Australia Asia The World

Australia, Asia and the World (week 2)
Topic 1- A citizen of the world
Topic 2- Identity, values and worldviews
Topic 3- Cultural Literacy

Encountering Strangers
Terra Nullius- Land belonging to no one
“In this world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself” Franz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks

Communities of People
People coming together for a common cause, connecting in a world of strangers.
Recognising common humanity
Connecting across differences
Accountability and responsibility
Ethical concerns and empathy

Situating Cosmopolitan
Cosmo- world/universe + Polites- citizen
Diogenes ‘ I am a citizen of the world’
Jonathan Corpus Ong: The Cosmopolitan Continuum
Closed Cosmopolitan- reluctant to engage with others within the world
Instrumental Cosmopolitan- Ego centric, purpose for self, class, suggests that travel makes you superior
Banal Cosmopolitan- everyday cosmopolitanism, how we speak, relationships, friendships
Ecstatic Cosmopolitan- information technologies, bringing the world to us

‘We need to develop habits of co-existence, conversation in its order, meaning of living together in association.’ Kwame Antony Appiah
Appiahs Cosmopolitan
Openness to the world and differences
Engaging with others
Interdependence
Dialogues and conversation
Recognising our common humanity

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”

Tutorial
Neo-Liberalism- market fundamentalism, ripple down effect, free markets, dominant mode of government, anti union, paradigm in which we live (Thatcher & Regan), moves from a philosophy to the paradigm we live and people take it for granted.
Universal- thou shall not kill, basic foundation of universal everyone needs to become like ‘the way the world should be run’ trying to integrate everyone so they are the same.
Relative- Leaving everyone to do their own thing, allowing them to be free from democracy e.g. circumcision of women in Africa, people bringing their own cultures & traditions to a different culture/country.

Talk: point of view approach, topic: 4 (Colonialism: The world & Australia) WEEK 5

Topic 2: Identities, Values and World Views (week 3)
As a cosmopolitan of the world we are bringing our own worldviews.
Identity- the source of peoples meaning and experience (Manuel Castells)
Identity- fixed and fluid
Identity as a narrative: fragmented, full of contradictions and ambiguities
Difficulty: identity as constructed or imposed by society
We decide what parts of our identity we reveal to certain/different people, people choose what aspects of our life we choose to share, therefore we are writing our own narrative.
Framing identity
Intersections- racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, heterosexist, ableism.
What aspects of our identity are we privileged and what aspects are we lacking.
Identity & Self Definition
‘They will not fail to fill in the blanks on your behalf and you will be said’ Trinh T. Minh-Ha
Extra Reading: Anita Heiss on self-definition ‘am I black enough for you?’
Theorising national identity
National Identity
1) Emergent and Evolving- contingent and open to revisions
2) Primordialism- national identity as innate, linked to soil, people and land
Samuel Huntington: ‘ Clash of the civilisations’ theory
Critique: Civilisations are more complex, interactive and interdependent
Benedict Anderson: imagined communities ‘ today they command such profound emotional legitimacy’
Constructing National Identity
National Identity- largely about the state and its various ideological apparatuses
Defining and fixing national values- ‘life in Australia’
Australian Flag Debate
Australia at intersections
Colonialism and its aftermath
White legacies and dominant institutions
Australia’s relationship with the UK and USA
Migration changes to population
Australia’s relationship with Asia

Final thought: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ‘ the danger of a single story’ Topic 3: Cultural Literacy (week 3)
‘ I teach because I search because I question, and because I submit myself to questioning’ Paulo Friere
Cultural Literacy- involves recognising and being prepared to engage with cultural difference. (David Birch)
Cultural Literacy involves:
1) Knowledge of meaning systems
2) An ability to negotiate those systems with different cultural contexts
Framing context
1) Meaning systems( fashion codes, professional codes, body language or religious codes)
2) Material conditions (urban or rural)
3) Participants or members (based on categories such as race gender or class)
Socratic Method
‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ (Socrates, cited in Plato)
Cultural Literacy is not fixed on one particular matter, it is a growing process.
“Becoming a stranger”: reflexivity as a starting point
‘ The recognition of partialities and positonalities is important as a condition for openness and dialogue. There is no all seeing godlike….”
Reflexivity vs autobiography
Reflexitivty needs to
Considering social hierarchies
If we start with complicity, we recognise our proximity to the problems we are addressing.
Reflexivity and Cultural Literacy
Acknowledging the limits and specify of social, temporal, spatial and subjective horizons of all research

Context: familiar becoming strange
Researching social and historical contexts
Observing customs, norms and rituals
Questioning and immersion
Critical thinking and analysis

What is the difference between cultural and exchange and cultural appropriation?