Re-imagining the world: Australians’ engagement with postnationalism, or Why the nation is the problem

Abstract

Academic debate around the need for global cooperation, the anachronism of national borders, and the necessity of nurturing a cosmopolitan ethic of care for all, has strengthened over the last two decades, but it is unclear the extent to which the general population has embraced such ideas. This article explores Australians’ perspectives using data from a series of projects investigating whether Australians are moving beyond national to postnational orientations and cosmopolitan identifications. Quantitative data demonstrates robust nationalism, although elements of a postnational outlook are also evident. Discursive analyses similarly suggest that while compassion towards others and openness to difference do exist, the ideology of the nation-state remains strong, with postnational formations seen as impractical, and perceptions of the rights of others limited by nationalist thinking. The best characterisation of the Australian orientation is that of multicultural nationalism, an approach that celebrates internal diversity within limits, but remains hostile to postnational material formations and global cosmopolitan ideological formations.

Moral cosmopolitanism, civic action and ethical consumption: Social differences in young Australians’ global citizenship

“…In the Australian context, there is thus a marked cultural component to youth GC. These results are compatible with the ‘multicultural nationalism’ that Fozdar (2021) considers central to the dominant Australian civic identity.…”

“…Cosmopolitan identity is one of several resources or levels of political identification in Australia, but generally not the most prominent one (Moran, 2021; Phillips, 2002; Skrbis and Woodward, 2007). It is not necessarily constructed in opposition to national identity (Beasley et al, 2010) and coexists with forms of ‘robust nationalism’ (Fozdar, 2021). Survey research shows that cosmopolitan identity is shaped by Australians’ social conditions of existence and structural conjunctures (Woodward et al, 2008).…”

“…For young people in affluent countries, including Australia, the structural transformations of global capitalism since the 1980s have manifested in prolonged socialisation in formal education institutions coupled with increasing precarity, reinforced intergenerational inequalities, marginalisation and new transition dilemmas (Bessant et al, 2017;Green, 2017). In this context, institutional (including educational) projects promoting GC as the antidote to larger social ills, including the perceived lack of youth political participation, have been received critically (Farrugia, 2018).…”