Transcript On Being Italian, Canadian and Global

On Being Italian, Canadian
and Global
Knowledge, power and the
implications of digitization for
ethnographic practice
Ethnographic practice


‘Knowledge, however interesting, can never
be disinterested’ (Acciaioli, 1981, p. 23).
Participant observation is the central and
innovative method of anthropology. It
provides the research with grounded close
observation of individual and collective
social action within a cultural context.
Multicultural Canada





Digital democratisation
Globalisation
Circulation (multiculturalisms) and local
productions - nationalisms
Knowledge/power - abundant, tacit, elided, and
secret
Objects of Knowledge? Community, nation, data
Mark Poster - What’s the Matter
With the Internet (2001)


Internet is ‘underdetermined’ because it doesn’t
direct users into clear paths and encourages ‘social
construction and cultural creation… it remains an
invitation to a new imaginary.’
The internet is transgressive because it enables
instantaneous many to many communications,
dislocates communication from the space of the
nation
The Global Gathering Place and
Inspector Relic




The Multicultural History
Society of Ontario
Schools, culture and
history
Globalisation - locally
produced
The Lucky Immigrant
Networks and Linkages
Boundaries and Borders
Sophia Loren
Narratives of seeing
Workers of the World
Civic incorporation



Citizenship
Agency and
bureaucracy/
government policy
Knowledge silences
Italian Lives in Western Australia
A cultural history and archives of migrants
and migration
ARC Linkage Project
Project Website
www.italianlives.arts.uwa.edu.au
Italo-Australian Welfare and Cultural Centre
JS Battye Library
Western Australian Museum
Office of Multicultural Interests
Cassamarca Foundation
Project Aims:
To produce a comprehensive historical study of Italian migrants and
migration in Western Australia.
•the need for migration and impact of government attempts to control
migration flows;
•the merits of multiculturalism as a government policy to ‘manage’
difference;
•the challenge to traditional concepts of nationhood posed by transnational
migration networks
•the ageing migrant community and its needs.
Community Engagement
• Project Launch (November 2004)
• Media Campaign (Italian & English) Ongoing
Naples, Italy and underground
economies
Creative ‘immigrant’
economies
Technologies of migration
Surveillance and Digital
Controls