ABSTRACT
To say that, from the beginning of the post 1945 migration programme, migrants’ experiences were subject to a degree of ideological overlay is nothing new. In attributing a central and initiatary role to governments in the process of ideological production as well as in emphasising assimilationism as an ideological product, Martin is by no means alone or at the extreme. It is the ‘migrantness’ of an individual which explains his or her position rather than any intrinsic dynamic of Australian capitalism. Migrantness-as-ideology is part of a constellation of structures which interpret social disadvantage as originating outside social being and accordingly having no remedy within it. Both at work and in relation to the doctors, this woman’s ‘migrantness’ is one element in a series of social situations which reduce her to an object and prevent her imposing on the situation her own sense of reality.
