Gendered and ethnicised national identities in Australia and Japan

In this thesis, I examine the construction of gendered and ethnicised national identities in Australia and Japan. I conceptualise national identities as discourses of national belonging, discourses which are actively negotiated and ever-shifting. Specifically, I examine authorised, mass mediated and folk discourses of national identity in these two national settings. I draw my data from the following: Australian and Japanese state and academic publications; a sample of television advertisements in Australia and Japan; and focus groups and in-depth interviews with participants in two communities, 'Plainsview,' Tasmania and `Hirogawa,' Hokkaido. I pursue three main objectives in the thesis: I examine the ways national identities are constituted in authorised discourses, the mass media and face-to-face interactions in Australia and Japan; I examine the way discourses of national identity reflect, reinforce and challenge current power relations in Australia and Japan; and I examine the place of globalisation in Australian and Japanese constructions of national identity. I argue that authorised, mass mediated and folk discourses of national identity in Australia and Japan are imbricated in complex ways. Widely circulating discourses of national identity are not imposed on the masses in a top-down fashion, but are the product of active negotiations of meaning. Neither do such discourses go uncontested. I demonstrate that individuals in a variety of social locations challenge dominant discourses of national identity and construct counter-narratives of nation. Furthermore, I argue that discourses of national identity which marginalise women and ethnic Others in Australia and Japan, both mirror and help sustain the continued subordination of these social groups. At the same time, counter-narratives of nation constructed by Australians and Japanese both reflect and contribute to the changing status of marginalised groups in these two settings. Finally, I critique the notion that globalising political, economic and other social changes are destabilising national identities and rendering them less salient. Evidence presented in the thesis suggests that globalised social conditions are conducive to the generation of gendered and ethnicised discourses of national identity in Australia and Japan.