to set these lives right via the latest in technology and treatment—computer communication software and hardware, lock systems, wheelchair-friendly design, ventilation and air purification set-ups, the latest in care and mental health approaches for various disabilities and occasional consultations with disabled celebrities like Marlee Matlin. Even when individuals or familes are “[d]iscriminated against on a daily basis by ignorance and physical challenges,” as the program website notes, they “deserve to have a home that doesn’t discriminate against them” (EMHE website, Season 3, Episode 4). The relief that they will be able to inhabit accessible and pleasant environments is evident on the faces of many of these recipients. That physical ease, that ability to move and perform the intimate acts of domestic life, seems according to the show’s narrative to be the most basic element of home. Nonetheless, as Robert Imrie has pointed out, superficial accessibility may still veil “a static, singular conception of the body” (201) that prevents broader change in attitudes about people with disabilities, their activities and their spaces. Starting with the story of the child singing in an attempt at self-comforting from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, J. MacGregor Wise defines home as a process of territorialisation through specific behaviours. “The markers of home … are not simply inanimate objects (a place with stuff),” he notes, “but the presence, habits, and effects of spouses, children, parents, and companions” (299). While Ty Pennington, EMHE’s boisterous host, implies changes for these families along the lines of access to higher education, creative possibilities provided by musical instruments and disability-appropriate art materials, help with home businesses in the way of equipment and licenses and so on, the families’ identity-producing habits are just as likely to be significantly changed by the structural and decorative arrangements made for them by the Design Team. The homes that are created for these families are highly conventional in their structure, layout, decoration, and expectations of use. More specifically, certain behavioural patterns are encouraged and others discouraged by the Design Team’s assumptions. Several themes run through the show’s episodes: Large dining rooms provide for the most common of Pennington’s comments: “You can finally sit down and eat meals together as a family.” A nostalgic value in an era where most families have schedules full of conflicts that prevent such Ozzie-and-Harriet scenarios, it nonetheless predominates. Large kitchens allow for cooking and eating at home, though featured food is usually frozen and instant. In addition, kitchens are not designed for the families’ disabled members; for wheelchair users, for instance, counters need to be lower than usual with open space underneath, so that a wheelchair can roll underneath the counter. Thus, all the wheelchair inhabitants depicted will still be dependent on family members, primarily mothers, to prepare food and clean up after them. (See Imrie, 95-96, for examples of adapted kitchens.) Pets, perhaps because they are inherently “dirty,” are downplayed or absent, even when the family has them when EMHE arrives (except one family that is featured for their animal rescue efforts); interestingly, there are no service dogs, which might obviate the need for some of the high-tech solutions for the disabled offered by the show. The previous example is one element of an emphasis on clutter-free cleanliness and tastefulness combined with a rampant consumerism. While “cultural” elements may be salvaged from exotic immigrant families, most of the houses are very similar and assume a certain kind of commodified style based on new furniture (not humble family hand-me-downs), appliances, toys and expensive, prefab yard gear. Sears is a sponsor of the program, and shopping trips for furniture and appliances form a regular part of the program. Most or all of the houses have large garages, and the families are often given large vehicles by Ford, maintaining a positive take on a reliance on private transportation and gas-guzzling vehicles, but rarely handicap-adapted vans. Living spaces are open, with high ceilings and arches rather than doorways, so that family members will have visual and aural contact. Bedrooms are by contrast presented as private domains of retreat, especially for parents who have demanding (often ill or disabled) children, from which they are considered to need an occasional break. All living and bedrooms are dominated by TVs and other electronica, sometimes presented as an aid to the disabled, but also dominating to the point of excluding other ways of being and interacting. As already mentioned, childless couples and elderly people without children are completely absent. Friends buying houses together and gay couples are also not represented. The ideal of the heterosexual nuclear family is thus perpetuated, even though some of the show’s craftspeople are gay. Likewise, even though “independence” is mentioned frequently in the context of families with disabled members, there are no recipients who are disabled adults living on their own without family caretakers. “Independence” is spoken of mostly in terms of bathing, dressing, using the bathroom and other bodily aspects of life, not in terms of work, friendship, community or self-concept. Perhaps most salient, the EMHE houses are usually created as though nothing about the family will ever again change. While a few of the projects have featured terminally ill parents seeking to leave their children secure after their death, for the most part the families are considered oddly in stasis. Single mothers will stay single mothers, even children with conditions with severe prognoses will continue to live, the five-year-old will sleep forever in a fire-truck bed or dollhouse room, the occasional grandparent installed in his or her own suite will never pass away, and teenagers and young adults (especially the disabled) will never grow up, marry, discover their homosexuality, have a falling out with their parents or leave home. A kind of timeless nostalgia, hearkening back to Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, pervades the show. Like the body-modifying Extreme Makeover, the Home Edition version is haunted by the issue of normalisation. The word ‘normal’, in fact, floats through the program’s dialogue frequently, and it is made clear that the goal of the show is to restore, as much as possible, a somewhat glamourised, but status quo existence. The website, in describing the work of one deserving couple notes that “Camp Barnabas is a non-profit organisation that caters to the needs of critically and chronically ill children and gives them the opportunity to be ‘normal’ for one week” (EMHE website, Season 3, Episode 7). Someone at the network is sophisticated enough to put ‘normal’ in quotation marks, and the show demonstrates a relatively inclusive concept of ‘normal’, but the word dominates the show itself, and the concept remains largely unquestioned (See Canguilhem; Davis, Enforcing Normalcy; and Snyder and Mitchell, Narrative, for critiques of the process of normalization in regard to disability). In EMHE there is no sense that disability or illness ever produces anything positive, even though the show also notes repeatedly the inspirational attitudes that people have developed through their disability and illness experiences. Similarly, there is no sense that a little messiness can be creatively productive or even necessary. Wise makes a distinction between “home and the home, home and house, home and domus,” the latter of each pair being normative concepts, whereas the former “is a space of comfort (a never-ending process)” antithetical to oppressive norms, such as the association of the home with the enforced domesticity of women. In cases where the house or domus becomes a place of violence and discomfort, home becomes the process of coping with or resisting the negative aspects of the place (300). Certainly the disabled have experienced this in inaccessible homes, but they may also come to experience a different version in a new EMHE house. For, as Wise puts it, “home can also mean a process of rationalization or submission, a break with the reality of the situation, self-delusion, or falling under the delusion of others” (300). The show’s assumption that the construction of these new houses will to a great extent solve these families’ problems (and that disability itself is the problem, not the failure of our culture to accommodate its many forms) may in fact be a delusional spell under which the recipient families fall. In fact, the show demonstrates a triumphalist narrative prevalent today, in which individual happenstance and extreme circumstances are given responsibility for social ills. In this regard, EMHE acts out an ancient morality play, where the recipients of the show’s largesse are assessed and judged based on what they “deserve,” and the opening of each show, when the Design Team reviews the application video tape of the family, strongly emphasises what good people these are (they work with charities, they love each other, they help out their neighbours) and how their situation is caused by natural disaster, act of God or undeserved tragedy, not their own bad behaviour. Disabilities are viewed as terrible tragedies that befall the young and innocent—there is no lung cancer or emphysema from a former smoking habit, and the recipients paralyzed by gunshots have received them in drive-by shootings or in the line of duty as police officers and soldiers. In addition, one of the functions of large families is that the children veil any selfish motivation the adults may have—they are always seeking the show’s assistance on behalf of the children, not themselves. While the Design Team always notes that there are “so many other deserving people out there,” the implication is that some people’s poverty and need may be their own fault. (See Snyder and Mitchell, Locations 41-67; Blunt and Dowling 116-25; and Holliday.) In addition, the structure of the show—with the opening view of the family’s undeserved problems, their joyous greeting at the arrival of the Team, their departure for the first vacation they may ever have had and then the final exuberance when they return to the new house—creates a sense of complete, almost religious salvation. Such narratives fail to point out social support systems that fail large numbers of people who live in poverty and who struggle with issues of accessibility in terms of not only domestic spaces, but public buildings, educational opportunities and social acceptance. In this way, it echoes elements of the medical model, long criticised in disability studies, where each and every disabled body is conceptualised as a site of individual aberration in need of correction, not as something disabled by an ableist society. In fact, “the house does not shelter us from cosmic forces; at most it filters and selects them” (Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?, qtd. in Frichot 61), and those outside forces will still apply to all these families. The normative assumptions inherent in the houses may also become oppressive in spite of their being accessible in a technical sense (a thing necessary but perhaps not sufficient for a sense of home). As Tobin Siebers points out, “[t]he debate in architecture has so far focused more on the fundamental problem of whether buildings and landscapes should be universally accessible than on the aesthetic symbolism by which the built environment mirrors its potential inhabitants” (“Culture” 183). Siebers argues that the Jamesonian “political unconscious” is a “social imaginary” based on a concept of perfection (186) that “enforces a mutual identification between forms of appearance, whether organic, aesthetic, or architectural, and ideal images of the body politic” (185). Able-bodied people are fearful of the disabled’s incurability and refusal of normalisation, and do not accept the statistical fact that, at least through the process of aging, most people will end up dependent, ill and/or disabled at some point in life. Mainstream society “prefers to think of people with disabilities as a small population, a stable population, that nevertheless makes enormous claims on the resources of everyone else” (“Theory” 742). Siebers notes that the use of euphemism and strategies of covering eventually harm efforts to create a society that is home to able-bodied and disabled alike (“Theory” 747) and calls for an exploration of “new modes of beauty that attack aesthetic and political standards that insist on uniformity, balance, hygiene, and formal integrity” (Culture 210). What such an architecture, particularly of an actually livable domestic nature, might look like is an open question, though there are already some examples of people trying to reframe many of the assumptions about housing design. For instance, cohousing, where families and individuals share communal space, yet have private accommodations, too, makes available a larger social group than the nuclear family for social and caretaking activities (Blunt and Dowling, 262-65). But how does one define a beauty-less aesthetic or a pleasant home that is not hygienic? Post-structuralist architects, working on different grounds and usually in a highly theoretical, imaginary framework, however, may offer another clue, as they have also tried to ‘liberate’ architecture from the nostalgic dictates of the aesthetic. Ironically, one of the most famous of these, Peter Eisenman, is well known for producing, in a strange reversal, buildings that render the able-bodied uncomfortable and even sometimes ill (see, in particular, Frank and Eisenman). Of several house designs he produced over the years, Eisenman notes that his intention was to dislocate the house from that comforting metaphysic and symbolism of shelter in order to initiate a search for those possibilities of dwelling that may have been repressed by that metaphysic. The house may once have been a true locus and symbol of nurturing shelter, but in a world of irresolvable anxiety, the meaning and form of shelter must be different. (Eisenman 172) Although Eisenman’s starting point is very different from that of Siebers, it nonetheless resonates with the latter’s desire for an aesthetic that incorporates the “ragged edge” of disabled bodies. Yet few would want to live in a home made less attractive or less comfortable, and the “illusion” of permanence is one of the things that provide rest within our homes. Could there be an architecture, or an aesthetic, of home that could create a new and different kind of comfort and beauty, one that is neither based on a denial of the importance of bodily comfort and pleasure nor based on an oppressively narrow and commercialised set of aesthetic values that implicitly value some people over others? For one thing, instead of viewing home as a place of (false) stasis and permanence, we might see it as a place of continual change and renewal, which any home always becomes in practice anyway. As architect Hélène Frichot suggests, “we must look toward the immanent conditions of architecture, the processes it employs, the serial deformations of its built forms, together with our quotidian spatio-temporal practices” (63) instead of settling into a deadening nostalgia like that seen on EMHE. If we define home as a process of continual territorialisation, if we understand that “[t]here is no fixed self, only the process of looking for one,” and likewise that “there is no home, only the process of forming one” (Wise 303), perhaps we can begin to imagine a different, yet lovely conception of “house” and its relation to the experience of “home.” Extreme Makeover: Home Edition should be lauded for its attempts to include families of a wide variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds, various religions, from different regions around the U.S., both rural and suburban, even occasionally urban, and especially for its bringing to the fore how, indeed, structures can be as disabling as any individual impairment. That it shows designers and builders working with the families of the disabled to create accessible homes may help to change wider attitudes and break down resistance to the building of inclusive housing. However, it so far has missed the opportunity to help viewers think about the ways that our ideal homes may conflict with our constantly evolving social needs and bodily realities. References Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Tr. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Canguilhem, Georges. The Normal and the Pathological. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Davis, Lennard. Bending Over Backwards: Disability, Dismodernism & Other Difficult Positions. New York: NYUP, 2002. ———. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body. New York: Verso, 1995. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Tr. B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. ———. What Is Philosophy? Tr. G. Burchell and H. Tomlinson. London and New York: Verso, 1994. Eisenman, Peter Eisenman. “Misreading” in House of Cards. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 21 Aug. 2007 http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/eisenman/biblio.html#cards>. Peter Eisenman Texts Anthology at the Stanford Presidential Lectures and Symposia in the Humanities and Arts site. 5 June 2007 http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/eisenman/texts.html#misread>. “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” Website. 18 May 2007 http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index.html>; http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/show.html>; http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/bios/101.html>; http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/bios/301.html>; and http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/bios/401.html>. Frank, Suzanne Sulof, and Peter Eisenman. House VI: The Client’s Response. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1994. Frichot, Hélène. “Stealing into Gilles Deleuze’s Baroque House.” In Deleuze and Space, eds. Ian Buchanan and Gregg Lambert. Deleuze Connections Series. Toronto: University of Toronto P, 2005. 61-79. Heyes, Cressida J. “Cosmetic Surgery and the Televisual Makeover: A Foucauldian feminist reading.” Feminist Media Studies 7.1 (2007): 17-32. Holliday, Ruth. “Home Truths?” In Ordinary Lifestyles: Popular Media, Consumption and Taste. Ed. David Bell and Joanne Hollows. Maidenhead, Berkshire, England: Open UP, 2005. 65-81. Imrie, Rob. Accessible Housing: Quality, Disability and Design. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Paulsen, Wade. “‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ surges in ratings and adds Ford as auto partner.” Reality TV World. 14 October 2004. 27 March 2005 http://www.realitytvworld.com/index/articles/story.php?s=2981>. Poniewozik, James, with Jeanne McDowell. “Charity Begins at Home: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition renovates its way into the Top 10 one heart-wrenching story at a time.” Time 20 Dec. 2004: i25 p159. Siebers, Tobin. “Disability in Theory: From Social Constructionism to the New Realism of the Body.” American Literary History 13.4 (2001): 737-754. ———. “What Can Disability Studies Learn from the Culture Wars?” Cultural Critique 55 (2003): 182-216. Simonian, Charisse. Email to network affiliates, 10 March 2006. 18 May 2007 http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0327062extreme1.html>. Snyder, Sharon L., and David T. Mitchell. Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006. ———. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Steinmetz, Erika. Americans with Disabilities: 2002. U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics, and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, 2006. 15 May 2007 http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p70-107.pdf>. Wilhelm, Ian. “The Rise of Charity TV (Reality Television Shows).” Chronicle of Philanthropy 19.8 (8 Feb. 2007): n.p. Wise, J. Macgregor. “Home: Territory and Identity.” Cultural Studies 14.2 (2000): 295-310. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Roney, Lisa. "The Extreme Connection Between Bodies and Houses." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/03-roney.php>. APA Style Roney, L. (Aug. 2007) "The Extreme Connection Between Bodies and Houses," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/03-roney.php>.

Abstract:

Introduction The first “Aquarius Festival” came together in Canberra, at the Australian National University, in the autumn of 1971 and was reprised in 1973 in the small rural town of Nimbin, in northern New South Wales. Both events reflected the Zeitgeist in what was, in some ways, an inchoate expression of the so-called “counterculture” (Roszak). Rather than attempting to analyse the counterculture as a discrete movement with a definable history, I enlist the theory of cultural memes to read the counter culture as a Dawkinsian cluster meme, with this paper offered as “testimonio”, a form of quasi-political memoir that views shifts in the culture through the lens of personal experience (Zimmerman, Yúdice). I track an evolving personal, “internal” topography and map its points of intersection with the radical social, political and cultural changes spawned by the “consciousness revolution” that was an integral part of the counterculture emerging in the 1970s. I focus particularly on the notion of “consciousness raising”, as a Dawkinsian memetic replicator, in the context of the idealistic notions of the much-heralded “New Age” of Aquarius, and propose that this meme has been a persistent feature of the evolution of the “meme cluster” known as the counterculture. Mimesis and the Counterculture Since evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins floated the notion of cultural memes as a template to account for the evolution of ideas within political cultures, a literature of commentary and criticism has emerged that debates the strengths and weaknesses of his proposed model and its application across a number of fields. I borrow the notion to trace the influence of a set of memes that clustered around the emergence of what writer Marilyn Ferguson called The Aquarian Conspiracy, in her 1980 book of that name. Ferguson’s text, subtitled Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time, was a controversial attempt to account for what was known as the “New Age” movement, with its late millennial focus on social and personal transformation. That focus leads me to approach the counterculture (a term first floated by Theodore Roszak) less as a definable historical movement and more as a cluster of aspirational tropes expressing a range of aspects or concerns, from the overt political activism through to experimental technologies for the transformation of consciousness, and all characterised by a critical interrogation of, and resistance to, conventional social norms (Ferguson’s “personal and social transformation”). With its more overtly “spiritual” focus, I read the “New Age” meme, then, as a sub-set of this “cluster meme”, the counterculture. In my reading, “New Age” and “counterculture” overlap, sharing persistent concerns and a broad enough tent to accommodate the serious—the combative political action of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), say, (see Elbaum)—to the light-hearted—the sport of frisbee for example (Stancil). The interrogation of conventional social and political norms inherited from previous generations was a prominent strategy across both movements. Rather than offering a sociological analysis or history of the ragbag counterculture, per se, my discussion here focuses in on the particular meme of “consciousness raising” within that broader set of cultural shifts, some of which were sustained in their own right, some dropping away, and many absorbed into the dominant mainstream culture. Dawkins use of the term “meme” was rooted in the Greek mimesis, to emphasise the replication of an idea by imitation, or copying. He likened the way ideas survive and change in human culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution. While the transmission of memes does not depend on a physical medium, such as the DNA of biology, they replicate with a greater or lesser degree of success by harnessing human social media in a kind of “infectivity”, it is argued, through “contagious” repetition among human populations. Dawkins proposed that just as biological organisms could be said to act as “hosts” for replicating genes, in the same way people and groups of people act as hosts for replicating memes. Even before Dawkins floated his term, French biologist Jacques Monod wrote that ideas have retained some of the properties of organisms. Like them, they tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed; they too can fuse, recombine, segregate their content; indeed they too can evolve, and in this evolution selection must surely play an important role. (165, emphasis mine) Ideas have power, in Monod’s analysis: “They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighbouring brains, and thanks to global communication, in far distant, foreign brains” (Monod, cited in Gleick). Emblematic of the counterculture were various “New Age” phenomena such as psychedelic drugs, art and music, with the latter contributing the “Aquarius” meme, whose theme song came from the stage musical (and later, film) Hair, and particularly the lyric that runs: “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius”. The Australian Aquarius Festivals of 1971 and 1973 explicitly invoked this meme in the way identified by Monod and the “Aquarius” meme resonated even in Australia. Problematising “Aquarius” As for the astrological accuracy of the “Age of Aquarius meme”, professional astrologers argue about its dating, and the qualities that supposedly characterise it. When I consulted with two prominent workers in this field for the preparation of this article, I was astonished to find their respective dating of the putative Age of Aquarius were centuries apart! What memes were being “hosted” here? According to the lyrics: When the moon is in the seventh house And Jupiter aligns with Mars Then peace will guide the planets And love will steer the stars. (Hair) My astrologer informants assert that the moon is actually in the seventh house twice every year, and that Jupiter aligns with Mars every two years. Yet we are still waiting for the outbreak of peace promised according to these astrological conditions. I am also informed that there’s no “real” astrological underpinning for the aspirations of the song’s lyrics, for an astrological “Age” is not determined by any planet but by constellations rising, they tell me. Most important, contrary to the aspirations embodied in the lyrics, peace was not guiding the planets and love was not about to “steer the stars”. For Mars is not the planet of love, apparently, but of war and conflict and, empowered with the expansiveness of Jupiter, it was the forceful aggression of a militaristic mind-set that actually prevailed as the “New Age” supposedly dawned. For the hippified summer of love had taken a nosedive with the tragic events at the Altamont speedway, near San Francisco in 1969, when biker gangs, enlisted to provide security for a concert performance by The Rolling Stones allegedly provoked violence, marring the event and contributing to a dawning disillusionment (for a useful coverage of the event and its historical context see Dalton). There was a lot of far-fetched poetic licence involved in this dreaming, then, but memes, according to Nikos Salingaros, are “greatly simplified versions of patterns”. “The simpler they are, the faster they can proliferate”, he writes, and the most successful memes “come with a great psychological appeal” (243, 260; emphasis mine). What could be retrieved from this inchoate idealism? Harmony and understanding Sympathy and trust abounding No more falsehoods or derisions Golden living dreams of visions Mystic crystal revelation And the mind’s true liberation Aquarius, Aquarius. (Hair) In what follows I want to focus on this notion: “mind’s true liberation” by tracing the evolution of this project of “liberating” the mind, reflected in my personal journey. Nimbin and Aquarius I had attended the first Aquarius Festival, which came together in Canberra, at the Australian National University, in the autumn of 1971. I travelled there from Perth, overland, in a Ford Transit van, among a raggedy band of tie-dyed hippie actors, styled as The Campus Guerilla Theatre Troupe, re-joining our long-lost sisters and brothers as visionary pioneers of the New Age of Aquarius. Our visions were fueled with a suitcase full of potent Sumatran “buddha sticks” and, contrary to Biblical prophesies, we tended to see—not “through a glass darkly” but—in psychedelic, pop-, and op-art explosions of colour. We could see energy, man! Two years later, I found myself at the next Aquarius event in Nimbin, too, but by that time I inhabited a totally different mind-zone, albeit one characterised by the familiar, intense idealism. In the interim, I had been arrested in 1971 while “tripping out” in Sydney on potent “acid”, or LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide); had tried out political engagement at the Pram Factory Theatre in Melbourne; had camped out in protest at the flooding of Lake Pedder in the Tasmanian wilderness; met a young guru, started meditating, and joined “the ashram”—part of the movement known as the Divine Light Mission, which originated in India and was carried to the “West” (including Australia) by an enthusiastic and evangelical following of drug-toking drop-outs who had been swarming through India intent on escaping the dominant culture of the military-industrial complex and the horrors of the Vietnam War. Thus, by the time of the 1973 event in Nimbin, while other festival participants were foraging for “gold top” magic mushrooms in farmers’ fields, we devotees had put aside such chemical interventions in conscious awareness to dig latrines (our “service” project for the event) and we invited everyone to join us for “satsang” in the yellow, canvas-covered, geodesic dome, to attend to the message of peace. The liberation meme had shifted through a mutation that involved lifestyle-changing choices that were less about alternative approaches to sustainable agriculture and more about engaging directly with “mind’s true liberation”. Raising Consciousness What comes into focus here is the meme of “consciousness raising”, which became the persistent project within which I lived and worked and had my being for many years. Triggered initially by the ingestion of those psychedelic substances that led to my shocking encounter with the police, the project was carried forward into the more disciplined environs of my guru’s ashrams. However, before my encounter with sustained spiritual practice I had tried to work the shift within the parameters of an ostensibly political framework. “Consciousness raising” was a form of political activism borrowed from the political sphere. Originally generated by Mao Zedong in China during the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the vested colonial interests that were choking Chinese nationalism in the 1940s, to our “distant, foreign brains” (Monod), as Western revolutionary romantics, Chairman Mao and his Little Red Book were taken up, in a kind of international counterculture solidarity with revolutionaries everywhere. It must be admitted, this solidarity was a fairly superficial gesture. Back in China it might be construed as part of a crude totalitarian campaign to inculcate Marxist-Leninist political ideas among the peasant classes (see Compestine for a fictionalised account of traumatic times; Han Suyin’s long-form autobiography—an early example of testimonio as personal and political history—offers an unapologetic account of a struggle not usually construed as sympathetically by Western commentators). But the meme (and the processes) of consciousness raising were picked up by feminists in the United States in the late 1960s and into the 1970s (Brownmiller 21) and it was in this form I encountered it as an actor with the politically engaged theatre troupe, The Australian Performing Group, at Carlton’s Pram Factory Theatre in late 1971. The Performance Group I performed as a core member of the Group in 1971-72. Decisions as to which direction the Group should take were to be made as a collective, and the group veered towards anarchy. Most of the women were getting together outside of the confines of the Pram Factory to raise their consciousness within the Carlton Women’s Liberation Cell Group. While happy that the sexual revolution was reducing women’s sexual inhibitions, some of the men at the Factory were grumbling into their beer, disturbed that intimate details of their private lives—and their sexual performance—might be disclosed and raked over by a bunch of radical feminists. As they began to demand equal rights to orgasm in the bedroom, the women started to seek equal access within the performance group, too. They requested rehearsal time to stage the first production by the Women’s Theatre Group, newly formed under the umbrella of the wider collective. As all of the acknowledged writers in the Group so far were men—some of whom had not kept pace in consciousness raising—scripts tended to be viewed as part of a patriarchal plot, so Betty Can Jump was an improvised piece, with the performance material developed entirely by the cast in workshop-style rehearsals, under the direction of Kerry Dwyer (see Blundell, Zuber-Skerritt 21, plus various contributors at www.pramfactory.com/memoirsfolder/). I was the only male in the collective included in the cast. Several women would have been more comfortable if no mere male were involved at all. My gendered attitudes would scarcely have withstood a critical interrogation but, as my partner was active in launching the Women’s Electoral Lobby, I was given the benefit of the doubt. Director Kerry Dwyer liked my physicalised approach to performance (we were both inspired by the “poor theatre” of Jerzy Grotowski and the earlier surrealistic theories of Antonin Artaud), and I was cast to play all the male parts, whatever they would be. Memorable material came up in improvisation, much of which made it into the performances, but my personal favorite didn’t make the cut. It was a sprawling movement piece where I was “born” out of a symbolic mass of writhing female bodies. It was an arduous process and, after much heaving and huffing, I emerged from the birth canal stammering “SSSS … SSSS … SSMMMO-THER”! The radical reversioning of culturally authorised roles for women has inevitably, if more slowly, led to a re-thinking of the culturally approved and reinforced models of masculinity, too, once widely accepted as entirely biologically ordained rather than culturally constructed. But the possibility of a queer re-versioning of gender would be recognised only slowly. Liberation Meanwhile, Dennis Altman was emerging as an early spokesman for gay, or homosexual, liberation and he was invited to address the collective. Altman’s stirring book, Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation, had recently been published, but none of us had read it. Radical or not, the Group had shown little evidence of sensitivity to gender-queer issues. My own sexuality was very much “oppressed” rather than liberated and I would have been loath to use “queer” to describe myself. The term “homosexual” was fraught with pejorative, quasi-medical associations and, in a collective so divided across strict and sometimes hostile gender boundaries, deviant affiliations got short shrift. Dennis was unsure of his reception before this bunch of apparent “heteros”. Sitting at the rear of the meeting, I admired his courage. It took more self-acceptance than I could muster to confront the Group on this issue at the time. Somewhere in the back of my mind, “homosexuality” was still something I was supposed to “get over”, so I failed to respond to Altman’s implicit invitation to come out and join the party. The others saw me in relationship with a woman and whatever doubts they might have carried about the nature of my sexuality were tactfully suspended. Looking back, I am struck by the number of simultaneous poses I was trying to maintain: as an actor; as a practitioner of an Artaudian “theatre of cruelty”; as a politically committed activist; and as a “hetero”-sexual. My identity was an assemblage of entities posing as “I”; it was as if I were performing a self. Little gay boys are encouraged from an early age to hide their real impulses, not only from others—in the very closest circle, the family; at school; among one’s peers—but from themselves, too. The coercive effects of shaming usually fix the denial into place in our psyches before we have any intellectual (or political) resources to consider other options. Growing up trying to please, I hid my feelings. In my experience, it could be downright dangerous to resist the subtle and gross coercions that applied around gender normativity. The psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, of the British object-relations school, argues that when the environment does not support the developing personality and requires the person to sacrifice his or her own spontaneous needs to adapt to environmental demands, there is not even a resting-place for individual experience and the result is a failure in the primary narcissistic state to evolve an individual. The “individual” then develops as an extension of the shell rather than that of the core [...] What there is left of a core is hidden away and is difficult to find even in the most far-reaching analysis. The individual then exists by not being found. The true self is hidden, and what we have to deal with clinically is the complex false self whose function is to keep this true self hidden. (212) How to connect to that hidden core, then? “Mind’s true liberation...” Alienated from the performative version of selfhood, but still inspired by the promise of liberation, even in the “fuzzy” form for which my inchoate hunger yearned (sexual liberation? political liberation? mystical liberation?), I was left to seek out a more authentic basis for selfhood, one that didn’t send me spinning along the roller-coaster of psychedelic drugs, or lie to me with the nostrums of a toxic, most forms of which would deny me, as a sexual, moral and legal pariah, the comforts of those “anchorage points to the social matrix” identified by Soddy (cited in Mol 58). My spiritual inquiry was “counter” to these institutionalised models of religious culture. So, I began to read my way through a myriad of books on comparative religion. And to my surprise, rather than taking up with the religions of antique cultures, instead I encountered a very young guru, initially as presented in a simply drawn poster in the window of Melbourne’s only vegetarian restaurant (Shakahari, in Carlton). “Are you hungry and tired of reading recipe books?” asked the figure in the poster. I had little sense of where that hunger would lead me, but it seemed to promise a fulfilment in ways that the fractious politics of the APG offered little nourishment. So, while many of my peers in the cities chose to pursue direct political action, and others experimented with cooperative living in rural communes, I chose the communal lifestyle of the ashram. In these different forms, then, the conscious raising meme persisted when other challenges raised by the counterculture either faded or were absorbed in the mainstream. I finally came to realise that the intense disillusionment process I had been through (“dis-illusionment” as the stripping away of illusions) was the beginning of awakening, in effect a “spiritual initiation” into a new way of seeing myself and my “place” in the world. Buddhist teachers might encourage this very kind of stripping away of false notions as part of their teaching, so the aspiration towards the “true liberation” of the mind expressed in the Aquarian visioning might be—and in my case, actually has been and continues to be—fulfilled to a very real extent. Gurus and the entire turn towards Eastern mysticism were part of the New Age meme cluster prevailing during the early 1970s, but I was fortunate to connect with an enduring set of empirical practices that haven’t faded with the fashions of the counterculture. A good guitarist would never want to play in public without first tuning her instrument. In a similar way, it is now possible for me to tune my mind back to a deeper, more original source of being than the socially constructed sense of self, which had been so fraught with conflicts for me. I have discovered that before gender, and before sexuality, in fact, pulsing away behind the thicket of everyday associations, there is an original, unconditioned state of beingness, the awareness of which can be reclaimed through focused meditation practices, tested in a wide variety of “real world” settings. For quite a significant period of time I worked as an instructor in the method on behalf of my guru, or mentor, travelling through a dozen or so countries, and it was through this exposure that I was able to observe that the practices worked independently of culture and that “mind’s true liberation” was in many ways a de-programming of cultural indoctrinations (see Marsh, 2014, 2013, 2011 and 2007 for testimony of this process). In Japan, Zen roshi might challenge their students with the koan: “Show me your original face, before you were born!” While that might seem to be an absurd proposal, I am finding that there is a potential, if unexpected, liberation in following through such an inquiry. As “hokey” as the Aquarian meme-set might have been, it was a reflection of the idealistic hope that characterised the cluster of memes that aggregated within the counterculture, a yearning for healthier life choices than those offered by the toxicity of the military-industrial complex, the grossly exploitative effects of rampant Capitalism and a politics of cynicism and domination. The meme of the “true liberation” of the mind, then, promised by the heady lyrics of a 1970s hippie musical, has continued to bear fruit in ways that I could not have imagined. References Altman, Dennis. Homosexual Oppression and Liberation. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1972. Blundell, Graeme. The Naked Truth: A Life in Parts. Sydney: Hachette, 2011. Brownmiller, Susan. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. New York: The Dial Press, 1999. Compestine, Ying Chang. Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party. New York: Square Fish, 2009. Dalton, David. “Altamont: End of the Sixties, Or Big Mix-Up in the Middle of Nowhere?” Gadfly Nov/Dec 1999. April 2014 ‹http://www.gadflyonline.com/archive/NovDec99/archive-altamont.html›. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976. Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London and New York: Verso, 2002. Ferguson, Marilyn. The Aquarian Conspiracy. Los Angeles: Tarcher Putnam, 1980. Gleick, James. “What Defines a Meme?” Smithsonian Magazine 2011. April 2014 ‹http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Defines-a Meme.html›. Hair, The American Tribal Love Rock Musical. Prod. Michael Butler. Book by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; Lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado; Music by Galt MacDermot; Musical Director: Galt MacDermot. 1968. Han, Suyin. The Crippled Tree. 1965. Reprinted. Chicago: Academy Chicago P, 1985. ---. A Mortal Flower. 1966. Reprinted. Chicago: Academy Chicago P, 1985. ---. Birdless Summer. 1968. Reprinted. Chicago: Academy Chicago P, 1985. ---. The Morning Deluge: Mao TseTung and the Chinese Revolution 1893-1954. Boston: Little Brown, 1972. ---. My House Has Two Doors. New York: Putnam, 1980. Marsh, Victor. The Boy in the Yellow Dress. Melbourne: Clouds of Magellan Press, 2014. ---. “A Touch of Silk: A (Post)modern Faerie Tale.” Griffith Review 42: Once Upon a Time in Oz (Oct. 2013): 159-69. ---. “Bent Kid, Straight World: Life Writing and the Reconfiguration of ‘Queer’.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 15.1 (April 2011). ‹http://www.textjournal.com.au/april11/marsh.htm›. ---. “The Boy in the Yellow Dress: Re-framing Subjectivity in Narrativisations of the Queer Self.“ Life Writing 4.2 (Oct. 2007): 263-286. Mol, Hans. Identity and the Sacred: A Sketch for a New Social-Scientific Theory of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell, 1976. Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: Doubleday, 1968. Salingaros, Nikos. Theory of Architecture. Solingen: Umbau-Verlag, 2006. Stancil, E.D., and M.D. Johnson. Frisbee: A Practitioner’s Manual and Definitive Treatise. New York: Workman, 1975 Winnicott, D.W. Through Paediatrics to Psycho-Analysis: Collected Papers. 1958. London: Hogarth Press, 1975. Yúdice, George. “Testimonio and Postmodernism.” Latin American Perspectives 18.3 (1991): 15-31. Zimmerman, Marc. “Testimonio.” The Sage Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods. Eds. Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Alan Bryman and Tim Futing Liao. London: Sage Publications, 2003. Zuber-Skerritt, Ortrun, ed. Australian Playwrights: David Williamson. Amsterdam: Rodolpi, 1988.

Abstract:

India has one of the world’s highest proportions of plant-based consumers relative to its total population (Sawe). However, the view that India is a predominantly vegetarian nation is likely inaccurate, as recent findings from the 2014 Indian Census indicate that only three in ten Indians self-identity as vegetarian (Census of India). Other studies similarly estimate the prevalence of vegetarianism to range from about 25% (Mintel Global) to about 40% (Euromonitor International; Statista, “Share”), and many Indians are shifting from strict plant-based diets to more flexible versions of plant-based eating (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). When it comes to meat eating, poultry is the most widely consumed (USDA Foreign Agricultural Service; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Some claim that the changing consumer landscape is also eroding traditional taboos associated with beef and buffalo meat consumption (Kala; Bansal), with many tending to underreport their meat consumption due to religious and cultural stigmas (Bansal).This change in food choices is driven by several factors, such as increasing urbanisation (Devi et al.), rising disposable incomes (Devi et al.; Rukhmini), globalisation, and cross-cultural influences (Majumdar; Sinha). Today, the urban middle-class is one of India’s fastest growing consumer segments (Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania), and the rise in the consumption of animal products is primarily occurring in urban India (National Sample Survey Office), making this an important market to investigate.From a global perspective, while many Western nations are increasingly adopting plant-based diets (Eswaran), the growth in meat consumption is predicted to mainly come from emerging markets (OECD/FAO) like India. With these points in mind, the purpose of this study was to explore contemporary eating practices in urban India and to understand how social structures, cultures, and traditions influence these practices. The findings indicate that the key reasons why many are transitioning away from plant-based diets are the rise of new and diverse meat-based foods in urban India, emerging tastes for meat-based cuisines, and meat becoming to be viewed as a status symbol. These factors are further elaborated upon in this article.MethodA key question of this research was “What are eating practices like in urban India today?” The question itself is a challenge, given India’s varied cultures and traditions, along with its myriad eating practices. Given this diversity, the study used an exploratory qualitative approach, where the main mode of data gathering was twenty-five unstructured individual face-to-face interviews, each approximately sixty minutes in duration. The discussions were left largely open to allow participants to share their unique eating practices and reflect on how their practices are shaped by other socio-cultural practices. The research used an iterative study design, which entailed cycles of simultaneous data collection, analysis, and subsequent adaptations made to some questions to refine the emerging theory. Within the defined parameters of the research objectives, saturation was adequately reached upon completion of twenty-five interviews.The sample comprised Mumbai residents aged 23 to 45 years, which is fairly representative given about a third of India’s population is aged under 40 (Central Intelligence Agency). Mumbai was selected as it is one of India’s largest cities (Central Intelligence Agency) and is considered the country’s commercial capital (Raghavan) and multicultural hub (Gulliver). The interviews were conducted at a popular restaurant in downtown Mumbai. The interviews were conducted predominantly in English, as it is India’s subsidiary official language (Central Intelligence Agency) and the participants were comfortable conversing in English. The sample included participants from two of India’s largest religions—Hindus (80%) and Muslims (13%) (Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India), and comprised an even split of males and females.The Market Research Society of India has developed a socio-economic classification (SEC) grid that segments urban households into twelve groups (Market Research Society of India). This segmentation is based on two questions: level of education—from illiteracy to a postgraduate degree—and the ownership of eleven items that range from fairly basic (e.g., electricity connection, gas stove) to relatively sophisticated (e.g., refrigerator, personal computer). As previous qualitative work has found that education levels and disposable incomes can significantly impact one’s ability to make informed and deliberate food choices (Khara), and given meat is a relatively expensive commodity in India (Puskar-Pasewicz), the study focused on the most affluent segments—i.e., SEC A1 and some of SEC A2.It is said that researcher values and predispositions are to some extent inseparable from the research process, and therefore that potential researcher bias must be managed by being self-aware, looking for contradictory data, and being open to different interpretations of the data (Ogden). As the interviewer is a vegan of Indian ethnicity, she attempted to manage researcher bias in several ways. Triangulation of data sources (e.g., interviews, observations, product analysis) helped provide a multi-faceted understanding of the topic (Patton). The discussion guide and findings were also discussed with researchers from different cultural and dietary backgrounds. It is also argued that when a researcher shares the same background as the participants—as was the case in this study—participants may remain silent on certain issues, as they may assume the researcher knows the context and nuances in relation to these issues (McGinn). This arose in some instances as some participants said, “it’s standard stuff you know?” The interviewer hence took an “outsider” role, stating “I’ll need to know what standard stuff is”, so as to reduce any expectation that she ought to understand the social norms, conventions, and cultural practices related to the issue (Leckie). This helped yield more elaborate discussions and greater insight into the topic from the participant’s own unique perspective.The Rise of New and Diverse Meat-based Foods in Urban India Since the early 1990s, which marked the beginning of globalisation in India, urban Indian food culture has undergone a significant change as food imports have been liberalised and international food brands have made their way into the domestic market (Vepa). As a result, India’s major urban centres appear to be witnessing a food revolution:Bombay has become so metropolitan, I mean it always was but it’s so much more in terms of food now … and it’s so tempting. (Female, age 32)The changing food culture has also seen an increase in new dishes, such as a lamb burger stuffed with blue cheese, and the desire to try out exotic meats such as octopus, camel, rabbit, and emu. Many participants described themselves as “food obsessed” and living in a “present and continuous state of food”, where “we finish a meal and we’ve already started discussing our next meal”.In comparison, traditional plant-based foods were seen to have not undergone the same transformation and were described as “boring” and “standard” in comparison to the more interesting and diverse meat-based dishes:a standard restaurant menu, you don’t have all the different leafy vegetables…It’s mostly a few paneer and this or that—and upon that they don’t do much justice to the vegetable itself. It’s the same masala which they mix in it so everything tastes the same to me. So that’s a big difference when you consider meats. If I eat chicken in different preparations it has a different taste, if I have fish each has a different taste. (Male, age 29)If I’m going out and I’m spending, then I’m not going to eat the same thing which I eat at home every day which is veg food ... I will always pick the non-vegetarian option. (Male, age 32)Liberalisation and the transformation of the local media landscape also appears to have encouraged a new form of consumerism (Sinha). One participant described how an array of new TV channels and programmes have opened up new horizons for food:The whole visual attraction of food, getting it into your living room or into your bedroom and showing you all this great stuff … [There are now] kiddie birthdays which are MasterChef birthdays. There are MasterChef team building activities … So food is very big and I think media has had a very, very large role to play in that. (Female, age 40+)In a similar vein, digital media has also helped shape the food revolution. India has the world’s second largest number of Internet users (Statista, Internet) and new technology seems to have changed the way urban Indians interact with food:We are using social sites. We see all the cooking tips and all the recipes. I have a wife and she’s like, “Oh, let’s cook it!” (Male, age 25)I see everything on YouTube and food channels and all that. I really like the presentation, how they just a little they cook the chicken breast. (Female, age 42)Smartphones and apps have also made access to new cuisines easier, and some participants have become accustomed to instant gratification, givendelivery boys who can satisfy your craving by delivering it to you … You order food from “Zomato” at twelve o’clock, one o’clock also. And order from “Sigree” in the morning also nowadays … more delivery options are there in India. (Male, age 30)This may also partially explain the growing popularity of fusion foods, which include meat-based variations of traditional plant-based dishes, such as meat-filled dosas and parathas.Emerging Tastes for Meat-based Cuisines Many highlighted the sensory pleasure derived from meat eating itself, focusing on a broad range of sensory qualities:There’s the texture, there’s the smell, there’s aroma, there’s the taste itself … Now imagine if chicken or beef was as soft as paneer, we probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much. There’s a bit of that pull. (Female, age 32)Some discussed adopting a plant-based diet for health-related reasons but also highlighted that the experience, overall, was short of satisfactory:I was doing one week of GM Diet … one day it was full of fruits, then one day it was full of vegetables. And then in the third day, when it was actually the chicken part, frankly speaking even I enjoyed … you just cannot have veggies everyday. (Female, age 35)Only eating veg, I think my whole mouth was, I think gone bad. Because I really wanted to have something … keema [minced meat]. (Female, age 38)Plant-based foods, in comparison to meat-based dishes, were described as “bland”, “boring”, and lacking in the “umami zing”. Even if cooked in the same spices, plant-based foods were still seen to be wanting:you have chicken curry and soya bean curry made from the same masala … but if you replace meat with some other substitutes, you’re gonna be able to tell the difference ... the taste of meat, I feel, is better than the taste of a vegetable. (Male, age 32)The thing is, vegetarian dishes are bland … They don’t get the feeling of the spices in the vegetarian dish ... So when you are eating something juicy, having a bite, it’s a mouthful thing. Vegetarian dishes are not mouthful. (Male, age 25)At the end of a vegetarian meal … I think that maybe [it is] a lack of fullness … I’m eating less because you get bored after a while. (Female, age 32)Tasting the Forbidden FruitIn India, chicken is considered to be widely acceptable, as pork is forbidden to Muslims and beef is prohibited for Hindus (Devi et al.; Jishnu). However, the desire for new flavours seems to be pushing the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable, as highlighted in the discussion below with a 25-year-old male Muslim participant:Participant: When I go out with my friends then I try new things like bacon.Moderator: Bacon?Participant: Yeah... when I went with my colleagues to this restaurant in Bandra—it’s called Saltwater Cafe. And they had this chicken burger with bacon wrapped on it.Moderator: Okay.Participant: And I didn’t know at the time that it’s bacon … They didn’t tell me what we are having … When I had it, I told them that it’s tasting like different, totally different, like I haven’t had this in my life.Moderator: Yeah.Participant: And when they told me that it’s bacon then, I thought, okay fine. Something new I can have. Now I’m old enough to make my own choices.Similarly, several Hindu participants expressed similar sentiments about beef consumption:One of our friends, he used to have beef. He said this tastes better than chicken so I tried it. (Male, age 30)I ended up ordering beef which I actually would never eat ... But then everyone was like, it’s a must try ... So I start off with eating the gravy and then it entices me. That’s when I go and try the meat. (Female, aged 23)Although studies on meat eating in India are limited, it seems that many prefer to consume meats outside the home (Suresh; Devi et al.), away from the watchful eyes of parents, partners and, in some instances, the neighbours:My dad would say if you want to eat beef or anything have it outside but don’t bring it home. (Male, age 29)One of my friends … he keeps secret from his girlfriend … he come with us and eat [meat] and tell us not to tell her. (Male, age 26)People around have a little bit of a different view towards people eating non-veg in that area—so we wouldn’t openly talk about eating non-veg when somebody from the locality is around. (Female, age 32)Further to this point, some discussed a certain thrill that arose from pushing social boundaries by eating these forbidden meats:feel excited ... it gave me confidence also. I didn’t know ... my own decision. Something that is riskier in my life, which I hadn’t done before. (Male, age 25)Meat as a Status SymbolIn urban India, meat is increasingly considered a status symbol (Roy; Esselborn; Goswami). Similarly, several participants highlighted that meat-based dishes tend to be cooked for special occasions:non-vegetarian meals [at home] were perceived as being more elaborate and more lavish probably as compared to vegetarian meals. (Male, age 34)Dal [a lentil dish] is one of the basic things which we don’t make in the house when you have guests, or when you have an occasion … We usually make biryani…gravies of chicken or mutton. (Female, age 38)Success in urban India tends to be measured through one’s engagement with commodities that hold status-enhancing appeal (Mathur), and this also appears to apply to eating practices. Among meat-eating communities, it was found that serving only plant-based foods on special occasions was potentially seen as “low grade” and not quite socially acceptable:It’s just considered not something special. In fact, you would be judged…they would be like, “Oh my God, they only served us vegetables.” (Female, age 32)If you are basically from a Gujarati family, you are helpless. You have to serve that thing [vegetarian food] ... But if you are a non-vegetarian … if you serve them veg, it looks too low grade. (Female, age 38)In fact, among some families, serving “simple vegetarian food” tended to be associated with sombre occasions such as funerals, where one tends to avoid eating certain foods that give rise to desires, such as meat. This is elaborated upon in the below discussion with a Hindu participant (female, aged 40+):Participant: So an aunt of mine passed away a little over a year ago … traditionally we have this 13 day thing where you eat—We call it “Oshoge”… the khaana [food] is supposed to be neutral.Moderator: The khaana is supposed to be vegetarian?Participant: Yeah, it’s not just vegetarian … You’re supposed to have very simple vegetarian food like boiled food or you know dahi [plain yoghurt] and puffed rice … after a day of that, we were all looking at each other and then my cousin said, “Let me teach you how to fillet fish.” Similarly, a Muslim participant mentioned how serving certain dishes—such as dal, a common vegetarian dish—tends to be reserved for funeral occasions and is therefore considered socially unacceptable for other occasions:I’m calling a guest and I make dal chawal [lentils and rice] okay? They will think, arrey yeh kya yeh mayat ka khaana hai kya? [oh what is this, is the food for a corpse or what]? ... I can make it on that particular day when somebody has died in the family ... but then whenever guest is at home, or there is an occasion, we cannot make dal. (Female, age 38)ConclusionUrban India is experiencing a shift in norms around food choices, as meat-based dishes appear to have become symbolic of the broader changing landscape. Meat is not only eaten for its sensory properties but also because of its sociocultural associations. In comparison, many plant-based foods are perceived as relatively bland and uninteresting. This raises the question of how to make plant-based eating more appealing, both in terms of social significance and sensory enjoyment. In view of the attachment to familiar customs against the backdrop of a rapidly changing urban culture (Sinha; Venkatesh), perhaps plant-based foods could be re-introduced to the urban Indian as a blend of Western novelty and traditional familiarity (Majumdar), thereby representing the “the new along with the old” (Sinha 18), and hence enhancing their status. 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Abstract:

IntroductionThe existential question today is not whether to be or not to be, but how one can become what one truly is. (Golomb 200)In contemporary Western culture the ideal of living authentically, of being “true to yourself,” is ubiquitous. Authenticity is “taken for granted” as an absolute value in a multitude of areas, from music, to travel to identity (Lindholm 1). A core component of authentic selfhood is to find an occupation that is a “passion:” work that is “really you.” This article draws on recent qualitative interviews with Australians from a range of occupations about work, identity and meaning (James). It will demonstrate that for these contemporary individuals, occupation is often closely linked to perceptions of authentic selfhood. I begin by overviewing the significance and presence of authenticity as a value in contemporary culture through discussions of reality television and self-help literature focussed on careers. This is followed by a discussion of sociological theories of authenticity, drawing out the connections between the authentic self, modernity and work. The final section uses examples from the interviews to argue that the ideal of work being an extension of the authentic self is compelling because in providing direction and purpose, it helps the individual avoid anomie, disenchantment and other modern malaises (Taylor).The Authentic Self and Career Guidance in Contemporary Popular CultureThe prevalence of authenticity in contemporary Western popular culture can be seen in reality television programs like Master Chef (a cooking competition) and The Voice (a singing competition). Generally, contestants take part in the show in order to “follow their dreams” and pursue the career they feel they were “destined” for. When elimination is immanent, those at risk of departure are given one last chance to tell the judges what being in the competition means to them. This usually takes the form of a tearful monologue in which the contestant explains that the past few weeks have been the best of their life, that they finally feel “alive” and that they have found their “passion.” In these shows, finding work that is “really you”—that is an extension of your authentic-self—is portrayed as being a fundamental component of fulfillment and self-actualization.The same message is delivered in self-help media and texts. Since the 1970s, “finding your passion” and “finding yourself” have been popular subjects for the genre. The best known of these books is perhaps Richard Bolles’s What Color is Your Parachute?: a job-hunting manual aimed primarily at people looking for a career change. First published in 1970, a new edition has been released every year and there are over 10 million copies in print. In 1995 it was included in the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book’s 25 Books That Have Shaped Readers’ Lives, placing Bolles in the company of Cervantes and Tolstoy (Bolles).Bolles’s book and similar career guidance titles generally follow a pattern of providing exercises for the reader to help them discover the “real you,” which then becomes the basis for choosing the “right” occupation, or as Bolles puts it, “first deciding who you are before deciding the kind of work you want to pursue.” Another best-selling self-help writer is Phil McGraw or “Dr. Phil,” better known for his television program than his books. In his Self Matters—Creating Your Life from the Inside Out, McGraw begins bytelling the story of his own search for his authentic “passion.” Before moving into television, McGraw spent ten years working as a practicing psychiatrist. He recalls:So much of what I did—while totally okay if it had been what I had a passion for—was as unnatural for me as it would be for a dog. It didn’t come from the heart. It wasn’t something that sprang from who I really was ... I wasn’t doing what was meaningful for me. I wasn’t doing what I was good at and therefore was not pursuing my mission in life, my purpose for being here … You and everyone else has a mission, a purpose in life that cannot be denied if you are to live fully. If you have no purpose, you have no passion. If you have no passion, you have sold yourself out (7–12).McGraw connects living authentically with living meaningfully. Working in an occupation that is in accordance with the authentic self gives one’s life purpose. This is the same message Oprah Winfrey chose to deliver in the final episode of the The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was watched by more than 16 million viewers in the U.S. alone. Rather than following the usual pattern of the show and interview celebrity guests, Winfrey chose to talk directly to her viewers about what matters in life:Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Every time we have seen a person on this stage who is a success in their life, they spoke of the job, and they spoke of the juice that they receive from doing what they knew they were meant to be doing [...] Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And that is what I want for all of you and hope that you will take from this show. To live from the heart of yourself.Like McGraw, Winfrey draws a link between living authentically—living “from the heart”—and finding a “calling.” The message here is that the person whose career is in accordance with their authentic self can live with certainty, direction and purpose. Authenticity may act as a buffer against the anomie and disenchantment that arguably plague individuals in late modernity (Elliott & du Gay).Disenchantment, Modernity and Authenticity For many sociologists, most famously Max Weber, finding something that gives life purpose is the great challenge for individuals in the modern West. In a disenchanted society, without religion or other “mysterious incalculable forces” to provide direction, individuals may struggle to work out what they should do with their lives (149). For Weber the answer is to find your calling. Each individual must discover the “demon who holds the fibers of his very life” and obey its demands (156).Following Weber, John Carroll has argued that in modern secular societies, individuals must draw on their inner resources to find answers to life’s “fundamental questions” (Ego 3–4). As Carroll stresses, it is not that the religious impulse has disappeared from contemporary society, but it is expressed in new ways. Individuals still yearn for a sense of purpose but they are “more likely to pursue their quests for meaning on their own, in experimental ways and with their main resource being their ontological qualities” (Carroll, Beauty 221).Other Australian academics, like Gary Bouma and David Tacey, argue that rather than a decline in religiosity in Australia, what we are seeing is a change in the way people pursue the spiritual. Tacey suggests that while many Australians may “slink away” from the idea of God as something external to our lives, they may find more resonance with a conception of God as a “core dimension” of the person (167). Contemporary Australians continue to yearn for guidance, but they are more likely to look within to find it.There is a clear link between this process of turning inward to pursue the spiritual, the prevalence of authenticity in contemporary Western culture, and modernity. With the breakdown of traditional structures, individuals become more “free to self-create” (Bauman, Identity 3). As Charles Lindholm describes it: “The inclination toward a spontaneous mode of expressive self-revelation correlates with the collapse of reliable and sacralised institutional frameworks that once offered meaning and succour” (65–66).For Charles Taylor, the origins of this “massive subjective turn of modern culture” (26) lie in the 18th-century romantic period with the idea that each individual has an intuitive moral sense. To determine what is right, the individual must be in touch with their “inner voice” and act in accordance with it. It is in this notion that Taylor identifies the background to the belief, which is so prominent today, that “There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s” (28–29). Lindholm points to Rousseau as the “inventor” of this ideal, with his revelatory Confessions becoming “the harbinger of a new ideal in which exploring and revealing one’s essential nature was taken as an absolute good” (8). According to Rousseau, social norms suppress the individual’s true nature, and so it is only possible for one to be authentic if they break these chains and act in accordance with their inner depths. For employees in today’s service-oriented knowledge economy, there are significant risks involved in following Rousseau’s advice and expressing one’s “true feelings.” As many researchers have noted, in the new capitalism, workers are increasingly required to regulate their emotions and present themselves as calm, agreeable and above all positive (Hochschild; Sennett; Ehrenreich). To offer criticism or express frustration, to drop the “mask of cooperativeness” (Sennett 112), may mean risking one’s employment.Nevertheless, while it is arguably becoming more difficult to express authentic feeling at work, for contemporary workers, choice of occupation is still often closely linked to perceptions of authentic selfhood. In fact, in a time of increasingly fragmented careers and short-term, episodic work, it becomes more necessary to create a meaningful narrative to link numerous and varied jobs to a core sense of self. As Richard Sennett argues, today’s flexible employees—frequently moving from one workplace to the next—are at risk of “drift:” a sensation of aimless movement (30). To counter this, individuals must create a convincing story that provides a rationale for career changes and can thereby “form their characters into sustained narratives” (31).In the next section, drawing on recent empirical research, I argue that linking authentic selfhood to work provides individuals with a way to make sense of the trajectory of their work lives and to accept change. Today’s employees are able to interpret even the most unexpected career changes as a beneficial occurrence—something that was “meant to be”—by rationalising that such changes are part of a process of finding work that is an expression of the authentic self.The Authentic Self at Work: Being True to Your EssenceThe following discussion focuses on how authenticity as an ideal influences individuals’s work identity and career aspirations. It draws examples from recent qualitative interviews with Australian workers from a range of occupations (James 2012). A number of interviewees described a search for an occupation that was authentically “them,” a task that was well-suited to their capabilities and came “naturally:”I have a feeling that I was sort of a natural teacher. (Teacher, 60)Medical is what I like, that’s me. (Paramedic, 49)I found my thing, I stick to it. (Farrier, 27) These beliefs are quite clearly influenced by the idea of vocation, in that there is a particular task the individual is most suited to, but they do not invoke the sense of duty that a religious “calling” entails. Often, the interviewees had discovered the occupation that was “really them” by working in other jobs that were not their “true passion.” Realising that performing a particular role felt inauthentic helped them to define their authentic self and encouraged them to pursue more fulfilling work. This process often required experimentation, since “one knows what one is only after realising what one is not” (Golomb 201).For instance, Olivia, a 33-year old lawyer had begun her career in a corporate law firm. She had never felt comfortable in the corporate environment: “I always thought, ‘They know I don’t belong here’.” Her performance at work felt inauthentic: “I was never good at smiling and saying yes.” This experience led her to move into human rights, which she found more fulfilling. Similarly Hazel, a 50 year-old social worker, had started her career in what she described as “boring administration jobs.” Although she had “always wanted” to work in the “caring sector” her family’s expectations and her low self-confidence had stopped her from applying for university. When she finally quit the administration work and began to study it was liberating: “a weight had come out off my shoulders.” In her occupation as a social worker she felt that her work fitted with her authentic self: “the kind of person I am,” and for the first time in her life she looked forward to going to work. Both of these women, and many of the other interviewees, rationalised their decision to work in a particular field by appealing to narratives of authentic selfhood.Similarly, in explaining why they enjoyed their work, a number of interviewees looked back to their childhood for signs of what was “meant to be.” For instance, Tim, a 27 year-old farrier, justified his work with horses: “Mum came from a farming background, every school holidays I was up there…I followed my grandpa around like a little dog, annoyed and pestered him and asked him ‘Why’ and How?’ I’ve always been like that … So I think from an early age I was destined to do something like this.” Ken, a 50 year-old electrician, had a similar explanation for his choice of occupation: “Even as a little kid I was always mucking around with batteries and getting lights to work and things like that, so I think it was just a natural progression.”This tendency to associate childhood interests with authentic selfhood is perhaps due to the belief that childhood is a time of innocence and freedom, where the individual had not yet been moulded by society. As Duschinsky argues, childhood is often connected with an “originary natural essence.” We are close here to Rousseau’s “sentiment of being,” or its contemporary manifestation the “real you.” Of course, the idea that the child is free from external influence is problematised by ideas of socialisation. From birth the infant learns by copying “significant others” and self-conception is formed through interaction (Cooley; Mead). Therefore, from the very beginning, an individual’s interests, dispositions and tastes are influenced by family and culture.Shane, a 29 year-old real estate agent, had resisted working in property because it was the family business and he “didn’t want to be as boring as to follow in Dad’s footsteps.” He saw himself as “academic” and “creative” and for a number of years worked as a writer. Eventually though he decided that writing was not his calling: it was “not actually me … I categorise myself as someone who has the ability to write but not naturally.” When Shane began working in real-estate however, it felt almost automatic. Like the other members of his family he had the right skills and traits to thrive in the business and was immediately successful. Interestingly, Shane’s conception of his authenticity includes both a belief in an essential, pre-social “true” self and at the same time an understanding of the importance of the influence of family in the formation of the self.Regardless of whether the idea of a natural, inner-essence discernable in childhood pastimes can be disproven, it is clear that the understanding of authentic selfhood as an “immediate expression of our essence” continues to influence how individuals conceive of their work identities. However, at the same time, the interviewees’ accounts of authenticity also acknowledged the role of parents in influencing traits and dispositions. In these narratives of the self, authenticity encompasses opposing understandings of childhood as being both free from social influences and highly influenced by primary agents of socialisation. That individuals are willing to do the necessary mental and emotional work to maintain these contradictory beliefs suggests that there is a strong incentive to frame work identity as an expression of authentic selfhood.Authenticity Provides PurposeThe great benefit of being able to convincingly rationalise one’s work as a manifestation of the true self is that it gives the individual direction and purpose. Work then provides answers to Carroll’s fundamental questions: “who am I?” and “What should I do with my life?” A number of the interviewees recalled their attempts to secure a sense of purpose by linking their current occupation to their inner essence. As Greg, a 36-year-old fitness consultant described it:You just gotta think ‘What do you really wanna do, what makes you happy, what are you about?’ … I guess the strengthening and conditioning work, the fitness, has been the constant right the way through. It’s probably the core of what I’ve done over the years, seeing individuals and teams get fit. It’s what I do. That’s my role, if you put it in a nutshell. That’s what I’m about … I was sort of floating around a little bit … I need to go ‘This is what I am.’ By identifying his authentic self and linking it to his work, Greg was able to make sense of his past. He had once been a professional runner and after an injury was forced to redefine himself. He now rationalised that his ability to run had led him into the fitness field: You look at what is your life mission and basically what are you out here for … with athletics it’s allowed me to deal with any sport, made me flexible in my career … if I was, therefore born to run? Yeah, quite possibly, there had to be a reason. Like many of the interviewees, Greg had been forced to change his plans, but he was able to rationalise that this change was positive by forming a narrative that connected both his current and previous occupations to his perception of his authentic self. As Sennett describes it, he is able to from his character into a “sustained narrative” (31). Similarly, Trish, a 42 year-old retail coordinator, connected both her work as a chef and her job in a hardware store back to her sense of authentic self. Both occupations, she thought, were “down and dirty” and she linked this to her family “roots” and her identity as a “country girl.” In interpreting these two substantially different occupations as an expression of her true self, Trish is able to create a narrative in which unexpected career changes are as seen as something beneficial that was “meant to be.” These accounts of career trajectories suggest that linking authenticity to work identity is a strategy individuals employ to cope with the disorienting effects of fragmented work lives. Even jobs that are unfulfilling and feel inauthentic can be made meaningful by interpreting them as necessary steps leading towards the discovery of one’s “ true passion”. This is quite different to the ideal of a life-long calling in one occupation, which as Bauman has noted, has become a “privilege of the few” in late-modernity (Work 34). In an era of insecure and fragmented work, the narrative of an authentic self becomes particularly appealing as it allows the individual to create a meaningful work-narrative that can accommodate the numerous twists and turns of contemporary “liquid” existence (Bauman, Identity 5) and avoid “drift” (Sennett). Conclusion Drawing on qualitative research, this paper has analysed the connections between authenticity, work and modern selfhood. I have shown that in an era of flexible and fragmented working lives, work-identities are often closely tied to understandings of authentic selfhood. Interpreting particular kinds of work as being expressions of the authentic self provides individuals with a sense of purpose and in some cases assists them in coming to terms with unexpected career changes. A meaningful career narrative acts as a buffer against disorientation, disenchantment and anomie. It is therefore no wonder that authentic selfhood is such a prominent theme in reality television, self-help and other forms of popular culture, since it is taps into an existential need for a sense of purpose that becomes increasingly elusive in late-modernity. It is clear from the accounts presented in this paper that the pursuit of authenticity is not merely a narcissistic endeavor, and is employed by individuals to work through fundamental existential questions. Future work in this area should continue to make use of empirical research to add depth and complexity to theoretical accounts of authentic selfhood. References Bauman, Zygmunt. “Identity in the Globalizing World.” Identity in Question. Ed. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. 1–12. Bauman, Zygmunt. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open UP, 1998. Bolles, Richard. What Colour Is Your Parachute 2015. 23 Jan. 2015 ‹http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/books/view/what-color-is-your-parachute-2015›. Bolles, Richard. What Colour Is Your Parachute. Berkley: Ten Speed, 1970. Bouma, Gary. Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Carroll, John. “Beauty contra God: Has Aesthetics Replaced Religion in Modernity?” Journal of Sociology 48.2 (2012): 206–23. Carroll, John. Ego and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning. Melbourne: Scribe, 2008. Cooley, Charles Horton. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner’s, 1902. Duschinsky, Robbie. “Childhood Innocence: Essence, Education, and Performativity.” Textual Practice 27.5 (2013): 763–81. Elliott, Anthony, and Paul du Gay. “Editors’ Introduction.” Identity in Question. Eds. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. xi–xxi. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-Sided : How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Henry Holt, 2009. Golomb, Jacob. In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus. London: Routledge, 1995. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization Human Feeling. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983. James, Sara. “Making a Living, Making a Life: Contemporary Narratives of Work, Vocation and Meaning.” PhD Thesis. La Trobe U, 2012. Lindholm, Charles. Culture and Authenticity. Malden: Blackwell, 2008. McGraw, Phil. Self Matters—Creating Your Life from the Inside Out. London: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1934. Sennett, Richard. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, New York: WW Norton, 1998. Tacey, David. Edge of the Sacred: Jung, Psyche, Earth. Sydney: Daimon, 2008. Taylor, Charles. Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. Weber, Max. “Science as a Vocation.” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Ed. Hans Heinrich Gerth and Charles Wright Mills. London: Routledge, 1991. 129–56. Winfrey, Oprah. The Oprah Winfrey Show Finale. 23 Jan. 2015 ‹http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Oprah-Winfrey-Show-Finale_1#ixzz3PbhBrdBs›.

Abstract:

We take as our subject what many would deem a waste of good celluloid: the degraded cultural form of the stoner film. Stoner films plot the experiences of the wasted (those intoxicated on marijuana) as they exhibit wastefulness—excessiveness, improvidence, decay—on a number of fronts. Stoners waste time in constantly hunting for pot and in failing to pursue more productive activity whilst wasted. Stoners waste their minds, both literally, if we believe contested studies that indicate marijuana smoking kills brains cells, and figuratively, in rendering themselves cognitively impaired. Stoners waste their bodies through the dangerous practice of smoking and through the tendency toward physical inertia. Stoners waste money on marijuana firstly, but also on such sophomoric accoutrements as the stoner film itself. Stoners lay waste to convention in excessively seeking pleasure and in dressing and acting outrageously. And stoners, if the scatological humour of so many stoner films is any index, are preoccupied with bodily waste. Stoners, we argue here, waste whiteness as well. As the likes of Jesse and Chester (Dude, Where’s My Car?), Wayne and Garth (Wayne’s World), Bill and Ted (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and Jay and Silent Bob (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) make clear, whiteness looms large in stoner films. Yet the genre, we argue, disavows its own whiteness, in favour of a post-white hybridity that lavishly squanders white privilege. For all its focus on whiteness, filmic wastedness has always been an ethnically diverse and ambiguous category. The genre’s origins in the work of Cheech Marin, a Chicano, and Tommy Chong, a Chinese-European Canadian, have been buttressed in this regard by many African American contributions to the stoner oeuvre, including How High, Half Baked and Friday, as well as by Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and its Korean-American and Indian-American protagonists. Cheech and Chong initiated the genre with the release of Up in Smoke in 1978. A host of films have followed featuring protagonists who spend much of their time smoking and seeking marijuana (or—in the case of stoner films such as Dude, Where’s My Car? released during the height of the War on Drugs—acting stoned without ever being seen to get stoned). Inspired in part by the 1938 anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness, and the unintended humour such propaganda films begat amongst marijuana smokers, stoner films are comedies that satirise both marijuana culture and its prohibition. Self-consciously slapstick, the stoner genre excludes more serious films about drugs, from Easy Rider to Shaft, as well as films such as The Wizard of Oz, Yellow Submarine, the Muppet movies, and others popular amongst marijuana smokers because of surreal content. Likewise, a host of films that include secondary stoner characters, such as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, are commonly excluded from the genre on the grounds that the stoner film, first and foremost, celebrates stonerism, that is “serious commitment to smoking and acquiring marijuana as a lifestyle choice.” (Meltzer). Often taking the form of the “buddy film,” stoner flicks generally feature male leads and frequently exhibit a decidedly masculinist orientation, with women, for the most part reduced to little more than the object of the white male gaze.The plot, such as it is, of the typical stoner film concerns the search for marijuana (or an accessory, such as junk food) and the improbable misadventures that ensue. While frequently represented as resourceful and energetic in their quest for marijuana, filmic stoners otherwise exhibit ambivalent attitudes toward enterprise that involves significant effort. Typically represented as happy and peaceable, filmic stoners rarely engage in conflict beyond regular clashes with authority figures determined to enforce anti-drug laws, and other measures that stoners take to be infringements upon happiness. While Hollywood’s stoners thus share a sense of entitlement to pleasure, they do not otherwise exhibit a coherent ideological orthodoxy beyond a certain libertarian and relativistic open-mindedness. More likely to take inspiration from comic book heroes than Aldous Huxley or Timothy Leary, stoners are most often portrayed as ‘dazed and confused,’ and could be said to waste the intellectual tradition of mind expansion that Leary represents. That stoner films are, at times, misunderstood to be quintessentially white is hardly suprising. As a social construct that creates, maintains and legitimates white domination, whiteness manifests, as one of its most defining features, an ability to swallow up difference and to insist upon, at critical junctures, a universal subjectivity that disallows for difference (hooks 167). Such universalising not only sanctions co-optation of ethnic cultural expression, it also functions to mask whiteness’s existence, thus reinforcing its very power. Whiteness, as Richard Dyer argues, is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. It obfuscates itself and its relationship to the particular traits it is said to embody—disinterest, prudence, temperance, rationality, bodily restraint, industriousness (3). Whiteness is thus constructed as neither an ethnic nor racial particularity, but rather the transcendence of such positionality (Wiegman 139). While non-whites are raced, to be white is to be “just human” and thus to possess the power to “claim to speak for the commonality of humanity” whilst denying the accrual of any particular racial privilege (Dyer 2). In refuting its own advantages—which are so wide ranging (from preferential treatment in housing loans, to the freedom to fail without fear of reflecting badly on other whites) that they are, like whiteness itself, both assumed and unproblematic—whiteness instantiates individualism, allowing whites to believe that their successes are in no way the outcome of systematic racial advantage, but rather the product of individual toil (McIntosh; Lipsitz). An examination of the 1978 stoner film Up in Smoke suggests that whatever the ethnic ambiguity of the figure of the stoner, the genre of the stoner film is all about the wasting of whiteness. Up in Smoke opens with two alternating domestic scenes. We first encounter Pedro De Pacas (Cheech Marin) in a cluttered and shadowy room as his siblings romp affectionately upon his back, waking him from his slumber on the couch. Pedro rises, stepping into a bowl of cereal on the floor. He stumbles to the bathroom, where, sleepy and disoriented, he urinates into the laundry hamper. The chaos of Pedro’s disrupted sleep is followed in the film by a more metaphoric awakening as Anthony Stoner (Tommy Chong) determines to leave home. The scene takes place in a far more orderly, light and lavish room. The space’s overpowering whiteness is breached only by the figure of Anthony and his unruly black hair, bushy black beard, and loud Hawaiian shirt, which vibrates with colour against the white walls, white furnishings and white curtains. We watch as Anthony, behind an elaborate bar, prepares a banana protein shake, impassively ignoring his parents, both clothed in all-white, as they clutch martini glasses and berate their son for his lack of ambition. Arnold Stoner [father]: Son, your mother and me would like for you to cozy up to the Finkelstein boy. He's a bright kid, and, uh... he's going to military school, and remember, he was an Eagle Scout. Tempest Stoner [mother]: Arnold…Arnold Stoner: [shouts over/to his wife] Will you shut up? We’re not going to have a family brawl!Tempest Stoner: [continues talking as her husband shouts]…. Retard.Arnold Stoner: [to Anthony] We've put up with a hell of a lot.[Anthony starts blender] Can this wait? ... Build your goddamn muscles, huh? You know, you could build your muscles picking strawberries.You know, bend and scoop... like the Mexicans. Shit, maybe I could get you a job with United Fruit. I got a buddy with United Fruit. ... Get you started. Start with strawberries, you might work your way up to these goddamn bananas! When, boy? When...are you going to get your act together?Anthony: [Burps]Tempest Stoner: Gross.Arnold Stoner: Oh, good God Almighty me. I think he's the Antichrist. Anthony, I want to talk to you. [Anthony gathers his smoothie supplements and begins to walk out of the room.] Now, listen! Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you! You get a goddamn job before sundown, or we're shipping you off to military school with that goddamn Finkelstein shit kid! Son of a bitch!The whiteness of Anthony’s parents is signified so pervasively and so strikingly in this scene—in their improbable white outfits and in the room’s insufferably white décor—that we come to understand it as causative. The rage and racism of Mr. Stoner’s tirade, the scene suggests, is a product of whiteness itself. Given that whiteness achieves and maintains its domination via both ubiquity and invisibility, what Up in Smoke accomplishes in this scene is notable. Arnold Stoner’s tortured syntax (“that goddamn Finkelstein shit kid”) works to “mak[e] whiteness strange” (Dyer 4), while the scene’s exaggerated staging delineates whiteness as “a particular – even peculiar – identity, rather than a presumed norm” (Roediger, Colored White 21). The belligerence of the senior Stoners toward not only their son and each other, but the world at large, in turn, functions to render whiteness intrinsically ruthless and destructive. Anthony’s parents, in all their whiteness, enact David Roediger’s assertion that “it is not merely that ‘Whiteness’s is oppressive and false; it is that ‘Whiteness’s is nothing but oppressive and false” (Toward the Abolition 13).Anthony speaks not a word during the scene. He communicates only by belching and giving his parents the finger as he leaves the room and the home. This departure is significant in that it marks the moment when Anthony, hereafter known only as “Man,” flees the world of whiteness. He winds up taking refuge in the multi-hued world of stonerism, as embodied in the scene that follows, which features Pedro emerging from his home to interact with his Chicano neighbours and to lovingly inspect his car. As a lowrider, a customised vehicle that “begin[s] with the abandoned materials of one tradition (that of mainstream America), … [and is] … then transformed and recycled . . . into new and fresh objects of art which are distinctly Chicano,” Pedro’s car serves as a symbol of the cultural hybridisation that Man is about to undergo (quoted in Ondine 141).As Man’s muteness in the presence of his parents suggests, his racial status seems tentative from the start. Within the world of whiteness, Man is the subaltern, silenced and denigrated, finding voice only after he befriends Pedro. Even as the film identifies Man as white through his parental lineage, it renders indeterminate its own assertion, destabilising any such fixed or naturalised schema of identity. When Man is first introduced to Pedro’s band as their newest member, James, the band’s African American bass player, looks at Man, dressed in the uniform of the band, and asks: “Hey Pedro, where’s the white dude you said was playing the drums?” Clearly, from James’s point of view, the room contains no white dudes, just stoners. Man’s presumed whiteness becomes one of the film’s countless gags, the provocative ambiguity of the casting of a Chinese-European to play a white part underscored in the film by the equally implausible matter of age. Man, according to the film’s narrative, is a high school student; Chong was forty when the film was released. Like his age, Man’s whiteness is never a good fit. That Man ultimately winds up sleeping on the very couch upon which we first encounter Pedro suggests how radical and final the break with his dubious white past is. The “Mexicans” whom his father would mock as fit only for abject labour are amongst those whom Man comes to consider his closest companions. In departing his parents’ white world, and embracing Pedro’s dilapidated, barrio-based world of wastedness, Man traces the geographies narrated by George Lipsitz in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Historically, Lipsitz argues, the development of affluent white space (the suburbs) was made possible by the disintegration of African American, Chicano and other minority neighbourhoods disadvantaged by federal, state, and corporate housing, employment, health care, urban renewal, and education policies that favoured whites over non-whites. In this sense, Man’s flight from his parents’ home is a retreat from whiteness itself, and from the advantages that whiteness conveys. In choosing the ramshackle, non-white world of stonerism, Man performs an act of racial treachery. Whiteness, Lipsitz contends, has “cash value,” and “is invested in, like property, but it is also a means of accumulating property and keeping it from others,” which allows for “intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations” (vii-viii). Man’s disavowal of the privileges of whiteness is a reckless refusal to accept this racial birthright. Whiteness is thus wasted upon Man because Man wastes his whiteness. Given the centrality of prudence and restraint to hegemonic constructions of whiteness, Man’s willingness to squander the “valuable asset” that is his white inheritance is especially treasonous (Harris 1713). Man is the prodigal son of whiteness, a profligate who pours down the drain “the wages of whiteness” that his forbearers have spent generations accruing and protecting (Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness). His waste not only offends the core values which whiteness is said to comprise, it also denigrates whiteness itself by illuminating the excess of white privilege, as well as the unarticulated excess of meanings that hover around whiteness to create the illusion of transcendence and infinite variety. Man’s performance, like all bad performances of whiteness, “disrupt[s] implicit understandings of what it means to be white” (Hartigan 46). The spectre of seeing white domination go ‘up in smoke’—via wasting, as opposed to hoarding, white privilege—amounts to racial treason, and helps not only to explicate why whites in the film find stonerism so menacing, but also to explain the paradox of “pot [making] the people who don’t smoke it even more paranoid than the people who do” (Patterson). While Tommy Chong’s droll assertion that "what makes us so dangerous is that we're harmless" ridicules such paranoia, it ultimately fails to account for the politics of subversive squandering of white privilege that characterise the stoner film (“Biographies”). Stoners in Up in Smoke, as in most other stoner films, are marked as non-white, through association with ethnic Others, through their rejection of mainstream ideas about work and achievement, and/or through their lack of bodily restraint in relentlessly seeking pleasure, in dressing outrageously, and in refusing to abide conventional grooming habits. Significantly, the non-white status of the stoner is both voluntary and deliberate. While stonerism embraces its own non-whiteness, its Otherness is not signified, primarily, through racial cross-dressing of the sort Eric Lott detects in Elvis, but rather through race-mixing. Stoner collectivity practices an inclusivity that defies America’s historic practice of racial and ethnic segregation (Lott 248). Stonerism further reveals its unwillingness to abide constrictive American whiteness in a scene in which Pedro and Man, both US-born Americans, are deported. The pair are rounded up along with Pedro’s extended family in a raid initiated when Pedro’s cousin “narcs” on himself to la migra (the Immigration and Naturalization Service) in order to get free transport for his extended family to his wedding in Tijuana. Pedro and Man return to the US as unwitting tricksters, bringing back to the US more marijuana than has ever crossed the Mexican-US border at one time, fusing the relationship between transnationalism and wastedness. The disrespect that stoners exhibit for pregnable US borders contests presumed Chicano powerlessness in the face of white force and further affronts whiteness, which historically has mobilised itself most virulently at the threat of alien incursion. Transgression here is wilful and playful; stoners intend to offend normative values and taste through their actions, their dress, and non-white associations as part of the project of forging a new hybridised, transnational subjectivity that threatens to lay waste to whiteness’s purity and privilege. Stoners invite the scrutiny of white authority with their outrageous attire and ethnically diverse composition, turning the “inevitability of surveillance” (Borrie 87) into an opportunity to enact their own wastedness—their wasted privilege, their wasted youth, their wasted potential—before a gaze that is ultimately confounded and threatened by the chaotic hybridity with which it is faced (Hebdige 26). By perpetually displaying his/her wasted Otherness, the stoner makes of him/herself a “freak,” a label cops use derisively throughout Up in Smoke to denote the wasted without realising that stoners define themselves in precisely such terms, and, by doing so, obstruct whiteness’s assertion of universal subjectivity. Pedro’s cousin Strawberry (Tom Skerritt), a pot dealer, enacts freakishness by exhibiting a large facial birthmark and by suffering from Vietnam-induced Post Traumatic Stress disorder. A freak in every sense of the word, Strawberry is denied white status by virtue of physical and mental defect. But Strawberry, as a stoner, ultimately wants whiteness even less than it wants him. The defects that deny him membership in the exclusive “club” that is whiteness prove less significant than the choice he makes to defect from the ranks of whiteness and join with Man in the decision to waste his whiteness wantonly (“Editorial”). Stoner masculinity is represented as similarly freakish and defective. While white authority forcefully frustrates the attempts of Pedro and Man to “score” marijuana, the duo’s efforts to “score” sexually are thwarted by their own in/action. More often than not, wastedness produces impotence in Up in Smoke, either literally or figuratively, wherein the confusion and misadventures that attend pot-smoking interrupt foreplay. The film’s only ostensible sex scene is unconsummated, a wasted opportunity for whiteness to reproduce itself when Man sleeps through his girlfriend’s frenzied discussion of sex. During the course of Up in Smoke, Man dresses as a woman while hitchhiking, Pedro mistakes Man for a woman, Man sits on Pedro’s lap when they scramble to change seats whilst being pulled over by the police, Man suggests that Pedro has a “small dick,” Pedro reports liking “manly breasts,” and Pedro—unable to urinate in the presence of Sgt. Stedenko—tells his penis that if it does not perform, he will “put [it] back in the closet.” Such attenuations of the lead characters’ masculinity climax in the penultimate scene, in which Pedro, backed by his band, performs “Earache My Eye,” a song he has just composed backstage, whilst adorned in pink tutu, garter belt, tassle pasties, sequined opera mask and Mickey Mouse ears: My momma talkin’ to me tryin’ to tell me how to liveBut I don't listen to her cause my head is like a sieveMy daddy he disowned me cause I wear my sister's clothesHe caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhoseMy basketball coach he done kicked me off the teamFor wearing high heeled sneakers and acting like a queen“Earache My Eye” corroborates the Othered natured of stonerism by marking stoners, already designated as non-white, as non-straight. In a classic iteration of a bad gender performance, the scene rejects both whiteness and its hegemonic partners-in-crime, heterosexuality and normative masculinity (Butler 26). Here stoners waste not only their whiteness, but also their white masculinity. Whiteness, and its dependence upon “intersection … [with] interlocking axes [of power such as] gender … [and] sexuality,” is “outed” in this scene (Shome 368). So, too, is it enfeebled. In rendering masculinity freakish and defective, the film threatens whiteness at its core. For if whiteness can not depend upon normative masculinity for its reproduction, then, like Man’s racial birthright, it is wasted. The stoner’s embodiment of freakishness further works to emphasise wasted whiteness by exposing just how hysterical whiteness’s defense of its own normativity can be. Up in Smoke frequently inflates not only the effects of marijuana, but also the eccentricities of those who smoke it, a strategy which means that much of the film’s humour turns on satirising hegemonic stereotypes of marijuana smokers. Equally, Cheech Marin’s exaggerated “slapstick, one-dimensional [portrayal] of [a] Chicano character” works to render ridiculous the very stereotypes his character incarnates (List 183). While the film deconstructs processes of social construction, it also makes extensive use of counter-stereotyping in its depictions of characters marked as white. The result is that whiteness’s “illusion of [its] own infinite variety” is contested and the lie of whiteness as non-raced is exposed, helping to explain the stoner’s decision to waste his/her whiteness (Dyer 12; 2). In Up in Smoke whiteness is the colour of straightness. Straights, who are willing neither to smoke pot nor to tolerate the smoking of pot by others/Others, are so comprehensively marked as white in the film that whiteness and straightness become isomorphic. As a result, the same stereotypes are mobilised in representing whiteness and straightness: incompetence, belligerence, hypocrisy, meanspiritedness, and paranoia, qualities that are all the more oppressive because virtually all whites/straights in the film occupy positions of authority. Anthony’s spectacularly white parents, as we have seen, are bigoted and dominating. Their whiteness is further impugned by alcohol, which fuels Mr. Stoner’s fury and Mrs. Stoner’s unintelligibility. That the senior Stoners are drunk before noon works, of course, to expose the hypocrisy of those who would indict marijuana use while ignoring the social damage alcohol can produce. Their inebriation (revealed as chronic in the DVD’s outtake scenes) takes on further significance when it is configured as a decidedly white attribute. Throughout the film, only characters marked as white consume alcohol—most notably, the judge who is discovered to be drinking vodka whist adjudicating drug charges against Pedro and Man—therefore dislodging whiteness’s self-construction as temperate, and suggesting just how wasted whiteness is. While stonerism is represented as pacific, drunkenness is of a piece with white/straight bellicosity. In Up in Smoke, whites/straights crave confrontation and discord, especially the angry, uptight, and vainglorious narcotics cop Sgt. Stedenko (Stacey Keech) who inhabits so many of the film’s counter-stereotypes. While a trio of white cops roughly apprehend and search a carload of innocent nuns in a manner that Man describes as “cold blooded,” Stedenko, unawares in the foreground, gives an interview about his plans for what he hopes will be the biggest border drug bust in US history: “[Reporter:] Do you expect to see any violence here today? [Sgt. Stedenko:] I certainly hope so.” Stedenko’s desire to act violently against stoners echoes mythologies of white regeneration in the Old West, wherein whiteness refurbished itself through violent attacks on Native Americans, whose wasteful cultures failed to make “civilised” use of western lands (Slotkin 565).White aggression is relentlessly depicted in the film, with one important exception: the instance of the stoned straight. Perhaps no other trope is as defining of the genre, as is the scene wherein a straight person accidentally becomes stoned. Up in Smoke offers several examples, most notably the scene in which a motorcycle cop pulls over Pedro and Man as they drive a van belonging to Pedro’s Uncle Chuey. In a plot twist requiring a degree of willing suspension of disbelief that even wasted audiences might find a stretch, the exterior shell of the van, unbeknownst to Pedro and Man, is made entirely of marijuana which has started to smoulder around the exhaust pipe. The cop, who becomes intoxicated whilst walking through the fumes, does not hassle Pedro and Man, as expected, but instead asks for a bite of their hot dog and then departs happily, instructing the duo to “have a nice day.” In declining, or perhaps simply forgetting, to exercise his authority, the cop demonstrates the regenerative potential not of violent whiteness but rather of hybrid wastedness. Marijuana here is transformative, morphing straight consciousness into stoner consciousness and, in the process, discharging all the uptight, mean-spirited, unnecessary, and hence wasteful baggage of whiteness along the way. While such a utopian potential for pot is both upheld and satirised in the film, the scene amounts to far more than an inconsequential generic gag, in that it argues for the disavowal of whiteness via the assumption of the voluntary Otherness that is stonerism. Whiteness, the scene suggests, can be cast off, discarded, wasted and thus surmounted. Whites, for want of a better phrase, simply need to ‘just say no’ to whiteness in order to excrete the brutality that is its necessary affliction and inevitable result. While Up in Smoke laudably offers a powerful refusal to horde the assets of whiteness, the film fails to acknowledge that ‘just saying no’ is, indeed, one of whiteness’s exclusive privileges, since whites and only whites possess the liberty to refuse the advantages whiteness bestows. Non-whites possess no analogical ability to jettison the social constructions to which they are subjected, to refuse the power of dominant classes to define their subjectivity. Neither does the film confront the fact that Man nor any other of Up in Smoke’s white freaks are disallowed from re-embracing their whiteness, and its attendant value, at any time. However inchoate the film’s challenge to racial privilege, Up in Smoke’s celebration of the subversive pleasures of wasting whiteness offers a tentative, if bleary, first step toward ‘the abolition of whiteness.’ Its utopian vision of a post-white hybridised subjectivity, however dazed and confused, is worthy of far more serious contemplation than the film, taken at face value, might seem to suggest. Perhaps Up in Smoke is a stoner film that should also be viewed while sober. ReferencesBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Dir. Stephen Herek. Orion Pictures Corporation, 1989.“Biographies”. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.cheechandchongfans.com/biography.html›. Borrie, Lee. "Wild Ones: Containment Culture and 1950s Youth Rebellion”. Diss. University of Canterbury, 2007.Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer”. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1.1 (1993): 17-32.Chavoya, C. Ondine. “Customized Hybrids: The Art of Ruben Ortiz Torres and Lowriding in Southern California”. CR: The New Centennial Review 4.2 (2004): 141-84.Clerks. Dir. Kevin Smith. Miramax Films, 1994. Dazed and Confused. Dir. Richard Linklater. Cineplex Odeon Films, 1993. Dude, Where’s My Car? Dir. Danny Leiner. Twentieth Century Fox, 2000.Dyer, Richard. White: Essays on Race and Culture. London: Routledge, 1997.“Editorial: Abolish the White Race—By Any Means Necessary”. Race Traitor 1 (1993). 9 June 2010 ‹http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html›.Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Dir. Amy Heckerling. Universal Pictures, 1982.Friday. Dir. F. Gary Gray. New Line Cinema, 1995.Half Baked. Dir. Tamra Davis. Universal Pictures, 1998.Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Dir. Danny Leiner. New Line Cinema, 2004.Harris, Cheryl. “Whiteness as Property”. Harvard Law Review 106 (1993): 1707-1791. Hartigan, John Jr. “Objectifying ‘Poor Whites and ‘White Trash’ in Detroit”. White Trash: Race and Class in America. Eds. Matt Wray, and Annalee Newitz. NY: Routledge, 1997. 41-56.Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979.hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.How High. Dir. Jesse Dylan. Universal Pictures, 2001.Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit fromIdentity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2006. List, Christine. "Self-Directed Stereotyping in the Films of Cheech Marin”. Chicanos and Film: Representation and Resistance. Ed. Chon A. Noriega. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992. 183-94.Lott, Eric. “Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness”. The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1999. 241-55.McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf›.Meltzer, Marisa. “Leisure and Innocence: The Eternal Appeal of the Stoner Movie”. Slate 26 June 2007. 10 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.slate.com/id/2168931›.Toni Morrison. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Patterson, John. “High and Mighty”. The Guardian 7 June 2008. 10 June 2010 ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/jun/07/2›.Roediger, David. Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002.Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. Rev. ed. London: Verso Books, 1999.———. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Class and Politics. London: Verso Books, 1994.Shome, Raka. “Outing Whiteness”. Critical Studies in Media Communication 17.3 (2000): 366-71.Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1973.Up in Smoke. Dir. Lou Adler. Paramount Pictures, 1978.Wayne’s World. Dir. Penelope Spheeris. Paramount Pictures, 1992.Wiegman, Robyn. “Whiteness Studies and the Paradox of Particularity”. boundary 2 26.3 (1999): 115-50.

Abstract:

From elephants to ABBA fans, silicon to hormone, the following discussion uses a new research method to look at printed text, motion pictures and a teenage rebel icon. If by ‘print’ we mean a mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium, then printing has been with us since before microdot security prints were painted onto cars, before voice prints, laser prints, network servers, record pressings, motion picture prints, photo prints, colour woodblock prints, before books, textile prints, and footprints. If we accept that higher mammals such as elephants have a learnt culture, then it is possible to extend a definition of printing beyond Homo sapiens. Poole reports that elephants mechanically trumpet reproductions of human car horns into the air surrounding their society. If nothing else, this cross-species, cross-cultural reproduction, this ‘ability to mimic’ is ‘another sign of their intelligence’. Observation of child development suggests that the first significant meaningful ‘impression’ made on the human mind is that of the face of the child’s nurturer – usually its mother. The baby’s mind forms an ‘impression’, a mental print, a reproducible memory data set, of the nurturer’s face, voice, smell, touch, etc. That face is itself a cultural construct: hair style, makeup, piercings, tattoos, ornaments, nutrition-influenced skin and smell, perfume, temperature and voice. A mentally reproducible pattern of a unique face is formed in the mind, and we use that pattern to distinguish ‘familiar and strange’ in our expanding social orbit. The social relations of patterned memory – of imprinting – determine the extent to which we explore our world (armed with research aids such as text print) or whether we turn to violence or self-harm (Bretherton). While our cultural artifacts (such as vellum maps or networked voice message servers) bravely extend our significant patterns into the social world and the traversed environment, it is useful to remember that such artifacts, including print, are themselves understood by our original pattern-reproduction and impression system – the human mind, developed in childhood. The ‘print’ is brought to mind differently in different discourses. For a reader, a ‘print’ is a book, a memo or a broadsheet, whether it is the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit texts ordered to be printed in 593 AD by the Chinese emperor Sui Wen-ti (Silk Road) or the US Defense Department memo authorizing lower ranks to torture the prisoners taken by the Bush administration (Sanchez, cited in ABC). Other fields see prints differently. For a musician, a ‘print’ may be the sheet music which spread classical and popular music around the world; it may be a ‘record’ (as in a ‘recording’ session), where sound is impressed to wax, vinyl, charged silicon particles, or the alloys (Smith, “Elpida”) of an mp3 file. For the fine artist, a ‘print’ may be any mechanically reproduced two-dimensional (or embossed) impression of a significant image in media from paper to metal, textile to ceramics. ‘Print’ embraces the Japanese Ukiyo-e colour prints of Utamaro, the company logos that wink from credit card holographs, the early photographs of Talbot, and the textured patterns printed into neolithic ceramics. Computer hardware engineers print computational circuits. Homicide detectives investigate both sweaty finger prints and the repeated, mechanical gaits of suspects, which are imprinted into the earthy medium of a crime scene. For film makers, the ‘print’ may refer to a photochemical polyester reproduction of a motion picture artifact (the reel of ‘celluloid’), or a DVD laser disc impression of the same film. Textualist discourse has borrowed the word ‘print’ to mean ‘text’, so ‘print’ may also refer to the text elements within the vision track of a motion picture: the film’s opening titles, or texts photographed inside the motion picture story such as the sword-cut ‘Z’ in Zorro (Niblo). Before the invention of writing, the main mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium was the humble footprint in the sand. The footprints of tribes – and neighbouring animals – cut tracks in the vegetation and the soil. Printed tracks led towards food, water, shelter, enemies and friends. Having learnt to pattern certain faces into their mental world, children grew older and were educated in the footprints of family and clan, enemies and food. The continuous impression of significant foot traffic in the medium of the earth produced the lines between significant nodes of prewriting and pre-wheeled cultures. These tracks were married to audio tracks, such as the song lines of the Australian Aborigines, or the ballads of tramping culture everywhere. A typical tramping song has the line, ‘There’s a track winding back to an old-fashion shack along the road to Gundagai,’ (O’Hagan), although this colonial-style song was actually written for radio and became an international hit on the airwaves, rather than the tramping trails. The printed tracks impressed by these cultural flows are highly contested and diverse, and their foot prints are woven into our very language. The names for printed tracks have entered our shared memory from the intersection of many cultures: ‘Track’ is a Germanic word entering English usage comparatively late (1470) and now used mainly in audio visual cultural reproduction, as in ‘soundtrack’. ‘Trek’ is a Dutch word for ‘track’ now used mainly by ecotourists and science fiction fans. ‘Learn’ is a Proto-Indo-European word: the verb ‘learn’ originally meant ‘to find a track’ back in the days when ‘learn’ had a noun form which meant ‘the sole of the foot’. ‘Tract’ and ‘trace’ are Latin words entering English print usage before 1374 and now used mainly in religious, and electronic surveillance, cultural reproduction. ‘Trench’ in 1386 was a French path cut through a forest. ‘Sagacity’ in English print in 1548 was originally the ability to track or hunt, in Proto-Indo-European cultures. ‘Career’ (in English before 1534) was the print made by chariots in ancient Rome. ‘Sleuth’ (1200) was a Norse noun for a track. ‘Investigation’ (1436) was Latin for studying a footprint (Harper). The arrival of symbolic writing scratched on caves, hearth stones, and trees (the original meaning of ‘book’ is tree), brought extremely limited text education close to home. Then, with baked clay tablets, incised boards, slate, bamboo, tortoise shell, cast metal, bark cloth, textiles, vellum, and – later – paper, a portability came to text that allowed any culture to venture away from known ‘foot’ paths with a reduction in the risk of becoming lost and perishing. So began the world of maps, memos, bills of sale, philosophic treatises and epic mythologies. Some of this was printed, such as the mechanical reproduction of coins, but the fine handwriting required of long, extended, portable texts could not be printed until the invention of paper in China about 2000 years ago. Compared to lithic architecture and genes, portable text is a fragile medium, and little survives from the millennia of its innovators. The printing of large non-text designs onto bark-paper and textiles began in neolithic times, but Sui Wen-ti’s imperial memo of 593 AD gives us the earliest written date for printed books, although we can assume they had been published for many years previously. The printed book was a combination of Indian philosophic thought, wood carving, ink chemistry and Chinese paper. The earliest surviving fragment of paper-print technology is ‘Mantras of the Dharani Sutra’, a Buddhist scripture written in the Sanskrit language of the Indian subcontinent, unearthed at an early Tang Dynasty site in Xian, China – making the fragment a veteran piece of printing, in the sense that Sanskrit books had been in print for at least a century by the early Tang Dynasty (Chinese Graphic Arts Net). At first, paper books were printed with page-size carved wooden boards. Five hundred years later, Pi Sheng (c.1041) baked individual reusable ceramic characters in a fire and invented the durable moveable type of modern printing (Silk Road 2000). Abandoning carved wooden tablets, the ‘digitizing’ of Chinese moveable type sped up the production of printed texts. In turn, Pi Sheng’s flexible, rapid, sustainable printing process expanded the political-cultural impact of the literati in Asian society. Digitized block text on paper produced a bureaucratic, literate elite so powerful in Asia that Louis XVI of France copied China’s print-based Confucian system of political authority for his own empire, and so began the rise of the examined public university systems, and the civil service systems, of most European states (Watson, Visions). By reason of its durability, its rapid mechanical reproduction, its culturally agreed signs, literate readership, revered authorship, shared ideology, and distributed portability, a ‘print’ can be a powerful cultural network which builds and expands empires. But print also attacks and destroys empires. A case in point is the Spanish conquest of Aztec America: The Aztecs had immense libraries of American literature on bark-cloth scrolls, a technology which predated paper. These libraries were wiped out by the invading Spanish, who carried a different book before them (Ewins). In the industrial age, the printing press and the gun were seen as the weapons of rebellions everywhere. In 1776, American rebels staffed their ‘Homeland Security’ units with paper makers, knowing that defeating the English would be based on printed and written documents (Hahn). Mao Zedong was a book librarian; Mao said political power came out of the barrel of a gun, but Mao himself came out of a library. With the spread of wireless networked servers, political ferment comes out of the barrel of the cell phone and the internet chat room these days. Witness the cell phone displays of a plane hitting a tower that appear immediately after 9/11 in the Middle East, or witness the show trials of a few US and UK lower ranks who published prints of their torturing activities onto the internet: only lower ranks who published prints were arrested or tried. The control of secure servers and satellites is the new press. These days, we live in a global library of burning books – ‘burning’ in the sense that ‘print’ is now a charged silicon medium (Smith, “Intel”) which is usually made readable by connecting the chip to nuclear reactors and petrochemically-fired power stations. World resources burn as we read our screens. Men, women, children burn too, as we watch our infotainment news in comfort while ‘their’ flickering dead faces are printed in our broadcast hearths. The print we watch is not the living; it is the voodoo of the living in the blackout behind the camera, engaging the blood sacrifice of the tormented and the unfortunate. Internet texts are also ‘on fire’ in the third sense of their fragility and instability as a medium: data bases regularly ‘print’ fail-safe copies in an attempt to postpone the inevitable mechanical, chemical and electrical failure that awaits all electronic media in time. Print defines a moral position for everyone. In reporting conflict, in deciding to go to press or censor, any ‘print’ cannot avoid an ethical context, starting with the fact that there is a difference in power between print maker, armed perpetrators, the weak, the peaceful, the publisher, and the viewer. So many human factors attend a text, video or voice ‘print’: its very existence as an aesthetic object, even before publication and reception, speaks of unbalanced, and therefore dynamic, power relationships. For example, Graham Greene departed unscathed from all the highly dangerous battlefields he entered as a novelist: Riot-torn Germany, London Blitz, Belgian Congo, Voodoo Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Reagan’s Washington, and mafia Europe. His texts are peopled with the injustices of the less fortunate of the twentieth century, while he himself was a member of the fortunate (if not happy) elite, as is anyone today who has the luxury of time to read Greene’s works for pleasure. Ethically a member of London and Paris’ colonizers, Greene’s best writing still electrifies, perhaps partly because he was in the same line of fire as the victims he shared bread with. In fact, Greene hoped daily that he would escape from the dreadful conflicts he fictionalized via a body bag or an urn of ashes (see Sherry). In reading an author’s biography we have one window on the ethical dimensions of authority and print. If a print’s aesthetics are sometimes enduring, its ethical relationships are always mutable. Take the stylized logo of a running athlete: four limbs bent in a rotation of action. This dynamic icon has symbolized ‘good health’ in Hindu and Buddhist culture, from Madras to Tokyo, for thousands of years. The cross of bent limbs was borrowed for the militarized health programs of 1930s Germany, and, because of what was only a brief, recent, isolated yet monstrously horrific segment of its history in print, the bent-limbed swastika is now a vilified symbol in the West. The sign remains ‘impressed’ differently on traditional Eastern culture, and without the taint of Nazism. Dramatic prints are emotionally charged because, in depicting Homo sapiens in danger, or passionately in love, they elicit a hormonal reaction from the reader, the viewer, or the audience. The type of emotions triggered by a print vary across the whole gamut of human chemistry. A recent study of three genres of motion picture prints shows a marked differences in the hormonal responses of men compared to women when viewing a romance, an actioner, and a documentary (see Schultheiss, Wirth, and Stanton). Society is biochemically diverse in its engagement with printed culture, which raises questions about equality in the arts. Motion picture prints probably comprise around one third of internet traffic, in the form of stolen digitized movie files pirated across the globe via peer-to-peer file transfer networks (p2p), and burnt as DVD laser prints (BBC). There is also a US 40 billion dollar per annum legitimate commerce in DVD laser pressings (Grassl), which would suggest an US 80 billion per annum world total in legitimate laser disc print culture. The actively screen literate, or the ‘sliterati’ as I prefer to call them, research this world of motion picture prints via their peers, their internet information channels, their television programming, and their web forums. Most of this activity occurs outside the ambit of universities and schools. One large site of sliterate (screen literate) practice outside most schooling and official research is the net of online forums at imdb.com (International Movie Data Base). Imdb.com ‘prints’ about 25,000,000 top pages per month to client browsers. Hundreds of sliterati forums are located at imdb, including a forum for the Australian movie, Muriel’s Wedding (Hogan). Ten years after the release of Muriel’s Wedding, young people who are concerned with victimization and bullying still log on to http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/> and put their thoughts into print: I still feel so bad for Muriel in the beginning of the movie, when the girls ‘dump’ her, and how much the poor girl cried and cried! Those girls were such biartches…I love how they got their comeuppance! bunniesormaybemidgets’s comment is typical of the current discussion. Muriel’s Wedding was a very popular film in its first cinema edition in Australia and elsewhere. About 30% of the entire over-14 Australian population went to see this photochemical polyester print in the cinemas on its first release. A decade on, the distributors printed a DVD laser disc edition. The story concerns Muriel (played by Toni Collette), the unemployed daughter of a corrupt, ‘police state’ politician. Muriel is bullied by her peers and she withdraws into a fantasy world, deluding herself that a white wedding will rescue her from the torments of her blighted life. Through theft and deceit (the modus operandi of her father) Muriel escapes to the entertainment industry and finds a ‘wicked’ girlfriend mentor. From a rebellious position of stubborn independence, Muriel plays out her fantasy. She gets her white wedding, before seeing both her father and her new married life as hollow shams which have goaded her abandoned mother to suicide. Redefining her life as a ‘game’ and assuming responsibility for her independence, Muriel turns her back on the mainstream, image-conscious, female gang of her oppressed youth. Muriel leaves the story, having rekindled her friendship with her rebel mentor. My methodological approach to viewing the laser disc print was to first make a more accessible, coded record of the entire movie. I was able to code and record the print in real time, using a new metalanguage (Watson, “Eyes”). The advantage of Coding is that ‘thinks’ the same way as film making, it does not sidetrack the analyst into prose. The Code splits the movie print into Vision Action [vision graphic elements, including text] (sound) The Coding splits the vision track into normal action and graphic elements, such as text, so this Coding is an ideal method for extracting all the text elements of a film in real time. After playing the film once, I had four and a half tightly packed pages of the coded story, including all its text elements in square brackets. Being a unique, indexed hard copy, the Coded copy allowed me immediate access to any point of the Muriel’s Wedding saga without having to search the DVD laser print. How are ‘print’ elements used in Muriel’s Wedding? Firstly, a rose-coloured monoprint of Muriel Heslop’s smiling face stares enigmatically from the plastic surface of the DVD picture disc. The print is a still photo captured from her smile as she walked down the aisle of her white wedding. In this print, Toni Collette is the Mona Lisa of Australian culture, except that fans of Muriel’s Wedding know the meaning of that smile is a magical combination of the actor’s art: the smile is both the flush of dreams come true and the frightening self deception that will kill her mother. Inserting and playing the disc, the text-dominant menu appears, and the film commences with the text-dominant opening titles. Text and titles confer a legitimacy on a work, whether it is a trade mark of the laser print owners, or the household names of stars. Text titles confer status relationships on both the presenters of the cultural artifact and the viewer who has entered into a legal license agreement with the owners of the movie. A title makes us comfortable, because the mind always seeks to name the unfamiliar, and a set of text titles does that job for us so that we can navigate the ‘tracks’ and settle into our engagement with the unfamiliar. The apparent ‘truth’ and ‘stability’ of printed text calms our fears and beguiles our uncertainties. Muriel attends the white wedding of a school bully bride, wearing a leopard print dress she has stolen. Muriel’s spotted wild animal print contrasts with the pure white handmade dress of the bride. In Muriel’s leopard textile print, we have the wild, rebellious, impoverished, inappropriate intrusion into the social ritual and fantasy of her high-status tormentor. An off-duty store detective recognizes the printed dress and calls the police. The police are themselves distinguished by their blue-and-white checked prints and other mechanically reproduced impressions of cultural symbols: in steel, brass, embroidery, leather and plastics. Muriel is driven in the police car past the stenciled town sign (‘Welcome To Porpoise Spit’ heads a paragraph of small print). She is delivered to her father, a politician who presides over the policing of his town. In a state where the judiciary, police and executive are hijacked by the same tyrant, Muriel’s father, Bill, pays off the police constables with a carton of legal drugs (beer) and Muriel must face her father’s wrath, which he proceeds to transfer to his detested wife. Like his daughter, the father also wears a spotted brown print costume, but his is a batik print from neighbouring Indonesia (incidentally, in a nation that takes the political status of its batik prints very seriously). Bill demands that Muriel find the receipt for the leopard print dress she claims she has purchased. The legitimate ownership of the object is enmeshed with a printed receipt, the printed evidence of trade. The law (and the paramilitary power behind the law) are legitimized, or contested, by the presence or absence of printed text. Muriel hides in her bedroom, surround by poster prints of the pop group ABBA. Torn-out prints of other people’s weddings adorn her mirror. Her face is embossed with the clown-like primary colours of the marionette as she lifts a bouquet to her chin and stares into the real time ‘print’ of her mirror image. Bill takes the opportunity of a business meeting with Japanese investors to feed his entire family at ‘Charlie Chan’’s restaurant. Muriel’s middle sister sloppily wears her father’s state election tee shirt, printed with the text: ‘Vote 1, Bill Heslop. You can’t stop progress.’ The text sets up two ironic gags that are paid off on the dialogue track: “He lost,’ we are told. ‘Progress’ turns out to be funding the concreting of a beach. Bill berates his daughter Muriel: she has no chance of becoming a printer’s apprentice and she has failed a typing course. Her dysfunction in printed text has been covered up by Bill: he has bribed the typing teacher to issue a printed diploma to his daughter. In the gambling saloon of the club, under the arrays of mechanically repeated cultural symbols lit above the poker machines (‘A’ for ace, ‘Q’ for queen, etc.), Bill’s secret girlfriend Diedre risks giving Muriel a cosmetics job. Another text icon in lights announces the surf nightclub ‘Breakers’. Tania, the newly married queen bitch who has made Muriel’s teenage years a living hell, breaks up with her husband, deciding to cash in his negotiable text documents – his Bali honeymoon tickets – and go on an island holiday with her girlfriends instead. Text documents are the enduring site of agreements between people and also the site of mutations to those agreements. Tania dumps Muriel, who sobs and sobs. Sobs are a mechanical, percussive reproduction impressed on the sound track. Returning home, we discover that Muriel’s older brother has failed a printed test and been rejected for police recruitment. There is a high incidence of print illiteracy in the Heslop family. Mrs Heslop (Jeannie Drynan), for instance, regularly has trouble at the post office. Muriel sees a chance to escape the oppression of her family by tricking her mother into giving her a blank cheque. Here is the confluence of the legitimacy of a bank’s printed negotiable document with the risk and freedom of a blank space for rebel Muriel’s handwriting. Unable to type, her handwriting has the power to steal every cent of her father’s savings. She leaves home and spends the family’s savings at an island resort. On the island, the text print-challenged Muriel dances to a recording (sound print) of ABBA, her hand gestures emphasizing her bewigged face, which is made up in an impression of her pop idol. Her imitation of her goddesses – the ABBA women, her only hope in a real world of people who hate or avoid her – is accompanied by her goddesses’ voices singing: ‘the mystery book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’ Before jpeg and gif image downloads, we had postcard prints and snail mail. Muriel sends a postcard to her family, lying about her ‘success’ in the cosmetics business. The printed missal is clutched by her father Bill (Bill Hunter), who proclaims about his daughter, ‘you can’t type but you really impress me’. Meanwhile, on Hibiscus Island, Muriel lies under a moonlit palm tree with her newly found mentor, ‘bad girl’ Ronda (Rachel Griffiths). In this critical scene, where foolish Muriel opens her heart’s yearnings to a confidante she can finally trust, the director and DP have chosen to shoot a flat, high contrast blue filtered image. The visual result is very much like the semiabstract Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Utamaro. This Japanese printing style informed the rise of European modern painting (Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc., were all important collectors and students of Ukiyo-e prints). The above print and text elements in Muriel’s Wedding take us 27 minutes into her story, as recorded on a single page of real-time handwritten Coding. Although not discussed here, the Coding recorded the complete film – a total of 106 minutes of text elements and main graphic elements – as four pages of Code. Referring to this Coding some weeks after it was made, I looked up the final code on page four: taxi [food of the sea] bq. Translation: a shop sign whizzes past in the film’s background, as Muriel and Ronda leave Porpoise Spit in a taxi. Over their heads the text ‘Food Of The Sea’ flashes. We are reminded that Muriel and Ronda are mermaids, fantastic creatures sprung from the brow of author PJ Hogan, and illuminated even today in the pantheon of women’s coming-of-age art works. That the movie is relevant ten years on is evidenced by the current usage of the Muriel’s Wedding online forum, an intersection of wider discussions by sliterate women on imdb.com who, like Muriel, are observers (and in some cases victims) of horrific pressure from ambitious female gangs and bullies. Text is always a minor element in a motion picture (unless it is a subtitled foreign film) and text usually whizzes by subliminally while viewing a film. By Coding the work for [text], all the text nuances made by the film makers come to light. While I have viewed Muriel’s Wedding on many occasions, it has only been in Coding it specifically for text that I have noticed that Muriel is a representative of that vast class of talented youth who are discriminated against by print (as in text) educators who cannot offer her a life-affirming identity in the English classroom. Severely depressed at school, and failing to type or get a printer’s apprenticeship, Muriel finds paid work (and hence, freedom, life, identity, independence) working in her audio visual printed medium of choice: a video store in a new city. Muriel found a sliterate admirer at the video store but she later dumped him for her fantasy man, before leaving him too. One of the points of conjecture on the imdb Muriel’s Wedding site is, did Muriel (in the unwritten future) get back together with admirer Brice Nobes? That we will never know. While a print forms a track that tells us where culture has been, a print cannot be the future, a print is never animate reality. At the end of any trail of prints, one must lift one’s head from the last impression, and negotiate satisfaction in the happening world. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Memo Shows US General Approved Interrogations.” 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. British Broadcasting Commission. “Films ‘Fuel Online File-Sharing’.’’ 22 Feb. 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3890527.stm>. Bretherton, I. “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.” 1994. 23 Jan. 2005 http://www.psy.med.br/livros/autores/bowlby/bowlby.pdf>. Bunniesormaybemidgets. Chat Room Comment. “What Did Those Girls Do to Rhonda?” 28 Mar. 2005 http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/>. Chinese Graphic Arts Net. Mantras of the Dharani Sutra. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.cgan.com/english/english/cpg/engcp10.htm>. Ewins, R. Barkcloth and the Origins of Paper. 1991. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.justpacific.com/pacific/papers/barkcloth~paper.html>. Grassl K.R. The DVD Statistical Report. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.corbell.com>. Hahn, C. M. The Topic Is Paper. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.nystamp.org/Topic_is_paper.html>. Harper, D. Online Etymology Dictionary. 14 Mar. 2005 http://www.etymonline.com/>. Mask of Zorro, The. Screenplay by J McCulley. UA, 1920. Muriel’s Wedding. Dir. PJ Hogan. Perf. Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter, and Jeannie Drynan. Village Roadshow, 1994. O’Hagan, Jack. On The Road to Gundagai. 1922. 2 Apr. 2005 http://ingeb.org/songs/roadtogu.html>. Poole, J.H., P.L. Tyack, A.S. Stoeger-Horwath, and S. Watwood. “Animal Behaviour: Elephants Are Capable of Vocal Learning.” Nature 24 Mar. 2005. Sanchez, R. “Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy.” 14 Sept. 2003. 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. Schultheiss, O.C., M.M. Wirth, and S.J. Stanton. “Effects of Affiliation and Power Motivation Arousal on Salivary Progesterone and Testosterone.” Hormones and Behavior 46 (2005). Sherry, N. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. London: Jonathan Cape 2004, 1994, 1989. Silk Road. Printing. 2000. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.silk-road.com/artl/printing.shtml>. Smith, T. “Elpida Licenses ‘DVD on a Chip’ Memory Tech.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. —. “Intel Boffins Build First Continuous Beam Silicon Laser.” The Register 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02>. Watson, R. S. “Eyes And Ears: Dramatic Memory Slicing and Salable Media Content.” Innovation and Speculation, ed. Brad Haseman. Brisbane: QUT. [in press] Watson, R. S. Visions. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation, 1994. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Watson, Robert. "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion." M/C Journal 8.2 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>. APA Style Watson, R. (Jun. 2005) "E-Press and Oppress: Audio Visual Print Drama, Identity, Text and Motion Picture Rebellion," M/C Journal, 8(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0506/08-watson.php>.

Abstract:

Biology teaches us that organisms adapt—or don’t; sociology claims that people adapt—or don’t. We know that ideas can adapt; sometimes even institutions can adapt. Or not. Various papers in this issue attest in exciting ways to precisely such adaptations and maladaptations. (See, for example, the articles in this issue by Lelia Green, Leesa Bonniface, and Tami McMahon, by Lexey A. Bartlett, and by Debra Ferreday.) Adaptation is a part of nature and culture, but it’s the latter alone that interests me here. (However, see the article by Hutcheon and Bortolotti for a discussion of nature and culture together.) It’s no news to anyone that not only adaptations, but all art is bred of other art, though sometimes artists seem to get carried away. My favourite example of excess of association or attribution can be found in the acknowledgements page to a verse drama called Beatrice Chancy by the self-defined “maximalist” (not minimalist) poet, novelist, librettist, and critic, George Elliot Clarke. His selected list of the incarnations of the story of Beatrice Cenci, a sixteenth-century Italian noblewoman put to death for the murder of her father, includes dramas, romances, chronicles, screenplays, parodies, sculptures, photographs, and operas: dramas by Vincenzo Pieracci (1816), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819), Juliusz Slowacki (1843), Waldter Landor (1851), Antonin Artaud (1935) and Alberto Moravia (1958); the romances by Francesco Guerrazi (1854), Henri Pierangeli (1933), Philip Lindsay (1940), Frederic Prokosch (1955) and Susanne Kircher (1976); the chronicles by Stendhal (1839), Mary Shelley (1839), Alexandre Dumas, père (1939-40), Robert Browning (1864), Charles Swinburne (1883), Corrado Ricci (1923), Sir Lionel Cust (1929), Kurt Pfister (1946) and Irene Mitchell (1991); the film/screenplay by Bertrand Tavernier and Colo O’Hagan (1988); the parody by Kathy Acker (1993); the sculpture by Harriet Hosmer (1857); the photograph by Julia Ward Cameron (1866); and the operas by Guido Pannain (1942), Berthold Goldschmidt (1951, 1995) and Havergal Brian (1962). (Beatrice Chancy, 152) He concludes the list with: “These creators have dallied with Beatrice Cenci, but I have committed indiscretions” (152). An “intertextual feast”, by Clarke’s own admission, this rewriting of Beatrice’s story—especially Percy Bysshe Shelley’s own verse play, The Cenci—illustrates brilliantly what Northrop Frye offered as the first principle of the production of literature: “literature can only derive its form from itself” (15). But in the last several decades, what has come to be called intertextuality theory has shifted thinking away from looking at this phenomenon from the point of view of authorial influences on the writing of literature (and works like Harold Bloom’s famous study of the Anxiety of Influence) and toward considering our readerly associations with literature, the connections we (not the author) make—as we read. We, the readers, have become “empowered”, as we say, and we’ve become the object of academic study in our own right. Among the many associations we inevitably make, as readers, is with adaptations of the literature we read, be it of Jane Austin novels or Beowulf. Some of us may have seen the 2006 rock opera of Beowulf done by the Irish Repertory Theatre; others await the new Neil Gaiman animated film. Some may have played the Beowulf videogame. I personally plan to miss the upcoming updated version that makes Beowulf into the son of an African explorer. But I did see Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel film, and yearned to see the comic opera at the Lincoln Centre Festival in 2006 called Grendel, the Transcendence of the Great Big Bad. I am not really interested in whether these adaptations—all in the last year or so—signify Hollywood’s need for a new “monster of the week” or are just the sign of a desire to cash in on the success of The Lord of the Rings. For all I know they might well act as an ethical reminder of the human in the alien in a time of global strife (see McGee, A4). What interests me is the impact these multiple adaptations can have on the reader of literature as well as on the production of literature. Literature, like painting, is usually thought of as what Nelson Goodman (114) calls a one-stage art form: what we read (like what we see on a canvas) is what is put there by the originating artist. Several major consequences follow from this view. First, the implication is that the work is thus an original and new creation by that artist. However, even the most original of novelists—like Salman Rushdie—are the first to tell you that stories get told and retold over and over. Indeed his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, takes this as a major theme. Works like the Thousand and One Nights are crucial references in all of his work. As he writes in Haroun and the Sea of Stories: “no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born of old” (86). But illusion of originality is only one of the implications of seeing literature as a one-stage art form. Another is the assumption that what the writer put on paper is what we read. But entire doctoral programs in literary production and book history have been set up to study how this is not the case, in fact. Editors influence, even change, what authors want to write. Designers control how we literally see the work of literature. Beatrice Chancy’s bookend maps of historical Acadia literally frame how we read the historical story of the title’s mixed-race offspring of an African slave and a white slave owner in colonial Nova Scotia in 1801. Media interest or fashion or academic ideological focus may provoke a publisher to foreground in the physical presentation different elements of a text like this—its stress on race, or gender, or sexuality. The fact that its author won Canada’s Governor General’s Award for poetry might mean that the fact that this is a verse play is emphasised. If the book goes into a second edition, will a new preface get added, changing the framework for the reader once again? As Katherine Larson has convincingly shown, the paratextual elements that surround a work of literature like this one become a major site of meaning generation. What if literature were not a one-stage an art form at all? What if it were, rather, what Goodman calls “two-stage” (114)? What if we accept that other artists, other creators, are needed to bring it to life—editors, publishers, and indeed readers? In a very real and literal sense, from our (audience) point of view, there may be no such thing as a one-stage art work. Just as the experience of literature is made possible for readers by the writer, in conjunction with a team of professional and creative people, so, arguably all art needs its audience to be art; the un-interpreted, un-experienced art work is not worth calling art. Goodman resists this move to considering literature a two-stage art, not at all sure that readings are end products the way that performance works are (114). Plays, films, television shows, or operas would be his prime examples of two-stage arts. In each of these, a text (a playtext, a screenplay, a score, a libretto) is moved from page to stage or screen and given life, by an entire team of creative individuals: directors, actors, designers, musicians, and so on. Literary adaptations to the screen or stage are usually considered as yet another form of this kind of transcription or transposition of a written text to a performance medium. But the verbal move from the “book” to the diminutive “libretto” (in Italian, little book or booklet) is indicative of a view that sees adaptation as a step downward, a move away from a primary literary “source”. In fact, an entire negative rhetoric of “infidelity” has developed in both journalistic reviewing and academic discourse about adaptations, and it is a morally loaded rhetoric that I find surprising in its intensity. Here is the wonderfully critical description of that rhetoric by the king of film adaptation critics, Robert Stam: Terms like “infidelity,” “betrayal,” “deformation,” “violation,” “bastardisation,” “vulgarisation,” and “desecration” proliferate in adaptation discourse, each word carrying its specific charge of opprobrium. “Infidelity” carries overtones of Victorian prudishness; “betrayal” evokes ethical perfidy; “bastardisation” connotes illegitimacy; “deformation” implies aesthetic disgust and monstrosity; “violation” calls to mind sexual violence; “vulgarisation” conjures up class degradation; and “desecration” intimates religious sacrilege and blasphemy. (3) I join many others today, like Stam, in challenging the persistence of this fidelity discourse in adaptation studies, thereby providing yet another example of what, in his article here called “The Persistence of Fidelity: Adaptation Theory Today,” John Connor has called the “fidelity reflex”—the call to end an obsession with fidelity as the sole criterion for judging the success of an adaptation. But here I want to come at this same issue of the relation of adaptation to the adapted text from another angle. When considering an adaptation of a literary work, there are other reasons why the literary “source” text might be privileged. Literature has historical priority as an art form, Stam claims, and so in some people’s eyes will always be superior to other forms. But does it actually have priority? What about even earlier performative forms like ritual and song? Or to look forward, instead of back, as Tim Barker urges us to do in his article here, what about the new media’s additions to our repertoire with the advent of electronic technology? How can we retain this hierarchy of artistic forms—with literature inevitably on top—in a world like ours today? How can both the Romantic ideology of original genius and the capitalist notion of individual authorship hold up in the face of the complex reality of the production of literature today (as well as in the past)? (In “Amen to That: Sampling and Adapting the Past”, Steve Collins shows how digital technology has changed the possibilities of musical creativity in adapting/sampling.) Like many other ages before our own, adaptation is rampant today, as director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman clearly realised in creating Adaptation, their meta-cinematic illustration-as-send-up film about adaptation. But rarely has a culture denigrated the adapter as a secondary and derivative creator as much as we do the screenwriter today—as Jonze explores with great irony. Michelle McMerrin and Sergio Rizzo helpfully explain in their pieces here that one of the reasons for this is the strength of auteur theory in film criticism. But we live in a world in which works of literature have been turned into more than films. We now have literary adaptations in the forms of interactive new media works and videogames; we have theme parks; and of course, we have the more common television series, radio and stage plays, musicals, dance works, and operas. And, of course, we now have novelisations of films—and they are not given the respect that originary novels are given: it is the adaptation as adaptation that is denigrated, as Deborah Allison shows in “Film/Print: Novelisations and Capricorn One”. Adaptations across media are inevitably fraught, and for complex and multiple reasons. The financing and distribution issues of these widely different media alone inevitably challenge older capitalist models. The need or desire to appeal to a global market has consequences for adaptations of literature, especially with regard to its regional and historical specificities. These particularities are what usually get adapted or “indigenised” for new audiences—be they the particularities of the Spanish gypsy Carmen (see Ioana Furnica, “Subverting the ‘Good, Old Tune’”), those of the Japanese samurai genre (see Kevin P. Eubanks, “Becoming-Samurai: Samurai [Films], Kung-Fu [Flicks] and Hip-Hop [Soundtracks]”), of American hip hop graffiti (see Kara-Jane Lombard, “‘To Us Writers, the Differences Are Obvious’: The Adaptation of Hip Hop Graffiti to an Australian Context”) or of Jane Austen’s fiction (see Suchitra Mathur, “From British ‘Pride’ to Indian ‘Bride’: Mapping the Contours of a Globalised (Post?)Colonialism”). What happens to the literary text that is being adapted, often multiple times? Rather than being displaced by the adaptation (as is often feared), it most frequently gets a new life: new editions of the book appear, with stills from the movie adaptation on its cover. But if I buy and read the book after seeing the movie, I read it differently than I would have before I had seen the film: in effect, the book, not the adaptation, has become the second and even secondary text for me. And as I read, I can only “see” characters as imagined by the director of the film; the cinematic version has taken over, has even colonised, my reader’s imagination. The literary “source” text, in my readerly, experiential terms, becomes the secondary work. It exists on an experiential continuum, in other words, with its adaptations. It may have been created before, but I only came to know it after. What if I have read the literary work first, and then see the movie? In my imagination, I have already cast the characters: I know what Gabriel and Gretta Conroy of James Joyce’s story, “The Dead,” look and sound like—in my imagination, at least. Then along comes John Huston’s lush period piece cinematic adaptation and the director superimposes his vision upon mine; his forcibly replaces mine. But, in this particular case, Huston still arguably needs my imagination, or at least my memory—though he may not have realised it fully in making the film. When, in a central scene in the narrative, Gabriel watches his wife listening, moved, to the singing of the Irish song, “The Lass of Aughrim,” what we see on screen is a concerned, intrigued, but in the end rather blank face: Gabriel doesn’t alter his expression as he listens and watches. His expression may not change—but I know exactly what he is thinking. Huston does not tell us; indeed, without the use of voice-over, he cannot. And since the song itself is important, voice-over is impossible. But I know exactly what he is thinking: I’ve read the book. I fill in the blank, so to speak. Gabriel looks at Gretta and thinks: There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. … Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a painter. (210) A few pages later the narrator will tell us: At last she turned towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart. (212) This joy, of course, puts him in a very different—disastrously different—state of mind than his wife, who (we later learn) is remembering a young man who sang that song to her when she was a girl—and who died, for love of her. I know this—because I’ve read the book. Watching the movie, I interpret Gabriel’s blank expression in this knowledge. Just as the director’s vision can colonise my visual and aural imagination, so too can I, as reader, supplement the film’s silence with the literary text’s inner knowledge. The question, of course, is: should I have to do so? Because I have read the book, I will. But what if I haven’t read the book? Will I substitute my own ideas, from what I’ve seen in the rest of the film, or from what I’ve experienced in my own life? Filmmakers always have to deal with this problem, of course, since the camera is resolutely externalising, and actors must reveal their inner worlds through bodily gesture or facial expression for the camera to record and for the spectator to witness and comprehend. But film is not only a visual medium: it uses music and sound, and it also uses words—spoken words within the dramatic situation, words overheard on the street, on television, but also voice-over words, spoken by a narrating figure. Stephen Dedalus escapes from Ireland at the end of Joseph Strick’s 1978 adaptation of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with the same words as he does in the novel, where they appear as Stephen’s diary entry: Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. … Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. (253) The words from the novel also belong to the film as film, with its very different story, less about an artist than about a young Irishman finally able to escape his family, his religion and his country. What’s deliberately NOT in the movie is the irony of Joyce’s final, benign-looking textual signal to his reader: Dublin, 1904 Trieste, 1914 The first date is the time of Stephen’s leaving Dublin—and the time of his return, as we know from the novel Ulysses, the sequel, if you like, to this novel. The escape was short-lived! Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an ironic structure that has primed its readers to expect not escape and triumph but something else. Each chapter of the novel has ended on this kind of personal triumphant high; the next has ironically opened with Stephen mired in the mundane and in failure. Stephen’s final words in both film and novel remind us that he really is an Icarus figure, following his “Old father, old artificer”, his namesake, Daedalus. And Icarus, we recall, takes a tumble. In the novel version, we are reminded that this is the portrait of the artist “as a young man”—later, in 1914, from the distance of Trieste (to which he has escaped) Joyce, writing this story, could take some ironic distance from his earlier persona. There is no such distance in the film version. However, it stands alone, on its own; Joyce’s irony is not appropriate in Strick’s vision. His is a different work, with its own message and its own, considerably more romantic and less ironic power. Literary adaptations are their own things—inspired by, based on an adapted text but something different, something other. I want to argue that these works adapted from literature are now part of our readerly experience of that literature, and for that reason deserve the same attention we give to the literary, and not only the same attention, but also the same respect. I am a literarily trained person. People like me who love words, already love plays, but shouldn’t we also love films—and operas, and musicals, and even videogames? There is no need to denigrate words that are heard (and visualised) in order to privilege words that are read. Works of literature can have afterlives in their adaptations and translations, just as they have pre-lives, in terms of influences and models, as George Eliot Clarke openly allows in those acknowledgements to Beatrice Chancy. I want to return to that Canadian work, because it raises for me many of the issues about adaptation and language that I see at the core of our literary distrust of the move away from the written, printed text. I ended my recent book on adaptation with a brief examination of this work, but I didn’t deal with this particular issue of language. So I want to return to it, as to unfinished business. Clarke is, by the way, clear in the verse drama as well as in articles and interviews that among the many intertexts to Beatrice Chancy, the most important are slave narratives, especially one called Celia, a Slave, and Shelley’s play, The Cenci. Both are stories of mistreated and subordinated women who fight back. Since Clarke himself has written at length about the slave narratives, I’m going to concentrate here on Shelley’s The Cenci. The distance from Shelley’s verse play to Clarke’s verse play is a temporal one, but it is also geographic and ideological one: from the old to the new world, and from a European to what Clarke calls an “Africadian” (African Canadian/African Acadian) perspective. Yet both poets were writing political protest plays against unjust authority and despotic power. And they have both become plays that are more read than performed—a sad fate, according to Clarke, for two works that are so concerned with voice. We know that Shelley sought to calibrate the stylistic registers of his work with various dramatic characters and effects to create a modern “mixed” style that was both a return to the ancients and offered a new drama of great range and flexibility where the expression fits what is being expressed (see Bruhn). His polemic against eighteenth-century European dramatic conventions has been seen as leading the way for realist drama later in the nineteenth century, with what has been called its “mixed style mimesis” (Bruhn) Clarke’s adaptation does not aim for Shelley’s perfect linguistic decorum. It mixes the elevated and the biblical with the idiomatic and the sensual—even the vulgar—the lushly poetic with the coarsely powerful. But perhaps Shelley’s idea of appropriate language fits, after all: Beatrice Chancy is a woman of mixed blood—the child of a slave woman and her slave owner; she has been educated by her white father in a convent school. Sometimes that educated, elevated discourse is heard; at other times, she uses the variety of discourses operative within slave society—from religious to colloquial. But all the time, words count—as in all printed and oral literature. Clarke’s verse drama was given a staged reading in Toronto in 1997, but the story’s, if not the book’s, real second life came when it was used as the basis for an opera libretto. Actually the libretto commission came first (from Queen of Puddings Theatre in Toronto), and Clarke started writing what was to be his first of many opera texts. Constantly frustrated by the art form’s demands for concision, he found himself writing two texts at once—a short libretto and a longer, five-act tragic verse play to be published separately. Since it takes considerably longer to sing than to speak (or read) a line of text, the composer James Rolfe keep asking for cuts—in the name of economy (too many singers), because of clarity of action for audience comprehension, or because of sheer length. Opera audiences have to sit in a theatre for a fixed length of time, unlike readers who can put a book down and return to it later. However, what was never sacrificed to length or to the demands of the music was the language. In fact, the double impact of the powerful mixed language and the equally potent music, increases the impact of the literary text when performed in its operatic adaptation. Here is the verse play version of the scene after Beatrice’s rape by her own father, Francis Chancey: I was black but comely. Don’t glance Upon me. This flesh is crumbling Like proved lies. I’m perfumed, ruddied Carrion. Assassinated. Screams of mucking juncos scrawled Over the chapel and my nerves, A stickiness, as when he finished Maculating my thighs and dress. My eyes seep pus; I can’t walk: the floors Are tizzy, dented by stout mauling. Suddenly I would like poison. The flesh limps from my spine. My inlets crimp. Vultures flutter, ghastly, without meaning. I can see lice swarming the air. … His scythe went shick shick shick and slashed My flowers; they lay, murdered, in heaps. (90) The biblical and the violent meet in the texture of the language. And none of that power gets lost in the opera adaptation, despite cuts and alterations for easier aural comprehension. I was black but comely. Don’t look Upon me: this flesh is dying. I’m perfumed, bleeding carrion, My eyes weep pus, my womb’s sopping With tears; I can hardly walk: the floors Are tizzy, the sick walls tumbling, Crumbling like proved lies. His scythe went shick shick shick and cut My flowers; they lay in heaps, murdered. (95) Clarke has said that he feels the libretto is less “literary” in his words than the verse play, for it removes the lines of French, Latin, Spanish and Italian that pepper the play as part of the author’s critique of the highly educated planter class in Nova Scotia: their education did not guarantee ethical behaviour (“Adaptation” 14). I have not concentrated on the music of the opera, because I wanted to keep the focus on the language. But I should say that the Rolfe’s score is as historically grounded as Clarke’s libretto: it is rooted in African Canadian music (from ring shouts to spirituals to blues) and in Scottish fiddle music and local reels of the time, not to mention bel canto Italian opera. However, the music consciously links black and white traditions in a way that Clarke’s words and story refuse: they remain stubbornly separate, set in deliberate tension with the music’s resolution. Beatrice will murder her father, and, at the very moment that Nova Scotia slaves are liberated, she and her co-conspirators will be hanged for that murder. Unlike the printed verse drama, the shorter opera libretto functions like a screenplay, if you will. It is not so much an autonomous work unto itself, but it points toward a potential enactment or embodiment in performance. Yet, even there, Clarke cannot resist the lure of words—even though they are words that no audience will ever hear. The stage directions for Act 3, scene 2 of the opera read: “The garden. Slaves, sunflowers, stars, sparks” (98). The printed verse play is full of these poetic associative stage directions, suggesting that despite his protestations to the contrary, Clarke may have thought of that version as one meant to be read by the eye. After Beatrice’s rape, the stage directions read: “A violin mopes. Invisible shovelsful of dirt thud upon the scene—as if those present were being buried alive—like ourselves” (91). Our imaginations—and emotions—go to work, assisted by the poet’s associations. There are many such textual helpers—epigraphs, photographs, notes—that we do not have when we watch and listen to the opera. We do have the music, the staged drama, the colours and sounds as well as the words of the text. As Clarke puts the difference: “as a chamber opera, Beatrice Chancy has ascended to television broadcast. But as a closet drama, it play only within the reader’s head” (“Adaptation” 14). Clarke’s work of literature, his verse drama, is a “situated utterance, produced in one medium and in one historical and social context,” to use Robert Stam’s terms. In the opera version, it was transformed into another “equally situated utterance, produced in a different context and relayed through a different medium” (45-6). I want to argue that both are worthy of study and respect by wordsmiths, by people like me. I realise I’ve loaded the dice: here neither the verse play nor the libretto is primary; neither is really the “source” text, for they were written at the same time and by the same person. But for readers and audiences (my focus and interest here), they exist on a continuum—depending on which we happen to experience first. As Ilana Shiloh explores here, the same is true about the short story and film of Memento. I am not alone in wanting to mount a defence of adaptations. Julie Sanders ends her new book called Adaptation and Appropriation with these words: “Adaptation and appropriation … are, endlessly and wonderfully, about seeing things come back to us in as many forms as possible” (160). The storytelling imagination is an adaptive mechanism—whether manifesting itself in print or on stage or on screen. The study of the production of literature should, I would like to argue, include those other forms taken by that storytelling drive. If I can be forgiven a move to the amusing—but still serious—in concluding, Terry Pratchett puts it beautifully in his fantasy story, Witches Abroad: “Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling.” In biology as in culture, adaptations reign. References Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Bruhn, Mark J. “’Prodigious Mixtures and Confusions Strange’: The Self-Subverting Mixed Style of The Cenci.” Poetics Today 22.4 (2001). Clarke, George Elliott. “Beatrice Chancy: A Libretto in Four Acts.” Canadian Theatre Review 96 (1998): 62-79. ———. Beatrice Chancy. Victoria, BC: Polestar, 1999. ———. “Adaptation: Love or Cannibalism? Some Personal Observations”, unpublished manuscript of article. Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto: CBC, 1963. Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. Hutcheon, Linda, and Gary R. Bortolotti. “On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and “Success”—Biologically.” New Literary History. Forthcoming. Joyce, James. Dubliners. 1916. New York: Viking, 1967. ———. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 1916. Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1960. Larson, Katherine. “Resistance from the Margins in George Elliott Clarke’s Beatrice Chancy.” Canadian Literature 189 (2006): 103-118. McGee, Celia. “Beowulf on Demand.” New York Times, Arts and Leisure. 30 April 2006. A4. Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York: Viking, 1988. ———. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta/Penguin, 1990. Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. London and New York: Routledge, 160. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Cenci. Ed. George Edward Woodberry. Boston and London: Heath, 1909. Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 1-52. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hutcheon, Linda. "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>. APA Style Hutcheon, L. (May 2007) "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>.