‘I Certainly Don't Want People like That Here’: The Discursive Construction of ‘Asylum Seekers’

2003 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Saxton
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
John Howard

In October 2001, it was alleged that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard in order to manipulate the Australian Navy to pick them up and take them to Australian territory. In response to this incident, Prime Minister John Howard announced on radio 3LO: ‘I certainly don't want people like that here.’ (Mares, 2002: 135) A discursive approach is adopted in this paper to examine how asylum seekers have been constructed to be ‘people like that’ in the print media. The analysis demonstrates that asylum seekers have been represented as illegal, non-genuine and threatening in these texts. These representations were employed within nationalist discourse to legitimate the government's actions and public opinion concerning asylum seekers and to manage the delicate issue of national identity. The discursive management of the collective identity of asylum seekers by the dominant culture to construct a specific social reality is discussed and illustrated.

The use of exclusionary language to manipulate opinion

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Clyne
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Boat People ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lexical Items

This article explores the role of language used by the Australian prime minister and other politicians in swaying Australian public opinion against ‘boat people’, focusing especially on particular lexical items. The article contextualizes the representation and treatment of asylum seekers and the language used to do this, both generally in the contemporary period and in the history of Australia as a British outpost in the Pacific. It relates this to other issues expressed linguistically concerning national identity.

Secondary Antisemitism, the Economic Crisis and the Construction of National Identity in the Austrian Print Media

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 719-732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Stoegner
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Secondary Antisemitism

This paper deals with the question of antisemitism in relation to the construction of national identity in late capitalist and post-Nazi societies. Its argument centres on the concept of ‘secondary antisemitism’, as developed within the Critical Theory tradition. Thus, I will elaborate on the complex relationships between post-Nazi antisemitism, the culture industry and the radical destruction of memory in late capitalist societies. The aim is to show the contemporary relevance of secondary antisemitism beyond the immediate context of the task of remembering the Nazi past. In the second section of this paper I will illustrate this by an analysis of examples from print media debates in Austria on the recent financial crisis and show that instances of secondary antisemitism are utilized for the discursive construction of an exclusive national(ist) unity.

scholarly journals White-out: Theatre as an Agent of Border Patrol

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-338
Author(s):  
DENISE VARNEY
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
National Imaginary ◽  
John Howard ◽  
Core Culture

In Australia in 2001, there was a marked escalation of debates about nation, national identity and national borders in tandem with a right-wing turn in national politics. Within the cultural context of debate about national identity, popular theatre became an unwitting ally of neo-conservative forces. Within popular theatre culture, the neo-conservative trend is naturalized as the view of the Anglo-Celtic-European mainstream or core culture that also embraces and depoliticizes feminist debates about home and family. Elizabeth Coleman's 2001 play This Way Up assists in the production of an inward-looking turn in the national imaginary and a renewed emphasis on home and family. The performance dramatizes aspects of what we are to understand as ordinary Australian life which might be interpreted as that which Prime Minister John Howard defends in the name of the National Interest. The cultural imaginary that shapes the production of the popular play is that of the conservative white national imaginary.

scholarly journals Moving Beyond Identity: The Tibet Question Revisited

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jake Ningjian Lin
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
State Building ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
Alternative Approach

<p>This research paper explores the discursive construction of China and Tibet’s national identity, and how it interrelates with China-Tibet relations. In contrast to studies suggesting a defining and determinant role of national identity on China-Tibet relations, this research paper argues that the collective identity of Tibet and China is a hegemonic and highly contested construction, and Tibet and China, therefore, should look beyond identity and search for an alternative approach to nation/state building without succumbing to either Chinese nationalism or Tibetan nationalism. Drawing on the work of some of the critical theorists, this research paper shows that it is bound to fail to build a political community based on a collective national identity. This research paper proposes that the authorities of Tibet and China should negotiate for future institutional reform of the Tibet Question by the recognition of the contingent identities of the multitude.</p>

scholarly journals Moving Beyond Identity: The Tibet Question Revisited

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jake Ningjian Lin
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
State Building ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
Alternative Approach

<p>This research paper explores the discursive construction of China and Tibet’s national identity, and how it interrelates with China-Tibet relations. In contrast to studies suggesting a defining and determinant role of national identity on China-Tibet relations, this research paper argues that the collective identity of Tibet and China is a hegemonic and highly contested construction, and Tibet and China, therefore, should look beyond identity and search for an alternative approach to nation/state building without succumbing to either Chinese nationalism or Tibetan nationalism. Drawing on the work of some of the critical theorists, this research paper shows that it is bound to fail to build a political community based on a collective national identity. This research paper proposes that the authorities of Tibet and China should negotiate for future institutional reform of the Tibet Question by the recognition of the contingent identities of the multitude.</p>

Imag(in)ing the Nation

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 645-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Teo ◽  
Cui Ruiguo
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Concrete Image

This article focuses on the discursive construction of national identity through a National Day Rally speech delivered by Singapore’s Prime Minister in 2010. Inspired by the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and using methods developed by Halliday and van Leeuwen, it offers a close analysis of the speech, which uncovers patterns related to the type, extent and effects of various agentive roles attributed to the country, government and people of Singapore. Macro-discursive strategies like the use of specific references and real-life anecdotes calculated to reify the success of the Singapore ‘brand’ and inspire Singaporeans are also discussed. Through this multi-layered analysis, the article demonstrates how discourse transforms an imagining of Singapore’s nationhood into a concrete image of what Singapore is and what being a Singaporean is all about.

Holding Australia to Ransom: The Colston Affair, 1996–2003

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Malcolm Saunders ◽  
Neil Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
National Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Status ◽  
John Howard

Probably no one who has entered either federal or state Parliament in Australia departed from it as loathed and despised as Malcolm Arthur Colston. A Labor senator from Queensland between 1975 and 1996, he is remembered by that party as a ‘rat’ who betrayed it for the sake of personal advancement. Whereas many Labor parliamentarians – most notably Prime Minister ‘Billy’ Hughes in 1917 have left the party because they strongly disagreed with it over a major policy issue or a matter of principle, in the winter of 1996 Colston unashamedly left it to secure the deputy presidency of the Senate and the status, income and several other perquisites that went with it. Labor's bitterness towards Colston stems not merely from the fact that he showed extraordinary ingratitude towards a party that had allowed him a parliamentary career but more especially because, between his defection from the party in August 1996 and his retirement from Parliament in June 1999, his vote allowed the Liberal-National Party government led by John Howard to pass legislation through the Senate that might otherwise have been rejected.

State contestations in constructions of 1Malaysia

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Public ◽  
Malaysian Population ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.

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