Being All Equal

Identity, Difference and Australian Cultural Practice

AvJudith Kapferer

Häftad, Engelska, 1996

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Beskrivning

- Is there such a thing as an Australian national identity? Or is Australia just a melting pot of different peoples and cultures without a common culture? - What is distinctive and what is universal about everyday life in Australia? In a post-colonial age of globalizing economies, the political quest for national 'identity' is increasingly urgent. This topical book traces the ways in which the Australian state and its people struggle to represent the social and cultural practices of everyday life in an attempt to draw meaning from diverse understandings of pasts, presents and futures. Class, gender and ethnicity are shown to underpin this popular debate, fuelled by shifting interpretations of egalitarianism and individualism. The author -- a prominent Australian sociologist -- investigates how a nation's identity is created through its folk heroes and folk festivals, civic and domestic architecture, education, politics and art. Ned Kelly, Parliament House, the Melbourne Cup and the Adelaide Grand Prix are all interrogated for the light they shed on Australian ideologies and institutions.This book will be fascinating reading for those who seek a deeper understanding of how a national identity can be moulded and redefined.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:1996-11-01
Mått:138 x 216 x 17 mm
Vikt:453 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Global Issues
Antal sidor:320
Förlag:Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN:9781859731062

Utforska kategorier

Kulturvetenskap inom Samhälle och politik
Nationalism inom Samhälle och politik
Antropologi inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

Judith Kapferer Freelance Sociologist,formerly Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Education, Flinders University of South Australia

Recensioner i media

'Being All Equal is a timely critique of repressive ideologies and practices that masquerade as populism or egalitarianism. By dissecting the motivations that animate the superficially bland inclusiveness of liberal nationalism, Judith Kapferer has made of Australian cultural politics a globally apposite object-lesson for political and social theory. Especially telling is her treatment of suburbia, which, in its unsettling capacity to excite both contempt and desire, emerges in this book as a central metaphor of the discursive alchemy of late capitalism and exposes the self-effacing sources of nationalist hegemony.'Professor Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University'Kapferer's Being All Equal, constitutes a readable, engaging and insightful, if theoretically somewhat limited discussion of contemporary projects of nation-building in Australia and how they might relate to the contemporary Australian state and people...'A significant strength of Kapferer's monograph is her attention to

Innehållsförteckning

CHAPTER ONE A Profession of Being All Equal CHAPTER TWO Ideology and Public Culture: The Work of Mythology CHAPTER THREE The Discourses of History: Larrikins, Scarlet Women and the Apparatus of Capture CHAPTER FOUR Cultural Space: The Production and Consumption of Symbolic Goods CHAPTER FIVE A Fortunate Style of Life: The Accumulation of Symbolic Capital in Suburbia CHAPTER SIX Power, Knowledge, Practice: Common Sense and Received Wisdom CHAPTER SEVEN The Dream of Community: Bread, Circuses and Ideology CHAPTER EIGHT Presenting the Nation to the People: Commodity and Community CHAPTER NINE The Architecture of Identity: Parliament House and the Stockman's Hall of Fame CHAPTER TEN Exploring Community, Imagining Society CHAPTER ELEVEN Community, State, Nation, Power and Praxis CHAPTER TWELVE A Nationalist Interlude EPILOGUE Such is Life