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"It's Just Your Turn": Performing Identity and Muslim Australian Popular Culture
Busbridge, Rachel
Busbridge, Rachel
Author
Abstract
Academic accounts of Muslim integration and inclusion in multicultural Australia are often at pains to emphasize that Muslim identity and Australian national identity are compatible with each other. While this political manoeuvre remains both important and relevant, it nevertheless chances reinscribing the very terms of debate it seeks to contest and worryingly aligns closely with prevalent governmental techniques to “domesticate” Muslim difference. Furthermore, it risks presenting both “Muslim” and “Australian” identities as self-evident, taken-for-granted categories. In this article, I consider two Muslim Australian popular cultural productions – namely, the television programme Salam Café and the stand-up comedy show Fear of a Brown Planet – in order to explore how Muslim and Australian identities, and the relationships between them, are performed, contested and rearticulated. What is most salient about both productions, the article argues, is that they present the identity of “Australian” as a site of political and cultural contestation, with the “nation” a contingent site through which multicultural politics are actualized. Such a move is salient for Australian multiculturalism more broadly, but is especially so for Muslim communities – not least because it undermines the West/Islam dichotomy altogether.
Keywords
Muslim Australians, national identity, popular culture, multiculturalism, performance
Date
2013
Type
Journal article
Journal
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations
Book
Volume
24
Issue
4
Page Range
459-477
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Arts and Humanities
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
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Controlled