Introduction

John King’s introduction to this section surveys the development of Latin American film studies in the UK over the past 25 years. All three papers explore the interplay between local and global factors in the development of Mexican cinema. Andrea Noble introduces the work of Carlos Monsiváis and discusses the role that early and Golden Age cinema played in the processes of modernisation in Mexico. Carlos Monsiváis pays particular attention to the image of the city in recent Mexican cinema, exploring the use of language and the depiction of sex. Geoffrey Kantaris offers a number of theoretical pathways into an exploration of contemporary cinema in Mexico, analysing how ideas of place and identity are disrupted by the crisis of the nation state in a globalised, postmodern world.     

The “killer of the cane fields”: The social construction of the Australian coastal taipan

This paper makes an original contribution to human–animal studies through the application of social construction theory to an iconic species of Australian snake, the coastal taipan. Little research attention using this approach has been focused on reptiles, and this study addresses this gap in the literature. The taipan has achieved a high level of notoriety in Australia. This paper seeks to understand why and how this has occurred. Drawing on a range of data derived from analysis of newspaper articles, popular magazines and books, and the scientific literature, four dominant narratives are identified: the taipan as an object of science and natural history, as social problem, as object quest and as celebrity. The insights gained from this study support the contention that the meanings made of Australia's fauna are fluid, historically contextualised and socially constructed. In the specific case of the taipan, key individuals, including scientists, popular natural historians and snake men contributed greatly to the species’ construction, as did popular cultural forms such as newspapers and natural history books.     

The Missing Fifth Dimension: The Writing of Australian History in Germany*

German historical writing about Australia can be traced back to the early periods of European exploration of Terra incognita. A corpus of German‐Australian literature exists in the historical notes that were part of early travel books, geographic sketches and emigrant guides. Historical fiction provides another element. However an empirical historiography which elevated Australian history from footnotes and established it as the focus of a professional discipline did not develop until later. Australia was too often wrongly viewed as a space without history. This article examines the professional treatment of Australian history in Germany and the difficult path which faced those who sought to establish the history of Australia as an independent research field. It focuses upon three aspects: (a) the historical background of German Overseas Studies; (b) Australian history as topic in Germany's historiography; and (c) the post‐war situation of Australian historical studies in Germany.     

Cinema’s Milieu: Negotiating the movies’ public and popular dimensions in early twentieth-century Brazil

Drawing on extensive archival research, this paper examines the controversies over the place and the role of cinema in early twentieth-century Brazil. It situates these debates in the context of Brazil’s struggle to come to terms with the powerful forces of modernity, in particular with issues of race, immigration, class formation and conflict, and changing gender roles. Tracing the discourses of Brazil’s cultural elites and also the practical responses of film entrepreneurs and exhibitors, the paper discusses how these interactions overlapped with changes taking place in Brazil’s cinematic landscape and illustrates how they had profound effects on film content, its function, and exhibition practices.     

“Una tercera lectura”: the cinematic reader and the cult of virility in Manuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña (1976)

In El beso de la mujer araña, Manuel Puig encourages a “tercera lectura,” informed by both cinema and literature. He creates a cinematic language reinforced by the spirit of “synthesis” and then incorporates a conceptual discourse which is beyond cinema because of the “límites de atención” of a “lector cinematográfico.” Puig expects readers to draw their own conclusions about the themes which emerge. I argue here that both the themes and aesthetic of the novel can be read as a challenge to the form and content of a literary and filmic “cult of virility.”     

Making History: the Australian history curriculum and national identity

History is a key site for the negotiation of national identity, with the ability to define the past shaping the national narrative on who “we” were, who “we” are, and, crucially, who “we” should be. As such, the teaching of history is a site of intense political debate. This paper examines the history module of the Australian Curriculum to understand the extent to which the history curriculum moves beyond Eurocentric, colonial imaginings of Australia's history towards a more inclusive, multi-cultural, globally-oriented, cosmopolitan vision of society. Both the curriculum and teaching resources were examined to ascertain the identities and orientations these materials could provide. The research finds that — despite improvements in presenting a diversity of representations, in particular a positive focus on the rights and contributions of Indigenous peoples in Australia and some orientation to diverse migrant histories, the environment, and Asia — the main thrust of the curriculum is a focus on the nation-state at the expense of global engagement. The funnel structure which deals with broader world history in earlier years, relegates the rest of the world to a temporal and spatial distance, leaving a somewhat myopic narrative that perpetuates traditional, Anglo-centric narratives, maintaining the perspectives of “Others” as peripheral.     

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and the Art of Revolutionary Cinema

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea has been widely acclaimed for his cinematic production and for his role as a key figure in the elaboration of a distinctively Cuban aesthetic. Drawing on notions such as Martín-Barbero's mediations, Billig's banal nationalism, and Gutiérrez Alea's own viewer's dialectic, consideration is given here to the mutual influences of the Revolution's cultural policies on cinema, and of cinema on the Revolution. Analysis will focus on the films Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968), Hasta cierto punto (1983), Fresa y chocolate (1993) and Guantanamera (1995), which will allow for discussion of some of the director's key themes, including gender issues, the place and role of intellectuals and artists in relation to the Revolution, and the defence of a critical space in which to explore such issues.     

“Super” Debates within the Antipodes? Explaining Differing New Zealand and Australian Retirement Policies in the late Twentieth Century

As others have shown, for much of the twentieth century, “although to different degrees in different periods and to different degrees in the two countries”, New Zealand and Australia shared a peculiar approach to social protection internationally. In particular, Francis Castles has published widely on the Antipodean “wage earners’ welfare state”. He has also shown, however, that New Zealand and Australia took quite dissimilar paths in refurbishing each welfare state in the last two decades of the twentieth century, significantly over superannuation. Most commentators attribute the distinction to dominant political personalities. New Zealand's Robert Muldoon's “election bribe” in 1975, meant a compulsory paid‐work based superannuation system, akin to the one Australia came to develop, was replaced by a universal pension scheme. Australia's Paul Keating implemented the compulsory Australian superannuation scheme in 1992 confirming the trajectory begun in the 1970s. In this paper I put the spotlight on the 1970s corporatism and Australasian industrial cultures to explain the varying New Zealand and Australian superannuation pathways. Such an approach emphasizes multilayered historicity, agency and contingency outside leadership‐driven models. It points to variance and its limits rather than convergence, despite, and because of, common origins and welfare foundations.     

Object Lesson: Approaching Nineteenth-Century Swimming Through the Von Hammer Probate Inventory

This article borrows from material culture approaches to historical research to investigate the development of swimming baths and bathing culture in Sydney in the late nineteenth century. Specifically, it draws upon a probate inventory of effects and belongings of Ferdinand Von Hammer (1830–1889), a leading Sydney baths lessee and swimming instructor in the 1870s and 1880s. Swimming in this period is under-researched, and the Danish-born proprietor is a forgotten figure. He died at his leased Saywell’s Baths at Rockdale in Botany Bay, and his probate inventory includes objects that were integral to the operation of those facilities. It is a rare document that offers insight into the development of swimming culture in this period, the growing complexity of baths management, and suggests intersections with other social, cultural and economic aspects of swimming. Whereas material culture research more typically involves study of extant objects, this methodology fits with an alternative approach that engages with aggregated lists of items such as probate and other inventories and trade data. By grouping various related objects, this article focuses on lifesaving, swimming instruction and entertainment dimensions to extend knowledge of Australian swimming cultures.     

Humanitarianism from the Suburbs: Australian Refugee Relief and Activism during the 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation War

The Bangladesh Liberation War against West Pakistan in 1971 triggered an exodus of ten million refugees, the deaths of approximately 1.5 million people and widespread destruction of villages, crops and infrastructure. Preoccupied with the Cold War and domestic politics, powerful nations such as the US and UK did not intervene directly and reluctantly provided aid. The Australian government, for its part, was particularly slow to offer aid, trailing efforts of New Zealand and most Western European governments. While the McMahon administration remained indifferent, Australians from diverse backgrounds engaged with this conflict by raising public awareness, fundraising and lobbying the Australian government to increase its aid contribution to Bangladeshis displaced by war. At a time when Australian government policies focused on the war in Indo‐China, Cold War politics and development in south‐east Asia and the south Pacific, I consider the ways Australian individuals offered aid to Asian, non‐Christian refugees, some of whom held Maoist views. Using archival materials, historical newspapers and census data, this article argues that, paradoxically, it was individuals with little political capital who spearheaded Australian efforts to aid Bangladeshi refugees. In short, the Bangladesh Liberation War provoked a groundswell of suburban activism that acted independently of government policies.     

Federation and Australian Nationalism: Early Commemoration of the Commonwealth

Much has been written about the nature of Australian nationalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While post-Second World War historiography analysed the role of class in nationalist sentiment, more recent work has examined the racialised and martial aspects of Australian nationalism and imperialism. There has been less consideration of how the nature of turn-of-the-century Australian nationalism affected the Federation that was established on 1 January 1901. This article examines early debates about commemoration of the anniversary of Federation, revealing an indifference to the occasion that was common to the public and most political and civic leaders, including Prime Minister Edmund Barton. It finds that popular enthusiasm at the inauguration of the Commonwealth in January 1901 and the opening of the first parliament in May was a response to imperial pageantry and celebrity, rather than the creation of the Australian federation. The article suggests that Australians’ longstanding resistance to reform of the Federation is a legacy of their historic failure to attach to it.     

The Australian Citizenship Test: Process and Rhetoric

In late 2007, Australia's relatively liberal citizenship eligibility requirements were modified, ostensibly to improve the value of citizenship by restricting access to it. A key change involved the introduction of a citizenship test. This article tracks its development and implementation. We challenge claims of overwhelming support for the test, explore the discourses around the “Australian values” being tested, and outline the process by which the legislation was enacted (during which a number of principles of parliamentary democracy were compromised). Using evidence from politicians' speeches, we argue the citizenship test served to re‐direct the Australian imagination away from a nascent “multicultural” identity, back to one redolent of the times of the “White Australia Policy”, confidently celebrating connections with an Anglo‐Saxon heritage, the European Enlightenment, and Judeo‐Christian roots. As such it was a key aspect of the 1996–2007 Howard Government's retreat from multiculturalism.     

Settler Colonial Strategic Culture: Australia,AUKUS, and the Anglosphere

Australia's history as a settler colony within the British Empire fundamentally shapes its sense of security within the Indo-Pacific region. Australia has consistently looked outside of its region for security and sought partners on the explicit basis of political, cultural, and ethnic similarity. What role does Australia's history play in shaping its foreign policy? We argue that these choices in foreign policy are inextricable from Australia's history as a settler colony on the farthest reaches of the British Empire. The AUKUS Agreement (AUKUS) is an example of how Australia operates to preserve racial hegemony in the face of non-white threat — real or perceived. This research utilises critical discourse analysis to interrogate elite-level discourse around AUKUS to ascertain the dominant narratives that inform its creation, the issues it seeks to address in Australian security policy, how it is structured by historical narratives of security, and how it functions to structure those narratives going forward. This article seeks to participate in the growing push to decolonise International Relations by illuminating the way Australia is ontologically and epistemologically invested in the preservation of racial hegemony.     

A Case Study of a Sport‐for‐Development Programme in Brazil

This article examines the ‘Sport Works’ narrative of sport‐for‐development practitioners of an inter‐organisational sport‐for‐development (SfD) programme utilising rugby to foster positive social transformation in Brazil. In doing so, we address an under‐representation of practitioners who are often seen as subjugated voices in SfD programmes. The paper also addresses an under‐representation of Brazil as a research site in SfD literature. Following several site visits and interviews with practitioners, our data concludes that despite a novel context of Brazil and the alternative values to football offered through the sport of rugby, practitioners and programme managers maintain dominant narratives of social transformation through sport without clear monitoring and evaluation.     

Neutralising Punitive Asylum Seeker Policies: An Analysis of Australian News Media During the 2013 Federal Election Campaign

ABSTRACT

For almost two decades, negative portrayals of asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat have been dominant within political and media discourses. In particular, asylum seekers have been portrayed as a “dangerous other”—as an illegal group that the public ought to fear and from which they require protection—rather than as a vulnerable group who require protection themselves. This article examines some of the ways in which these discourses make possible public support for punitive policies relating to the treatment of asylum seekers (particularly boat arrivals)—policies that violate many of the human rights instruments to which Australia is a signatory. Specifically, this paper uses Sykes and Matza’s (1957) work on “Techniques of Neutralisation”, which considers the way in which those who knowingly commit illegal, immoral, or harmful acts neutralise their behaviour and disavow its harmful effects, to analyse these dynamics. In particular, it focuses on the political and media discourses regarding asylum seeking produced during the 2013 Australian federal election campaign. The paper argues that these theoretical tools can be effectively applied to this case study and provide some insight into the ongoing punitive treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.     

Australian‐Asian Sociability,Student Activism,and the University Challenge to White Australia in the 1950s

During the 1950s, staff, students and graduates of Australian universities were increasingly critical of the racial restrictions on immigration, and their activism contributed to a broader government and community reassessment of the White Australia Policy. Personal experiences of cross‐cultural interactions between Australian students and an increasing number of international students from Asia, including those sponsored by the Australian government's Colombo Plan, underpinned the university challenge to immigration policy. Tertiary curriculum offering new academic interpretations of Asian history and decolonisation also contributed to a growing awareness among university‐educated Australians of Asia, and fostered empathy for its peoples. The publications of the Immigration Reform Group extended this critique of White Australia, and were driven by a moral indignation towards a policy that affected individuals personally known to the critics.     

The Illusion of Equality: Machismo and Cuban Cinema of the Revolution

This article attempts to show how certain Cuban films both reflect and construct behaviour concerning male–female relations. In so doing, they illustrate how Cuban cinema provided a mainstream cultural forum for controversial and contradictory debates on gender relations. At times, films that attempt to produce images of gender equality, or at least the possibility of this, merely provide the illusion of equality while maintaining the status quo of patriarchy. That is, the images they present of male–female relations appear on the surface to represent an increasing desire to achieve absolute equality between men and women. However, close analysis of these films, using various tools of feminist and feminist film theory, reveals a continuation of certain patriarchal tendencies that the films themselves are attempting to criticise. The films to be discussed are: De cierta manera (Sara Gómez, 1974–1978), Retrato de Teresa (Pastor Vega, 1979) and Hasta cierto punto (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1983).     

Between Market‐Preserving Federalism and Intergovernmental Coordination: The Case of Australia

This article investigates Australia's economic success since the 1990s. As this was set in motion by fundamental political reforms, it asks to what extent Australian‐type federalism has been an important factor in the reform process. By using two approaches ‐ the market‐preserving federalism approach of Weingast, which stresses the virtues of ‘limited government’, decentralisation and competition together with the intergovernmental coordination approach of Scharpf which argues for a ‘problem‐solving’ orientation of territorial actors ‐, the structure of Australian federalism, changes in the working of the federal system in the 1990s, and effects on policy‐making are scrutinised. The article demonstrates that a particular combination of a rather centralised federal structure and a particular type of intergovernmental coordination, i.e. collaboration, supplemented by the strong influence of new public management ideas, has been conducive to political reforms in Australia. This suggests that a decentralised and competitive version of federalism, as defended by Weingast, is not a necessary condition for embarking on a successful reform path in federal countries. In future research, both approaches or analytical dimensions should be used in order to better understand the relationship of intergovernmental relations and policy reforms.     

The Formation of the Queensland Liberal National Party: Origins,Prospects and Implications for Australian Political Systems

In Australia, two-and-a-half party systems are common with the Liberal and National parties, usually needing to collaborate to form governments. In Queensland, the 2008 merger of two of these state parties to create the Liberal National Party (LNP) created instead a two-party system. This review examines the forces for the merger and prospects for the continuation of the LNP, the likelihood of change as a result of the Queensland merger in the remaining two-and-a-half party systems, and how the drivers of this merger compare with those observed in studies of other non-Australian party and electoral systems. Pressures and conditions for a merger similar to those in other, mostly European systems, were evident in the case of the LNP. The particular structure of the pre-merger party competition and relationships was, however, a likely factor in the merger in that two collaborating parties could avoid a contested switch in party seniority. This aspect, unlikely to occur in other Australian party systems, combined with the very limited success of the LNP in gaining and holding government since the merger, does not suggest an imperative for further mergers in other Australian systems.     

Theories on Central Asian factionalism: the debate in political science and its wider implications

Factionalism, in all its forms, has created an obstacle to achieving progressive reforms in Central Asia. Recent research in political science has examined different kinds of factionalism in the region and what impact they have on the government structure and decision-making processes. This article focuses on a debate between ‘regional’ vs ‘clan’ models of factionalism. It explores the different approaches while examining the implicit assumptions made in these arguments. Although these studies have provided valuable information and concepts, an interdisciplinary approach may bring further insights. Anthropological studies are juxtaposed to the political science models to present an alternative view, which also contributes to broaden the debate by considering a variety of meanings. Labels such as ‘regional’ or ‘clan’ conceal the complexity of relationships. Everyday experiences need to be analysed alongside the political interpretations of these relationships.