Mixed-Race Habits: Articulations of Female Asian-Australian Artists

ABSTRACT

Multicultural societies such as Australia are becoming more diverse, and understandings of mixed race descent experiences are urgently needed. In this paper, we contribute to such understandings by examining how mixed-race Asian-Australian women navigate the complexities of race through their cultural expressions and embodied experiences. Our discussion draws on ethnographic research, interviews and social media analysis conducted with Indonesian-Australian and Filipino-Australian cultural performers and producers. Through their cultural works, these women artists explore and articulate issues of racial, national, gendered and familial identities. Our analysis of their works and lives draws on Ngo’s recent discussion of ‘racist habits’, to examine how mixed-race experiences require them to navigate the embodiment of racialised perceptions from both their maternal homeland and their Australian homeland. Their problematising of habits through cultural practices provides an important opportunity for recasting mixed-race in ways that resist both the valorisation and the demonisation of mixed-race bodies. Rather than being presented as ‘cosmopolitan ideal’ or ‘suspect impurity’, the Eurasian figure is an opportunity for resisting and releasing the embodied habits of race and racialisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Mixed race
• gender
• intergenerational
• embodied racism
• cultural performance

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the women who participated in this research and generously shared their stories, performances, artistic endeavours, reflections and insights. We particularly thank sisters Mira and Yana, their mother, and Eleanor Jackson for agreeing to have their stories shared in this article and for providing comments and corrections on our drafts. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors alone. This research was made possible by a La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia internal grant from the Research Focus Area Transforming Human Societies RFA THS (grant number 3.2508.07.15) for the project titled ‘Multimedia, Migrant Identities and Family Relationships: A Qualitative Investigation’, with Chief Investigators A. Prof Raelene Wilding and Dr Monika Winarnita. We thank: the editorial team Dr Mridula Chakraborty, Dr Jessica Walton, Prakash Subedi for their support; organisers of the 2017 Asian Australian Studies Research Network Conferece (AAI6) with keynote speaker Dr Helen Ngo, for Dr Reagan Maiquez and Dr Monika Winarnita accepted paper presentations; as well as the anonymous peer reviewers for their thoughtful feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Monika Winarnita is a Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne Australia. She has published extensively her research on gender, migration, media, and cultural performances. Her book Dancing the Feminine: Gender and Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women (Sussex Academic Press UK, 2015) was awarded Monograph of Distinction at the University of Victoria BC Canada (2017) as an SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology.

Reagan Maiquez completed his PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at Monash University. He is currently involved in independent community research projects involving Filipino and Karen migrants in Victoria.

Dr Raelene Wilding is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Head of Department of Social Inquiry at La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia. Her research examines the impact of migration and media on families and relationships. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, her publications include the books Families, Intimacy and Globalization: Floating Ties (2018, Palgrave) and Families Caring Across Borders (Palgrave, 2007, with Baldassar and Baldock).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by La Trobe University [Grant Number 3.2508.07.15, Research Focus Area Transforming Human Societies].