Abstract
This essay examines the limitations of Australian multiculturalism, particularly in relation to racially and culturally mixed families and subjectivities, in two Australian novels, The Lost Dog (2007) by Michelle de Kretser and The World Waiting to Be Made (1994) by Simone Lazaroo. Through an analysis of these novels, it examines the ways in which Australian multicultural sentiment reinforces race and racial divisions, and disallows multiracial and transcultural identities. It focuses on the sites of racial oppression and resistance that are portrayed in the novels, which explore emerging racial subjectivities in a globalized, post-colonizing world, and their intersections with more traditional liberal multicultural sensibilities. Through a reading of these novels, this essay critiques aspects of these sensibilities; however, rather than calling for an end to all forms of multiculturalism, it seeks to pursue what Australian anthropologist Ghassan Hage calls ‘a deeper commitment to a more far-reaching multiculturalism’ (White Nation 24).
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Dickens, L. (2015). The ‘Shattered Racialised Person’ and (Post)multiculturalism in Australia. In: Malreddy, P.K., Heidemann, B., Laursen, O.B., Wilson, J. (eds) Reworking Postcolonialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137435934_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137435934_6
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