Mixed Race Studies

BeDevil: Colonialism and the children of miscegenation

Journal of International Communication
Volume 19,  Issue 1, 2013
Special Issue: South-North conversations
pages 43-58
DOI: 10.1080/13216597.2012.754363

Wajiha Raza Rizvi
Hashmi Media Institute, Karachi, Pakistan

BeDevil (1993) addresses the marginalization of Aboriginal Australians in the events, symbolism, and media hype surrounding the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia in 1988. Tracey Moffatt challenges the racial stereotypes by gearing a political process of reform and self-recognition though her postmodernist ‘identity search’-driven work aiming at appropriation of hegemonic spectacle. BeDevil disrupts the hegemony of the pure original canon that excluded Aboriginal Australians from the mainstream. This sort of exclusion practice is a known phenomenon worldwide, more so happens in the postcolonial Third World countries like Pakistan and India as both exclude their ethnic minorities from the mainstream media. The paper echos back to Moffatt’s stories of bedeviling experiences with tales of similar issues around race, gender, and normality from Islamic Republic of Pakistan, wherein post-Independence immigrants are constantly struggling for appropriation and redefinition of their identities. The Pakistan born children of miscegenation are considered immigrants by descent despite the facts concerning Islamic origins, two nations’ theory, migration, and over 60 years residency. The paper compares the mutually bedeviling experiences of ‘othering’ and a struggle with the notions of shared social conscience and histories between children of miscegenation in Australia and Pakistan in the context of the Australian trilogy.

Read or purchase the article here.

Race-Crossing

Sacramento Daily Union
Volume 2, Number 4 (1890-06-08)
page 1, column 4
Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection

Lima, the capital of Peru, is pronounced to be the headquarters of all the world’s mongreldom. Its population is the product of three centuries of race-crossing, and a scientific investigator finds easily distinguishable among the inhabitants the following crosses:

Cholo, offspring of white father and Indian mother.
Mulatto, offspring of white father and negro mother.
Quadroon, offspring of white father and mulatto mother.
Quinteroon, offspring of white father and quadroon mother.
Chino, offspring of Indian father and negro mother.
Chino Cholo, offspring of Indian father and Chinese mother.
Chino Oscuro, offspring of Indian father and mulatto mother.
Sambo China, offspring of negro father and mulatto mother.
Sambo, offspring of a mulatto father and Sambo Chino mother.
Sambo Claro, offspring of Indian father and Sambo Chino mother.

These are the most notable crosses, but there are many others.