Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Debating the Nation: Dealing with Difference and Incommensurability

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Governance and Multiculturalism

  • 543 Accesses

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is to examine social construction of a contemporary nation. This will first allow us to comment on the racialised discourse that produces a white Australia and second further contextualise the question ‘How do rural people who identify as white Australian think about race and Australian identity in the context of Indigenous sovereignty in their everyday lives?’ Part of the answer to this question requires an exploration of the social construction of the nation. This chapter argues that there is a simultaneous history of the oppression of Indigenous Australians and Oriental others through racialisation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ahmed, S. (2000). Strange encounters: Embodied others in postcolonialism. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Altman, J., & Hinkson, M. (2007). Coercive reconciliation: Stabilise, normalise, exit Aboriginal. North Carlton, VIC, Australia: Arena Publications Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anders, K., & Perrin, C. (2008). How race became everything: Australia and polygenism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(5), 962–990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ang, I., & Stratton, J. (2001). Multiculturalism in crisis: The new politics of race and national identity in Australia. In I. Ang (Ed.), On not speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashcroft, B., & Ahluwalia, P. (1999). Edward said: The paradox of identity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bannerji, H. (2000). The dark side of the nation: Essays on multiculturalism, nationalism and gender. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, D. (1998). Ngarrindjeri wurruwarrin: A world that is, was, and will be. Melbourne: Spinifex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bibby, R. W. (1990). Mosaic madness: The potential and poverty of Canadian life. Toronto: Stoddart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blainy, G. (1984). All for Australia. Sydney: Methuen Haynes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brand, D. (1990). Interview. In L. Hutcheon & M. Richmond (Eds.), Other solitudes: Canadian multicultural fictions. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breuilly, J. (1985). Reflections on nationalism. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 15, 65–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bulbeck, C. (2004). ‘The white worrier’ in South Australia: Attitudes to multiculturalism, immigration and reconciliation. Journal of Sociology, 40(4), 291–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chatterjee, P. (1993). The nation and its fragments.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, S. (2001). Liberals accused of trying to rewrite history. In T. Jones (Ed.), Lateline. Ultimo, NSW, Australia: Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conversi, D. (2007). Homogenisation, nationalism and war: Should we still read Ernest Gellner? Nations and Nationalism, 13(3), 371–394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Curthoys, A. (2000). An uneasy conversation: The multicultural and the Indigenous. In J. Docker & G. Fischer (Eds.), Race, colour and identity in Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curthoys, A. (2003). Liberalism and exclusionism: A prehistory of the white Australia policy. In L. Jayasuriya, D. Walker, & J. Gothard (Eds.), Legacies of white Australia. Crawley, WA, Australia: University of Western Australia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, M., & Watson, N. (2006). “It’s the same old song”: Draconian counter-terrorism laws and the deja vu of indigenous Australians. Borderlands E-Journal, 5(1), Paragraphs 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Department of Immigration and Citizenship. (2010, October 2). Australian Government. Retrieved from Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dodson, P. (2007). Whatever happened to reconciliation? In J. Altman & M. Hinkson (Eds.), Coercive reconciliation: Stabilise, normalise, exit Aboriginal Australia. North Carlton, VIC, Australia: Arena Publications Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreher, T., Waller, L., & McCallum, K. (2018). Disruption or transformation? Australian policy making in the face of Indigenous contestation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleras, A., & Elliott, J. L. (1993). Multiculturalism in Canada: The challenge of diversity. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fozdar, F., & McGavin, K. (2016). Mixed race identities in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. New York: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, F. C. (2009, April 22). Opening statement to the standing Senate committee on Aboriginal Peoples. In Auditor General of Canada. Halifax, NS, Canada: Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gale, P. (2005). The politics of fear: Lighting the Wik. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gellner, E. (1964). Thought and change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giannacopoulos, M. (2006a). Mabo, Tampa and the non-justiciability of sovereignty. In S. Perera (Ed.), Our patch: Enacting Australian sovereignty post-2001. Perth, WA, Australia: Network Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giannacopoulos, M. (2006b). Terror Australis: White sovereignty and the violence of law. Borderlands E-Journal, 5(1), 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giannacopoulos, M. (2015). Sovereign debt crises, referendums and the changing face of colonial power. Law Text Culture, 19(Art: 9), 166–193.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giannacopoulos, M. (2016). Sovereign debt crises, referendums and the changing face of colonial power. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 31(1), 21–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, D. T. (2001). The racial state. New York: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, T. (1994). Multiculturalism: A critical reader. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunew, S. (2004). Haunted nations: The colonial dimensions of multiculturalism. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hage, G. (1998). White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. Annandale, NSW, Australia: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hage, G. (2003). Against paranoid nationalism: Searching for hope in a shrinking society. Annandale, NSW, Australia and West Wickham, UK: Pluto Press and Conerford and Miller Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S. (1992). The question of cultural identity. In D. Hold & T. McGrew (Eds.), Modernity and its futures. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press and Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S. (1996). Questions of cultural identity. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, C. (1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 166, 1708–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, C. (1994). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 166(8), 1708–1791.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoenig, R. (2009). Reading alien lips: Accentuating the positive? An analysis of some positive media depictions of asylum seekers. ACRAWSA E-Journal, 5(1), 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollinsworth, D. (2016). Unsettling Australian settler supremacy: combating resistance in university Aboriginal studies. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 19(2), 412–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Imtoual, A. (2007). Is being Australian about being white? Australian whiteness, national identity and Muslim women. In D. Riggs (Ed.), Taking up the challenge: Critical whiteness studies in a postcolonising nation. Adelaide, SA, Australia: Crawford House Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, M. (1988). Paths toward a clearing: Radical empiricism and ethnographic inquiry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, P. (1996). Nation formation: Towards a theory of abstract community. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kymlicka, W. (1998a). Finding our way: Rethinking ethnocultural relations in Canada. Toronto, ON, Canada: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kymlicka, W. (1998b). Finding our way: Rethinking ethnocultural relations in Canada. Toronto, ON, Canada: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kymlicka, W. (2000). American multiculturalism and the ‘nations within’. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous people. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lake, M., & Reynolds, H. (2008). Drawing the global colour line: White men’s countries and the international challenge of racial equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Larner, W., & Spoonley, P. (1995). Post-colonial politics in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In D. Stasilus & N. Yuval-Davis (Eds.), Unsettling settler societies: Articulations of gender, race, ethnicity and class. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maaka, R., & Fleras, A. (2000). Engaging with Indigeneity: Tino rangatiratanga in Aotara. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mallman, M., & Moran, A. (2018). Social cohesion in multicultural societies: Framework for conformity or social justice? In TASA Conference 2018: Precarity, Rights and Resistance. The Australian Sociology Association (TASA), Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marmo, M., & Giannacopoulos, M. (2017). Cycles of judicial and executive power in irregular migration. Comparative Migration Studies, 5(Art: 16).

    Google Scholar 

  • Marotta, V. (2018). The ‘migrant experience’: A conceptual discussion. In Precarity, rights and resistance. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: The Australian Sociology Association (TASA).

    Google Scholar 

  • May, S. (1999). Critical multiculturalism: Rethinking multicultural and antiracist education. Philadelphia: Falmer Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, S., & Sleeter, C. (Eds.). (2010). Critical multiculturalism: Theory to practice. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moran, A. (2005). Australia: Nation, belonging and globalisation. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moran, A. (2009). What settler Australians talk about when they talk about Aborigines: Reflections on an in-depth interview study. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32, 781–801.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moreton-Robinson, A. (2007). Writing off Indigenous sovereignty: The discourse of security and patriarchal white sovereignty. In A. Moreton-Robinson (Ed.), Sovereign subjects: Indigenous sovereignty matters (pp. 101–102). Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The white possessive: Property, power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mulgan, R. (1993). Multiculturalism: A New Zealand perspective. In C. Kukatha (Ed.), Multicultural citizens: The philosophy and politics of identity. St Leonards, NSW, Australia: The Centre for Independent Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nash, R. (1990). Society and culture in New Zealand: An outburst for the end of 1990. New Zealand Sociology, 5(2), 99–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicoll, F. (2000). Indigenous sovereignty and the violence of perspective: A white woman’s comingout story. Australian Feminist Studies, 15(33), 369–386. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713611981.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicoll, F. J. (2002). De-facing terra nullius and facing the public secret of Indigenous sovereignty in Australia. Borderlands E-Journal, 1(2), 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Onufrijchuk, R. (1988). Post-modern or Perednovok: Deconstructing ethnicity. In I. Angus (Ed.), Ethnicity in a technological age. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Osuri, G., & Banerjee, B. (2004). White diasporas: Media representations of September 11 and the unbearable whiteness of being in Australia. Social Semiotics, 14(2), 151–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, D. (2001). The politics of ethnicity in settler societies: State of unease. New York: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perera, S. (2005). “Who will I become”? The multiple formations of Australian whiteness. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Journal, 1(1), 151–170.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perera, S. (2006a). Our patch: Enacting Australian sovereignty post-2001. Perth, WA, Australia: Network Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perera, S. (2006b). Race, terror, Sydney, December 2005. Borderlands E-Journal, 5(1), 1–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Perera, S. (2007). Our patch: Enacting Australian sovereignty post 2001. Perth, WA, Australia: Network Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pocock, J. G. (2000). Waitangi as mystery of State: Consequences of the ascription o federative capacity to the Maori. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poole, R. (1999). Nation and identity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poynting, S. (2006). What caused the Cronulla riot? Race and Class, 48(1), 85–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pruitt, L. (2016). Multiculturalism at play: Young people and citizenship in Australia. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(2), 269–285.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pugliese, J. (2006). Asymmetries of terror: Visual regimes of racial profiling and the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes in the context of the war in Iraq. Borderlands E-Journal, 5(1), 1–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schech, S., & Haggis, J. (2000). Migrancy, whiteness and the settler self in contemporary Australia. In J. Docker & G. Fischer (Eds.), Race, colour and identity in Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schech, S., & Haggis, J. (2001). Migrancy, multiculturalism and whiteness: Re-charting core identities in Australia. Communal/Plural, 9(2), 143–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schech, S., & Haggis, J. (2004). Terrains of migrancy and whiteness: How British migrants locate themselves in Australia. In A. Morton-Robinson (Ed.), Whitening race: Essays in social and cultural criticism. Canberra, Australia: Aboriginal Studies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shephard, S., & Lewis-Fernandez, R. (2016). Forensic risk assessment and cultural diversity: Contemporary challenges and future directions. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 22(4), 427.

    Google Scholar 

  • Short, D., & Lenox, C. (2016). Handbook for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. Sydney: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Short, D. (2016). Reconciliation and colonial power: Indigenous rights in Australia. Sydney: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, A. (2000). Paths toward a Mohawk nation: Narratives of citizenship and nationhood in Kahnawake. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous people. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, A. (2014). Mohawk interruptus: Political life across the borders of settler states. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. D. (1991). National identity. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stratton, J. (1999). Multiculturalism and the whitening machine, or how Australians become white. In G. Hage & R. Couch (Eds.), The future of Australian multiculturalism: Reflections on the twentieth anniversary of Jean Martin’s The migrant presence. Sydney, NSW, Australia: The University of Sydney.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tascon, S. M. (2009). Narratives of race and nation: Everyday whiteness in Australia. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 14(2), 253–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tully, J. (2000). The struggles of Indigenous peoples for and of freedom. In D. Iivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasta, E., & Castles, S. (1996). The teeth are smiling: The persistence of racism in multicultural Australia. St Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, I. (2002). Looking at you looking at me: An Aboriginal history of the South East. Adelaide: Self Published.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, I. (2007a). Aboriginal sovereignties: Past, present and future (im)possibilities. In S. Perera (Ed.), Our patch: Enacting Australian sovereignty post-2001. Perth: Network Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, I. (2007b). Settled and unsettled spaces: Are we free to roam? In A. Moreton-Robinson (Ed.), Sovereign subjects. Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, I. (2015). Aboriginal peoples, colonialism and international law. Milton Park: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webber, J. (2000). Beyond regret: Mabo’s implications for Australian constitutionalism. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodley, B., & Newton, D. (1987). I am Australian. Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, I. M. (2000). Hybrid democracy: Iroquois federalism and the postcolonial project. In D. Ivison, P. Patton, & W. Sanders (Eds.), Political theory and the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federation University Australia, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Catherine Koerner & Soma Pillay

Authors
  1. Catherine Koerner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Soma Pillay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Soma Pillay .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Koerner, C., Pillay, S. (2020). Debating the Nation: Dealing with Difference and Incommensurability. In: Governance and Multiculturalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23740-0_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23740-0_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-23739-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-23740-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation