Abstract
This chapter takes pause to reflect on what is meant by race and ethnicity and asks: How do historical meanings and discourses about race and ethnicity shape the present? And by extension, where and when did the idea of race and ethnicity emerge, and with what effects? It is vital to interrogate terms and how we use them because constructions of race and ethnicity are intimacy connected to history and power – as long argued by postcolonial and critical race scholars, the social constructions of race and ethnicity are intimately connected to colonial and orientalist discourses which “fixed” and homogenized the cultures of “others.” As such, contemporary studies of race and ethnicity are haunted by “colonial ghosts” which orientate how we understand the present. As a way to explore these colonial ghosts, this chapter draws on current research about gender, sexuality, and race in Australia which have international relevance for the ways in which “raced others” negotiate sexuality in contexts of migration. In the first part of the chapter, I explore the connections between colonial discourses and constructions of sexuality. I then unpack two case studies which provide a fascinating set of reflections from participants about the ubiquitous presence of colonial ghosts in their everyday lives. Most importantly, they provide a powerful set of reflections and responses from those cast as “other” in Australia, responses which work to “unfix” colonial alterities.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Lughod L (2015) Do Muslim women need saving? Harvard University Press, London
Adichie CN (2009) The Danger of a single story. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en. Accessed 14 Dec 2015
Ahmed S (2006) Queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. Duke University Press, Durham
Ashcroft B, Griffiths G, Tiffin H (1998) Key concepts in post-colonial studies. Routldge, London
Ashcroft B, Griffiths G, Tiffin H (eds) (2006) The post-colonial studies reader. Routledge, London
Bhabha H (1994) Locations of culture. Routledge, London
Budarick J (2018) Why the media are to blame for racialising Melbourne’s ‘African gang’ problem. The Conversation. August 1. Accessed 8 October. https://theconversation.com/why-the-media-are-to-blame-for-racialising-melbournes-african-gang-problem-100761
Crais C, Scully P (2009) Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: a ghost story and a biography. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Creese G (2014) Gender, generation and identities in Vancouver’s African diaspora. Afr Diaspora 6(2):155–178
Dean J, Mitchell M, Stewart D, Debattista J (2017) Intergenerational variation in sexual health attitudes and beliefs among Sudanese refugee communities in Australia. Cult Health Sex 19(1):17–31
Escobar A (1995) Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Fanon F ([1968]1970) Black skins/White masks. Paladin, Frogmore
Foner N, Dreby J (2011) Relations between the generations in immigrants’ families. Annu Rev Sociol 37:545–564
Frankenburg R (1993) White women, race matters: the social construction of whiteness. Routledge, London
Hage G (2012) White nation: fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society. Routledge, London
Haggis J, Mulholland M (2014) Rethinking difference and sex education: from cultural inclusivity to normative diversity. Sex Education 14(1):57–66
Hall S (1992) The West and the rest: discourse and power. In: Hall S, Gieben B (eds) Formations of modernity. Polity Press and The Open University, Cambridge, pp 184–227
Hall S (1997) Representation: cultural representation and signifying practices. London: Sage
Hall S (2001) The spectacle of the other. In: Wetherall M, Taykor S, Yates S (eds) Discourse theory and practice: a reader. Sage, London, pp 324–344
Haraway D (1988) Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Fem Stud 14(3):575–599
Hollingsworth D (2006) The construction of Australian racism 1770–1920. In: Hollinsworth D (ed) Race and racism in Australia, 3rd edn. Thomson/Social Science Press, South Melbourne, pp 66–104
Hussein S (2009) Looking in or looking out? Stories on the multiple meanings of veiling. In: Dreher T, Ho L (eds) Beyond the hijab debates: new beyond the hijab debates: new conversations on gender, race and religion. Newcastle, Cambridge
Imtoual A (2009) ‘Taking things personally’: young Muslim women in South Australia discuss identity, religious racism and media representations. PhD thesis, University of Adelaide
Konishi S (2011) Representing aboriginal masculinity in Howard’s Australia. In: Jackson RL, Balaji M (eds) Global masculinities and manhood. University of Urbana, Illinois Press, Urbana, pp 161–185
Levine P (2008) States of undress: nakedness and the colonial imagination. Vic Stud 50(2):189–219
Lewis R (2004) Rethinking orientalism: women, travel and the ottoman harem. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick
Magdalena Tascón S (2008) Narratives of race and nation: everyday whiteness in Australia. Soc Identities 14(2):253–274
McClintock A (1995) Imperial leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest. Routledge, New York
McConnochie K, Hollinsworth D, Pettman J (1988) The meaning of ‘race’. In: McConnochie K, Hollinsworth D, Pettman J (eds) Race and racism in Australia. Social Science Press, Wentworth Falls, pp 3–18
Miller-Young M (2014) A taste for brown sugar: black women, sex work and pornography. Duke University Press, London
Mohanty C (1988) Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Fem Rev 30:61–88
Moreton-Robinson A (2000) Talkin’ up to the white woman: aboriginal women and feminism. St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press
Mulholland, M (1998) Deconstructing development education: the politics of representation and Western activisim. Honors Doctoral dissertation, Flinders University of South Australia
Mulholland M (2017b) ‘When difference gets in the way’: young people, whiteness and sexualisation. Sex Cult 21(2):593–612
Mulholland M (2018) “Western sexy?”: the West, the rest and sexualised media. Fem Media Stud 18(6):1102–1116
Narayan U (1997) Death by culture’: thinking about dowry-murders in India and domestic-violence murders in the United States. In: Narayan U (ed) Dislocating cultures: identities, traditions and Third World feminisms. Taylor & Francis, London
Nash J (2014) The black body in ecstasy: reading race, reading pornography. Duke University Press, Durham
Nolan D, Farquharson K, Politoff V, Marjoribanks T (2011) Mediated multiculturalism: newspaper representations of Sudanese migrants in Australia. J Intercult Stud 32(6):655–671
Ong A (1999) Flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality. Duke University Press, Durham
Peltola M, Keskinen S, Honkasalo V, Honkatukia P (2017) Intergenerational negotiations on (hetero) sexuality and romantic relationships–views of young people and parents in multi-ethnic contexts. J Youth Stud 20(5):533–548
Ponzanesi S (2005) Beyond the black Venus: colonial sexual politics and contemporary visual practices In: Amkpa A and Toscano EM (eds) ReSignification – European Blackamoors, Africana Readings. Postcart, Rome, pp 137–147
Razack S (2007) Casting out: the eviction of Muslims from Western law and politics. University of Toronto Press, London
Reynolds H (1987) Frontier: aborigines, settlers and land. Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Limited, Sydney
Said E ([1978]1995) Orientalism. Penguin, London
Schech S, Haggis J (2000) Culture and Development. Oxford: Blackwell
Skeggs B (1997) Formations of class and gender: becoming respectable. Sage, London
Spurr D (1993) The rhetoric of empire: colonial discourse in journalism, travel writing, and imperial administration. Duke University Press, Durham
Stoler A (1995) Race and the education of desire. Duke University Press, Durham
Stoler A (2016) Duress. Duke University Press, Durham
Zambelli E (2018) Between a curse and a resource: the meanings of women’s racialised sexuality in contemporary Italy. Mod Italy 23(2):159–172
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mulholland, M. (2019). Race and Sexuality: Colonial Ghosts and Contemporary Orientalisms. In: Ratuva, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_59
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_59
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-2897-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-2898-5
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences