The rhetorical inducements of time: Constructing national identity in discourse surrounding Australia's Aboriginal issue

The presence of time in PM John Howard's opening address at the 1997 Reconciliation Convention of Australia invited questions of transcendence and state crafting as rhetorical construction. Literature from the critical/cultural and post-colonial traditions were applied to the media coverage of this event and to Howard's address specifically in an attempt to answer questions of national identity and audience construction. Focusing on the works of Stuart Hall, Michel Foucault, Victor Turner and Michael de Certeau the rhetorical use of time was studied through the constructs of representation, articulation, social drama and metis. The relationship between Australia and indigenous Aborigines was examined as the use of rhetoric was employed to enact power within the relationship, defining the Aborigine and performing an identity that provided for a role of subject for the Aborigine while invoking the role of the colony for Australia. This research found that Howard's use of time served to socially construct an ontological Australia that transcends time while concomitantly maintaining its dominance of the Aborigine.*; *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office.