Shrinking the Borders: Globalization, Culture, and Belonging

This article argues that the political success of the economic discourses of globalization within Australia over the last two decades has been accompanied by a compensatory and regressive revival of an exclusivist model of cultural nationalism. Within a society that once prided itself upon developing the tolerance required to manage the cultural policy of multiculturalism, the reappearance of a nostalgic, monocultural nationalism has been unexpected. It has thrown into question those narratives used within Australian cultural studies to understand the process of nation formation as directed toward the production of hybridity. Further, and despite the continuing presence of an official policy of multiculturalism, these developments have highlighted the highly provisionalized forms of national belonging now available to Australian citizens in certain immigrant communities, particularly to those from Middle Eastern backgrounds.