Reinforcing the myth : constructing Australian identity in 'reality TV'

The current incarnation of ‘reality TV’ in Australia has a strong focus on the portrayal of everyday life. Although based on ‘real’ situations or people, there is a clear tension between ideas of authenticity and performance.  As a global phenomenon, ‘reality’ formats are produced for local audiences by highlighting aspects of the national culture and identity, with format popularity directly linked to identification and affirmation of the spectacle of ‘reality’. This paper will analyse the use of popular Australian myth in ‘reality’ formats by charting narrative and character construction as an ‘illusory everyday’, with reference to Bondi Rescue (Cordell Jigsaw). The paper will examine the representation of Australian identity through both myth and construction in ‘reality TV’ as the perpetuation of a cultural simulation. Implications for research on the genre and the industry are also discussed.

Reaping identity meanings from an agrarian past : southern harvesters of commercially cultivated regional heritage

Extending knowledge of the cultural shaping and variegating of white identity that occurs through the commercial diffusion of identity myths, we examine the reception of Southern identity myths promoted in the oppositional narratives of New South commercial media. We characterize oppositional narratives as texts which operate by eliciting an interpretive reading that devalues rather than supports the surface narrative, and explain the duplicitous text as one intended to seduce a dominant power, while empowering and bolstering identity of a marginalized group. After elaborating how oppositional discourse can serve to reinforce the identity frame constructed by regional media producers, we report on a study examining how urban and rural Southerners read and respond to this discourse. Our findings highlight mediators in the relationship between individuals’ oppositional readings and their alignment of identity in a manner responsive to it.

When, where and how am I now? Researching identity in university communities of practice

The establishment of communities of practice (CoPs) has emerged nationally as a strategy to promote ‘excellence’ in teaching and learning in Australian universities. CoPs in Australian universities have been reported as fostering the development of identity in practice and collegial academic identity. In these accounts identity development is associated with storytelling around everyday practice, although the relationship between narrative and identity development has not been explored or described in detail. Similarly, although the complex and changeable university contexts in which these CoPs operate is noted and described in the literature, there is currently no detailed account published of the relationship between the broader discourses that shape these contexts and the process of identity development in university CoPs. We argue in this paper that there is a need for a new way of researching identity formation in university CoPs. Drawing on Trinh Minh Ha’s work (1992), we propose that fragmentation be used as a working metaphor for thinking about and researching identity development in university CoPs, with direct reference to the contexts in which they operate. 
The proposed new approach takes into account the complexities and variety of discourses that influence identity formation in CoPs and the changeable and sometimes contradictory Enterprise University contexts in which Australian CoPs operate. In this paper fragmentation is described and applied to the process of researching identity formation in university CoPs. This paper also describes how fragmentation guides the combined narrative research and discourse analysis methods used in the proposed approach. This paper argues that fragmentation provides the means for developing practical (or experiential) insights as well as conceptually structuring a useful method for investigating discursive factors, to open up a variety of potential new understandings about identity formation in university CoPs.

Hybrid perspectives : defining the relativity of culture and identity through migration experiences

This paper examines how culture and identity can be relatively defined through hybrid perspectives in relation to migration experiences. Addressing and portraying definitions of culture and identity is crucial in understanding how notions of such issues connect and initiate the migrant subject through new experiences, perspectives and ways of being. In enunciating the transitions from home to a new place, and elaborating on the rupture of an inherited culture and grounded identity, I refer to them through self-reflexive perspectives. The search for meaning through appraisals of cultural lineage and linguistic capital through a Diaspora, a post colonial history and lived life experiences from my home country, pre-empts the ambivalent and hybrid status in defining culture(s) and identit(ies). It is crucial to recognise how challenges for adaptation to new culture, language, societal norms, and differences in class, nationality, race and gender play specific roles in the migrant experience. My current experiences of migration to Australia are narrations of encountered difficulties, fears, inhibitions, new aspirations, perceptions and perspectives, which map an ‘identity crisis.’ From this narrative structure, I investigate through my ongoing PhD study, how my artistic expression and representations progress towards experiences, and themes that metaphorically reflect, inspire and enact the hybrid structures of culture(s) and identit(ies). Explored reflexively my representations suggest how the ‘liminal space’ or the ‘third space,’ (Bhabha, 1990) express transitions about the ‘self’ and my artistic expression, which enable further reflection and positions to emerge and extend to metaphorical expressions.

Film, representation and the exclusion of Aboriginal identity: examples from Australian cinema

Throughout the latter half of the past century cinema has played a significant role in the shaping of the core narratives of Australia. Films express and implicitly shape national images and symbolic representations of cultural fictions in which ideas about Indigenous identity have been embedded. In this paper, exclusionary practices in Australian narratives are analysed through examples of films representing Aboriginal identity. Through these filmic narratives the articulation, interrogation, and contestation of views about filmic representations of Aboriginal identity in Australia is illuminated. The various themes in the filmic narratives are examined in order to compare and contrast the ways in which the films display the operation of narrative closure and dualisms within the film texts.

Teachers' work and professional identity: living a contradiction on the margin

Currently in Victoria, the Government is spending millions of dollars on the implementation of literacy intervention programs in State Schools. This narrative explores an English teacher's experiences as she implemented a literacy intervention program at her school, where she was confronted by questions about its value, nature and purpose, as well as challenges to her professional identity.

Narrative inquiry and auto-ethnography: Interpretive approaches to research

Hermeneutic phenomenology informed two qualitative methodologies used in my doctoral research: narrative case studies and auto-ethnography. Through these methodologies I investigated the phenomenon of place and identity in visual artistic practice. Four narrative case studies of four artists were developed using experience-focused narrative inquiry and thematic analysis. Auto-ethnography was used to investigate the phenomenon of place and identity within my own practice as visual artist. This involved analysis of my artworks that encompassed place and identity and writing from different contexts of my past. Rather than relying on memory recall. This became textural writing in the phenomenon rather than describing what I already knew. This enabled me to challenge conventional ways of telling my story (big stories) and produced “small stories” from which new insights could be interpreted. The insights gained from my auto-ethnography in turn assisted me to encourage story telling to find the small stories of my artist participants.

Locke, Kierkegaard, and the phenomenology of personal identity

Personal Identity theorists as diverse as Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman and Galen Strawson have noted that the experiencing subject (the locus of present psychological experience) and the person (a human being with a career/narrative extended across time) are not necessarily coextensive. Accordingly, we can become psychologically alienated from, and fail to experience a sense of identity with, the person we once were or will be. This presents serious problems for Locke’s original account of “sameness of consciousness” constituting personal identity, given the distinctly normative (and indeed eschatological) focus of his discussion. To succeed, the Lockean project needs to identify some phenomenal property of experience that can constitute a sense of identity with the self figured in all moments to which consciousness can be extended. I draw upon key themes in Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of moral imagination to show that Kierkegaard describes a phenomenal quality of experience that unites the experiencing subject with its past and future, regardless of facts about psychological change across time. Yet Kierkegaard’s account is fully normative, recasting affective identification with past/future selves as a moral task rather than something merely psychologically desirable (Schechtman) or utterly contingent (Parfit, Strawson).

Love and leadership: constructing follower narrative identities of charismatic leadership

Most extant research on charismatic leadership has an essentialist orientation that characterises it as leader behaviour, leader communication or follower dependency. Our approach is more discursively oriented. To research charismatic leadership, we used aesthetic narrative positivism, which undertook utilitarian as well as critical method. We examined followers' implicit narratives of their lived experiences of charismatic leadership in organisational settings. We examined metaphors for this experience. Most respondents identified with positive affect, a form of love story; a minority experienced negative affect, especially anger; and some experienced both positive and negative emotions. We posit that if one adopts a certain identity within the context of a dramatic narrative, one might be attributed with charismatic qualities by followers. In this way, we suggest that charismatic leadership might be less a gift from God and more a 'gift from followers'. © The Author(s) 2013.

Popular imperialism, Scottish identity, and William Wallace in an Australian colonial city

The narrative of William Wallace holds a prominent position in the current conception of England as a negative referent for Scotland’s national identity—its binary “Other”, against which Wallace valiantly fought. This article considers a contrasting understanding of Scottish national identity from the late-nineteenth century, and explores the events surrounding the unveiling of a statue of William Wallace in Australia during the year of 1889. It illuminates how settlers interpreted this national hero in such a way that demonstrated loyalty to the Union and Empire, and accommodated a convergence of English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh migrants in a British colonial city. The article highlights how statues, the ceremonies surrounding them, and their public reception help us to investigate the symbolic, ritualistic, and performative dimensions of identity formulation. It considers how public monuments, providing a sense of authority to particular groups, can marginalise others by acting to settle cultural competition, and will reflect on competing interpretations of the statue at its unveiling.

The naked self: Kierkegaard and personal identity

The Naked Self explores Kierkegaard's understanding of selfhood by situating his work in relation to central problems in contemporary philosophy of personal identity: the role of memory in selfhood, the relationship between the notional and actual subjects of memory and anticipation, the phenomenology of diachronic self-experience, affective alienation from our past and future, psychological continuity, practical and narrative approaches to identity, and the intelligibility of posthumous survival. By bringing his thought into dialogue with major living and recent philosophers of identity (such as Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson, Bernard Williams, J. David Velleman, Marya Schechtman, Mark Johnston, and others), Stokes reveals Kierkegaard as a philosopher with a significant--if challenging--contribution to make to philosophy of self and identity.

Notions of place, space and identity in rural teacher education

This chapter explores the concepts of space, place, and identity through a selfstudy narrative lens that focuses on the importance of rural within these conversations. Current research into teacher education acknowledges the signifi cance of context and how it matters in terms of teacher preparation; this chapter examines context in terms of the impact of working in a rural context and the differences and similarities of rural to other contexts. The overarching framework for this chapter will be on myself as a rural teacher educator and how this bounds and is bounded by my own identity and experience ‘growing up rural’ in Australia. I will also outline my own emerging research into self-study as a methodology and how this adds to my role as a teacher educator within rural communities. Firstly however, I will explore the concepts of place and space and how this guides my own rural self-study.

Working an identity, buying a life: the remains of Disney way of life among ICP alumni

O Disney International College Program (ICP) é um programa de estágio patrocinado pela Walt Disney Company, destinado a estudantes universitários estrangeiros. Uma vez aceitos no programa, estes jovens viajam para os Estados Unidos durante as férias de verão para trabalhar por três meses no Walt Disney World Resort na Flórida. O ICP tornou-se um programa popular dentre os estudantes universitários brasileiros. Todos os anos, aproximadamente trinta mil jovens candidatam-se para o programa. Contudo, apenas cerca de oitocentos conseguem ser aprovados. Durante o programa esses jovens desenvolvem uma “identidade Disney” que passará a fazer parte do self deles. O objetivo deste trabalho é explorar o papel ICP na vida dos seus participantes, assim como desvendar seus efeitos na construção do self destes jovens. O presente estudo também procurou avaliar como os participantes conseguem sustentar sua “identidade Disney”, mesmo após deixarem o programa. Para tanto, foi desenvolvido um estudo de caso qualitativo, no qual o caso analisado foi a identidade de participantes do ICP. Após uma breve análise da literatura sobre identidade, consideramos o self como a capacidade do individuo em manter viva uma narrativa particular. Assim, nossos dados foram coletados e analisados por meio do método de análise narrativo. Através deste estudo, descobrimos que a Walt Disney Company realiza um trabalho eficiente em convencer os participantes do ICP que a sua missão e seus valores são muito importantes. Com isso, estes jovens passam a louvar a marca Disney. Também foi observada a existência de uma comunidade de Disney Alumni (pessoas que participaram do ICP) unida por princípios, ideias e consumo.

«L’impero portatile» dei portoghesi: articolazione e figure narrative nell’immaginario coloniale portoghese.

A partire da una ricognizione storica sull’ultimo impero coloniale portoghese, la tesi intende analizzare come il mito dell’impero abbia contribuito a definire l’identità nazionale del Portogallo e il suo patrimonio culturale e letterario. Il mito viene indagato in particolar modo nella sua componente linguistica e discorsiva, come modalità peculiare di costruire “costellazioni” di immagini. In questo contesto la letteratura assume una rilevanza specifica, poiché le sue risorse formali le permettono di contrapporre alla fissità del mito una potente articolazione in grado di scardinare gli automatismi legati ad una translatio imperii volta a reiterare l’immaginazione del centro. L’analisi di un corpus letterario afferente a quella che potremmo chiamare la letteratura “dei retornados”, che si concentra soprattutto sulla definizione della focalizzazione narrativa e sulla rielaborazione delle figure narrative, intende ricercare le diverse forme di assumere criticamente il canone imperiale e di oltrepassarlo.