Misplaced Pages

#162837

137-545: Australian studies forms part of the academic field of cultural studies . It involves an examination of what constructs Australia 's national identity. This area of scholarship traditionally involves the study of Australian history, society and culture but can be extended to the study of Australian politics and economics. This area of scholarship also includes the study of Australia's Indigenous population , Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Scholarship in Australian studies

274-613: A "white/British" ideal focused on but not exclusively Anglo-Celtic peoples. Pre-Federation, the Australian colonies passed many anti-Chinese immigration laws mainly using Poll Taxes, with Federation in 1901 came discrimination based on the Dictation Test, which effectively gave power to immigration officials to racially discriminate without mentioning race. The policy also affected immigrants from Germany, Italy, and other European countries, especially in wartime. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973, when

411-546: A 50-word dictation test. At first this was to be in any European language, but was later changed to include any language. The tests were given in such a way as to make them impossible to pass. If a person seemed likely to pass in English then a test in another language could be given. Attlee Hunt, the first administrator of the Immigration Restriction Act expressed it clearly in a 1903 memo to all Customs Officers: "It

548-400: A central focus of cultural studies. Jeff Lewis summarized much of the work on textuality and textual analysis in his cultural studies textbook and a post-9/11 monograph on media and terrorism. According to Lewis, textual studies use complex and difficult heuristic methods and require both powerful interpretive skills and a subtle conception of politics and contexts. The task of

685-527: A clause would be a threat to White Australia and made it clear to British prime minister David Lloyd George that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted. Hughes wrote in 1919: "No Govt. could live for a day in Australia if it tempered with a White Australia". Hughes wrote a note to Colonel Edward M. House of the American delegation: "It may be all right. But sooner than agree to it I would walk into

822-661: A defender of the White Australia Policy. Menzies: "I don't want to see reproduced in Australia the kind of problem they have in South Africa or in America or increasingly in Great Britain. I think it's been a very good policy and it's been of great value to us and most of the criticism of it that I've ever heard doesn't come from these oriental countries it comes from wandering Australians." Lamb: "For these years of course in

959-580: A degree of government assistance particularly for primary industries, and White Australia, was to continue for many years before gradually dissolving in the second half of the 20th century. The growth of the sugar industry in Queensland in the 1870s led to searching for labourers prepared to work in a tropical environment. During this time, thousands of " Kanakas " (Pacific Islanders) were brought into Australia as indentured workers . This and related practices of bringing in non-white labour to be cheaply employed

1096-565: A form of "Settler Society in the Australian Colonies". The cultural study of this society involves an analysis of the interactions between the Indigenous people, European settlers and "non-White immigrants". A study into Australia's cultural shift from Indigenous to predominantly Western culture can be seen as a result of interactions between Indigenous Australians and European settlers. These interactions ranged from civil to violent, with

1233-433: A form of production (of meanings, of identities, etc.) in its own right. Stuart Hall , John Fiske , and others have been influential in these developments. A special 2008 issue of the field's flagship journal, Cultural Studies , examined " anti-consumerism " from a variety of cultural studies angles. Jeremy Gilbert noted in the issue, cultural studies must grapple with the fact that "we now live in an era when, throughout

1370-463: A key site of political and social struggle. In his view, capitalists used not only brute force ( police , prisons , repression , military ) to maintain control , but also penetrated the everyday culture of working people in a variety of ways in their efforts to win popular "consent." It is important to recognize that for Gramsci, historical leadership, or hegemony , involves the formation of alliances between class factions, and struggles within

1507-617: A kind of empty version of " postmodern " analysis, others hold that at its core, cultural studies provides a significant conceptual and methodological framework for cultural , social , and economic critique. This critique is designed to " deconstruct " the meanings and assumptions that are inscribed in the institutions, texts, and practices that work with and through, and produce and re-present, culture. Thus, while some scholars and disciplines have dismissed cultural studies for its methodological rejection of disciplinarity, its core strategies of critique and analysis have influenced areas of

SECTION 10

#1732863274163

1644-431: A kind of radical interdisciplinarity as the basis for cultural studies. One sociologist whose work has had a major influence on cultural studies is Pierre Bourdieu , whose work makes innovative use of statistics and in-depth interviews. However, although Bourdieu's work has been highly influential within cultural studies, and although Bourdieu regarded his work as a form of science , cultural studies has never embraced

1781-477: A more shameful manner than have the Chinese.... They were forced at the point of a bayonet to admit Englishmen... into China. Now if we compel them to admit our people... why in the name of justice should we refuse to admit them here? Outside parliament, Australia's first Catholic cardinal , Patrick Francis Moran was politically active and denounced anti-Chinese legislation as "un-Christian". The popular press mocked

1918-530: A prestigious chair in sociology at the Open University , and Richard Johnson took over the directorship of the centre. In the late 1990s, "restructuring" at the University of Birmingham led to the elimination of CCCS and the creation of a new Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology (CSS) in 1999. Then, in 2002, the university's senior administration abruptly announced the disestablishment of CSS, provoking

2055-501: A question of class alliance . The rise of cultural studies itself was based on the decline of the prominence of fundamental class-versus-class politics. Edgar and Sedgwick write: The theory of hegemony was of central importance to the development of British cultural studies [particularly The Birmingham School . It facilitated the analysis of the ways subordinate groups actively resist and respond to political and economic domination. The subordinate groups needed not to be seen merely as

2192-677: A range of studies on media policy , democracy , design , leisure , tourism , warfare , and development. While certain key concepts such as ideology or discourse , class, hegemony, identity, and gender remain significant, cultural studies has long engaged with and integrated new concepts and approaches. The field thus continues to pursue political critique through its engagements with the forces of culture and politics. Many cultural studies practitioners work in departments of English or comparative literature . Nevertheless, some traditional literary scholars such as Yale professor Harold Bloom have been outspoken critics of cultural studies. On

2329-424: A reform in the education system (if one changes the education system, then one can change the culture). Hall viewed culture as something that is institutionalized, which could only be studied through the interactional patterns that people within a culture exhibit and experience. Culture is something that makes up society, is a learned trait, and is influenced by various forms of media that help to establish it. Power

2466-400: A reputation as "the working man's paradise". Some employers hired Chinese labourers, who were cheaper and more hard working. This produced a reaction which led eventually to all the colonies restricting Chinese immigration by 1888 and subsequently other Asian immigration. This was the genesis of the White Australia Policy. The "Australian compact", based around centralised industrial arbitration,

2603-405: A standpoint of radical contextualism . In other words, cultural studies rejects universal accounts of cultural practices , meanings, and identities. Judith Butler , an American feminist theorist whose work is often associated with cultural studies, wrote that: the move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to

2740-520: A substantial impact on sociology . For example, when Stuart Hall left CCCS at Birmingham, it was to accept a prestigious professorship in Sociology at the Open University in Britain. The subfield of cultural sociology , in particular, is disciplinary home to many cultural studies practitioners. Nevertheless, there are some differences between sociology as a discipline and the field of cultural studies as

2877-553: A substantial international outcry. The immediate reason for disestablishment of the new department was an unexpectedly low result in the UK's Research Assessment Exercise of 2001, though a dean from the university attributed the decision to "inexperienced 'macho management'." The RAE, a holdover initiative of the Margaret Thatcher-led British government of 1986, determines research funding for university programs. To trace

SECTION 20

#1732863274163

3014-535: A topic of dispute among historians and archaeologists , with the accepted period being between 40,000 and 80,000 years. European colonisation and settlement in Australia in 1788 marks a prominent point in Australia's history . Within the study of Australia , there is criticism of the academic portrayal of Australian history . Historians and academics have argued that since European colonisation, Australians of European descent have recounted Australian history to "favour

3151-604: A treaty with China as it was feared the Chinese government would request the abolition of the White Australian policy as an ally. A spokesman for the Labor Party demanded that it be continued, stating: The policy of White Australia is now, perhaps, the most outstanding political characteristic of this country, and it has been accepted not only by those closely associated with it, but also by those who watched and studied "this interesting experiment" from afar. Only those who favor

3288-420: A view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure. It has marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with

3425-421: A whole. While sociology was founded upon various historic works purposefully distinguishing the subject from philosophy or psychology , cultural studies have explicitly interrogated and criticized traditional understandings and practices of disciplinarity. Most CS practitioners think it is best that cultural studies neither emulate disciplines nor aspire to disciplinarity for cultural studies. Rather, they promote

3562-722: Is a government-funded institution focused on the "diverse history, cultures and heritage" of the Indigenous Australian Population. This institute was established under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. The institute facilitates the studies and understanding of Indigenous Australians by collecting items of cultural value, conducting research on communities, publishing pieces of work by Indigenous Australians, and facilitating collaborations and partnerships with government, academic, corporate and community sectors. The Australian Studies Institute

3699-450: Is analysed. Some Academics believe that within this field of study, there is "scant attention paid" to how the colonisation process impacted social, economic and cultural experiences of Indigenous Australians today, such as the systemic disparities in health and between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australian studies also examines contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and society. This population

3836-459: Is called cultural studies in all of the universities and colleges in the English-speaking world, and everyone knows what that phenomenon is. I mean, the...now-weary phrase 'political correctness' remains a perfectly good descriptive phrase for what has gone on and is, alas, still going on almost everywhere and which dominates, I would say, rather more than three-fifths of the tenured faculties in

3973-442: Is consumed, mediated and negotiated, etc. Hall has also been accredited with the expansion of cultural studies through “the primacy of culture’s role as an educational site where identities are being continually transformed, power is enacted, and learning assumes a political dynamic.” He viewed politics as being used mainly for power instead of the betterment of society. This led to the belief that political dynamics could change with

4110-593: Is created by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment and provides an outline of what students in primary and high school should learn. This outline is regardless of their location within Australia or school system. Within the Australian Curriculum, Australian studies is predominantly taught within the humanities and social sciences . The curriculum also stipulates two cross-cultural priorities that sit within

4247-399: Is generated, disseminated, contested, bound up with systems of power and control, and produced from the social, political and economic spheres within a particular social formation or conjuncture. The movement has generated important theories of cultural hegemony and agency . Its practitioners attempt to explain and analyze the cultural forces related and processes of globalization . During

Australian studies - Misplaced Pages Continue

4384-602: Is gradually growing from 2.5% of the population of Australia in 2011 to 3.3% in 2016. Since the ' Close the Gap ' campaign was launched in 2007, in response to the Social Justice Report 2005, awareness and recognition of Indigenous civilisation and culture has grown significantly. Australian studies forms part of the Australian national curriculum and is offered by many Australian and international tertiary institutions. The national curriculum in Australia, Australian Curriculum ,

4521-593: Is not desirable that persons should be allowed to past the test, and before putting it to anyone the Officer should be satisfied that he will fail. If he is considered likely to pass the test if put in English, it should be applied in some other language of which he is ignorant." The legislation found strong support in the new Australian Parliament , with arguments ranging from economic protection to outright racism. The Labor Party wanted to protect "white" jobs and pushed for more explicit restrictions. A few politicians spoke of

4658-666: Is offered at many Tertiary Institutions and topics within the field form part of the primary and secondary Australian Curriculum . The study of Australian history involves the exploration of past events and significant people that define Australia's present. Scholarship in early Australian history encompasses the history of the Indigenous and colonial societies as well as the history of European colonisation and settlement. The studies of Aboriginal Australian history dates back 65,000 years ago when humans first populated Australia . The exact arrival of Aboriginal Australians has however been

4795-620: Is one of the distinctive Australian contributions to the field, though it is not the only one. Australia also gave birth to the world's first professional cultural studies association (now known as the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia) in 1990. Cultural studies journals based in Australia include International Journal of Cultural Studies , Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies , and Cultural Studies Review . In Canada , cultural studies has sometimes focused on issues of technology and society , continuing

4932-659: Is relatively undeveloped in Germany , probably due to the continued influence of the Frankfurt School , which is now often said to be in its third generation, which includes notable figures such as Axel Honneth . Cultural studies journals based in continental Europe include the European Journal of Cultural Studies , the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies , French Cultural Studies , and Portuguese Cultural Studies . In Germany,

5069-665: Is so. The Barton government which came to power following the first elections of the Commonwealth parliament in 1901 was formed by the Protectionist Party with the support of the Australian Labor Party . The support of the Labor Party was contingent upon restricting non-white immigration, reflecting the attitudes of the Australian Workers Union and other labour organisations at the time, upon whose support

5206-704: Is the examination of the forces within and through which socially organized people conduct and participate in the construction of their everyday lives. Cultural studies combines a variety of politically engaged critical approaches drawn including semiotics , Marxism , feminist theory , ethnography , post-structuralism , postcolonialism , social theory , political theory , history , philosophy , literary theory , media theory , film/video studies , communication studies , political economy , translation studies , museum studies and art history /criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies and historical periods. Cultural studies seeks to understand how meaning

5343-821: Is the underlying tone of Hall’s cultural studies. Hall believed that culture has some power, but the media's use of it is what sways and dictates culture itself. In the US, prior to the emergence of British Cultural Studies, several versions of cultural analysis had emerged largely from pragmatic and liberal-pluralist philosophical traditions. However, in the late 1970s and 1980s, when British Cultural Studies began to spread internationally, and to engage with feminism , poststructuralism , postmodernism , and race, critical cultural studies (i.e., Marxist , feminist, poststructuralist, etc.) expanded tremendously in American universities in fields such as communication studies , education , sociology , and literature . Cultural Studies ,

5480-611: The Aliens Deportation Act 1948 , which had its weaknesses exposed by the High Court case O'Keefe v Calwell , and then passed the War-time Refugees Removal Act 1949 which gave the immigration minister sweeping powers of deportation. In 1948, Iranian Bahá'ís seeking to immigrate to Australia were classified as "Asiatic" by the policy and were denied entry. In 1949, Calwell's successor, Harold Holt , allowed

5617-519: The Journal of African Cultural Studies . In Latin America , cultural studies have drawn on thinkers such as José Martí , Ángel Rama , and other Latin-American figures, in addition to the Western theoretical sources associated with cultural studies in other parts of the world. Leading Latin American cultural studies scholars include Néstor García Canclini , Jésus Martín-Barbero , and Beatriz Sarlo . Among

Australian studies - Misplaced Pages Continue

5754-574: The Australian economy and the past and present economic environments. Within this field of study, common topics include; Australia's macro and micro economic structure, policies, trends, governance and the structure of the Australian economy in terms of industry contribution. Also relevant is the history and role of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). This field of study outlines the role of Australia's central bank and banknote issuing authority since

5891-656: The Buckland riot in 1857 and the Lambing Flat riots between 1860 and 1861. Governor Hotham , on 16 November 1854, appointed a Royal Commission on Victorian goldfields problems and grievances. This led to restrictions being placed on Chinese immigration and residency taxes levied from Chinese residents in Victoria from 1855. New South Wales following suit with poll taxes and tonnage restrictions only in 1861. These restrictions remained in force only until 1867. Melbourne Trades Hall

6028-628: The Covenant of the League of Nations . Japanese policy reflected their desire to remove or to ease the immigration restrictions against Japanese (especially in the United States and Canada), which Japan regarded as a humiliation and affront to its prestige. Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes was already concerned by the prospect of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Australia, Japan and New Zealand had seized

6165-675: The Germany's Pacific territories in the early stages of the war and Hughes was concerned to retain German New Guinea as vital to the defence of Australia. The treaty ultimately granted Australia a League of Nations Mandate over German New Guinea and Japan to the South Seas Mandate immediately to its north – thus bringing Australian and Japanese territory to a shared border – a situation altered only by Japan's Second World War invasion of New Guinea. Hughes vehemently opposed Japan's racial equality proposition. Hughes recognised that such

6302-525: The Great Depression starting in 1929 and the end of World War II in 1945, global conditions kept immigration to very low levels. At the start of the war, Prime Minister John Curtin ( ALP ) reinforced the message of the White Australia Policy by saying: "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of

6439-525: The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (1 Edward VII 17 1901) to "place certain restrictions on immigration and... for the removal... of prohibited immigrants". The act drew on similar legislation in the South African colony of Natal. Edmund Barton , the prime minister, argued in support of the bill with the following statement: "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to

6576-621: The Labour Party to the Conservative Party had to be explained in terms of cultural politics, which they had been tracking even before Thatcher's first victory. Some of this work was presented in the cultural studies classic, Policing the Crisis , and in other later texts such as Hall's The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left , and New Times: The Changing Face of Politics in

6713-526: The Whitlam government removed the last racial elements of Australia's immigration laws. Competition in the gold fields between European and Chinese miners, and labour union opposition to the importation of Pacific Islanders (primarily South Sea Islanders ) into the sugar plantations of Queensland , reinforced demands to eliminate or minimize low-wage immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands. From

6850-413: The assimilation of migrants to Australia from continental Europe, who were expected to become mainstream Australians. In 1947, Australian immigration law, which had until had been based on encouraging British immigration, was amended to take in more European immigration. The way that Australia took in a large number of European immigrants from countries that were previously considered undesirable weakened

6987-586: The social sciences and humanities ; for example, cultural studies work on forms of social differentiation , control and inequality , identity , community-building , media, and knowledge production has had a substantial impact. Moreover, the influence of cultural studies has become increasingly evident in areas as diverse as translation studies , health studies, international relations , development studies , computer studies , economics , archaeology , and neurobiology . Cultural studies has also diversified its own interests and methodologies, incorporating

SECTION 50

#1732863274163

7124-504: The structuralism of Louis Althusser , and later in the 1970s turned decisively toward Antonio Gramsci . Cultural studies has also embraced the examination of race, gender, and other aspects of identity, as is illustrated, for example, by a number of key books published collectively under the name of CCCS in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Women Take Issue: Aspects of Women's Subordination (1978), and The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain (1982). To understand

7261-489: The " Birmingham School " of cultural studies, thus becoming the world's first institutional home of cultural studies. Hoggart appointed as his assistant Stuart Hall , who would effectively be directing CCCS by 1968. Hall formally assumed the directorship of CCCS in 1971, when Hoggart left Birmingham to become Assistant Director-General of UNESCO . Thereafter, the field of cultural studies became closely associated with Hall's work. In 1979, Hall left Birmingham to accept

7398-517: The "Dictation Test", which would allow the government, at the discretion of Customs Officers, to block unwanted migrants by forcing them to sit a test in "any European language". At the time, Anglo-Japanese relations were improving, and in 1902 Britain and Japan were to sign a defensive alliance directed implicitly against Russia. The White Australia policy led to vigorous protests from the Japanese government, and led to complaints from London that Australia

7535-514: The "fundamental questions" in life, but theorists have rarely realized this potential. English departments also host cultural rhetorics scholars. This academic field defines cultural rhetorics as "the study and practice of making meaning and knowledge with the belief that all cultures are rhetorical and all rhetorics are cultural." Cultural rhetorics scholars are interested in investigating topics like climate change , autism , Asian American rhetoric , and more. Cultural studies have also had

7672-410: The 1850s colonial governments imposed restrictions on Chinese arrivals, including poll taxes and tonnage restrictions. The colonial authorities levied a special tax on Chinese immigrants which other immigrants did not have to pay. Towards the end of the 19th century, labour unions pushed to stop Chinese immigrants from working in the furniture and market garden industries. Some laws were passed regarding

7809-405: The 1990s . In 2016, Duke University Press launched a new series of Stuart Hall's collected writings, many of which detail his major and decisive contributions toward the establishment of the field of cultural studies. In 2023, a new Stuart Hall Archive Project was launched at the University of Birmingham to commemorate Hall's contributions in pioneering the field of cultural studies at CCCS. By

7946-766: The Australian Territory of New Guinea was only halted by the intervention of the United States Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea . Australia received thousands of refugees from territories falling to advancing Japanese forces – notably thousands of Chinese men and women as well as many Chinese seamen. There were also Dutch who fled the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Aboriginal Australians , Torres Strait Islanders , Papua New Guineans and Timorese served in

8083-547: The British cultural influence as remaining prominent, Australia's promotion of multiculturalism has led to other nation's influences becoming increasingly prominent. Australian studies may also involve an analysis of Australian politics and economics . The study of Australian politics involves all aspects of Australia's past and present political system . This area of study can be divided into pre and post- federation . Pre-federation, Australia consisted of six British colonies "under

8220-610: The British race." Following the 1942 Fall of Singapore , Australians feared invasion by Imperial Japan . Australian cities were bombed by the Japanese airforce and Navy and Axis naval forces menaced Australian shipping, while the Royal Navy remained pre-occupied with the battles of the Atlantic and Mediterranean in the face of Nazi aggression in Europe. A Japanese invasion fleet headed for

8357-560: The Cardinal's position and the small European population of Australia generally supported the legislation and remained fearful of being overwhelmed by an influx of non-British migrants from the vastly different cultures of the highly populated nations to Australia's north. The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 imposed a dictation test, in any European language, for any non-European migrant to Australia. The immigration officer (Customs until 1949) could choose any language, which effectively meant that

SECTION 60

#1732863274163

8494-433: The English-speaking world, who really do represent treason of the intellectuals, I think, a 'betrayal of the clerks'." Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton is not wholly opposed to cultural studies, but has criticised aspects of it and highlighted what he sees as its strengths and weaknesses in books such as After Theory (2003). For Eagleton, literary and cultural theory have the potential to say important things about

8631-548: The Immigration Restriction Bill were passed shortly before parliament rose for its first Christmas recess. The colonial secretary in Britain had, however, made it clear that a race-based immigration policy would run "contrary to the general conceptions of equality which have ever been the guiding principle of British rule throughout the Empire". The Barton government therefore conceived of the "Education test", later called

8768-516: The Labor Party was founded. The Australian historian James Jupp wrote that it was not true that the White Australia policy was exclusively a right-wing cause as the strongest support for the White Australia policy was on the left-side of Australian politics with both the trade unions and the Labour Party being the most militant opponents of Asian immigration well into the 1960s. Many Australians in

8905-519: The New Zealand government made a formal complaint about the exclusion of two Māori shearers, after which the Australian government changed its customs regulations to allow Māori to freely enter the country. Other Pacific Islanders were still subject to the White Australia Policy. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference following the First World War , Japan sought to include a racial equality clause in

9042-501: The Reserve Bank Act 1959 was passed in 1960. The scholarship of Indigenous Australian studies involves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, history and beliefs systems. Australia's Indigenous people are made up of two distinct cultural groups; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Within this field of study, the social and political influence of colonisation and decolonisation on Indigenous Australian groups

9179-663: The Seine-or the Folies Bergeres-with my clothes off". Hughes did offer the compromise that he would support the Racial Equality Clause provided that it did not affect immigration, an offer the Japanese rejected. When the proposal failed, Hughes reported in the Australian parliament: The White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please, but at any rate, the soldiers have achieved the victory and my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back to you from

9316-586: The act explicitly banned non-Europeans from migrating to Australia but objections from the British government, which feared that such a measure would offend British subjects in India and Britain's allies in Japan, caused the Barton government to remove this wording. Instead, a "dictation test" was introduced as a device for excluding unwanted immigrants. Immigration officials were given the power to exclude any person who failed to pass

9453-410: The agency of subordinated people run counter to the work of traditional structuralists . Some analysts have however been critical of some work in cultural studies that they feel overstates the significance of or even romanticizes some forms of popular cultural agency. Cultural studies often concerns itself with the agency at the level of the practices of everyday life, and approaches such research from

9590-670: The beginning of the 1990s. Cultural studies journals based in Asia include Inter-Asia Cultural Studies . In India, the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore and the Department of Cultural Studies at The English and Foreign Languages and the University of Hyderabad are two major institutional spaces for Cultural Studies. Marxism has been an important influence upon cultural studies. Those associated with CCCS initially engaged deeply with

9727-594: The bills, due to a treaty with Japan , and they did not become law. Instead, the Natal Act of 1897 was introduced, restricting "undesirable persons" who could not fill in a set form rather than by naming any specific race. The British government in London was not pleased with legislation that discriminated against certain subjects of its empire, but decided not to disallow the laws that were passed. Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain explained in 1897: We quite sympathize with

9864-451: The capitalist world, the overriding aim of government economic policy is to maintain consumer spending levels. This is an era when 'consumer confidence' is treated as the key indicator and cause of economic effectiveness." Cultural studies, drawing upon and developing semiotics , uses the concept of text to designate not only written language, but also television programs , films , photographs , fashion , hairstyles , and so forth;

10001-486: The case for Australia as a primarily "British" country and led to demands for the end of the White Australia policy. Given that the purpose of the White Australia policy was to preserve Australia as a British country, in an ironic twist, some of the strongest critics of the White Australia policy in the 1950s were liberal British professors serving at Australian universities. In 1959, the Immigration Reform Group

10138-579: The changing political circumstances of class , politics , and culture in the United Kingdom, scholars at The Birmingham School turned to the work of Antonio Gramsci , an Italian thinker, writer, and Communist Party leader. Gramsci had been concerned with similar issues: why would Italian laborers and peasants vote for fascists ? What strategic approach is necessary to mobilize popular support in more progressive directions? Gramsci modified classical Marxism , and argued that culture must be understood as

10275-643: The coloniser perspective", oppressing the Indigenous Australian perspective. The study of Australian society and culture examines the historical and shifting social makeup of Australia and the resulting dominant cultures. An academic study in this field explores Australian society and culture both before and after European settlement and the migration of global miners to the country. A study of Australia's society and culture before European colonisation, consists of Indigenous Australian colonies and their individual cultural beliefs. Post-Colonisation led to

10412-437: The commencement of the White Australia Policy as Australian federal government policy. The key feature of this legislation was the dictation test , which was used to bar non-white immigrants from entry. Subsequent acts further strengthened the policy. These policies effectively gave British migrants preference over all others through the first half of the 20th century. During World War II, Prime Minister John Curtin reinforced

10549-501: The conference, as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted. Australian anxiety at the prospect of Japanese expansionism and war in the Pacific continued through the 1930s. Hughes, by then a minister in the United Australia Party 's Lyons government , made a notable contribution to Australia's attitude towards immigration in a 1935 speech in which he argued that "Australia must   ... populate or perish." Between

10686-421: The contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power. In recent decades, as capitalism has spread throughout the world via contemporary forms of globalization , cultural studies has generated important analyses of local sites and practices of negotiation with and resistance to Western hegemony . Cultural studies criticizes the traditional view of the passive consumer, particularly by underlining

10823-646: The criteria set out in law. Prior to 2011, the United Kingdom was the largest source country for immigration to Australia but, since then, China and India have provided the highest number of permanent migrants. These results exclude the many settlers from New Zealand unless they choose to apply through the permant resident program. The National Museum of Australia describes the White Australia Policy as openly racist, stating that it "existed because many white Australians feared that non-white immigrants would threaten Australian society". The discovery of gold in Australia in 1851 led to an influx of immigrants from all around

10960-677: The cultural analyst, for Lewis, is to engage with both knowledge systems and texts and observe and analyze the ways the two interact with one another. This engagement represents the critical dimensions of the analysis, its capacity to illuminate the hierarchies within and surrounding the given text and its discourse . Cultural studies has evolved through its uptake across a variety of different disciplines— anthropology , media studies , communication studies , literary studies , education , geography , philosophy , sociology , politics , and others. While some have accused certain areas of cultural studies of meandering into political relativism and

11097-401: The cultural realm of everyday common sense. Hegemony was always, for Gramsci, an interminable, unstable and contested process. Scott Lash writes: In the work of Hall, Hebdige and McRobbie, popular culture came to the fore... What Gramsci gave to this was the importance of consent and culture. If the fundamental Marxists saw the power in terms of class-versus-class, then Gramsci gave to us

11234-447: The determination...of these colonies...that there should not be an influx of people alien in civilisation, alien in religion, alien in customs, whose influx, moreover, would seriously interfere with the legitimate rights of the existing labouring population. In writing about the preoccupations of the Australian population in early Federation Australia before World War I in ANZAC to Amiens ,

11371-515: The development of British Cultural Studies, see, for example, the work of Richard Hoggart , E. P. Thompson , Raymond Williams , Stuart Hall, Paul Willis , Angela McRobbie , Paul Gilroy , David Morley, Charlotte Brunsdon , Richard Dyer , and others. There are also many published overviews of the historical development of cultural studies, including Graeme Turner's British Cultural Studies: An Introduction , 3rd Ed. and John Hartley's A Short History of Cultural Studies Beginning in 1964, after

11508-852: The dictation test, while the Holt government removed discrimination against non-white applicants for citizenship in 1966. The Whitlam government passed laws to ensure that race would be totally disregarded as a component for immigration to Australia in 1973. In 1975, the Whitlam government passed the Racial Discrimination Act , which made racially-based selection criteria unlawful. In the decades since, Australia has maintained large-scale multi-ethnic immigration. As of 2018 , Australia's migration program allows people from any country to apply to immigrate to Australia, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, culture, religion, or language, provided that they meet

11645-462: The different ways people read , receive and interpret cultural texts, or appropriate other kinds of cultural products, or otherwise participate in the production and circulation of meanings. On this view, a consumer can appropriate , actively rework, or challenge the meanings circulated through cultural texts. In some of its variants, cultural studies has shifted the analytical focus from traditional understandings of production to consumption – viewed as

11782-508: The diseases brought to Australia by the Europeans taking a significant toll on the Indigenous population and culture. Historian Geoffrye Blainey believed, "the main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralisation". European settlers had developed some resistance to Smallpox through early exposure, so when the disease broke out in Australia in 1789, these settlers were largely unaffected. However, without previous exposure to

11919-496: The early 20th century tended to define being white as being the same as Australian with a majority of Australian states passing laws banning marriage and/or sex between whites and Aboriginals as part of an effort to maintain Australia's white character. The first Parliament of Australia quickly moved to restrict immigration to maintain Australia's "British character", and the Pacific Island Labourers Bill and

12056-594: The emphasis in the work of Marshall McLuhan , Harold Innis , and others. Cultural studies journals based in Canada include Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies . In Africa, human rights and Third-World issues are among the central topics treated. There is a thriving cultural and media studies scholarship in Southern Africa, with its locus in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Cultural Studies journals based in Africa include

12193-609: The equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman." The attorney general tasked with drafting the legislation was Alfred Deakin . Deakin supported Barton's position over that of the Labor Party in drafting the bill (the ALP wanted more direct methods of exclusion than the dictation test) and redacted the more vicious racism proposed for the text in his second reading of the Bill. In seeking to justify

12330-720: The establishment of the Australian Federation. At the third session of the Australasian Federation Convention of 1898, Western Australian premier and future federal cabinet member John Forrest summarised the feeling of the Anglo-Saxon people in Australia: It is of no use to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a great feeling all over Australia against the introduction of coloured persons. It goes without saying that we do not like to talk about it, but it

12467-616: The exploitation of a servile coloured race for greed of gain, and a few professional economists and benighted theologians, are now heard in serious criticism of a White Australia; but   ... they are encouraged by the ill-timed and inappropriate pronouncements of what are, after all, irresponsible officials. Following the trauma of the Second World War, Australia's vulnerability during the Pacific War and its relatively small population compared to other nations led to policies summarised by

12604-466: The flagship journal of the field, has been based in the US since its founding editor, John Fiske , brought it there from Australia in 1987. A thriving cultural studies scene has existed in Australia since the late 1970s, when several key CS practitioners emigrated there from the UK, bringing British Cultural Studies with them, after Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK in 1979. A school of cultural studies known as cultural policy studies

12741-416: The flavor championed by Stuart Hall, lacks a stable research agenda, and privileges the contemporary reading of texts, thus producing an ahistorical theoretical focus. Many, however, would argue, following Hall, that cultural studies have always sought to avoid the establishment of a fixed research agenda; this follows from its critique of disciplinarity. Moreover, Hall and many others have long argued against

12878-480: The following five main characteristics of cultural studies: Dennis Dworkin writes that "a critical moment" in the beginning of cultural studies as a field was when Richard Hoggart used the term in 1964 in founding the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham . The centre would become home to the development of the intellectual orientation that has become known internationally as

13015-401: The frontline of the defence of Australia, bringing Australia's racially discriminatory immigration and political rights policies into focus and wartime service gave many Indigenous Australians confidence in demanding their rights upon return to civilian life. During the war, talk arose about the possibility of abolishing the policy. Hostility to this idea was one reason Australia never signed

13152-413: The goldfields seeking prosperity. Gold brought great wealth but also new social tensions. Multi-ethnic migrants came to Victoria and New South Wales in large numbers for the first time. Competition on the goldfields, particularly resentment among white miners towards the successes of Chinese miners, led to tensions between groups and eventually a series of significant racist protests and riots, including

13289-433: The idea that it should aspire toward "scientificity," and has marshalled a wide range of theoretical and methodological arguments against the fetishization of "scientificity" as a basis for cultural studies. Two sociologists who have been critical of cultural studies, Chris Rojek and Bryan S. Turner , argue in their article, "Decorative sociology: towards a critique of the cultural turn," that cultural studies, particularly

13426-658: The initial appearance of the founding works of British Cultural Studies in the late 1950s, Stuart Hall 's pioneering work at CCCS , along with that of his colleagues and postgraduate students, gave shape and substance to the field of cultural studies. This would include such people as Paul Willis , Dick Hebdige , David Morley, Charlotte Brunsdon , John Clarke, Richard Dyer , Judith Williamson, Richard Johnson, Iain Chambers , Dorothy Hobson, Chris Weedon , Tony Jefferson, Michael Green and Angela McRobbie . Many cultural studies scholars employed Marxist methods of analysis , exploring

13563-426: The institute. Cultural studies Cultural studies was initially developed by British Marxist academics in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and has been subsequently taken up and transformed by scholars from many different disciplines around the world. Cultural studies is avowedly and even radically interdisciplinary and can sometimes be seen as anti-disciplinary. A key concern for cultural studies practitioners

13700-516: The key issues addressed by Latin American cultural studies scholars are decoloniality , urban cultures , and postdevelopment theory . Latin American cultural studies journals include the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies . Even though cultural studies developed much more rapidly in the UK than in continental Europe , there is significant cultural studies presence in countries such as France , Spain , and Portugal . The field

13837-715: The labelling of Chinese made furniture in Victoria and Western Australia but not in New South Wales. Chinese people dominated market gardening until their numbers declined as departures were not replaced. Soon after Australia became a federation in January 1901, the federal government of Edmund Barton passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 ; this was drafted by Alfred Deakin , who eventually became Australia's second prime minister. The passage of this bill marked

13974-614: The late 1970s, scholars associated with The Birmingham School had firmly placed questions of gender and race on the cultural studies agenda, where they have remained ever since. Also by the late 1970s, cultural studies had begun to attract a great deal of international attention. It spread globally throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As it did so, it both encountered new conditions of knowledge production, and engaged with other major international intellectual currents such as poststructuralism , postmodernism , and postcolonialism . The wide range of cultural studies journals now located throughout

14111-567: The law-making of the British Parliament ". After Federation in 1901, Australia established a "federal system of government" under the Australian constitution . Studies post-federation focus on Australia's political system as a representative democracy . This includes; the democratic system of government, the role of parliament in Australia , government departments, international programs and all government mandated policies and publications. The study of Australian economics encompasses

14248-437: The level of methodology , these scholars dispute the theoretical underpinning of the movement's critical framework. Bloom stated his position during the 3 September 2000 episode of C-SPAN 's Booknotes , while discussing his book How to Read and Why : [T]here are two enemies of reading now in the world, not just in the English-speaking world. One [is] the lunatic destruction of literary studies...and its replacement by what

14385-420: The meanings and practices that arise from the constant power dynamics that comprise culture. Hall viewed culture as a "critical site of social action and intervention, where power relations are both established and potentially unsettled." He perceived culture as a power dynamic, in which the media unintentionally possesses more control over ideology than the public. Hall viewed the media as a source of preserving

14522-515: The migration of people from around the world to the Australian continent. This multi-ethnic immigration lead to a series of policies that favoured migrants from British descent such as the White Australia Policy . These were later dismantled by government promotion of multiculturalism , leading to increased migration of European , Asian and Middle Eastern people to Australia. While a study of contemporary Australian culture will still show

14659-623: The misunderstanding that textual analysis is the sole methodology of cultural studies, and have practiced numerous other approaches, as noted above. Rojek and Turner also level the accusation that there is "a sense of moral superiority about the correctness of the political views articulated" in cultural studies. White Australia policy The White Australia policy was a set of racial policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origins – especially Asians (primarily Chinese ) and Pacific Islanders  – from immigrating to Australia in order to create

14796-433: The need to avoid hysterical treatment of the question. Member of Parliament Bruce Smith said he had "no desire to see low-class Indians, Chinamen or Japanese...swarming into this country... But there is obligation...not (to) unnecessarily offend the educated classes of those nations" Norman Cameron , a Free Trade Party member from Tasmania, expressed a rare note of dissension: [N]o race on... this earth has been treated in

14933-606: The officer had the power to restrict the immigration of any individual. Further discriminatory legislation was the Postal and Telegraph Services Act 1901 (1 Edward VII 12 1901), which required any ship carrying mail to and from Australia to only have a white crew. In 1901, there were approximately 9,800 Pacific Islander labourers in Queensland. In 1901, the Australian parliament passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (1 Edward VII 16 1901). The result of these statutes

15070-403: The official historian of the war, Charles Bean , considered the White Australia Policy and defined it as follows: "White Australia Policy" – a vehement effort to maintain a high Western standard of economy, society and culture (necessitating at that stage, however it might be camouflaged, the rigid exclusion of Oriental peoples). Immigration was a prominent topic of discussion in the lead up to

15207-556: The passive dupes of the dominant class and its ideology. The development of hegemony theory in cultural studies was in some ways consonant with work in other fields exploring agency , a theoretical concept that insists on the active, critical capacities of subordinated people (e.g. the working classes , colonized peoples, women). As Stuart Hall famously argued in his 1981 essay, "Notes on Deconstructing 'the Popular ' ": "ordinary people are not cultural dopes." Insistence on accounting for

15344-482: The policy, Deakin said he believed that the Japanese and Chinese might be a threat to the newly formed federation and it was this belief that led to legislation to ensure they would be kept out: It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors. Early drafts of

15481-481: The policy, saying "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race." Successive governments dismantled the policy in stages after the conclusion of World War II, with the Chifley and Menzies governments encouraging non-British Europeans to immigrate to Australia. The Migration Act 1958 abolished

15618-451: The post-WWII period. Also during the 1970s, the politically formidable British working classes were in decline. Britain's manufacturing industries while continuing to grow in output and value, were decreasing in share of GDP and numbers employed, and union rolls were shrinking. Millions of working-class Britons backed the rise of Margaret Thatcher , through the labour losses. For Stuart Hall and his colleagues, this shift in loyalty from

15755-574: The preferred option of the British, the Education Test was passed. There was also opposition from Queensland and its sugar industry to the proposals of the Pacific Islanders Bill to exclude "Kanaka" labourers, however Barton argued that the practice was "veiled slavery" that could lead to a "negro problem" similar to that in the United States, and the bill was passed. The new Federal Parliament, as one of its first pieces of legislation, passed

15892-504: The relationships between cultural forms (i.e., the superstructure ) and that of the political economy (i.e., the base ). By the 1970s, the work of Louis Althusser radically rethought the Marxist account of base and superstructure in ways that had a significant influence on the "Birmingham School." Much of the work done at CCCS studied youth-subcultural expressions of antagonism toward "respectable" middle-class British culture in

16029-484: The remaining 800 non-white refugees to apply for residency, and also allowed Japanese " war brides " to settle in Australia. In the meantime, Holt continued Calwell's policy of encouraging mass immigration from Europe, and Australia admitted large numbers of immigrants from mostly Italy, Poland, Greece and Yugoslavia , as well as its traditional source of immigration, the British Isles . The Australian Government promoted

16166-654: The rise of neoliberalism in Britain and the US, cultural studies both became a global movement, and attracted the attention of many conservative opponents both within and beyond universities for a variety of reasons. A worldwide movement of students and practitioners with a raft of scholarly associations and programs, annual international conferences and publications carry on work in this field today. Distinct approaches to cultural studies have emerged in different national and regional contexts. In his 1994 book, Introducing Cultural Studies , orientalist scholar Ziauddin Sardar lists

16303-574: The same immigration and voting rights as European New Zealanders in Australia, making them a notable exception to the White Australia Policy. In 1902, with the Commonwealth Franchise Act , Māori residents in Australia were granted the right to vote , a right denied to Indigenous Australians . During that same period, their right to settle in Australia was facilitated by their shared status as British subjects . The Australian government granted equal rights to Māori only reluctantly. In 1905,

16440-428: The same rights as their Anglo and southern compatriots, although they faced significant discrimination. Agreements were made to further increase these restrictions in 1895 following an inter-colonial premiers' conference where all colonies agreed to extend entry restrictions to all non-white races . However, in attempting to enact this legislation, the governors of New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania reserved

16577-424: The slogan, "populate or perish." According to author Lachlan Strahan, this was an ethnocentric slogan that in effect was an admonition to fill Australia with Europeans or else risk having it overrun by Asians. Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell stated in 1947 to critics of the government's mass immigration programme: "We have 25 years at most to populate this country before the yellow races are down on us." During

16714-458: The social makeup of the country dramatically changing, and European culture becoming mainstream. A study into Australia's culture post-1980s, largely reflects its British penal history as well as the 'waves of migration from elsewhere in Europe and almost every other continent'. During the colonial era, English literature , Western art and Judeo-Christian religion dominated settler's cultural outlook. The Australian gold rushes then encouraged

16851-469: The status quo of a reflection that already exists in society. The media hegemony in question, he emphasized, "is not a conscious plot or conspiracy, it’s not overtly coercive, and its effects are not total." Compared to other thinkers on this subject, he studied and analyzed symbols, ideologies, signs, and other representations within cultural studies. Most of his contributions occurred in the 1980s, where he looked at how media cultivates cultural power, how it

16988-456: The study of Australia ; Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. Australian studies is a course offered at many tertiary institutions both within Australia and internationally. The subject can fall under broader disciplines such as Cultural Studies or Political and International Studies. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS)

17125-591: The term cultural studies specifically refers to the field in the Anglosphere , especially British Cultural Studies, to differentiate it from the German Kulturwissenschaft which developed along different lines and is characterized by its distance from political science. However, Kulturwissenschaft and cultural studies are often used interchangeably, particularly by lay people. Throughout Asia, cultural studies have boomed and thrived since at least

17262-605: The texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture. This conception of textuality derives especially from the work of the pioneering and influential semiotician, Roland Barthes , but also owes debts to other sources, such as Juri Lotman and his colleagues from Tartu–Moscow School . Similarly, the field widens the concept of culture . Cultural studies approach the sites and spaces of everyday life, such as pubs, living rooms, gardens, and beaches, as "texts." Culture , in this context, includes not only high culture , but also everyday meanings and practices,

17399-525: The virus, the Indigenous Australia population had no resistance and an estimated 70% were killed. Of the remaining indigenous population, many lost their land and culture when they were forced to resettle on reserves, and thousands of children were removed from their families and placed in institutions, becoming the Stolen Generations , unable to practice their ancestor's culture. This resulted in

17536-523: The war, many non-white refugees, Chinese but also including Malays, Indonesians and Filipinos, arrived in Australia, but Calwell controversially sought to have them all deported. Between 1945 and 1952, an Australian brigade served as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. Until 1952, Australia did not permit Japanese women who had married Australian soldiers to enter Australia. The Chifley government introduced

17673-502: The world, as shown below, is one indication of the globalization of the field. For overviews of and commentaries on developments in cultural studies during the twenty-first century, see Lawrence Grossberg's Cultural Studies in the Future Tense , Gilbert Rodman's Why Cultural Studies? and Graeme Turner's What's Become of Cultural Studies? Hall's cultural studies explores culture as a system that affects individuals' identities through

17810-456: The world. The colony of Victoria had a population of only 77,000 in 1851 and New South Wales just 200,000, but the huge influx of settlers spurred by the Australian gold rushes transformed the Australian colonies economically, politically and demographically. Over the next 20 years, 40,000 Chinese men but very few women, nearly all from the province of Guangdong (then known as Canton) but divided by language and dialect nevertheless, immigrated to

17947-464: Was argued that without Asiatics to work in the tropical areas of the Northern Territory and Queensland, the area would have to be abandoned. Despite these objections to restricting immigration, between 1875 and 1888 all Australian colonies enacted legislation which excluded all further Chinese immigration. Asian immigrants already residing in the Australian colonies were not expelled and retained

18084-597: Was commonly termed " blackbirding " and refers to the recruitment of people, often through trickery and kidnappings, to work on plantations, particularly the sugar cane plantations of Queensland (Australia) and Fiji . In the 1870s and 1880s, the trade union movement began a series of protests against foreign labour. Their arguments were that Asians and Chinese took jobs away from white men, worked for "substandard" wages, lowered working conditions, were harder workers and refused unionisation. Objections to these arguments came largely from wealthy land owners in rural areas. It

18221-475: Was founded at Melbourne University to champion for the abolition of the policy. Australian policy began to shift towards significantly increasing immigration. Legislative changes over the next few decades continuously opened up immigration in Australia. Labor Party Chifley government : Liberal-Country Party Menzies government (1949–1966) : This was despite comments Menzies made in a discussion with radio 2UE 's Stewart Lamb in 1955, where he appeared to be

18358-527: Was founded by The Australian National University (ANU). The institute was established to promote the study of Australia as part of its 'Australia and the World' global engagement program. The institute is led by Professor Paul Pickering and facilitates various global engagement programs with universities and leading cultural institutions. These programs aim to promote the exchange of knowledge, research and resources between people studying Australia-related studies and

18495-399: Was gratuitously straining relations with Japan, which Britain viewed as a prospective ally against Russia. For the Labor Party this was a compromise of principles, so the main question for the debate on the Immigration Restriction Act just how openly racist to be, with the Labor Party preferring to openly bar "aboriginal natives of Asia, Africa, or the islands thereof". However in the end

18632-497: Was opened in 1859 with trades and labour councils and trades halls opening in all cities and most regional towns in the following forty years. During the 1880s, trade unions developed among shearers , miners , and stevedores (wharf workers), but soon spread to cover almost all blue-collar jobs. Shortages of labour led to high wages for a prosperous skilled working class, whose unions demanded and got an eight-hour day and other benefits unheard of in Europe. Australia gained

18769-519: Was that 7,500 Pacific Islanders (called " Kanakas ") working mostly on plantations in Queensland were deported, and entry into Australia by Pacific Islanders was prohibited after 1904. Those exempted from repatriation, along with a number of others who escaped deportation, remained in Australia to form the basis of what is today Australia's largest non-indigenous black ethnic group. Today, the descendants of those who remained are officially referred to as South Sea Islanders . Māori generally benefited from

#162837