Pride and prejudice: opposing constructions of mixed race in Australia

ABSTRACT

In the Australian context, the development of a ‘situated politics of mixedness’ is complicated by the fact that there are (at least) two main categories of mixed race populations – the Indigenous and the migrant/settler. For those with mixed Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal ancestries, and those with mixed White and other migrant ancestries, life chances and identities differ significantly. This paper outlines some of these differences using the trope of pride and prejudice. For those of mixed migrant/settler heritage, evidence is growing that the mixed experience is predominantly one of pride. For them, misrecognition, or being asked about their racial background, is an opportunity for play, often resulting in ‘the big reveal’ of a valorised mixed identity associated with something other than a bland ‘white bread’ Australian-ness. For those of mixed Indigenous heritage however, there remains a significant level of prejudice, not (only) for being Aboriginal, but for not being visibly Aboriginal enough. Using existing studies and a number of media controversies as examples, this paper interrogates the implications of these differences for understandings of the ways in which race is recruited in the construction of legitimate identity claims. It asks particularly how ‘mixed race’ is helpful analytically to describe the identity constructions within these two very different experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Mixed race
• Australia
• migrant
• Aboriginal
• Bolt controversy

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the work of Catriona Stevens in generating this table and statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 I follow the Australian convention of capitalising Aboriginal and Indigenous when referring to Australians of indigenous heritage.

2 I use the term categories rather than groups, as they are not collectives with a sense of differentiated identity.

3 This diversity should not be overstated however. A strong emphasis on ‘British-ness’ (in terms both of values and physical features) remains (Hage, 1998; Forrest & Dunn, 2006; Fozdar & Spittles, 2009; Stratton & Ang, 1998).

4 Interestingly, there is a marked difference depending on whether the respondent listed their Aboriginality first or second. Only 6.39% of respondents who listed Aboriginal as their first ancestry report being mixed, with 89.18% not listing any second ancestry, suggesting Aboriginality is a primary identity. Of those who listed Aboriginal as their second ancestry the most common first ancestry responses are (in descending order) Australian, English, Irish and Scottish.

5 This was actually the argument made in the early work of Robert E. Park on ‘marginal man’, where he saw the potential for a positive marginality for those of mixed backgrounds who, with a broader outlook and wider sympathies, could understand and interpret different groups to each other (see Daniel et al., 2014).

6 Scholar of mixed race Paul Spickard (2015) sees the recent fixation with DNA testing as dangerous, potentially feeding into a new Eugenics movement. Spickard's complaint, apart from what he sees as pseudoscience and the fact the tests are only probabilistic, is that such testing has been used to delegitimate those who have lived as black, such as African Americans, who discover they have Indo-European and Native American heritages rather than African. But the corollary is the more common effect of making those who thought they were ‘white’, like Pauline Hanson, realise their connection to others, and more broadly, the connection of all to all.

7 While the ‘too white’ Aborigines were wanting to identify not as mixed but as Aborigine, it was simply a recognition of their Aboriginality that was the issue, and it is this that is dangerous in such a context.