Being a 'wog' in Melbourne - young people's self-fashioning through discourses of racism

Bibliographic Data

ID2920116
AuthorsG Tsolidis (0000-0002-5543-432X, Federation University, corresponding author), Velma Pollard (0000-0002-2209-1199, Monash University), Vikki Pollard
Year2009
Volume30
Issue4
Pages427-442
Publication date2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0159-6306 • E-ISSN: 1469-3739
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01596300903237206
OpenAlexW2008742467
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited14

The Greek community in Melbourne, Australia, is large and has a long history in the city. It is diverse and associated with a range of cultural, social and political structures. It has strong transnational links and in many ways exemplifies ‘diasporic’ in contradistinction to ‘migrant’. This paper focuses on young people from this community, particularly those who attend schools established to promote Greek language and cultural maintenance. In this paper, we examine such students’ explorations of their cultural identifications, most specifically how they adopt the term ‘wog’. This term is complex and its place in Australian discourse has shifted over time. Tracking these shifts and considering them as a context for these young people's use of the term allows us to consider the processes involved in their self-fashioning. We argue that their uptake of ‘wog’ involves the deployment of irony, given their awareness of its strong association with racism. We are also interested in the potential for women's experience to be silenced through the common association between ‘wog’ and protest masculinities. We argue that these students’ use of the term illustrates self-fashioning that provides insights into the complexities that surround cultural identification at the micro level, including schooling, but also in the broader context of globalisation

Irony · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Law · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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