culture

Cultural Knowledge

By Rashida Murphy

Such a loaded term – cultural knowledge – coming as it does with its own set of expectations and hints of secrets. When I try to unpack it a little, I think about how knowledge differs from appropriation and what the keepers of cultural knowledge can do to protect themselves from stealth and theft. And the answer is – very little. We live in times of exchange and borrowings and slippages and it is hard to skid to a stop, metaphorically speaking, and say – ‘You have gone too far.’

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14/08/17 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # Aboriginal, Asia, Australia, cultural appropriation, culture, DARTS, diaspora, Diversity Arts Australia, India, Roanna Gonsalves, self-representation, selfie, selfie of a country, South 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 # 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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10/11/15 Arts & Culture , Australia , Society & Politics # Australia, canada, culture, diaspora, film, India, Indigenous, model minority, politics, South Asia

The Trudeau Effect – Diversifying Australian Arts and Culture

If you are anything like me, your social media feed for the past couple of weeks has probably been a Justin Trudeau fest. The video of his recent swearing-in ceremony, with the most diverse cabinet in Canadian history, has been re-posted so many times that I am beginning to wonder if any of my Facebook friends really voted for Tony Abbott (or Stephen Harper, or Narendra Modi). Then there is that charming YouTube video of Trudeau performing Bhangra at what appears to be an Indian community event in Montreal, which already has over a million views.

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09/10/15 Arts & Culture , Australia , Diaspora & Travel , Society & Politics # Amar Chitra Katha, Australia, culture, first generation Indian migrant, Hindi, hybridity, India, Sunil Badami, Tamil

Reflections on the awkwardly knotted hyphen

By Meeta Chatterjee-Padmanabhan

While rearranging book shelves at home, I came across old notebooks with Hindi and Tamil alphabets in my children’s handwriting. Each carefully formed letter triggered memories. I remember the smug satisfaction that my husband and I felt as we helped our girls connect with their heritage languages. The girls, on the other hand, barely suppressed their annoyance at not being able to join their friends leaping around with water guns in their hands and screaming with delight just outside our door. Many years later, reading Sticks and stones and such like, Sunil Badami’s phrase ‘the awkwardly knotted hyphen’ that inscribes the uneasy yoking of two distinct national cultures: ‘Indian-Australian, Australian-Indian depending on the day’ intrigued me. I have wondered, how awkwardly knotted can a hyphen be before it stops being a hyphen?
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18/08/15 Australia , Society & Politics # culture, diaspora, Hindi, Indian, migration, racism, Sri Lankan, Tamil, third culture, Western Sydney

Nahin Hindi Kuch Nahin

By Gary Paramanathan

Growing up brown in the Western Suburbs of Sydney in the 90s was PTSD level trauma at worst, and character building at best. For those who were lucky enough to share this wonderful experience with me, you’ll know that the West was not what it is now. Parramatta the heartland of Western Sydney for example never had an Eat Street back then. If it did, I never found it with my own eyes as I looked past the flashing neon lights of the franchisee run take away joints. There was the old Westfields, there were odd shops along the station, and there were the video game stores that were my little safe haven amongst the chaos, aggression and the downtrodden folks in the capital of the West. Blacktown, Cabramatta and many of the buzzing hubs of the West today were on the South Asian version of the “do not travel” advisory guide.

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26/05/15 Arts & Culture , Society & Politics # Aboriginal, African American, cultural appropriation, culture, Gwen Stefani, Indian, Japanese, Madonna, MIA, Nicki Minaj, pop culture

The Thing About Cultural Appropriation

by Gary Paramanathan

Cultural appropriation is rife these days, just about everyone from Miley Cyrus to your non-Japanese neighbour in her geisha outfit are edging on pushing some cultural politico over the edge. I was one of them, I was totally sold on cultural appropriation, and by that I mean how bad it was, how it needed to be stopped….etc etc. Then I started having my doubts.

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Cultural Knowledge

Some observations in three colours on ‘Beyond Tick Boxes’

Whose culture is it anyway?

The Trudeau Effect – Diversifying Australian Arts and Culture

Reflections on the awkwardly knotted hyphen

Nahin Hindi Kuch Nahin

The Thing About Cultural Appropriation

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