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Tasmanian `Asia Literacy'? Decentring National Approaches for ` Tasmanian `Asia literacy'? Decentring national approaches for `engaging' with Asia by Emily Rudling BA Hons College of Arts, Law and Education Discipline of Global Cultures & Languages Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania September 2019 Declaration of Originality This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright. Date: 18th September 2019 Signed: i Authority of Access This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying and communication in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. Date: 18th September 2019 Signed: ii Statement of Ethical conduct The research associated with this thesis abides by the international and Australian codes on human and animal experimentation, the guidelines by the Australian Government's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and the rulings of the Safety, Ethics and Insti- tutional Biosafety Committees of the University. Ethics Approval H0014919. Date: 18th September 2019 Signed: iii Acknowledgements This thesis is palimpsest: it represents a coming of age for someone dedicated to learning. I wish to give my utmost thanks and gratitude to those who supported my transformation `during thesis.' First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to my primary supervisor Dr Kaz Ross. You have supervised and shared with me this exhilarating adventure of academic and personal growth. I am forever thankful for your wisdom, guidance, mentorship, patience, and humour. To my co-supervisor, Dr Pamela Allen, thank you for your measured and thoughtful feed- back and for being ever the optimist when the going was tough. I am appreciative of the support during my candidacy from Dr. Tony Simoes de Silva, and Dr. Adam Russell. Thank you to Dr Kaz Ross, Morag Porteous, Sebastien Robin, and Dr. Graham Wood for the opportunities to tutor both online and face to face across all undergraduate levels throughout my candidature. I was humbled to be awarded an unsolicited, student nomi- nated Teaching Merit Certificate in 2015. It has been exciting to put these developing research skills into action. Thank you to the Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment where I have worked as a research assistant (2019{), the Brave Foundation (2019{), and the Migrant Resource Centre (2018). Thank you to Dr James Chin of the Asia Institute Tasmania for supporting me to undertake an internship with Musawah, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2014). Thanks also to Dr Jo Ingram who helped coordinate my internship and my application for an Asiabound scholarship. Thank you to UTAS for financially supporting me with an APA scholarship (2013{2016) and travel grants to present my research at the Asian Studies Association 2016 Conference in Canberra, and the New Zealand Asia 2015 Conference in Christchurch. The opportunities to engage with the community have been wonderful and grounding. I have enjoyed being a `monster guide' with the DarkMofo Ogoh Ogoh events 2014{2019, collaborating with DarkMofo, the Asia Institute, and the Peter Underwood Centre Chil- dren's University to engage government school students with a facet of Balinese culture (2019). I have relished in opportunities for community outreach: high school talks (2015, 2016), competing in the Three Minute Thesis competition (2015, 2016, 2017), presenting to the Royal Society of Tasmania (2016), and on ABC local radio (2015, 2018). Mum and Dad, what a journey. You're the best. I am ever grateful to your support which you have given in every which way. To Deano, and to all my friends; I am immensely thankful for your insistence to go play in the sunshine, the ocean, the mountains, and on the sea-cliffs. Let the next adventure begin. iv Abstract After more than 60 policy reports published since the 1950s, a national approach to fostering Australian engagement in Asia has emerged, with the concept of Asia literacy at its core. First coined in 1988, Asia literacy can be broadly defined as the formal learning of Asian languages and cultures, politics, and economics in order to enhance Australian capabilities for engaging with the Asian region. Economic utility is the guiding principle of Asia literacy. The most recent representation of this is the Ken Henry Report (2012) federal white paper, consolidating previous recommendations into a national strategy. Designed to be implemented through compulsory education, Asia literacy is intended as a solution to perceived disengagement from Asia as well as a fear of Asia. These national approaches to Asia literacy are underpinned by the Australian Federation story of nation- building and identity in which racist discourses that positioned people from Asia as a threatening other were dominant. Michel Foucault and Stephen J. Ball are valuable to inquiring into the discourses operating behind Asia literacy, to indicate that Asia literacy recommendations carry discourses about behaviour, attitudes and values. However, despite lofty aims, the project of implementing Asia literacy has foundered due to the concept itself being seriously flawed. Australian Asian Studies scholar M. Garbutcheon Singh argues that Australian Asia literacy programs are Orientalist and distance Asia from daily life. Until recently, policy recommendations for developing Asia literacy have not considered the needs of intranational regional areas of Australia such as Tasmania. In 2013, the Tasmanian Government released the first state white paper on engaging with Asia. Taking a critical policy studies approach to the policy data, Carol Bacchi offers a method for interrogating policy solutions as problem representations. The policy discourse of Asia literacy suggests that it is produced uniformly throughout Australia thus disadvantaging intranational regional areas of Australia. Tasmania is a lens through which to decentre this national approach to Asia literacy and to examine the flaws implicit to the concept of Asia literacy. This is the first inquiry into Asia literacy in an intranational regional area of Australia. It uses original qualitative and quantitative data to explore the affective dimension of `Asia literacy' based on attitudes and values, and the lived experience; not only on the skills acquired through formal education. Using Tasmania as a case study, this thesis demonstrates that when an intranational regional area context is considered, the national model is ineffective and incomplete. Yet instead of designating these apparently deficient areas as Asia `illiterate,' a more nuanced understanding reveals that Asia engagement frequently occurs outside of the classroom and at the level of everyday life. The affective dimension of Asia literacy is a place-based critique of the national approach. It attempts to, as Julia Kristeva notes, turn \we" into a problem for interrogation to recognise the Asia within. v Contents Declaration of Originality . .i Authority of Access . ii Statement of Ethical conduct . iii Acknowledgements . iv Abstract . .v Policy data: Asia literacy policy recommendations xii 1 Introduction and literature review 1 Introduction . .1 Why feelings about Asia matter . .6 Literature review . .9 Asia literacy is instrumentalised for national economic goals . .9 Asia literacy distances Asia from Australia . 14 Introducing the Asia literacy policy data . 18 Research gap 1: Asia literacy in an intranational regional area of Australia . 28 Research gap 2: the affective dimension of Asia literacy . 33 Research questions, design, and methods . 37 Measuring attitudes and values (2015 survey and interviews) . 40 Exploring a relationship between consumer identity and the affective di- mension of Asia literacy (2016 survey) . 41 Structure of thesis . 45 2 Methodology 52 Introduction . 52 Overarching philosophy of this research project . 54 Conceptualising a relationship between Asia literacy policy discourses and feelings . 59 Introducing critical policy studies . 61 Reading policy as a discourse: Ball's theory . 62 Application of policy as discourse: Bacchi's What's the Problem Repre- sented to Be? . 65 Part Two: Data Collection . 67 vi Introducing the mixed methods approach . 67 Introducing the surveys . 70 Survey 1 | Tasmanian Attitudes and Values towards `Engaging with Asia' (2015) . 70 Survey 2 | Everyday Asia Literacy in Tasmania (2016) . 72 Recruitment of survey participants . 74 Demographic indicators of respondents to the two surveys . 74 Introducing the Interviewees . 75 Comparison of the two datasets . 78 Summary . 79 3 Theoretical framework 81 Introduction . 81 An interdisciplinary approach . 84 Orientalism in Australian Asia literacy programs . 85 Introducing the theory of Orientalism . 88 Reading space in Asia literacy programs . 91 Beyond Tasmanian Asia literacy: questioning national and global Asia literacies . 94 Island studies: decentring the mainland view of Tasmanian Asia literacy . 96 Reconnecting Tasmania with Asia: archipelagos . 99 Bringing Asia into the everyday: the informal, affective dimension of Asia literacy100 Introducing the discipline of intercultural competence education . 103 Exploring a relationship between the consumption of products and identity 105 Summary . 109 4 National approaches
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