Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

themes concerning issues of migrant belonging to the nation. This paper will address the extent to which
new settler/migrants gain a sense of belonging from engaging with national day celebrations based on NZ’s
founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, as mediated through Māori Television.
Karen Sy de Jesus
Cultural Norm: Crossroad between Danger and Exotic
At least 90% of the Australian population after WWII was Anglo-Celtic. Today, almost half of Australians are
first or second generation immigrants (Hugo, 2014). To understand how different Australian society is today,
at least 10% of this group would not have been able to enter Australia before 1975. Multiculturalism policy
brought the cultural diversity of Australia to the forefront of the discourse on immigration. The Cultural
Others of Multicultural Australia runs the gamut from the culturally exotic to the culturally dangerous. At the
crossroad between the exotic continuum and the danger continuum is the Cultural Norm. Drawing on Judith
Butler’s (2003) notion of normative aspiration, this paper looks into the implications of this intersectional
dynamics on societal relations and the effects of the discourse on Australian immigration.
8B
Australian Indigenous Film and Television in a transnational frame (Chair, Jay Daniel Thompson)
This panel explores the intellectual opportunities afforded by considering Australian Indigenous Film and Television
(AIFT) not within a national framework but as part the international trafficking of images of Aboriginality, past and
present. We will argue that this transnational circulation has both created colonized forms of indigeneity and, more
recently begun the work of dismantling these frames or decolonizing as new modes of storytelling and
representation are brought into existence through the work of Indigenous filmmakers. This approach seeks to avoid
the limitations of existing and available paradigms for thinking AIFTV such as those focused on Novelty,
Exceptionalism, Cultural authenticity, Universalism, Oppositionality/Activism, and Human Rights. Our first move is to
bring traditional scholarly concepts for analyzing the discursive framing of screen content – reception frameworks
constituted through policy, marketing, popular and academic criticism – into a closer dialogue with the practices of
Indigenous film and TV production, and of Indigenous perspectives and storytelling modes. In doing so, alternative
conceptualization focusing on transnationalism and regionalism, critical historiography and Indigenous modernity
become productive alternative frames of reference. Speakers: Chris Healy, Terese Davis, Romaine Moreton.
8C
Transformative Encounters? Analyzing orchestrated cultural processes (Chair, Alifa Bandali)
Organized cultural encounters (OCEs) such as cultural exchange programs, reconciliation projects, community
cohesion initiatives, interfaith dialogue meetings or various projects related to integration of immigrants are
activities that through particular intervention strategies aim at creating transformation. They are in other words
orchestrated cultural processes that are invested with much hope for transformation not only of the attendees, but
also in the society, societies or contexts addressed by the encounter. Organizers (implicit or explicit) lean on
assumptions concerning the nature of differences, encounters and social change. The panel focuses on how we may
conceptualize and analyze the orchestration of transformation in relation to three different types of organized
cultural encounters.
Lene Bull Christiansen The performance of cultural difference
Volunteer tourism is a growing industry, situated in-between the humanitarian sector and traditional tourist
practices. This paper explores a sub-section of this growing field: educational volunteer tourism, where
cultural learning and encounters are mediated by NGOs and/or educational institutions. The paper analyses
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