“It's Just Your Turn”: Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture
Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscrib...
| Published in: | Islam and Christian-Muslim relations |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
[2013]
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| In: |
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism BJ Islam KBS Australia; Oceania TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
Multiculturalism
B Muslim Australians B Popular Culture B Performance B National Identity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to “domesticate” Muslim difference. Furthermore, it risks presenting both “Muslim” and “Australian” identities as self-evident, taken-for-granted categories. In this article, I consider two Muslim Australian popular cultural productions - namely, the television programme Salam Café and the stand-up comedy show Fear of a Brown Planet - in order to explore how Muslim and Australian identities, and the relationships between them, are performed, contested and rearticulated. What is most salient about both productions, the article argues, is that they present the identity of “Australian” as a site of political and cultural contestation, with the “nation” a contingent site through which multicultural politics are actualized. Such a move is salient for Australian multiculturalism more broadly, but is especially so for Muslim communities - not least because it undermines the West/Islam dichotomy altogether. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9311 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09596410.2013.806390 |