Metaphors of Migration A critical discourse analysis of the intersections between immigration, race and the nation in Australian press reports (1854–2018) Catherine Ann Martin BA (Hons), Goldsmiths College MA, School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Western Australia School of Social Sciences Anthropology and Sociology 2020 Thesis Declaration I, Catherine Ann Martin, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in this degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. In the future, no part of this thesis will be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text and, where relevant, in the Authorship Declaration that follows. This thesis does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. This thesis contains only sole-authored work, some of which has been published and/or prepared for publication under sole authorship. Signature: Date: 16th October 2020 iii Abstract This thesis argues that certain metaphoric tropes of racial Otherness have persistently been used to racialise immigrants as essentially exterior and threatening to the nation. Furthermore, that this construction of immigrant Otherness is, and historically has been, foundational to ethno-nationalist discourses of Australian national identity. Whether as invasions, floods or swarms, the metaphoric construction of racialised immigrant out- groups has consistently been utilized to naturalise and legitimate an Anglo-white national in-group. To understand these processes of deviant racial Other and national racial Self formation, this thesis offers a diachronic study of metaphors used within the Australian press (1854 to 2018) to frame immigration to Australia, focusing on the press as a key discursive mechanism for the construction of national attitudes and identity. Recognising metaphor as underpinning how perceptions of the world are shaped (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), and drawing on over 12,000 instances of metaphor in over 3000 press reports, from 3 major daily newspapers, the thesis takes a Critical Discourse Analysis approach to qualitatively examine the metaphors used to construct both immigrants and the nation. The scale of the research, encompassing substantial social, economic and political changes, necessitated a historically specific focus to the analysis. During the Pre- Federation period (1854-1900), the intersections between the arrival of Chinese immigrants and settler colonial discourses of belonging (Wolfe, 2006, 2013), and the development of racialised categorisations are examined. I argue that the construction of racial difference through the displacement of deviance from marginal whites onto Chinese immigrants was foundational to the archetypal egalitarian white Australian national ideal and its corollary, the non-white immigrant Other. Analysis of the White Australia period (1901-1971) utilises Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic violence v (Bourdieu, 1990, 1991) within the context of emergent discourses of whiteness. I examine how Anglo-centred ethno-nationalist understandings of national belonging were (re)created through metaphors which constructed deviant immigrant out-groups antithetically to a normative white national in-group. Examination of the Multicultural Australia period (1972-2018) focuses on the resurgence of metaphors structuring racial otherness in the construction of immigration, combining Bourdieu’s concept of habitus with Hage’s framing of whiteness as a field of national power. I explore how certain persistent metaphors (re)produce a habitus that recognises the centrality of whiteness to the Australian national Self, thereby rendering non-white Australians peripheral within the national imaginary. The thesis demonstrates the remarkable consistency over the last 165 years in the ways groups of immigrants have been racialised through metaphor. This consistency illustrates how the use of specific negatively structured metaphors creates inter-textual links with preceding discourses of immigrant inferiority, threat and deviance, texturing a racialised logic of equivalence between groups framed as ‘undesirable’. Furthermore, it demonstrates that negative immigration metaphors function alongside metaphors that construct the nation to frame ethno-nationalist discourses of belonging, with the immigrant invasion of the Australian national house continuing to resonate into the present. Together these metaphors help to structure narratives about immigrant Others and the Australian national Self. The ongoing salience of such metaphors underscores the crucial need to understand how these tools produce and reproduce exclusionary ethno- nationalist narratives of Australian identity which continue to permeate contemporary public discourse. vi Table of Contents THESIS DECLARATION ......................................................................................................................................... III ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................... V TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................................... VII LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................................... IX LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................................... XI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................................................... XIII AUTHORSHIP DECLARATION ............................................................................................................................ XV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................................. XVII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 1 BACKGROUND TO STUDY .............................................................................................................. 4 PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANCE ...................................................................................................... 11 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................................ 13 APPROACH TO RESEARCH ........................................................................................................... 14 THESIS OVERVIEW ...................................................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ................................................................................................... 19 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 19 RACIAL DISCOURSE .................................................................................................................... 19 IMMIGRATION ............................................................................................................................. 35 THE MEDIA ................................................................................................................................. 50 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 61 CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .............................................................................................. 63 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 63 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH ................................................................................................... 64 APPROACHES TO RESEARCH ........................................................................................................ 67 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ......................................................................................................... 72 DISCOURSE, IDEOLOGY AND POWER .......................................................................................... 85 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 95 CHAPTER 4 DATA AND METHODS ................................................................................................................ 97 INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................