Asia

Some observations in three colours on ‘Beyond Tick Boxes’

By Roanna Gonsalves

(This is a reworked version of the summary observations I was invited to present at the conclusion of ‘Beyond Tick Boxes’, a symposium organised by Diversity Arts Australia, or DARTS, at Casula Powerhouse, on Thursday, June 29, 2017)

Good afternoon everyone. I’d also like to acknowledge the indigenous people of this country, the Cabrogal Clan of the Darug Nation, on whose land we have gathered today. I would like to say thank you to Lena Nahlous and Kevin Bathman for inviting me to give you a very short and incredibly opinionated summary of my observations today.

I have three main observations. They are colour-coded: red, black and yellow.

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14/08/17 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # Arundhati Roy, Asia, Australia, cultural appropriation, cultural cache, diaspora, Imaginary Homelands, Manjushree Thapa, Nepal, Nepal Literature Festival, Nepali writers, NWES, Prakash Subedi, Pranaya Rana, Prawin Adhikari, Rabi Thapa, Rushdie, Samrat Upadhyay, South Asia, Sushma Joshi

The Writer ‘Abroad’ and the Readers ‘Back Home’

By Prakash Subedi

To be a non-white writer in the west today is probably very different from it was, say, fifty years ago. Books and ideas travel much faster now, and even if you are writing and publishing in the west, there are more and more people back home who have access to your works. And while this was always the case to some extent, it is now truer than ever that the most passionate responses and vociferous objections to your work are likely to come from readers at home. More often than not, by virtue of being based in a western country and writing about your home, your writing is treated with wariness and your motives with suspicion.

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14/08/17 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # Asia, Australia, beneficiaries, cultural appropriation, cultural cache, culture, diaspora, India, POC, Rashida Murphy, South Asia, The Historian's Daughter, WOC, writing

Whose culture is it anyway?

By Rashida Murphy

When the editors of Southern Crossings invited me to write about the idea that migrant writers use their cultural history, ethnicity and language to mobilise the ‘exotic’ nature of our cultural cache, I was keen to explore this idea further. The notion that what was previously considered a handicap is now desirable, catches me by surprise and brings to mind the (in) famous question asked by Jana Wendt of Toni Morrison in 1998.

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19/03/16 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # Alice Pung, Anita Desai, Arundhati Subramaniam, Asia, australian literature, Dominic Golding, genealogies, Jeet Thayil, Judith Wright, Kiran Desai, Mascara Literary Review, Michelle Cahill, Nam Le, Plath, Ravi Shankar, Robert Adamson, south asian writing, Sujata Bhatt, Tagore, TS Eliot

Vital literary genealogies

By Anupama Pilbrow

When I was ten years old, my godsister’s Indian mother and non-Indian father gave me a children’s novel called Neela: Victory Song by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I devoured it. It was about a girl my age living through India’s Partition. Neela was the first book by an Indian author that I ever read to myself.

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04/08/15 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # A Revathi, Agni, anti-gay, Anu C, Asia, Asian century, Australia, Chapal Bhaduri, freedom, gender, heteronormativity, Himanshu Verma, homosexuality, human dignity, Karnataka High Court, Kartikeya, Kottankulangara Sree Devi temple, LGBTIQ, Murugan, Rituparno Ghosh, same sex, same-sex marriage, Saree Man of India, Senapati, Siva, The Truth About Me

Same –sex and other Desires: Asian diversity in the face of Australian decadence

By Mridula Nath Chakraborty

Even as the country is in the grip of issues that seem to beset it from every angle, environmental concerns, racial discrimination, housing crisis, fluctuating dollar etc., the powers and parties that be are seeking to introduce yet another cog in the political machinery. Amidst the chilling winter in Australia this year, one issue seems to be giving many a heat-rash. As the ‘debate’ around same-sex marriage hots up and cries of religious alarm go up, there has been an unusual moment of ‘solidarity’ with Asia.

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Some observations in three colours on ‘Beyond Tick Boxes’

The Writer ‘Abroad’ and the Readers ‘Back Home’

Whose culture is it anyway?

Vital literary genealogies

Same –sex and other Desires: Asian diversity in the face of Australian decadence

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