Diaspora In Australia Research Articles

The impact of cultural settings on sustainability narratives: an explorative study with the Indian diaspora

Achieving sustainable futures is complicated by the diverse understandings and prioritisations of sustainability issues and practices. A reason for the lack of common ground is the fact that sustainability is a global project which is primarily driven by the North, rather than one that consistently integrates local and cultural diversity. Research has shown that sustainability expectancies of Southern civic society are lacking in the considerations of crucial sustainability frameworks. This investigation focuses on the expectancies of a community with Southern cultural origins and identities—the Indian diaspora in Australia. The unique bicultural positioning of diasporas and their growing influence on the cultural scaffolds of societies, make their assessment of sustainability distinctly relevant and insightful. The objective of this qualitative inquiry was to explore the Australian Indian diaspora’s understanding of sustainability, their prioritisation of diverse sustainability concerns, and the cultural underpinnings of these perceptions and preferences. Seven focus groups including components of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique and personal storytelling, were conducted in Sydney, Australia from September to October 2022. This study demonstrates that two distinct sustainability narratives direct the meaning of sustainability—one has a global application and environmental focus, the other a localised Southern application and social focus. Cultural context is critical in directing the adoption of either narrative by mobilising relevant cultural social identities and promoting their resonance. Education emerges as a strategy to reframe the sustainability narrative and create a more balanced sustainability discourse.

Diasporic Belonging in Religious Spaces: Insights from Within the Sri Lankan Diaspora

ABSTRACT The changing social, cultural and physical characteristics and uses of public spaces by migrants are of longstanding interest to social scientists. Often embedded in uses of public spaces are splinters, resonances and connections to home and migration. This paper examines the religious spaces that Sri Lankan migrants engage with in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. To untangle the complexities associated with these spaces, we integrate a framework of belonging that encompasses rituals, relationships and restrictions. A multilayered dataset, which includes interviews with the Sri Lankan diaspora, (auto)ethnography, field observations and photography, revealed that within the Sri Lankan diaspora, individuals often used religious spaces to maintain rituals and identities. The data uncovered that some participants in the diaspora used religious spaces to gather and socialise with other diaspora members while others had dynamic relationships with these spaces – that is, the meanings attributed to religious spaces were at times fraught with tensions and hostilities towards religious practice and feelings of welcome. In this paper, we offer a snapshot of a growing diaspora in Australia and their negotiations to belong (or not).

Ethnic Compartmentalisation: Greek Australian (Dis)Associations with White Australia and Indigenous Sovereignty

ABSTRACT Based on Greek diasporic articulations of historical consciousness in Australia, this article introduces an analytical framework called ethnic compartmentalisation. Bringing Australian studies of ethnicity into dialogue with settler colonial scholarship, ethnic compartmentalisation examines how Greek migrants/settlers fragment their sense of belonging to Australia. By compartmentalising their sense of history, race, and migration, the segments of the Greek diaspora in Australia justify their ongoing settlement on Indigenous lands by separating or leveraging the multiple parts of their inherited migrant histories as insiders and outsiders.

Towards collective community education: Pasifika diabetes health forums in Southeast Queensland, Australia

Collective community education co-designed with the Māori (Indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Pasifika (Pacific Islander peoples living in Australia) communities through participatory community engagement, Indigenous methods and cultural knowledge are vital for development and implementation of diabetes community forums. A community-based participatory action research was co-designed with three Pasifika diabetes community forums in partnership with Māori and Pasifika communities, a university and government health organisations in Southeast Queensland. The forums provided a culturally safe space for the communities to collectively engage in diabetes education, health checks and cultural knowledge sharing. The outcomes of these forums led to co-development of a Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program aimed at promoting diabetes prevention and management for the Māori and Pasifika diaspora in Australia and internationally. Co-designed community forums have the potential to address health equity through inclusion of communities and key stakeholders in a collaborative agenda, empowering communities to improve health outcomes.

ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ КУЛЬТУРИ ТА МОВИ ЗАСОБАМИ РАДІОМОВЛЕННЯ: ПРИКЛАД УКРАЇНСЬКОГО РАДІО В АВСТРАЛІЇ ТА ОКЕАНІЇ

<p><strong><em>The purpose</em></strong><em> of the study is to understand the role played by Ukrainian radio broadcasting in maintaining a sense of community and identity among Ukrainians living in Australia and Oceania; study of the problems faced by Ukrainian broadcasters in attracting their target audience, as well as an analysis of the impact of technological progress and changes in media consumption habits on the future of Ukrainian radio broadcasting in the region.</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology</em></strong><em>. The following methods were used in the research process: a review of scientific and journalistic literature on the research topic, including a search in academic databases, books, articles and other relevant materials; monitoring and content analysis for studying the content of Ukrainian radio initiatives in Australia and Oceania, determining the types of programs offered, the language of the thematic range of topics covered; the method of historiographic research to understand the development and evolution of Ukrainian-language radio broadcasting in these countries; analysis of sites, social media according to the research topic, summarizing the interaction of the radio initiative with the audience, the types of content they publish, and content indicators in social networks; analysis of search engines to study the visibility and rating of Ukrainian radio programs broadcast in Australia and Oceania in search engines, in particular Google; digital content analysis to help understand their editorial policies, content and content distribution strategies.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results</em></strong><em>. It was established that despite the territorial dispersion and the insignificant percentage representation of Ukrainians in the demographic picture of the two countries, for example, in Australia, Ukrainians make up 0.2% of the total population, in these territories the Ukrainian language has been presented on the radio since the middle of the 20th century. Separate initiatives, including «Ukrainian Hour» (radio station «2EA», Sydney, Australia), «Ukrainian Hour» («SBS Radio», Sydney, Australia), «Ukrainian Wave» («3ZZZ», Melbourne, Australia), «Ukrainian Studio» («2SER», Sydney, Australia), «Ukrainian Hour» («2MBS Fine Music», Sydney, Australia), «Ukrainian Hour» («6EBA FM», Perth, Australia), Ukrainian Program» («3CR Community Radio», Melbourne, Australia), «Ukrainian Radio Australia» («2GLF FM», Sydney, Australia) and «Ukrainian Hour» («Planet FM», Auckland, New Zealand) provide linguistic representation of the Ukrainian community in the foreign language environment of these countries . The ownership and financing of these radio initiatives were analyzed, their content, genre and thematic content were analyzed. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the language design of the radio program of these radio initiatives, and its role in supporting the language among the communities of the Ukrainian diaspora in Australia and Oceania. The impact of Ukrainian-language radio broadcasting on the Ukrainian diaspora in these countries is analyzed through the prism of the cultural and linguistic identity of Ukrainian communities, as well as their role in promoting social unity and participation in political life.</em></p><p><strong><em>The novelty </em></strong><em>of the research lies in the topical view of cultural and media relations between Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora in this region. The role of radio as a means of preserving and popularizing the Ukrainian language, culture and identity among Ukrainian immigrants and their descendants is investigated. One of the key novelties of this research is the understanding of how Ukrainian radio broadcasting developed and adapted to the specific needs and challenges of the Ukrainian community in Australia and Oceania. It examines the founding of Ukrainian radio stations, the development of programs and the ways in which these programs engage the local Ukrainian community.<strong></strong></em></p><p><strong><em>Practical significance</em></strong><em>. The results of the research will lead to a better understanding of the Ukrainian diaspora in Australia and Oceania and the ways in which they preserve their cultural heritage while adapting to their new countries of residence.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> multicultural radio station, national culture of Ukrainians, radio broadcasting, world Ukrainian-language radio broadcasting, Ukrainian diaspora, Ukrainian-language radio.</em></p>

‘Decolonising’ Tropical Collections: Cultural Material from Papua New Guinea in Museums

Museums are western institutions that house the remnants of colonisation. They are fraught institutions in which cultural heritage issues arise due to the differences in western and indigenous societies. Most tropical collections were acquired during colonisation through unjust means by government administrators, missionaries, and dealers. In more recent times the ‘decolonisation’ of museums has begun, with developing nations and source communities demanding the repatriation and restitution of their cultural material from museums. This signifies political redress and self-determination from the effects of colonisation on former colonised nations and those that are still experiencing colonial occupation. This paper focuses on the collection and removal of cultural material from Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the colonial era. The paper discusses views among the Papua New Guinean diaspora in Australia on museums and PNG collections, and argues that cultural heritage issues must be addressed before the work of decolonisation can begin. Museums that house Papua New Guinean collections must follow the cultural protocols of the relevant Papua New Guinean source communities. Decolonisation will require an overhaul of the western museum structure and principles, and Papua New Guinean vision, values and voices must be at the forefront of this work.

The role of the Catholic church in the Maltese Australian community and its impact on language maintenance

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the role of the Catholic Church amongst the Maltese diaspora in Australia, and its impact on the maintenance of the Maltese language, a small community language spoken largely by the first generation of immigrants who left Malta after the Second World War. The study is based on interview data collected among three generations of Maltese in Melbourne and Sydney. The findings of this research demonstrate that the Church has been one of the main institutions that supported the Maltese community throughout the years and consequently it had a positive impact on language maintenance. On the other hand, the aging population of the Maltese community will be detrimental to the Maltese language in the years to come, and thus, probably, resulting in a complete shift to English, the dominant language of Australia.

Emotions and resistance in diaspora: the case of Australia’s Kurds from Turkey

ABSTRACT This paper examines the emotional motives behind the reproduction and maintenance of Kurdishness as a transnational social identity among Kurds from Turkey residing in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing from 15 face-to-face, in-depth interviews with members of the Kurdish diaspora, we argue that the collective victimhood experienced by Kurds in response to repressive assimilationist state policies and crackdowns on political rights and activities in Turkey has played a significant role in shaping diasporic Kurdish identity. Our findings, however, reveal that resistance and resilience have also emerged among the members of the Kurdish diaspora in Australia, and are now equally integral to the construction and preservation of Kurdishness. By exploring the complex interplay between emotions, victimhood, resistance and resilience, this paper sheds light on the ongoing struggles and shifting diaspora identities.

For Home and Abroad: A Century of Chinese-Australian Diaspora Educational Philanthropy in Zhongshan

This article concerns pre-tertiary schools financed by the diaspora originating from Zhongshan county. Through a longitudinal analysis of over 30 modern school buildings between 1911 and 2021, it chronicles homeland educational philanthropy over the past century. It establishes that the development of diaspora-initiated educational philanthropy in their ancestral home reflects social and political changes in China and in the residential orientation of the Zhongshan diaspora in Australia. In the transforming landscape of educational philanthropy, the transition from sojourner to settler and homecoming descendant over the past century has resulted in three discrete and successive outcomes: first, creating a new future; second, improving educational prospects; and finally, leaving behind a legacy. As a result of these changes, the article provides a reference point for future research on diaspora educational philanthropy directed at southern China and beyond.

Misogyny in The Eastern Slope Chronicle: An elegy for diasporic male chauvinism

ABSTRACT This article explores misogyny in the novel by Chinese Australian author Ouyang Yu, The Eastern Slope Chronicle. It argues that misogyny is not merely an individual, but also a collective practice. While scholars have discussed the loss of masculinity in the protagonist, this article examines the misogynistic tradition in Chinese culture: men’s authority and expectations of women’s subordination in the family, which partly accounts for the misogyny of the protagonist Dao and other male characters in the text. It reads the novel as an elegy, mourning the loss of male dominance and male chauvinism in the Chinese diaspora in Australia in postcolonial times. The novel’s play with voices and the implied author’s perspective combine with the characters’ frustration and their many forms of misogynistic practice to produce an elegiac tone, acknowledging change while documenting the characters’ lack of agency and their inability to change in the present day environment.

Analysing the donor behaviour of a Muslim diaspora in Australia

Diaspora communities are an important source of charitable giving to their original homelands. This study explores a Muslim diaspora's motivations behind donation-giving. A two-year donation dataset of an overseas charity organisation registered in Australia was analysed. Findings show that, overall, donations are significantly related to the prevailing consumer confidence levels (r = 0.4277). However, there was also a strong, inverse correlation (r = - 0.4376) during 2020, suggesting that the plummeting consumer sentiment during COVID-19 did not impact donation revenue. As expected, during periods of religious significance (Ramadan) across both years, donations to the charity increased substantially, with the relative effect of Ramadan calculated as over 800%. This study makes a contribution by providing insights to donor behaviour through the examination of a donation dataset. This study also uses ‘causal impact analysis’ to calculate the effect of Ramadan on donations. Results have implications for the not-for-profit sector in Australia and other countries with Muslim diaspora communities. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

Trends in female-selective abortion among Asian diasporas in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Preference for sons and smaller families and, in the case of China, a one-child policy, have contributed to missing girl births in India and China over the last few decades due to sex-selective abortions. Selective abortion occurs also among Indian and Chinese diaspora, but their variability and trends over time are unknown. We examined conditional sex ratio (CSR) of girl births per 1000 boy births among second or third births following earlier daughters or sons in India, China, and their diaspora in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom (UK), and United States (US) drawing upon 18.4 million birth records from census and nationally representative surveys from 1999 to 2019. Among Indian women, the CSR in 2016 for second births following a first daughter favoured boys in India (866), similar to those in diaspora in Australia (888) and Canada (882). For third births following two earlier daughters in 2016, CSRs favoured sons in Canada (520) and Australia (653) even more than in India (769). Among women in China outside the one-child restriction, CSRs in 2015 for second order births somewhat favoured more girls after a first son (1154) but more heavily favoured boys after a first daughter (561). Third-birth CSRs generally fell over time among diaspora, except among Chinese diaspora in the UK and US. In the UK, third-birth CSRs fell among Indian but not among other South Asian diasporas. Selective abortion of girls is notable among Indian diaspora, particularly at higher-order births.

AsianCrit and Autoethnography: A Future-Focussed Fugue of Critical Collaborative Inquiry

Despite the considerable influence of the “Asian Century” on Australian Government policy and the purported centrality of Asia to Australian national identity, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has simultaneously highlighted and intensified the deleterious impacts of anti-Asian racism. Specifically, Orientalist discourses and a “fear of invasion” that underpin the differential racialized treatment of the Asian diaspora in Australia have manifested in both old and new racisms that have had significant impacts on the mental and physical wellbeing of Asian Australians. In response to this crisis, this autoethnographic paper acknowledges the growing methodological complexity of Critical Race Theory and advances a novel, future-focussed Asian Australian social justice agenda in solidarity with other racialized minorities by interrogating the collaborative potential of Asian Critical Race Theory (AsianCrit) and Autoethnography through an investigation of their respective theoretical and methodological intersections.

‘But we’re not a multicultural school!’: locating intercultural relations and reimagining intercultural education as an act of ‘coming-to-terms-with our routes’

Learning to live in a superdiverse world might be heralded as one of the great social challenges of our time. In the last decade, intercultural education has been posed as one way to foster intercultural capabilities in young people that can contribute towards learning to live well with cultural difference. As the diaspora in Australia—and elsewhere—expands, developing intercultural understanding is seen as a priority. Despite the directives of official policy and curriculum, enacting intercultural education in meaningful ways is complex and fraught. This paper reports on an Australian ethnography at a predominantly ‘white’ school that examined the way productions of cultural difference across school spaces complicate teachers’ intercultural work. This paper considers how intercultural understanding might move beyond celebrations of multiculturalism, arguing that ‘coming-to-terms with our routes’ necessarily prefigures intercultural understanding and provides opportunity for an intercultural education beyond a celebration of multiculturalism.

(IN)DEPENDENCY ON THE HEGEMONIC TO BE HEARD: NEWS-FOCUSED WECHAT OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS IN AUSTRALIA AS A CASE STUDY

This paper contextualizes an alternative perspective to a common academic discourse that ethnic media in the West provide a voice for the marginalized from the original bourgeois public sphere. The paper investigates an emergent industry – news-focused WeChat Official Accounts (hereafter WOAs) in Australia. The WOA is an information broadcasting feature launched on WeChat in August 2013 and then adopted by Australian-Chinese media entrepreneurs to produce and circulate the ethno-specific news stories among the Chinese diaspora in Australia and even beyond. From 2019 to 2020, I interviewed 24 media professionals to understand the internal working of news-focused WOAs in Australia. I argue that the anatomy of these Chinese-language digital media organizations reveals their financial independence from the nation-state in contrast to Australian hegemonic taxpayer-sponsored media. Contrary to many media scholars have argued, news-focused WOAs do not completely represent antithetical voices to Australian English media. The commercial imperative does not translate well into agonistic pluralism. News-focused WOAs are attached to the hegemonic journalism and internalize interethnic racism alongside white supremacist discourse against black people in order to be part of the dominant media structure.

Learning to be (multi)national: Greek diasporic childhood re-memories of nationalism and nation-building in Australia

ABSTRACT The paper explores unstable, interconnected and dynamic processes of diasporic nation-building and memory-making of adult members of the Greek diaspora in Australia as they recall their childhood experiences. The paper makes two key original contributions. First, we identify the importance of the re-membered and embodied diasporic child and childhood spaces to hybrid Greek and Australian adult national identities. Second, the paper provides an empirical example of the contribution that adults’ re-membered childhoods can make to children’s geographies – these are not direct representations of the past but are creatively, affectually, individually and collectively re-membered timespaces. These contributions emerge through three interconnected themes emerging from the adults’ accounts: the importance of childhood ‘work’, particularly language acquisition, to being an embodied adult Greek and Australian; nostalgia towards homelands and, crucially and originally, Australian childhood diasporic spaces; and Forging hybrid subjectivities: the presence of the diasporic child in the Greek and Australian adult. Therefore, the paper brings together in novel ways, work on diasporic childhoods and memories, the ways in which adults in diaspora use these past timespaces in present processes of nation-building and national belonging and the value of using re-memories as a method on children’s geographies.

'The Transnational Identities of the Global South Asian Diaspora in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and South Africa, 1900s-1940s'

This article addresses two key research questions: 1. Was the rhetoric about the equality of all British subjects adopted by South Asian migrants in the British Empire’s self-governing Dominions in the first half of the twentieth century? and 2. Did the experience of living in predominantly white countries encourage migrants from the Punjab and other regions in South Asia to adopt a common pan-South Asian identity? It explores these two research questions with each of the four countries of the focus of this article in turn, before making some comparisons.

‘We cannot heal what we will not face’: dismantling the cultural trauma and the May ’98 riots in Rani P Collaborations’ Chinese Whispers

ABSTRACT In May 1998, ethnic riots and widespread sexual violence occurred in several major Indonesian cities. Chinese-Indonesians were targeted and, since then, there has been an interest in feminist visual art created by Chinese-Indonesian diaspora in Australia. This article explores Chinese Whispers, a digital graphic novel by Rani Pramesti, a Chinese-Javanese-Indonesian actor and Melbourne-based performance maker, and her team of Indonesian-Australian collaborators. Applying solemn imagery, it narrates a young woman’s attempts at understanding cultural trauma that has marked both personal and public identities of Chinese-Indonesians. Imbued with black-and-white illustrations and interview transcripts, the digital graphic novel tries to answer questions regarding hatred and violence towards Chinese-Indonesians against the backdrop of political turmoil. This article assists in understanding the significance of Indonesian digital graphic narratives as a channel through which the targeted community can discuss their shared trauma and reflexive awareness by visualising cultural conflict.

TAFSIR AL-QUR’AN DI MEDSOS: Nadirsyah Hosen’s Resistance to the Politicization of the Quran in Indonesian Social Media

This article aims to examine a book of Nadirsyah Hosen, an Indonesian diaspora in Australia, entitled Tafsir Al-Qur'an di Medsos. Hosen’s interpretation of the Quran is interesting because it is directly related to the actual political context in Indonesia. This study uses a descriptive analysis approach, making the book Tafsir Al-Qur'an di Medsos as the primary source and a number of other books, journals and credible news portals as the secondary sources. By taking five examples of Hosen’s interpretation, namely religious freedom, non-Muslim leadership, the terminology of kâfir, the KPU (Komisi Pemilihan Umum) verse, and the caliphate issue, this study finds that Hosen’s interpretation is a form of resistance to the dynamics and phenomena of contemporary Muslim diversity, especially in the Indonesian context. He interpreted the Quran in respose to the politicization of the scripture through social media platforms, especially in relation to the political situation in Indonesia. He attempts to advocate the relience on credible literature when doing tafsîr and that theverses of the Quran must be understood in a proper context. For example, in addressing the labelling of kâfir and kâfir leadership issue, he suggests that one cannot use it as an excuse to not choosing leaders from non-Muslims because Allah does not forbid Muslims to do good to non-Muslims according to al-Mumtaḥanah [60]: 8. He also identifies inaccuracy of accociating al-Nisâ’ [4]: 108 with the KPU, because the occasion of the revelation of the verse indicates the Quranic defense of an innocent Jew who trapped in a conspiracy from a Muslim.

FRONTLINE: Jill Emberson: A lifetime of bearing witness to help others

Jill Emberson, an award-winning Australian journalist of Tongan heritage died in 2019. She achieved national attention for her campaign to provide a voice for all women suffering from ovarian cancer and for more and fairer funding for ovarian cancer research. Through an analysis of her programmes and interviews with colleagues, this article focuses on Emberson’s journalism from daily news coverage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander protests in 1982 for public radio to her Meet the Mob podcast series in 2014. It focuses on her significant radio documentaries on women in the Pacific for the ABCs’ feminist Coming Out Show (1986) and Ties that Bind, which was about Tonga, including the Tongan diaspora in Australia (2009). It argues that Emberson’s own journey to discover her cultural identity shaped her as a reflective journalist whose work was underpinned by a concern for social justice, marginalised communities, the impacts of colonisation and gender discrimination.