SS1010: Australian People: Indigeneity & Multiculturalism: Reading with a purpose

The research question (in your subject outline) will tell you what the lecturer wants you to learn and write about. So here it is:

Research question:

In Always Another Country, Msimang writes about her attempts to fit in as a migrant in a range of different countries. What does it mean to fit in when one is coded as The Other due to the colour of their skin?

Consider what Msimang’s experiences tell us about ‘fitting in’ in Australia, even though only a few pages of her book are dedicated to living in this country. Consider the centrality of race within the Australian identity based on additional research, as well as the following article that you must reference

Kwansah-Aidoo, K. and Mapedzahama, V. (2018). Black bodies in/out of place? Afrocentric perspectives and/on racialised belonging in Australia. Australasian Review of African Studies, 39(2): 95-121.

So, let’s draw out some focus words from this question that will guide your reading and help you discover a theme in Msimang’s autobiography that you might want to write about.

At this point you don’t need to have all the answers, that is why you are going to do some reading, and if we read Msimang’s autobiography with these keywords in mind you will find these themes, I promise you.

Remember our teachers want us to succeed and they wrote the question to fit the book.

Here are some themes that I found in ‘Always Another Country’ that might be worth considering

• Freedom fighter—victory over adversity—revolutionary violence—self-assurance—breaking boundaries—overcoming—emancipation—resilience—protest—activism—confrontation—outrage—decolonisation—dissent—radical agency—negotiation—nation building—leadership
• Stateless—exile—dispossession—refugee—limbo—liminality—desperation—fear—isolation—voicelessness—migration—estrangement
• Home—belonging—justice—fitting in—solidarity—citizenship—security—stability—nostalgia—place & space—intergenerational renewal—pride—liberation—change—truth telling—bearing witness
• Standing out—looking different—out of place—cultural difference—outsider
• Othering—racism—essentialisation—xenophobia—hatred—complicity—silencing—making invisible— imprisonment—poverty—death—criminalisation of difference—segregation—apartied—brutality—oppression—militarisation—state violence—group think—tribalism—police profiling—state sanctioned rape, torture & murder
• Colonisation—similarities between settler colonial nations—white western patriarchy—20th century colonial violence—historical patterns—rituals of racism—symbology—corruption—structural violence—proxy war—power—hypocrisy
• Assimilation—survival—self-reliance—migration—refugee—not being noticed—resilience—change—adaption
• Intersectionality—stigma—sexism—racism—intermarriage—social class divide—caste system—poverty—privilege—socioeconomic rights
• Murder—rape—sexual assault—paedophilia—domestic violence—street violence—stalking—exploitation—bullying—trauma—victim shaming—crime

Keep in mind, you are an academic reading with a purpose, so you need to devise a way of recording the important passages in the book that you find. You don’t want to have to go back and read the whole thing again looking for that great example that you vaguely remembered reading.

I like to buy the book so that I can highlight passages and write my thoughts in the margins.

However there are a number of ways of doing this, what is important is that you record the sentences that matter, how they relate to your theme and what page they are on, if nothing else write down the important pages, you will thank me later.

Page from Always another country with notes and highlighting.

Now it is time for you to read the book, yes, the whole book. Context is important, plus your marker has read the book and will be able to tell when you’re making stuff up.  

Then it is time to select the topic that you wish to discuss in your essay.

Note: you will not have enough space to effectively write about all these themes, so it is a good idea to narrow your essay down to one of them and discus this in detail.

So how do you choose which one? Well a good way is to choose the topic that interests you the most.

You will have to do further research and that means more reading, and it is much easier to read about something that interests you. Also, it is worth considering the themes that caused you to feel a sense of injustice, anger, sadness, or hope whilst reading the text. If it caused you to feel this way, then it is likely that others have felt strongly about the same issue and have written about it in journal articles.