National identities and war heritage: acceptance and resistance of an authorised heritage discourse among visitors to the Australian War Memorial

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the convergence of national identities and war heritage, among first-, second- and third-plus-generation Australians. In Australia, interpretation of a First World War event, the Anzac story, is promoted as war heritage central to national identity. What meaning might this discourse have in today’s multicultural Australia? Qualitative interviews were conducted with 93 adult visitors to the Australian War Memorial, 37 of whom had recent migrant backgrounds from 20 countries of origin. The analysis applied ‘authorised heritage discourse’ (AHD) as a theoretical framework. Visitors displayed three different orientations to an AHD that merged war heritage with national identity. The dominant group positively aligned with the war heritage/national identity AHD. In this group, national identity is reinforced by those qualities typically ascribed as being forged out of the ANZAC’s experience. Those consciously aligned critique the mythological status of the Anzac legacy yet embrace it as important for national identities. Those resisting the war heritage/national identity AHD disrupt the often-assumed links between history, heritage and identities. These three orientations appear to be independent of the participants’ country of birth or cultural background, showing the constructed nature of heritage and fluidity of national identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Authorised heritage discourse
• national identity
• war heritage
• Anzac
• multicultural inclusion

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. We would like to thank the Australian War Memorial and the visitors who generously gave their time to participate in this research.

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. While some attention to gender emerges from our data analysis, this study focuses on the multicultural negotiation of the Anzac story.

3. The larger project extended over three years and six different sites. Further quantitative and qualitative data have been collected to explore the role of the Anzac story in museum and heritage interpretive experiences in developing visitors’ sense of national identity. Findings will be presented in additional publications (see, for example, Packer, Ballantyne, and Uzzell 2019). The project was granted Institutional Human Research Ethics Approval by The University of Queensland.

4. From 1901, the ‘White Australia policy’ was enacted through the Immigration Restriction Act, which limited non-British migration to Australia. After the Second World War it was recognised that the policy was impeding population growth, and refugees and migrants were accepted from continental Europe in selective ways. The ‘White Australia policy’ was dismantled from the 1960s, and completely eliminated in the 1970s, replaced by inclusive policies such as the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975 (‘White Australia policy begins’, National Museum of Australia website, 5 August 2018).

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 at the Faculty of Education, University of Canberra, Australia. Tiina is author of Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience (Routledge 2012). This book examines the transactional space between visitors and exhibition environments, and the material realisation of discourse, as essential foundations for exhibition design. Currently, Tiina is a senior user experience researcher in a federal government department.

David Uzzell

David Uzzell is Professor Emeritus 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.

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.

Roy Ballantyne

Roy Ballantyne is Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. His research has focused 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.