Mnemonic legality: militarism, masculinity, and the elasticity of belonging

ABSTRACT

This paper adopts the idea that nationally observed commemorative events are pivotal in the enactment of identity. Exemplified by Anzac Day, collective mnemonic narratives are implicated in the process of producing particular conceptions of what is normative and valued within a legal and political community. The notion of collective memory’s contribution to the production of normative and formative frames, and associated senses of belonging and recognition, is brought into conversation with the theorisation of the plurality of law. Interview data from a project examining the experiences of expatriate homosexual Australian men is introduced in order to explore the entanglement of Anzac Day commemoration and law in the elastic quality of normative frames to tolerate difference while also being inherently exclusionary.

KEYWORDS:

• Anzac Day
• belonging
• homosexuality
• identity
• legalities
• memory

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank interviewees for their contribution to this work. I would also like to thank OU belonging symposium participants and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Matt Howard is a lecturer in law at the Open University and he holds a PhD in law from the University of Kent. His research interests include interrogating how the concepts of ‘belonging’ and ‘normativity’ are regulated by time and memory.

ORCID

Matt Howard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9213-8108

Notes

1 This follows Levine and Mellema (2001), who argue that experiences of law rely, too, on norms and forces which can be considered extra-legal or quasi-legal. Collective memory is rendered here as an ‘institution’ to convey the regularised and established practice of particular mnemonhistorical narratives as being a key feature of a group identity.

2 Melissaris (2009), Davies (2017).

3 See eg Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2015).

4 See eg Assmann (2011).

5 Lindahl (2010).

6 Hertogh (2018).

7 Esposito (2013).

8 Blackshaw (2010), p 21.

9 Philadelphoff-Puren and Rush (2003).

10 Despite the Anzac legend encompassing both Australia and New Zealand, the focus of this paper is solely on Australia; the observance of, and attitudes towards, Anzac Day in each country is tempered by specific social and political conditions, both contemporary and at the time.

11 Damousi & Lake (1995).

12 Broadly within this century and the final quarter of the last century, Australia has enacted a range of legislation, both federally and by state, extending rights and recognition to its LGBT population. Notwithstanding decriminalisation and criminal justice provisions, this legislation has tended to cover family life, concerning succession, adoption, family planning, and marriage & partnership recognition, reaffirming normative and generative relationship logics.

13 Ewick & Silbey (1998).

14 Valverde (2012).

15 Fleur Johns (2013) identifies various taxonomies of non-legal; it is defined as illegal, extra-legal, pre- or post-legal, supra- or infra-legal. Each of these suggest a definite distinction from law. The ‘ostensibly’ non-legal institutions I am referring to in this paper, particularly in relation to mnemonic institutions, can more appropriately be considered quasi-legal to reflect how closely bound up these institutions are in the process of making legal order.

16 Davies (2017), p 37.

17 Davies (2005), p 92.

18 Duggan (2003), Ammaturo (2014).

19 Lindahl (2013), p 6.

20 Lindahl (2013), p 179.

21 See eg Cowan & Carr (2016).

22 Keane (2005), Conaghan (2013)

23 Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2015), p 107.

24 Prabhat (2018), p 29.

25 Hertogh (2018), p 180.

26 Karstedt (2009); Belavusau & Gliszczyńska-Grabias (2017).

27 Christodolidis & Veitch (2009).

28 Löytömäki (2012).

29 This method is based heavily on principles found within the approach taken to interviews in interpretative phenomenological analysis. See eg Smith (2004); Smith, Flowers, & Larkin (2009); Smith & Osborn (2008).

30 See eg Mulveen & Hepworth (2006); Munroe, Hammond, & Cole (2016).

31 Smith (2004), p 43.

32 Rather than the pursuit of closure of satisfaction of a particular assumption. Smith & Osborn (2008).

33 Carter & Sealey (2007).

34 Olick & Robbins (1998).

35 Assmann (2011).

36 Reif-Hüsler (2012); Schwarz (2012).

37 McCormack (2011); Assmann & Shortt (2012); Moreton-Robinson (2015); Abazi & Doja (2018).

38 See eg Lake (2010); Daley (2018).

39 All interviewees names have been anonymised.

40 See also Wadham (2013).

41 Prabhat (2018), p 124. See also Sutherland (2017).

42 He recounts this conversation during the stages after coming out to his parents, and before marriage equality was legislated for in Australia.

43 At 53, John was the oldest participant interviewed, and was in his early 20s in the period when male homosexuality was decriminalised in New South Wales and remained criminalised in Queensland.

44 This sentiment is also touched upon by Shawn, who states that ‘we only got same sex marriage last year, um, well behind the rest of the Western World, shall we say.’

45 Smaal (2015). See also Riseman, Robinson, & Willett (2018) for a collection of stories which confront the official, political, and cultural silencing of the service of LGBT personnel in the Australian Defence Force.

46 Condé (2007), p 39, quoting Bean.

47 Lake & Damousi (1995).

48 Ford (1995), p 95. See Smaal & Willett (2015) and Riseman (2018) who suggest similar policies existed in WWII and the post-Vietnam era policy, respectively.

49 Riseman (2018), p 152. See also Smaal & Willett (2015).

50 See eg Butler (2009)

51 See eg Ojakangas (2003).

52 Riseman (2017).

53 Nicoll (2001).

54 Philadelphoff-Puren & Rush (2003).

55 Two participants in particular, Zackary and Shawn, mention growing up with only The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert as a reference for how homosexuals were characterised.

56 This is an insight shared by Clark, who suggests that ‘cutting each other, making those terrible, terrible remarks [ . . . ] was my upbringing on my father’s side.’

57 Connell & Messerschmidt (2005).

58 Damousi & Lake (1995). See also Thomson (1989); Lake (1992); Riseman (2018).

59 Shute (1995), p 27.

60 Wotherspoon (1995).

61 May (2011).

62 Bridges (2014). Tristan Bridges is, here, writing in the context of heterosexual men problematically co-opting ‘gay aesthetics’ as a means of dissociating themselves from the masculine stereotype. However, the notion of reliance on aesthetics ‘to identify the seeds of belonging’ (p 66) productively ties appearance, the satisfaction of social patterns and norms, and belonging together.

63 See eg Kazyak (2012).

64 Bollen, Kiernander, & Parr (2008).

65 Sumerau (2012).

66 Oliveira, Costa, & Nogueira (2013), p 1478.

67 Duggan (2002), p 179.

68 Duggan (2002), p 190.

69 Ammaturo (2014).

70 Podmore (2013), p 263.

71 Duggan (2002), p 189.

72 See, for instance, Aaron’s comments in relation to this:

they’ve had to do it slowly, because if they’d just gone, bang, there were gays, there would have been an absolute uproar and people, you know, and people would have been like, no, there were no gays, no, no, none, no, no, no, none.

73 Taylor & Wetherell (1999), p 45.

74 Riggs & Due (2013), p 102.

75 Riggs & Due (2013).

76 Ammaturo (2014), p 182.

77 Raboin (2017), p 674.

78 Petersen & Myong (2015).

79 See Mathers, Sumerau, & Cragun (2018).

80 Oliveira, Costa, & Nogueira (2013), p 1488.

81 Duggan (2002), p 189.

82 Davies (2005).

83 Christensen (2009), p 27.

84 Puar (2013), pp 23–24. Emphasis added.

85 Puar (2007). See also Schotten (2016) for an indication of how Puar’s thesis in relation to US sexual exceptionalism can be globalised.

86 Hamzić (2017), p 197.