Towards unsettling the racial nation-state: affective interventions in an Australian literature classroom

Abstract

ABSTRACT As the adoption of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (otherwise known as the White Australia policy) reveals, whiteness has always been fundamental to the Australian nation-state. White sovereignty is constitutive of the Australian nation, making it a racial state. But the devastating impact of whiteness on those deemed ‘not-white’ remains largely unacknowledged. Drawing on framing of affective economies and an empirical study tracing how secondary school students in a Literature class negotiate their identities amidst structures of colonialism, I explore the affective dynamics of these negotiations with attention to how emotions align some bodies with particular communities and situate some outside of nation. Within a pedagogic intervention aiming to disrupt canonical assumptions, I collected written responses, recorded group discussions from all class members, and interviewed a selection of these students. Data analysis demonstrates that many in the class were oriented to whiteness as ‘Australianness’ at the expense of other possible cultural identities offered by their biographies, often resulting in emotions of shame or disorientation. It invites us to think beyond national borders to avert the deleterious effects ‘nation-ness’ can have on those it excludes and to work towards implementing pedagogic interventions that might unsettle the racial nation-state.