"My blarsted greenstone throne!" Māori princesses and nationhood in New Zealand fiction for girls

This chapter focuses on Isabel Peacocke’s The Runaway Princess (1929) and Mona Tracy’s short story collection, Piriki’s Princess and Other Stories of New Zealand (1925), which incorporates a swathe of princesses, Māori and Pākehā. The princesses to be discussed in this chapter occupy liminal states: between Māori and Pākehā, child and adult, individual and collective subjects. Whether Māori and Pākehā, they figure in narratives of identity-formation that implicitly or explicitly incorporated comparisons between Māori and Pākehā. This chapter tracks this continuum of representations working from Māori to Pākehā and beginning with two Māori princesses who feature in Tracy’s stories ‘A Deserted Settlement’ and ‘Four Tons of Flax’.

Imagining Kyrgyzstan's nationhood and statehood: reactions to the 2010 Osh violence

This article explores the tensions inherent in how Kyrgyzstan's nationhood and statehood have been imagined and practised via an analysis of local reactions to the findings of the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission's (KIC) investigation into the 2010 Osh violence and in particular the threat narrative that developed in opposition to the investigation. In the wake of the clashes that erupted in Osh in June 2010, a recurrent theme was calls from the international community for an independent investigation. Within Kyrgyzstan, however, some politicians argued that investigations violated the republic's sovereignty. Despite local reluctance, a number of investigations did subsequently take place. Yet the reports of the respective investigations did little to quell controversy, with the KIC report being strongly criticized and declared a threat to national security. The strength of feeling demonstrated by this reaction was indicative of long-standing and unresolved tensions in Kyrgyzstan between international and local imaginings of nationhood and statehood. The article concludes by arguing that nationhood and statehood need to be reimagined to focus on re-establishing state–society relations by both local and international actors in order for Kyrgyzstan to begin repairing the already fragile sociopolitical relationships that were grievously damaged by the violence and the subsequent investigations.

A warrior nation

Under Prime Minister John Howard, Australia today appears to have turned away from Asia, returning to a Western oriantation. Has racial invasion fear, once expressed in the 'White Australia' policy, been the determinant of relations with Asia? I argue, in contrast, first, that invasion fear preceded race fear and, second, that Australia was unlucky, in coming to nationhood during the eras of Social Darwinism and New Imperialism, scaling ideas of race citizenship into its national formation. It was unlucky to associate national 'manhood' with Gallipoli and war, making the national tradition expeditionary nationalism, or ANZAC. War is central in national memory and public patriotism, primarily because war has been carried out overseas rather than through fighting on Australian soil, and the devastation of Australian cities. Even after the retreat of Western empires in Asia, and of racial ideology, why has this romantic and foolish view of war as an expression of the nation persisted? Paradoxically, Australians romanticise war even though, after 1788, there has been no other invasion of a continent which is harder to invade than it is to defend.

Survivalist anxieties: Australian responses to Asia, 1890s to the present

From the 1880s there has been speculation about Australia's Asian futures. The contexts in which Asia has been invoked and the constructions of both a 'generic Asia' and specific countries in the region have played a critical role in defining the limits and possibilities of Australian nationhood. While there has been a persistent anxiety about Australia's vulnerability to Asia (our empty north, our unguarded coastline) there have long been advocates of closer engagement with the region.

Australia, Asia and cultural anxiety : inaugural AHA Anniversary Public Lecture, given at the Grand Hotel, Mildura on 29 September (2003).

My theme tonight is the recurrent idea that Australia could be expected to have an Asian future. From the 1880s there developed a speculative literature around the notion that Asia ('generic Asia' as I prefer to call it) would exert an increasing influence, possibly a determining influence, on the development and settlement of the Australian continent. There is a certain pathos about this story of a young, newly formed community on the threshold of nationhood finding Asia blocking its path. Would the ensuing contest be the making of white Australia; would the young nation define its national purpose and assert its right to exist or would it succumb to a force more powerful? Would white Australia become nothing more than a faint historical memory, a failed experiment in the complex and uncertain business of nation building? In short, would white Australia fail?

Diaspora, return and migrant architectures

Nearly all discourses on migration (to my knowledge) emphasise that the migrant is not so much a traveller, but a figure oriented towards settlement and a particular destination. Discourses on migration have attended more to the process and site of ‘arrival’, and few studies have focused on the process and site of ‘departure’. However, central to the thesis of this paper would be the testimony of two migrant houses – one in the city of  immigration (Melbourne, Australia), and the other in the village of emigration (Zavoj in Macedonia). The focus will be on the Zavoj house as a significant house, a house that points to a thesis about how architecture makes explicit other processes of migration, namely that of ‘return’. Here there are several intertwined communities and nations, and also different notions of community and nation. It has been noted that ‘diaspora’ is constituted through longer distances, severe separation, and a taboo on return. And yet implicit in many more ‘autobiographical’ accounts is that one only leaves with a promise to return. The conflict and question of ‘return’ is at the centre of the migrant’s imaginary. A study of the two houses of migration implicates a set of networks, forces, relations, circumscribing a much larger global geopolitical and cultural field that questions our understandings of diaspora, the currency of transnationalism, the binary structure of dwelling/travelling, and the fabric and fabrication of community. But the study goes inwards and underneath as well through the figure of the migrant, the figure through which the two migrant houses are deeply associated. The paper will explore the subjective nature of the thesis, the idea of a ‘migrant house’ as an imaginary architecture, a psychic geography, an imaginary community and sense of nationhood.

Australia and New Zealand: separate states but path-dependent

Australia and New Zealand (Aotearoa) have shared almost two centuries of close relations created through close geographic proximity, shared membership of political associations, and frequent policy exchange. The relevant context has shifted from the British Empire and Commonwealth to a rapidly globalizing world under US military hegemony. Australia and New Zealand were among the early settler colonies of the British Empire and this article argues that, as such, the settler colonies helped shape the form of the Empire, and subsequently the Commonwealth. This history created strong, separate, if somewhat similar, traditions of independent political experimentation. This article explores different models for explaining the cross-Tasman relationship and concludes that the path-dependent approach works best. The path was also influenced by external shocks, notably the second world war and Britain's moves towards Europe, and it was these shocks that created the necessary ruptures to create change. The first world war had catapulted Australia and New Zealand towards separate nationhood, and simultaneously strengthened their cultural and political links. The second world war pushed Australia towards the USA and led both Australia and New Zealand to develop a more explicit role as regional leaders in the Pacific. For New Zealand, Britain's membership of the European Community created an economic crisis and politico-cultural stresses which are reverberating still. Such shocks created the preconditions also for closer association, exemplified in the CER Treaty, which in turn draws upon historical precedents and experiences.

The role of Australia's public broadcasters in development and democracy

In this article I investigate the ways in which the ABC and SBS use the internet. I predominantly focus on how the public broadcasters’ promote an informed citizenry though participation online. Such online participation further develops a second vital role of public broadcasting which is to develop a sense of nationhood—through Australian content (which can include information and communication in languages other than English) and which provides for local and international communities in rural and metropolitan areas to engage with each other. In order to understand the capacity for the public broadcasters to enhance online public communication and democratic participation, I firstly examine general internet theory and evaluate how liberating the internet has been for those living in countries where the state and political alliances control traditional broadcast and print media. For this analysis, the key aspects of virtual communication and cyber-democracy are explored as they are relevant to the services the public broadcasters could provide. Furthermore, case examples of current practical work undertaken in these areas are examined. The framework of the ‘virtual agora’ is considered because it represents the ideals of a public sphere in cyberspace where people are currently able to discuss and debate key issues. The theory is then related to activities undertaken through the ‘vortals’ of the ABC and SBS. Finally, the extent of political intervention and commercial influence is evaluated.

Exploring the conceptual boundaries of diaspora and battlefield tourism: Australians' travel to the Gallipoli battlefield, Turkey, as a case study

Historical tourism resources associated with diasporic communities and battlefields would at face value appear to have little in common. On closer inspection, however, diaspora and battlefield tourism share several elements in common. These commonalities are explored in greater detail, with an eye to investigating battlefield tourism sites indelibly linked to the birth of modern nations, where it is argued that there is a particularly blurred boundary between these two forms of tourism that must be recognized. 

The Gallipoli battlefield, Turkey, provides the contextual anchor for this discussion in suggesting that a key reason Australians travel to this foreign place to is to find out what it means to be an Australian. The prominence of this battlefield in the psyche of Australians is borne out of the involvement of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) in the First World War campaign that commenced at what is now known as Anzac Cove at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. This campaign was the first united action of the fledging Australian nation bought together through federation in 1901.

Qualitative data collected from Australians visiting the Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey during 2010 is used to explore whether the experiences of those traveling to battlefields strongly associated with nation building legends and stories resemble those of diasporic tourists in seeking to return to their homeland. Emerging from the analysis, the confines of the blurred boundary between diaspora tourism and battlefield tourism is discussed in detail and an associated research agenda is proposed that aims to further clarify the scope of these concepts in relation to the broad spectrum of heritage tourism resources.

Researching women in silent cinema: new findings and perspectives

This anthology exposes the richness and variety of interests that motivate feminist film research today. Exploring women’s contribution to silent cinema, scholars from across the globe address questions of performance, nationality, industry, technology, labor, and theory of feminist historiography. The volume builds on the thematic, methodological, and material diversity that characterized earlier efforts in women’s film history, and the originating context of the sixth Women and the Silent Screen conference (Bologna, 2010). Much emphasis is given to the transitional period of silent cinema (1910s to the early 1920s), which emerges as the field where feminist film scholars are beginning to claim their own theoretical and historical ‘place’. While giving a new impetus to the idea of transitional cinema, the collected essays also illuminate the importance of film’s transnational circulation. Questions of nation and nationhood, and women’s inclusion or exclusion within these terms, are examined in connection to issues of cultural globalization. How did American serial queens impact early Chinese film? How did the variety stage accommodate American films in Rio de Janeiro? Along what lines might we discuss women filmmakers who literally toured the world? These are just some of the issues that are discussed in the volume. Each investigation prompts us into distinct acts of cultural contextualization. A particular focus on acting and the agency of the actress is shared across the volume. The fundamental figure of the actress links multiple threads of scholarship, traversing different films and national cinemas. Alice Guy, Asta Nielsen, Florence Turner, Lois Weber, Mary Pickford, Esfir’ Shub, Pearl White, Vera Karalli, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Elsa Lanchester, Louise Fazenda, Sarah Bernhardt, Gemma Bellincioni, Angelina Buracci, Yin Mingzhu, Leni Riefensthal: these are but some of the names that are encountered across the essays in the collection. New findings are exposed and new research perspectives are opened through these and other figures, allowing us to uncover original ways of thinking about women’s visibility and agency on film.

Devious intimacy

Devious Intimacy combines a sly, playful wit with a melancholic tenderness to navigate the complex terrain of difficult feelings. Vickery’s poems move effortlessly between the private world of love and sexuality to wider forms of connection, teasing out how past histories and literature underscore contemporary human bonds and how we imagine ourselves in light of neighbours, nationhood, and the environment. From Abstract Expressionism to Test Cricket, Vickery’s poetry delves into that which delights and intrigues us, both celebrating and critiquing our everyday routines and aesthetic modes of reception. Wry, smart, and bristling with acute observation, Devious Intimacy is a beguiling mix of charm and charge.