Bogans: a sticky subject

Abstract

This paper is about the cultural figure of ‘the bogan’. It offers an analysis of the modes of sociality, the affective flows and the relational intensities through which the heterogeneous categories of ‘bogan’ and ‘anti-bogan’ take shape. It draws on the work of Sara Ahmed on ‘Affective Economies’ to explore how ‘bogan’ works as a ‘sticky sign’. The paper sits alongside other scholarly studies that elaborate the material-affective registers through which ‘bogan’ and ‘anti-bogan’ take shape, and are embodied and placed. However, where some see anti-boganism, in its various forms, as representing a newly animated class war driven by disgust, this paper argues that what is most remarkable, and challenging to analyse, is the very ordinariness of the identifications, and disidentifications, with ‘bogan’. This is not to suggest that class does not matter, but rather, that what happens around ‘bogan’ is as fleeting and labile as it is congealed and sticky. Attunement to the ambiguity and complexity of these movements, and the curious mingling of contempt and love that ‘bogan’ signifies, may afford some insights into the matter of class and culture in Australia.

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented in 2011 at a seminar, the Centre for Cultural Research (now the Institute for Culture and Society), the University of Western Sydney. I would like to thank the centre for the opportunity and the participants for their feedback.