Nested assemblages: migrants, war heritage, informal learning and national identities

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between Anzac heritage and Australian national identity, among migrant visitors to the Australian War Memorial (AWM). What meaning could a story derived from Australian involvement in the First World War have to migrants who moved to Australia after the Second World War? Participants in qualitative interviews were eleven first-generation Australians, whose countries of birth were England, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Scotland, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with parental countries of birth extending to Austria, Germany, India and Japan. Drawing on sociomaterial assemblage theory, the findings illustrate the concept of nested assemblages. At increasing scalar levels, the migrants form visitor-AWM assemblages, they may (or may not) feel part of a national Anzac heritage assemblage, and as migrants they are entangled in multiple national assemblages concurrently. Assemblages pertaining to family, faith, learning and memorialising were additional networks at play. Mapping interrelations amongst these assemblages showed migrants as actively gathering and interpreting heritage, sometimes as the enactment of national identity and at other times as the performance of informal, lifelong learning. The findings have importance to institutions seeking to be responsive to diverse and changing populations, particularly those wrestling with tensions around national identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociomaterial assemblage
• war museum
• national identity
• informal learning
• migrant
• Anzac

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project DP130101258). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Anzac is derived from the acronym ANZAC, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the WWI allied forces. ‘ANZAC’ is used in this paper where the text refers to the army corps themselves, and ‘Anzac’ is used as a descriptive term. However, when citing other sources, the original format has been retained.

2. The project was granted Institutional Human Research Ethics Approval by The University of Queensland.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP130101258].

Notes on contributors

Tiina Roppola

Tiina Roppola, conducted this research as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Canberra, Australia. Her research has focused on the transactional space between visitors and exhibition environments, and the nexus between the material and the discursive. Tiina is author of Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience (Routledge 2012). Currently, Tiina is a senior user experience researcher in a federal government department.

Jan Packer

Jan Packer, is a Research Fellow in the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. Jan’s research focuses on applying principles from educational, environmental and positive psychology to understand and improve visitor experiences at natural and cultural tourism attractions such as museums, zoos and aquariums, botanic gardens, national parks, ecotourism and wildlife tourism attractions.

David Uzzell

David Uzzell, is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey, UK. His research has been on the heritage of war and conflict, on collective memory and identity, the evaluation of the effectiveness of exhibitions, museums and interpretive facilities and services and their impact on attitudes and behaviours. His concept of ‘hot interpretation’ critically challenged the technological and cognitive emphases of museum displays.

Roy Ballantyne

Roy Ballantyne, is a Research Professor at the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. His research focuses on environmental education, environmental interpretation, free-choice environmental learning, wildlife tourism and ecotourism research. He is the joint author of Contemporary Issues in Heritage and Environmental Interpretation and Designing Effective Interpretive Signs and Exhibits: Principles in Practice and joint editor of the International Handbook on Ecotourism.