Australian Studies

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Australian Studies

• Culture Attitudes, Beliefs Stereotypes

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Culture of Australia

• Australia is one of the most urbanised
  populations in the world the majority of
  Australians live on the coast.
• Australia's cities are melting pots of different
  cultures.
• The influence of the longer-established southern
  European communities in particular has been
  strong.

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Culture of Australia

• The post-World War II influx of both English and
  non English-speaking migrants from England,
  Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Greece, Germany,
  Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Malta, Eastern Europe, the
  Middle East, East Asia and South-East Asia has
  had an impact.
• Lesser numbers of immigrants have come from the
  African and American continents.

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Culture of Australia

• To understand its culture, the physical distances
  between settlements and the very centralised
  nature of those settlements within each state
  must be considered.

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Attitudes, Beliefs Stereotypes

• Australians have very strong attitudes and
  beliefs which are reinforced by the views of the
  country's society.

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Attitudes, Beliefs Stereotypes

• The Australian culture has been forged on the
  hardship of early settlers and later on the
  heroism of the Australian soldiers.
• "Mateship", has been a central principle. This
  may also explain why the more aggressive forms of
  sport Rugby and Australian rules football are
  particularly popular in Australia.

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Attitudes, Beliefs Stereotypes

• Australians have a tendency for short forms of
  names.
• e.g. Steven Stevo David Davo John Johnno
  Mosquito Mozzie Barbeque Barbie.

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Attitudes, Beliefs Stereotypes

• The phrase, "the lucky country", coined by Donald
  Horne, is used to describe Australia in terms of
  weather, lifestyle and history.
• Ironically, Horne was actually using the term to
  criticise Australian society of the early-1960s .

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Mateship

• Mateship can be defined as the code of contact,
  particularly between men, although more recently
  also between men and women, stressing
  egalitarianism, equality and friendship.
• Mateship is seen as an important element of the
  qualities that the Military values in its
  soldiers, sailors, airmen and officers.

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Mateship

• Mateship is an Australian cultural idiom that
  embodies equality, loyalty and friendship.
• There are two types of mateship, the inclusive
  and the exclusive the inclusive is in relation
  to a shared situation (e.g., employment, sports,
  or hardship), whereas the exclusive type is
  toward a third party (e.g., a person that you
  have just met).

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Mateship

• Russel Ward, in The Australian Legend (1958), saw
  the concept as a central one to the Australian
  people.
• Mateship derives from mate, meaning friend,
  commonly used in Australia as an friendly form of
  address.

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Mateship

• Mateship can also have negative qualities, such
  as loyalties over the law, and a word for
  corruption in the police and judiciary.
• It has also drawn criticism as a term as it is
  synonymous with friendship, which is not an
  exclusively Australian concept.

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The Australian Dream

• The Australian Dream of home ownership underpins
  suburban Australia.

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The Australian Dream

• The Australian Dream or Great Australian Dream is
  a belief that in Australia, home ownership can
  lead to a better life and is an expression of
  success and security.
• Although this standard of living is enjoyed by
  many in the Australian population, rising house
  prices compared to average wages are making it
  more difficult for many, especially those living
  in large cities.

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The Australian Dream

• It is also noted as having led to urbanisation
  (or more specifically suburbanisation), causing
  extensive urban sprawl in the major cities.
• The concept of homeownership for all is also
  found in very similar terms in New Zealand, which
  shares many cultural and social values with its
  larger neighbour.

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"Underdog" Identity

• Australians have traditionally had a very strong
  "underdog" attitude, that they will support those
  who appear to be at a disadvantage unless
  Australia is in direct competition with another
  nation.

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"Underdog" Identity

• This can be seen greatly from occurrences during
  the 2003 Rugby World Cup, where the Georgian
  Rugby Team arrived in Perth with a crowd of Perth
  residents welcoming them with colourful support,
  and support for Eric the Eel during the 2000
  Olympics.
• A similar occurrence was noted in Townsville,
  Queensland where the Japanese Rugby Team was
  preferred to that of the French.

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"Underdog" Identity

• This underdog attitude is most evident in sport,
  as sport is also a large part of Australian
  culture. Should an Australian be asked to choose
  between two unknown competitors, very often they
  will choose the one least likely to win.
• The success of Steven Bradbury in the 2002 Winter
  Olympics has coined the expression 'doing a
  Bradbury' which underpins the very spirit of the
  underdog and a fine example positive thinking and
  never giving up.

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"Underdog" Identity

• There is however, another side to this underdog
  attitude in Australians.
• This is the phenomenon of "cutting down the tall
  poppy", which reveals itself in many typically
  Australian attitudes.

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"Underdog" Identity

• As a result, Australians see themselves as being
  extremely critical of their political leaders and
  successful personalities, and always sympathetic
  to those who are 'being done wrong by' or in
  strife.
• This is evident when viewing Today Tonight and A
  Current Affair, Australia's two major tabloid
  television programmes or listening to "talkback"
  radio.

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Tall poppy syndrome

• Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) is a negative term used
  in Australia and New Zealand to describe what is
  seen as a levelling social attitude.

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Tall poppy syndrome

• Someone is said to be a target of tall poppy
  syndrome when his or her assumption of a higher
  economic, social or political position is
  criticized as being presumptuous, attention
  seeking, or without merit.
• Alternatively, it is seen as a societal
  phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are
  criticised or resented because their talents or
  achievements elevate them above or distinguish
  them from their peers.

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A "Fair Go"

• The belief in a "Fair Go" is a key part of
  Australian culture and often Australian Society.
• Labour governments have often used this saying
  in advocating their policies and socialist
  ideals.
• Unionism in Australia has also greatly benefited
  from this belief.

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A "Fair Go"

• This can be seen in the existence of strong
  public health and education systems in Australia.
• It is an idea which involves everyone having an
  equal chance to achieve their goals.

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Cultural Cringe

• The idea of cultural cringe was defined by
  Australian sociologists and as the belief that
  one's own country occupies a "subordinate
  cultural place on the periphery", and that
  "intellectual standards are set and innovations
  occur elsewhere".
• As a consequence, a person who holds this belief
  is inclined to devalue their own country's
  cultural, academic and artistic life, and to
  venerate the "superior" culture of another
  country.

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Stories and legends

• Australian stories and legends have a cultural
  significance quite independent of their empirical
  truth or falsehood.
• This can be seen in the national obsession with
  the almost mythological portrayal of Ned Kelly as
  a Robin Hood figure of sorts.

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Stories and legends

• Australians, according to popular opinion, are
  relaxed, tolerant and easy-going and yet cling
  dearly to the fundamental importance of
  common-sense justice, or, to use the classic
  expression, a fair go.

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Stories and legends

• Australians, according to popular belief, make
  good sportsmen and soldiers.
• Australia has shown, in the past and present,
  that for a country of just over 20 million
  people, it has achieved many extraordinary things
  on the sporting field, such as the 49 medals won
  at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
• Militarily, Australians have served in wars,
  ranging from the Battle of Gallipoli through to
  East Timor and Iraq and Afghanistan

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Stories and legends

• Australian war culture is somewhat different than
  most other western cultures. It generally
  consists of sombre reflection and commemoration
  of all who have died in wartime and honouring
  those who lived.
• It is generally agreed that the beginning of
  modern Australian warfare began at Gallipoli in
  World War I, where Australian forces under
  British command suffered a catastrophic defeat.

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Stories and legends

• The Australian experience at Gallipoli, which is
  viewed as the first iconic moment in modern
  Australian war involvement, is viewed by
  Australians with both pride for the fighting of
  the soldiers, and bitterness for the negligence
  on the part of the British.
• The incidences of valour, bravery, and
  determination displayed during the campaign for
  Gallipoli is seen as part of the ANZAC spirit.
• This experience of war was repeated at battles on
  the Western Front.

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Stories and legends

• The legend of Australians being great soldiers
  has its roots in the AIF being used during the
  latter part of the war as the shock troops of the
  British Empire forces.
• Australians were considered to be remarkably
  determined, united and hard-working individuals.

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Stories and legends

• The majority of Australians knew how to ride and
  shoot prior to enlistment, making them good
  soldiers.
• However, Australians also had a lax attitude
  towards discipline.
• From this the notion of the larrikin Digger
  emerged, an important part of contemporary
  Australian identity.

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Stories and legends

• Australian language is contradictory too it
  combines a mocking disrespect for established
  authority, particularly if it is pompous or out
  of touch with reality, with a distinctive
  upside-down sense of humour.
• For instance, Australians take delight in dubbing
  a tall man "Shorty", a silent one "Rowdy" a bald
  man "Curly" and a redhead is "Bluey".

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Stories and legends

• Politicians, or "pollies", be they at state or
  federal level, are generally disliked and
  distrusted.
• Paradoxically, Australia is one of the few
  democracies that has compulsory voting at
  elections (federal, state and local).

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Stories and legends

• Many of Australia's stories and legends originate
  in the Outback, in the drovers and squatters and
  people of the barren, dusty plains, yet only a
  small proportion of Australians live in the
  Outback, or even in the milder countryside up to
  an hour or two's drive from the cities.

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Stories and legends

• This was true even of the Australia of a century
  ago - since the gold rush of the 1850s, most
  Australians have been city-bound, Australia today
  being one of the most urbanised countries in the
  world.
• Nevertheless, after a century or more spent
  absorbing the bush yarns of Henry Lawson and the
  poetry of Banjo Paterson from the comfort of
  armchairs in the suburbs, the legends are real
  and fairly odd.

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Ned Kelly

• Edward "Ned" Kelly (3 June 1855 11 November
  1880) was an Australian bushranger and a folk
  hero for his defiance of the colonial
  authorities.
• Kelly was born in Victoria to an Irish convict
  father, and as a young man he clashed with the
  police.
• Following an incident at his home in 1878, police
  parties searched for him in the bush where he
  murdered three policemen resulting in the colony
  proclaiming Kelly and his gang wanted outlaws.

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Ned Kelly

• A final violent confrontation with police took
  place at Glenrowan.
• Kelly, dressed in home-made plate metal armour
  and helmet, was captured and sent to jail.
• He was hanged for murder at Old Melbourne Gaol in
  1880.
• His daring and notoriety made him an iconic
  figure in Australian history, folk lore,
  literature, art and film.