Bringing Another Empire Alive? The Empire Marketing Board and the Construction of Dominion Identity, 1926–33

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11943597
AutoresFelicity Barnes (0000-0001-7179-7836, Barnes Hospital, autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume42
Fascículo1
Páginas61-85
Data de publicação2013-08-28
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0308-6534 • E-ISSN: 1743-9329
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03086534.2013.826456
OpenAlexW2043174132
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas30

In 1926, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was established to foster empire trade without the use of tariffs. It was to simulate imperial preference by redirecting consumer choice away from ‘foreign’ goods and towards the produce of ‘home and empire’. Using newspapers, pamphlets, film, exhibitions and poster displays, the EMB aimed to ‘bring the empire alive’ to British consumers. This paper analyses the presentation of three settler dominions—Australia, New Zealand and Canada—in the EMB's advertising campaigns. The EMB's large visual archive has been the subject of only limited study, most of which has focused on a homogeneous reading of empire. This article argues that the work of the EMB reveals the presence of a separate discourse of empire—a ‘dominion discourse’—that has not been recognised in cultural histories of empire, which, with the recent exception of ‘British world’ studies, have been more interested in mapping and conceptualising the formation of identities in other colonial settings. The ‘dominion discourse’ emphasised the familiar, white and ‘British’ nature of the former colonies of settlement, attributes that are clearly displayed in the campaigns of the EMB, but can also be found in settler culture much more widely. In doing so, the white dominions stressed not only their difference from the dependent colonies, but their similarity to Britain. Though the inter-war period is often associated with the rise of distinctive national identities and the loosening of imperial bonds, the production of these attributes in an imperial and metropolitan context draws attention to both the transnational nature of identity formation and the continuing importance of Britain and empire in the construction of settler culture in this period

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