Michelle Barrett

This thesis interrogates the ambiguous and complex understandings surrounding the term ‘Eurasian’, which has emerged in Australia as a political, cultural and social reality from the neighbouring South and Southeast Asian region. Participants’ narratives of migration and identity were examined in order to gain insight into how this particular ‘mixed race’ identity is understood and negotiated in everyday life, and how migration processes which include recreating senses of ‘home’ and belonging, have impacted on these understandings.

South Africa celebrated its tenth anniversary as a democratic nation in 2004, marking a decade of freedom since the final dismantling of apartheid rule. Commonly referred to as the 'new' South Africa, this decade has seen the country engage in a radical process of transformation, a contested search for a new national identity and new models of identification for a culturally diverse society. The 1994 inauguration of Nelson Mandela as State President heralded the official beginning of this new order, and marked the beginning of a search for new commemorative projects to represent the new national ideals of freedom, unity in diversity, and reconciliation. This search inevitably looked back to South Africa's turbulent past as a source from which to derive meaning and base the new nation's identity. Memory has been selectively invoked through new commemorations and memorial projects to create a revisionist history and reinforce a sense of a shared national identity. ...

This chapter draws upon a larger study that examines the experiences of people in Australia who identify themselves as 'Eurasian'and how they negotiate this often ambiguous 'mixed'identity in everyday life. My focus is on people of mixed European and Asian ...