ABSTRACT
This essay stems from my interest in the formative space that both ethnic identity and Australian citizenship inhabits: a space that may be formally grounded by the policies of multiculturalism but ultimately is entangled in a confluence of more complicated social and cultural pressures. The problem is that, outside of material contexts, such a space is merely speculative. In reflecting upon the relationship between hybridity discourse and Chineseness, Allen Chun suggested that it is as important to understand why an identity is invoked as it is to understand from what identity is constituted. It is ‘the need to articulate the various contexts wherein facets of identity are deemed to be relevant’ (Chun 1996: 134). It is important, then, to consider how reliant identity performances are upon the material contexts that produce them. This essay represents a starting point for the analysis of the cultural junctures between ‘Asian’ and ‘Australian’ in relation to Australian political processes. Specifically, it attempts to qualitatively frame Asian Australian identity performances within the context of the parliamentary first speech. It is hoped that bringing the parliamentary first speech to the fore might encourage further consideration about how the politics of intentional hybridity (Lo 2000) are materially embodied and, perhaps, expand the ground rules in which politically-motivated cultural transformations are conceived.
