Beauty Contest for British Bulldogs? Negotiating (Trans)national identities in Suburban Melbourne

Sara Wills; Kate Darian-Smith

doi:10.5130/csr.v9i2.3564

PDF

Published: Sep 13, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v9i2.3564

Keywords:

Britain, Australia, transnational identity, immigration, ethnicity, identity

Sara Wills

University of Melbourne

Kate Darian-Smith

University of Melbourne

Abstract

Notwithstanding the absence of bulldogs, Britfest with its re-creation and representation of Britishness provides an entry point for investigating the complex meanings within the transitional narratives of migrancy, ethnicity and ‘belonging’ among British migrants in modern Australia. The identification and promotion of Britishness at this event reflects recent trends in the re-imagining of that Britishness, which has also become the focus of popular and scholarly debate. In much of this debate, events such as Britfest are seen as representative of a newly emergent sense of identity among British migrants—as an organic reawakening of community pride, nationhood and sense of (an often privileged) place in Australia.

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2003): Charlatans

Section

Articles (Peer Reviewed)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed undera Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.

Author Biographies

Sara Wills, University of Melbourne

SARA WILLS is an ARC postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer at the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, and a research associate with Museum Victoria. Her work explores experiences of British migrants in Australia since the Second World War, but she is also interested more generally in processes of ‘re-placing’ community and identity, as well as in histories and theories of migrancy.

Kate Darian-Smith, University of Melbourne

KATE DARIAN-SMITH is Director of the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. She also teaches in the Department of History and is the Assistant Dean (Study Abroad and Exchange Programs). With interests in Australian cultural and social history, particularly in the twentieth century, she is currently writing a social and cultural history of agricultural shows in Australia.

Article Sidebar

Main Article Content

Abstract

Article Details

Sara Wills, University of Melbourne

Kate Darian-Smith, University of Melbourne