Mixed Race Studies

Visibly Different: Face, Place and Race in Australia

Peter Lang Publishing Group
2007
186 pages
Weight: 0.330 kg, 0.728 lbs
Paperback ISBN: 978-3-03911-323-1
Series: Studies in Asia-Pacific “Mixed Race” (Volume 2)

Edited by:

Maureen Perkins, Associate Professor of History, Anthropology and Sociology
Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

What does an Australian look like? Many Australians assume that there is such a thing as an ‘ethnic’ face, and that it indicates recent arrival or refugee status. This volume contains nine life narratives by Australians who reflect on the experience of being categorised on the basis of their facial appearance.

The problem of who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’ is at the heart of some of the most important challenges facing the contemporary world. Assuming that facial appearance and identity are inextricably linked makes this challenge even harder.

The introduction by the editor provides the theoretical framework to these narratives. It discusses the relevance to notions of belonging and identity of the term ‘mixed race’, and concludes that we are all mixed race, whether we look white, black or ‘ethnic’.

Table of Contents

• Maureen Perkins: Visibly Different: Face, Place and Race in Australia
• Jan Teagle Kapetas: Lubra Lips, Lubra Lips: Reflections on my Face
• Jean Boladeras: The Desolate Loneliness of Racial Passing
• Lynette Rodriguez: But Who Are You Really?
• Wendy Holland: Rehearsing Multiple Identities
• Christine Choo/Antoinette Carrier/Clarissa Choo/Simon Choo: Being Eurasian
• Glenn D’Cruz: ‘Where Are You Coming From, Sir?’
• Farida Tilbury: Hyphenated Realities: Growing up in an Indian-American-Bruneian Baha’i in ‘Multicultural’ Australia
• Hsu-Ming Teo: Alien Asian in the Australian Nation
• Ien Ang: Between Asia and the West.

Midnight’s Orphans: Anglo-Indians in Post/Colonial Literature

Peter Lang
2006
265 pages
Weight: 0.370 kg, 0.816 lbs
Paperback ISBN: 978-3-03910-848-0
Series: Studies in Asia-Pacific “Mixed Race”

Glenn D’Cruz, Senior Lecturer
School of Communication and Creative Arts
Deakin University, Australia

Anglo-Indians are the human legacy of European colonialism. These descendants of European men and Indian women regularly appear as disconsolate and degenerate figures in colonial and postcolonial literature, much to the chagrin of contemporary Anglo-Indians. Many significant writers, such as Rudyard Kipling, Maud Diver, John Masters, Salman Rushdie and Hari Kunzru, have created Anglo-Indian characters to represent the complex racial, social and political currents of India’s colonial past and postcolonial present.

This book is the first detailed study of Anglo-Indians in literature. Rather than simply dismissing the representation of Anglo-Indians in literary texts as offensive stereotypes, the book identifies the conditions for the emergence of these stereotypes through close readings of key novels, such as Bhowani Junction, Midnight’s Children and The Impressionist. It also examines the work of contemporary Anglo-Indian writers such as Allan Sealy and Christopher Cyrill.

Presenting a persuasive argument against ‘image criticism’, the book underscores the importance of contextualizing literary texts, and makes a timely contribution to debates about ‘mixed race’ identities, minoritarian literature and interculturalism.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Seven Deadly Stereotypes
• Chapter Two: Regulating Bodies: Dangerous ‘Others’ and Colonial Governmentality
• Chapter Three: Beyond the Pale: Imperial Power and Scientific Regimes of Truth
• Chapter Four: The Poor Relation: Social Science and the Production of Anglo-Indian Identity
• Chapter Five: Midnight’s Orphans: Stereotypes in Postcolonial Literature
• Chapter Six: ‘The Good Australians’: Australian Multiculturalism and Anglo-Indian Literature
• Chapter Seven: Conclusion: Bringing it all Back Home
• Bibliography
• Index

Anglo-Indians in Hollywood, Bollywood and Arthouse Cinema

Journal of Intercultural Studies
Volume 28, Issue 1 (February 2007)
pages 55-68
DOI: 10.1080/07256860601082939

Glenn D’Cruz, Senior Lecturer of Performance Studies
Deakin University, Australia

Apart from a few disparaging remarks about offensive stereotypes by Anglo-Indian writers and politicians such as Gloria Jean Moore, Frank Anthony and Gillian Hart, critics have paid very little attention to the representation of “mixed-race” Anglo-Indians in the cinema. Drawing on screen theory and recent theories of cinema spectatorship, this essay provides a comparative analysis of how Hollywood, Bollywood and arthouse films represent Anglo-Indians. More specifically, it analyses three paradigmatic films: Bhowani Junction (1956), Julie (1975), and 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981). Combining formal analysis of narrative structure, mise-en-scne and genre with historical analysis, the paper examines the ideological work performed by these texts, which use Anglo-Indians to dramatise specific political conflicts in India such as those generated by the British partition of India in 1947 and the more recent issue of globalisation.

Read or purchase the article here.