[csaa-forum] against national cult stud

[alchemic at antimedia.net]

Hi all,

I've been reading this discussion with interest, and find myself wondering why
the question has been framed in terms of 'Australian cultural studies' in the
first place, as if it were necessary for cult stud to be iconised here as a
national pastime with its own truly-Australian folk heroes. I wonder how
happy some of these putative Australian cultural studies folk heroes would be
with that label. I don't know what 'Creative Industries' is, either, although
it sounds to me like a brandname broadcasting the contemporary
institutionalisation of creative labour, living labour -- entirely without
irony. And so the relationship between 'Aust cult stud' and 'CI' is something
that really seems pretty distant, if not irrelevant, to my situation as a
possible 'early career researcher'. (I could get into that too, but Glen just
about covered it.)

John Grech wrote:

> in my view, it reflects some of transnational divides that I see in
> the Western academic world, particularly those that exist between the
> US, to some extent Europe (although I note that no cultural studies
> people living/working in the UK have entered this discussion), and
> Australia. I must say that, with all respect to Simon During, I agree
> with Stephen's comment that there is a certain disconnected
> ambivalence towards 'down under' by others living in the Northern
> hemisphere, an ambivalance that shows itself in a lack of knowledge
> and direct experience of the state of affairs in Australian cultural
> studies. From what I see, there is still a distinctive but subtle
> cultural arrogance in the Northern Hemisphere towards the antipodes
> but that's another story ...

What is the 'Western academic world'? Does such a thing exist except in the
minds of quote unquote antipodean academics who still feel the cultural cringe?
In this framework, cultural studies itself is a product of a 'Western
academic world'. (Untrue, to a point.) And in this world, Australia is still the
little brother of the giants, trying hard to make itself relevant and carve out
a niche of Australian-ness so it can distinguish itself, market itself? I know
I sound
sarky, and forgive me. But this whole discussion has a really wrong note of
 Anglocentric nationalism, which
seems to be unaware that much of the most exciting
work happening on this continent might not even consider a 'Western academic
world' as the space in which it circulates. The work I'm thinking of has little
respect for
those invisible geographical lines attaching Australia to the UK, the US, or
Europe. It works from a different map. Sometimes this map
works along the lines of diasporic migration, sometimes it works along other
lines, random lines, specific lines: a transnational map, not 'independent' of
national borders, to be sure, but working across and through them. (And
across/through disciplinary boundaries, but that's another story.) It's no
coincidence that this work also cannot market itself in Australia as national
product, Australian cultural studies, about Australia -- hence a certain
difficulty with getting published here?

I did happen to complete my BA at a university with a Cultural Studies program,
and having flirted with a different university and discpline, I have found
myself back in cult stud as a postgrad. But just yesterday I was writing an
abstract for the
CSAA conference and realised -- quite apart from how this abstract has nothing
to do with 'fix' -- that I don't even know if what I'm writing counts as
Australian
cultural studies. It doesn't anchor itself in an Australian
canon; the research takes place here and in Thailand; and the question I'm
asking applies to travel, transnationality, geographical movement. Plus it's in
gender/queer studies, and the applicable theoretical tools don't seem to have
developed here. I feel like I could do this research anywhere, with the help of
a bit of travel funding. It's not 'Australian'. It may not even be 'cultural
studies'.

But here I am in this discipline, doing whatever it is that I do, and
I get the feeling that many -- most? -- people feel like that, whether they're
in or out of an official cultural studies program. I even enjoy that
sense of displinary strangeness, slight discomfort, unheimlich-ness. My point, I
guess, is that talking about 'Australian cultural studies' as if anyone knows
what that means, or can agree on it, is impossible. I don't even think it would
work to talk instead about 'cultural studies in Australia'. Maybe there's no
solution to this particular problem.

Cheers
Aren Aizura