Nested assemblages: migrants,war heritage,informal learning and national identities

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between Anzac heritage and Australian national identity, among migrant visitors to the Australian War Memorial (AWM). What meaning could a story derived from Australian involvement in the First World War have to migrants who moved to Australia after the Second World War? Participants in qualitative interviews were eleven first-generation Australians, whose countries of birth were England, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with parental countries of birth extending to Austria, Germany, India and Japan. Drawing on sociomaterial assemblage theory, the findings illustrate the concept of nested assemblages. At increasing scalar levels, the migrants form visitor-AWM assemblages, they may (or may not) feel part of a national Anzac heritage assemblage, and as migrants they are entangled in multiple national assemblages concurrently. Assemblages pertaining to family, faith, learning and memorialising were additional networks at play. Mapping interrelations amongst these assemblages showed migrants as actively gathering and interpreting heritage, sometimes as the enactment of national identity and at other times as the performance of informal, lifelong learning. The findings have importance to institutions seeking to be responsive to diverse and changing populations, particularly those wrestling with tensions around national identity.     

Naval Heritage and Postcolonial Geography: Why It Should Matter to Australia

Naval heritage is of global significance, enhanced by its association with waterfront revitalisation, its established literary/institutional framework and its postcolonial connotations. This paper reviews its background and its significance for the worldwide chain of (ex‐)naval bases which formerly bound the British Empire, with particular reference to its use for heritage tourism in Bermuda, Malta and Gibraltar and possible wider potential for this. Australian naval heritage is considered in this context and in its subsequent postcolonial evolution; Australian geographers are prompted to give their more informed consideration to its significance, not least for national identity.     

‘The Birthplace of Australian Multiculturalism?’ Retrospective Commemoration,Participatory Memoralisation and Official Heritage

In Australia, the authorised heritage discourse contributes to shaping the stereotypically Australian. It actively engages in creating a contemporary national story which glosses over the more shameful or distasteful episodes and themes in Australian colonial and post‐colonial history which is presented as being by‐and‐large progressive and benign. While the process of forging national history has become more complex and increasingly fraught, given globalisation and the emergence of new histories, nation and nationalism remain culturally persistent. The turn to multiculturalism from the 1970s as the principal way of defining Australianness and the nation lead some conservatives in politics and the heritage industry to appropriate the new social history, using it to present diversity as an indicator of a fair and open society. In this process, both history—an evolving academic discipline—and the past—lived experience which has meanings and uses in the present—were transformed into heritage.     

Heritage and national identity: Exploring the relationship in Romania

Abstract

Within heritage studies the relationship between national heritage and national identity is frequently taken as axiomatic. The construction of a national heritage is an important part of nation‐building, and historic buildings and monuments can be powerful symbols of a nation's aspirations and identity. Yet this relationship has received relatively little empirical investigation. This paper reports an exploratory study of the heritage/national identity relationship in Romania which focuses on just one Roman monument – Trajan's bridge. For many Romanians the monument is a powerful symbol of their identity representing Dacian and Roman origins, Latinity, and the continuity of Romanian settlement in Transylvania. The monument was also seen by some as an important symbol of Romania's attempt to construct a post‐Communist identity, and to forge closer links with western Europe. However, the meanings of the monument are not shared by all Romanians, and in particular are strongly contested by Romania's Hungarian minority.     

From revolutionary heroism to cultural heritage: museums,memory and representation in Laos

ABSTRACT. Museum exhibitions in Laos represent two main strands of Lao national identity discourse. First, they glorify the ‘liberation struggle’ of the so‐called ‘Lao multiethnic people’ under the leadership of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, and therefore serve as important ideological tools for the current regime's self‐legitimisation. Second, they display the history and cultural heritage of the Lao nation, providing the postcolonial state with a narrative of historical continuity and civilisation that is focused mostly on the dominant ethnic Lao culture. This article explores the contradictions within official images of the Lao nation‐state and how these opposing strands of national identity compete or interact. Museums as key arenas of ideological tensions constitute illuminating fields of research on discourses of national identity in Laos.     

Frontiers,Borders, Edges: Liminal Challenges to the Hegemony of Exclusion

Spatial metaphors that presuppose exclusion and separation rather than interaction and co‐existence dominated in representations of landscape on Australian frontiers prior to the 1990s legal, parliamentary and social recognition of native title. Metaphors of co‐existence have emerged from the public debate about native title. This constitutes a major challenge to previously hegemonic ideas that indigenous Australians were marginal to the Australian national identity. This paper reviews the implications of metaphors used to represent frontiers, borders, boundaries, edges and complex relations within and between indigenous and non‐indigenous territories in Australia. It argues that the liminal notion of co‐existence unsettles many of the hidden legacies of colonial exploitation infecting Australian geographical imaginations to the detriment of reconciliation and sustainability. This opens avenues for geographers to address the burdens the discipline carries from its roles in creating geographies of exclusion.     

Performing the nation in anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco

This article applies a process approach to the study of nationalism, analysing anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco to address how and why elite‐constructed national identity resonates for larger audiences. Using Alexander's social performance model to study nationalist contention, it examines how a Muslim prayer ritual was re‐purposed by Moroccan nationalists to galvanise mass protest against a French divide‐and‐rule colonial policy towards Moroccan Berbers that they believed threatened Morocco's ethno‐religious national unity. By looking at how national identity was forged in the context of contentious performances and why certain religious (Islam) and ethnic (Arab) components were drawn on to define the Moroccan nation, this study offers a model for answering why national identity gets defined in specific ways and how the nation gains salience for broader publics as a category of collective identity.     

Trafficking in Liquor,Trafficking in Heritage: Beer Branding as Heritage in Post‐apartheid South Africa

A burgeoning literature on post‐apartheid heritage configuration has largely overlooked the use of branding in the creation of heritage discourses in South Africa and the significance of liquor for national identity. This article brings these two concerns together through an examination of two heritage‐scapes—the SAB World of Beer and the SAB Newlands Brewery Heritage Centre—constructed by South African Breweries (SAB) in 1995. It suggests that the commercial construction of heritage as branding provided a vehicle for a powerful corporate capitalist narrative in the post‐apartheid rhetorical contestation over a desired path for the future. It also suggests that dissonance within and between these corporate visitors’ centres mirrored a wider uncertainty over the meaning of national identity in early post‐apartheid South Africa.     

The Politics of the Past: Constructing a National Identity through Heritage Conservation

Modern nation‐states use images of a chosen past to construct a national identity. In Vilnius, the remains of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are used to construct an identity, and the aim of this exercise is to improve the economic performance of the city. Academics and professionals, alarmed of the loss of authentic values, and the living society, alarmed at the deteriorating container quality of the city, caused by this Politics of the Past, are coming forward to prevent this disinheritance. New agencies created to materialise the rejuvenation of historic urban space, together with unprecedented changes in values, and social disharmony have turned the Politics of the Past in Vilnius into an instructive heritage discourse, which is further diversified by the involvement of local experts who are now taking charge of heritage protection.     

Consequences of Designating the Recent Past: Korreweg-district,Groningen, The Netherlands

The article focuses on the meaning of heritage, especially on its connection to time, space and people, and is concerned with signification, representation and identity at a national scale. Key questions are how the image of Estonianness creates national heritage out of diverse legacies and how these messages fit the local circumstances. This is examined in the case of Paldiski, a small town on the Pakri Peninsula west of the Estonian capital Tallinn. The area encompasses all that is considered non‐Estonian, but nevertheless reflects the history and geography of the country and thus is used for critical examination of current heritage creation and preservation.     

Power and Religion in a Modern State: Desecularisation in Australian History

Secularisation is a concept with many meanings making it difficult to analyse historically. Yet it is the default master narrative in much Australian historiography. Secular historians typically criticise the role of religion in history as being either too unengaged or, if engaged, too intrusive and negative in its impact. This article challenges both assumptions, taking five “nodal points” in Australian history and arguing that they are better given a “Christian” than a secular interpretation. Australia's first European settlement was a high‐minded reform experiment, based partly on a humanitarian Christian vision. The Church Acts gave the population ready access to Christian influence, resulting in a highly “Christianised” nation. When federated, that nation refused to give ascendancy to any one Christian denomination, but largely assumed that its polity was that of a “Christian commonwealth.” Out of its Christian commitment, in the middle of the twentieth century, it withstood control by atheistic communists of its industrial and political life. In the first decade of the present century, a surprising number of politicians have sought to define its national identity largely in terms of its Christian heritage rooted in the Classical/Christian tradition.     

Heteroglossic heritage and the first-place of the Kalahari

Abstract

Using Bakhtin’s concept of ‘heteroglossia,’ this article examines the layering and intersections of multiple claims to heritage places that form dialogics about heritage truths. Social groups derive their collective-self, in part, through association with a place, or places, to which they attribute their origin, described here as a ‘first-place.’ Identity maintenance can occur through the praxis of heritage tourism in which group members exhibit emotional performances during their visits to a first-place. Through the extended example of the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana and the various social groups – local ethnic communities, national citizens, and segments of the global community – who each form a collective-self using Tsodilo as a first-place, this article addresses the roles of science (archaeology) and tourism, and their interplay, in enabling several languages or dialects of belonging to coexist without dissonance. The argument is that heteroglossic heritage is possible because visitors’ affect-mediated encounters with heritage places facilitate the reaffirmation of their shared group identity. While all heritage discourse is heteroglossic, the article focuses on claims to a first-place set within a postcolonial context of nation building and modernising that involves the politicisation and re-spatialization of heritage places through tourism development.     

A Methodology for Assessing the Heritage of Planned Urban Environments: An Australian Study of National Heritage Values

Although urban planning has made strategic and notable contributions to the production of the built environment, these are under‐represented in heritage discourse. Planned environments deserve more attention as a particular class of place because a better understanding of planning and planning excellence can inform best heritage practice. A stepwise methodology for the heritage assessment of planned environments is presented. It is drawn from an Australian study concerned with the identification of places of possible national heritage significance. The approach is constructed around the identification of historical themes (for the categorisation and benchmarking of places based on historical research), indicators (pertaining to the nature of significance in planning terms) and thresholds (pertaining to the degree of significance). The analytical approach is capable of adaptation to diverse settings in which the heritage contribution of planning may be recognised.     

Domestic troubles,national identity discourse,and China's attitude towards the West, 2003–2012

Prior to its recent, much discussed international ‘assertiveness’, China's attitude to the West had deteriorated, as reflected in official discourse of national identity. Drawing from political science and social psychology literature on identity studies, I argue that the discursive pattern of national identity can shift as a function of an elite strategy to exclude internal others through opposition to foreign others. Internally exclusionary nationalism, often employed by elites during major crises, is instrumental to consolidating control and maintaining order. But when targeting internal opponents alone is politically inconvenient or lacks public resonance, elites will accentuate ethnocentric national identity discourse vis‐a‐vis foreign nations in order to reinforce internal battles and divert popular discontent externally. An interpretive analysis of the official texts of Chinese national identity discourse during the Hu Jintao decade, supplemented by quantitative data, shows a significant correlation between the regime's fear of internal instability and bottom‐up political opposition on the one hand and the timing and intensity of ethnocentric identity discourse regarding the West on the other. The party‐state negatively framed the West in order to shift the blame for domestic troubles onto foreigners and discredit internal resistance.     

Heritage builds communities: The application of heritage resources to the problems of social exclusion

Abstract

The concept of ‘social exclusion’ has become central to the UK government's political philosophy. The need to combat the causes and deal with the symptoms of ‘social exclusion’ has become vital to many policy initiatives. The use of heritage resources to help deal with social problems has been practised since the early years of the 19th century and can provide a community with a focus, identity and pride as well as making a contribution to regional economies. This paper traces the use of heritage resources in community regeneration programmes and demonstrates their lack of objectives and unplanned nature. A holistic multi‐agency approach is advocated to tackle social exclusion, with heritage playing a central role. Finally, the paper calls for research which will clarify the contribution that heritage resources can make and identify a framework within which heritage can realise its potential to build communities.     

Identifying heritage values in local communities

Preservation of cultural heritage is often carried out by voluntary workers in local communities, especially when the objects are not of major national interest, not listed, and not preserved by heritage authorities. The motivation for local preservation, and for spending time and money on objects belonging to the community, is not primarily to preserve cultural heritage objects for the future, but to establish and maintain common social institutions in the local society, institutions of vital importance to the local identity. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the local understanding of heritage relates to its official understanding in a Norwegian context. The paper will also examine to what degree the Norwegian heritage authorities have managed to implement the emphasis on local participation and the social dimensions of heritage, given strong articulation in later international conventions. Criteria for value assessment, as defined by national heritage authorities, do not seem to play a vital role in the local heritage field. The central authorities’ focus on professionalism, qualified management, and predefined criteria appears to meet limited resonance in local communities.     

Sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state: Québec and Canadian federalism

ABSTRACT. This article examines the relationship between sub‐state nationalism and the welfare state through the case of Québec in Canada. It argues that social policy presents mobilisation and identity‐building potential for sub‐state nationalism, and that nationalist movements affect the structure of welfare states. Nationalism and the welfare state revolve around the notion of solidarity. Because they often involve transfers of money between citizens, social programmes raise the issue of the specific community whose members should exhibit social and economic solidarity. From this perspective, nationalist movements are likely to seek the congruence between the ‘national community’ (as conceptualised by their leaders) and the ‘social community’ (the community where redistributive mechanisms should operate). Moreover, the political discourse of social policy lends itself well to national identity‐building because it is typically underpinned by collective values and principles. Finally, pressures stemming from sub‐state nationalism tend to reshape the policy agenda at both the state and the sub‐state level while favouring the asymmetrical decentralisation of the welfare state.     

Italian Jews: From Social Integration to the Construction of a New European Identity

In this article I discuss the history of Italian Jews from the Emancipation to the racial laws of 1938 and their present-day attitudes to Judaism and the State of Israel. My aim is to suggest how the policy of social integration enabled Italian Jews to construct a new identity without losing their ancestral heritage. The example of Italian Jewry is relevant to understanding the growing need in today‘s European Union—now comprising 27 countries with different languages, cultures, and values—of revising the concept of national identity and of exploring ways of constructing a new European identity.     

Convict ancestry: a neglected aspect of Australian identity

Abstract Claiming descent from convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of British settlement is more than just about blood ties, it is also an aspect of national identity for many Australians. Analyses of nationally representative survey data show that younger, left‐leaning, working class Australians are most likely to identify as convict descendants, while older, high income, educated, city dwellers are least likely to identify. Our findings also suggest that the ‘hated stain’ of convict ancestry is senescent, and will diminish with intergenerational replacement. Yet claims to convict descent remain divided along status lines. Interest in convicts and claims of convict heritage may comprise an element of ‘popular taste’, but as a consequence of this popularity, ‘convict chic’ is rejected by educated elites. Embraced by ‘middle Australia’, but shunned by cosmopolitan elites, convict ancestry is a neglected aspect of Australian identity. Whether claims of convict ancestry are ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’, the power of foundation myths to provide shared memories is evident in the salience of convict connections in Australia.     

遗产认同:概念、内涵与研究路径

本文从遗产产生、发展及其遗产本质属性特征的视角提出了遗产认同的概念,并从“遗产身份”和“遗产认同”两个角度解释了遗产认同的内涵,即前者强调遗产的客观属性,后者强调主体对遗产的认知。在此基础上,根据遗产与认同的四种交叉关系,作者提出了遗产认同相应的研究路径,即从时间视角的遗产化过程分析每个阶段的遗产认同;以尺度的视角从表征层面的空间身份和文化身份特征理解遗产认同;从非表征层面的遗产实践分析相关者如何通过具体行动表征和重构自己的身份认同。遗产认同概念的提出与研究不仅可能丰富新文化地理学的景观研究理论,也为遗产旅游地治理提供理论借鉴,未来还需对遗产认同与遗产保护利用关系做进一步探讨。