Recognition And Belonging

Australia is a nation of immigrants, with a population of just over20million and ahistory of just over100years, whose location is remote, on one hand which belongs to theOrient geographically, on the other hand which belongs to the Occident culturally. Thereforepeculiar identity results in such an embarrassment—it is an “Other” figure in the Orient,while it still stays in cultural borderland in West. Being a typical nation of immigrants withembarrassing international status, Australia is predestined to quest culture identity internallyand position itself politically and economically externally.Post-colonialism, being a multicultural theory, is mainly applied to study therelationship of cultural words power between the suzerain and the former colonies, relating toracism, cultural imperialism, the national culture and cultural rights identity after colonialruling ends. Identity recognition or culture identity, is an important issue in post-colonialism,meaning the identity of a nation or a culture, or the identity of an individual, for one isinfluenced by one’s attributes to a nation or a culture. Identity recognition is defined as thedistinctive characteristics belonging to any individual or shared by all members of aparticular social category or group. Based on identity recognition theories, this thesis willinterpret the movie Australia, revealing Australian people’s pursuit of identity recognitionand the sense of belonging.Through molding three aboriginal characters who are painful, confused, struggling andtry to position themselves in marginalized society and finally gain self-positioningsatisfactorily, the movie Australia radically subverts the Westerners’ stubborn “Other” imagesuccessfully, dissolves the Western cultural hegemony and cultural imperialism, foregroundsAustralian people’s endeavor to pursue identity recognition internally and expand nationalrecognition externally. In the meantime, revealing diversified themes of equality,anti-violence, mystery of aboriginal culture, resistance of business monopoly, faith andsalvation, showing two motifs—root-seeking and three kinds of emotions: maternal love ofSarah to Nullah across race, cross-caste love between Sarah and Drover, understanding andhelping between Sarah and King George, the movie reflects the exertion to construct an equalharmonious diversified new Australia under the premise of pursuing multiculturalism andincarnates Australian people’s nisus to quest the sense of belonging internally and seekinternational recognition externally.The focus of this thesis is that in post-modern context when studying post-colonialism,we should extricate ourselves from for/against mode but for a deeper probe. As anintellectual in the Third World I try analyzing an Australian movie with Anglo-Americanliterary criticism to express my own fathom with a resisting and deconstructing attitude, which is the point of this thesis. The worth of this thesis lies in expanding the perspective ofresearching this movie, and to some extent attempting to expose the negative influence ofcolonial ruling in contemporary post-colonial reality so as to deconstruct Western powers andcreate an equal harmonious and diversified international community.