Internationale Kulturwissenschaften
International Cultural Studies
Etudes culturelles internationales

Sektion III: Neue wissenschaftliche Institutionen

Section III:
New Scientific Institutions

Section III:
Nouvelles institutions scientifiques


Peter Morgan (Perth) [BIO]

French 
Inter- and Cross-Cultural Studies in the Australian Context: The Self-Reflexive Moment

 

Introduction

For Samuel P. Huntington, Australia is a traditionally western country on the periphery of several cultural regions, trying to join its most powerful geo-political regional neighbour, Asia (The Clash of Cultures, 1995). Situated between Asia and the Pacific regions, bordering on the Indian Ocean, socially and culturally predominantly European, Australia is engaged in an ongoing debate about its identity and its place in the world. Viewed in this light, the dramatic re-emergence of Europe in 1989 coincided with important debates about Australian national and cultural identity.

Australia underwent a process of political and cultural realignment from the early 1970s, when a new cultural orientation towards the USA and a geo-political orientation towards South-East Asia began to manifest themselves. This process came to a head in 1989. A critical awareness of the problems of Australian national identity resulted from dissatisfaction with facile and politically opportunist attempts to relocate Australia in Asia. In addition to this, the ‘second generation’ of post-war refugees and immigrants recognized that their parents, whose languages and cultural roots lay in Europe, were growing old and passing away. These and other factors contributed to a new awareness of Australia’s links with Europe, which had been neglected and were in danger of being forgotten.

In my last paper within this institutional framework (Innsbruck, September 1997) I discussed the changes which have occurred in the teaching of European languages and literatures in Australia over the past two decades as a result of these global and internal changes. In the following paper I would like to take up some of these points from a different angle: namely, how can the new cross- and inter-cultural intellectual paradigms along with their technologies and institutional structures (i.e. "Wissenschaftsorganisation") be used in order to maximize the productive interchange of information and understanding across the national and supranational boundaries which have been formed with the ending of the post-war era.

The Self-Reflexive Moment in Inter- and Cross-Cultural Studies

The older structure of the traditional Anglo-Saxon ‘European language and literature’ department has been replaced over a period of decline with a new European Studies model, in which a broadly conceived paradigm of "cultural studies" complements a "communicative approach" to language teaching and language competence. This "cultural studies" paradigm for the understanding of Europe came about in response to three related forces: changes in global patterns of understanding after the end of the post-war era, the coming to dominance of English as the "global language" of the immediate future (bringing with it the expectation that English is sufficient for all learning, even about other cultures), and the theoretical impetus of American post-structuralist or post-modern paradigms. The pressures for change were symptomatic of new global as well as local factors. The move towards a ‘European Studies’ paradigm of teaching and research in Australia is more appropriate to the needs of Australian students and society in general. We are talking here of a change in paradigm for the organisation of research on and information about Europe from a national model to an interdisciplinary area-studies model. One of the central aspects of this new model is that nationally sanctioned forms of literary and cultural criticism are subjected to critical scrutiny from outside in ways which were not generally accepted in the traditional structures. A new differentiation can be made between the teaching of particular national literatures and cultures from inside and from outside. Australia has developed new perspectives on Europe (and the world) as a result of the global changes of the past decade, and has begun the process of transforming the intellectual structures, institutions and technologies in order to facilitate the maintenance of this new critical and cross-cultural perspective.

"Perched on the Indian Ocean rim in the West and on the Pacific rim in the east," with its northern coastline "oriented towards South-East Asia," in particular Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, with trans-Pacific links to the West Coast of the USA and Canada, as the "spring-board of Europeans into Asia" and with strong interests even in the south in the fishing, mineral and environmental resources of Antarctica: it is clear from these clichés of government, industry and trade that Australians have developed new ways of thinking and of speaking about their relationships to the rest of the world. But what about the deeper issues of understanding of ‘self’ and of ‘other’ which are implicit in this rhetoric of global positioning and which can so easily be ignored in the chase for wealth in a globally competitive environment?

If Australians have changed their ways of informing themselves about the rest of the world, in particular Europe, it is not so clear that they have at the same time created the channels for the rest of the world to inform itself about, and to engage in meaningful interchange with, Australia. I understand such information gathering and interchange as a process of coming to mutual understanding based on detailed and reliable knowledge "of the total and distinctive way of life of a people or society" (UNESCO, Our Creative Diversity). "Informing," thus means participating in a dialogical processes of interchange at all levels including cultural understanding, gathering of knowledge and critical and analytical reflection, not simply compiling static and reified bodies of information.

In order to fully participate in new paradigms of global understanding, I would argue, Australians must not only generate an inter- and cross-cultural understanding of culture, but must include within these new paradigms ("Wissenschaftsorganisation") a self-reflexive moment through which is made accessible to the rest of the world what is happening in Australia. For without this there will be no dialogue.

My earlier paper focussed on the way research on Europe is being carried out in Australia, a part of the world outside Europe, with a different perspective on and interest in Europe to those of Europeans themselves. Europe is being "reconceived" from outside as a result of the events of 1989, of the progress of European Union, in an environment dominated by ‘English as a global language’ (David Crystal) and in a world in which sub- and supra-national models are playing an increasingly important role alongside national models in the comparative study of cultures. Our task as Australian teachers and researchers is to provide students with an integrated and coherent understanding of Europe from our (Australian) perspective. This involves critically considering, defining, and conceptualizing the importance of Europe for Australia.

Here I am concerned with the corollary of this, namely how the structures are created whereby meaningful cultural information processes are made available to others, so that there can be a "feed-back" of other perspectives into Australia. How can Australians set up mechanisms for the reception of others’ views. Not only do we need to know how Europeans (and others) critically conceptualize Australia, but we also need to set up the mechanisms by which this information is to be received, disseminated, considered and discussed. This involves both

These processes are essential if cross- and inter-cultural studies are to function as a new paradigm for information-sharing in the spirit of the UNESCO report, Our Creative Diversity in the contemporary context. A cultural studies approach with a focus on Europe would thus need to include a self-reflexive component, aiming to sensitize Australian students to the need to engage in dialogue, to explain themselves in order to understand others, and to understand others in order to explain themselves.

An Agenda for Cross- and Inter-Cultural Studies

In as much as Europe has existed as part of the ‘imaginary institution’ (Cornelius Castoriadis) of Australian society since white settlement, this process of dialogue itself has been a core component of the formation of an Australian identity. Central themes of Australian self-reflexion within this cultural studies paradigm would thus include themes such as:

Europe and its constituent identities, that is, have been a presence in Australian culture since the beginnings of white settlement. However this has not always been recognized. Until well into the post-war era, standard histories and the main institutions of politics, culture and learning still represented Australia as predominantly British, although popular culture was by that time manifesting signs of much greater cultural diversity. In the 1970s a particularly Australian form of "multiculturalism" emerged in which this reality of Australian society was recognized. This multiculturalism reached a peak in the mid 1980s, at which time the demand for a new recognition of an "Australian" identity in all its diversity began to make its appearance.

Hence a tradition of self-reflexion of Europeanness in Australia is part of modern Australian identity, although the structures for maintaining this self-reflexion are continually under threat by the processes of attrition of inter-cultural awareness, especially as Australia grows increasingly monolingual. Australian intellectuals still show the types of insularity, monolingual arrogance and inward-turning that characterizes most national literary and cultural paradigms. In addition there is a post-colonial tradition of the "cultural cringe," a history of "inferiority complex," anxiety about, and rejection of external views of Australia. Teaching and research of Australian literature and culture must be subjected to a process of ongoing re-conceptualization, re-formulation, and re-organisation in order to overcome these historical determinants. Openness to critical representations from outside is limited, and the mechanisms for facilitating and maintaining this openness require development. Australian multiculturalism is not sufficient in itself to maintain the channels of cross- and inter-cultural communication between Australia and Europe. It too has become a ‘national’ paradigm.

An agenda for the realization of a more self-critical, dynamic and dialogical cross- and inter-cultural studies in Australia would include the following changes:

Summary: Australia as a Case Study

Cross- and inter-cultural studies programs must be informed by contemporary political and socio-cultural developments as well as teach canonical bodies of literary and cultural material. Equally importantly, these programs must be taught from a position of awareness of and critical engagement with national interests, goals, ideals and aspirations, and reflexive paradigms. This latter point has been the focus of this paper, in which the Australian example has been used to illustrate the necessity for national cultural studies paradigms not only to include a self-reflexive moment, but to create and maintain the practical mechanisms for such a self-reflexiveness in order to overcome the tendency to fall into insular and self-reinforcing patterns of thinking.



Internationale Kulturwissenschaften
International Cultural Studies
Etudes culturelles internationales

Sektion III: Neue wissenschaftliche Institutionen

Section III:
New Scientific Institutions

Section III:
Nouvelles institutions scientifiques

© INST 1999

Institut zur Erforschung und Förderung österreichischer und internationaler Literaturprozesse

 Research Institute for Austrian and International Literature and Cultural Studies

 Institut de recherche de littérature et civilisation autrichiennes et internationales