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Once-a-Semester Newsletter for the Murdoch community to discuss culture and diversity

Diversity Matters

@ Murdoch

SEMESTER 1 2010

Under the Microscope:Engage Beyond Language

Knotty Knots - Globalisation, Democracy, Culture

Exchange Experience

Hand in Hand? - Science and Culture

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Introduction

1 Diversity Matters @ Murdoch Semester 1 2010

Exchange ExperienceOn the experience of a Murdoch exchange student in Hong Kong

This is to share my observation

on student induction in the CityUniversity o Hong Kong (CityU).

I attended the University as an ExchangeStudent.

CityU has some great programmes orinternational/exchange students.

Namely, a Welcoming Party withinternational and local students. All wereencouraged to exchange what it is to be‘Australian,’ ‘Canadian,’ ‘Chinese’ etc. Thisallowed us to be open to dierences o

customs and views o other students. Itwas also designed to take us through whatcustoms exist in Hong Kong – local culture,laws, oods, transport etc. by guest lecturerssuch as a Hong Kong police representative,sporting and university club reps. We wereinormed o extra-curricular activities –sporting/travel/photography clubs.

We were each given a buddy (a studentvolunteer) who helped us nd our wayaround our new city, get used to the publictransport system, organise things likestudent cards, gym cards, public transport

cards and nd local amenities.

Also, an individual (an international PhDstudent) was paid by the university to

organise events or international students

that related to local pastimes and activities.These events included locals who introduced/explained the activity and took part in itwith us.

These are just a ew o the plethora o thingsthat CityU had to assist students to settle inand integrate.

I would unreservedly recommend theutterly amazing experience I have had inHong Kong. Anyone who has been on anexchange or studied abroad would knowrsthand the personal diculties aced

when adapting to a new environment –the physical distance rom close riendsand amily, language barriers, dierencein climate, oods, customs, standards ohygiene …

I asked some Hong Kong students onexchange in Australia about similar levelo attention and assistance while studyingin Australia. Whilst they still had a greattime studying in Australia, their level ointegration and intercultural exchange waslimited. Some may argue that i international/exchange students wish to integrate, they

should have to be the ones to work at it.But, I believe that such an argument ails torecognise the major obstacles internationalstudents ace just trying to adapt to their newenvironment and study.

Study-abroad students have a wealth o

knowledge and experience to be shared withoutbound exchange students, local studentsand Murdoch as an institution. The returningstudents can contribute in a dynamic way toMurdoch to urther enhance internationalstudents’ experience, here.

JoelMurdoch Graduate

Geraldine BoxManager, Equity, Health & Counselling, Murdoch University

2010 has commenced and let us all with no doubt that we are occupants o a turbulent and dynamic world.Many o you will have made new year resolutions, to undertake more exercise, study more diligently andparticipate more actively in your local communities. Yet at the same time we hear o the serious res and foodsin this country and then o the catastrophic earthquake in distant Haiti, and wonder how to respond!

These scenarios oer considerable challenge to that idiom “Think globally, Act locally”.

The contributors to this semester’s Diversity Matters, demonstrate that we need to take both a long and a closeview o our shared communities near and ar. How else can we gain insight into the experiences o studentswho come rom abroad to live and study with us; what elements o dierent lived histories would contributeto improving our understanding o political, cultural and religious activities o all peoples in an expandingglobal economy?

We make the assumption in Australia that we are a multicultural nation, but have ailed to ensurethat our culturally diverse populations are included in the representation o that national identity .Waleed Aly, writing in The Monthly last year identied this as a lack o the construction in Australia o“civic ideals and an ethos o participation”. Aly noted that Australia was more likely to demand thatmigrants to its shores “t in”. (Aly, Waleed, (2009), ‘Patriot Acts’ The Monthly , June, 8)

This semester’s Diversity Matters shows how Murdoch’s students and sta avoid the temptation o“tting in” and instead take up the challenge o “participating” thus ensuring they are contributingknowledge, thoughts and ideas which are open and unxed.

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The knotty knot of Democracy and CultureCaroline HughesAssociate Professor

Politics and International Studies

Murdoch University

Studying democracy and culturecan be dicult. Both theconcepts are notoriously trickyto dene. We all know thatdemocracy comes rom the Greekor ‘people power’: but whatdoes that consist o, actually,given that most people have nodesire or opportunity to spendtheir days in or around parliamentdebating political issues?

In a classic article published in 1956,and still much-cited today, W.B.Gallie categorised ‘democracy’ as an‘essentially-contested concept.’1 Thisis a concept bound up with all kindso moral positions. Consequently,dierent individuals, with dierent moraloutlooks, will nd it impossible to agreeon what democracy ought to containor deliver. A social democrat mightemphasise power over the distributiono wealth in society; a liberal democratwould emphasise the power to control

potentially tyrannous states which desireto impose heavy taxes. They are unlikelyto reach agreement rom these twoincompatible positions.Consequently, culture might makea big dierence to the approach togovernment taken by dierent countriesin the world. This has certainly beena claim made by leaders in Asia,2 prompting analysts o Asian politics tocome up with the concept o ‘Asian-styledemocracy.’3 In the 1990s, especially,a number o governments in Asia thatwere dominated by single parties and

which circumscribed reedom o speechor association, argued that this refectedEast Asian cultural norms o hierarchy,deerence and respect.

Culture is also a dicult concept. Theamous philosopher Raymond Williamsonce described culture “as one o thetwo or three most complicated wordsin the English language.”4 Culturaldierence is immediately identiable,whenever one steps o a plane in a newcountry; but it is dicult to accurately

pin down without reducing it to anabsurd stereotype that actually ts noone. I’ve been in Australia or over ayear now, and I haven’t seen a singleperson wearing a hat hung with corks.

Every society has its culture; but is thatculture best described with reerence tohigh culture or popular culture? Howdo we deal with subcultures, minoritycultures, working class culture or youthculture? As soon as you begin tosubdivide society, you fnd thatculture subdivides along with it.

In the discipline o anthropology, overthe past ew decades, analysts haveshited rom a paradigm in the rsthal o the 20th century o viewingculture as essentially discrete, static and

internally consistent, within a society,to understanding it as hybrid, mobile,open to outside infuence and internallycontested. Understood in this way, theclaim by East Asian leaders that theirculture values strong leadership overindividual reedoms ceases to oerthe legitimacy they desire. I culture iscontested then this means that power-holders can use their power to promotetheir preerred vision o the nationalculture over contending visions, in anauthoritarian or undemocratic way. Andthat takes us back to square one when

considering the relationship betweenculture and democracy.

Asian leaders are not the only leadersto succumb to the temptation otrying to use ideas about culture tomobilize support behind essentiallypolitical decisions. The politics oauthenticity is infuential in all

countries, and is arguably on the rise.Personality politics rests upon theability o leaders to claim a particularcultural identity or set o personalvalues, as opposed to an ideologicalposition or policy platorm. In anincreasingly neo-liberal world, asparties move closer together interms o ideology, we can expectto see more o the use and abuseo ideas about culture in politicalcampaigning. There is a danger thatthis may make it dicult or ‘thepeople’. However, we dene them

to exercise democratic power in thecontext o pressing problems such asclimate change and global poverty.

1 W.B. Gallie, “Essentially ContestedConcepts,” Proceedings o the AristotelianSociety 56 (1956): 167-198.

2 See, or example, Lee Kwan Yew, “IsDemocracy Necessary?” The Weekend Australian 24-25 April 1993, 20.

3 See, or example, Clark Neher, “AsianStyle Democracy,” Asian Survey , 34.22(1994): 949-961.

4 Raymond Williams, Keywords, (London:

Fontana, 1988), 87.

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Under the Microscope

ENGAGE BEYOND LANGUAGEForeign language and the perceptions around language communication

There is a tendency to think o languageas just words but they represent somuch more. The discussion opened withthe ollowing questions posed: Does thestudy/knowledge o oreign languagesoster better understanding o peoplewith dierent cultural backgrounds?

Perhaps the most poignant commentscame rom an international studentwho stated, “I haven’t understood

Australian people. Not only me, butother international students. It’s noteasy to get along with Australians. I dida small survey and ound the majorityo international students (approximately70%) didn’t have interactions withAustralian students. It can be seen atlunch in the reectory and concerns mebecause International students come tostudy not just language and education,but culture as well. Language is abarrier, expecially colloquial language”.A Domestic student who previously

attended university in Canberra statedthat there was a big divide betweenInternational students and Domesticstudents. One way to bridge that dividehe suggested, would be to learn a

oreign language. He went to Indonesia,to learn the language and “experiencethings rom the other side”, comingback with a “better understanding andrespect. Learning Indonesian enabledme to gain cultural insights o thedynamics in a culture”.

Language is not merely a tool ocommunication, however, and canstill render one inadequate in an

unamiliar culture. One Internationalstudent’s experience in the UnitedStates was along these lines. Althoughfuent in English the student oundhersel preerring to ‘hang out’ withother International students instead oDomestic students. Language was notthe barrier, but cultural ‘norms’. Thedesire to be with others who “had themotivation to understand each otherand what they had gone through tocome here” was stronger.

Another Australian student who wentto Japan, ound themsel mixing withother International students who spokeboth Japanese and English. Theyacknowledged that “people who can

Murdoch University Psychology student, Wendy, elaborates upon a discussion withpeer students and sta.

Most students would agree that coming to university or the rst time is both an exciting and equallydaunting experience. Caught up in my own experience o adjusting to campus lie as a mature age studentwith amily responsibilities, I am almost embarrassed to admit that I adopted a lot o the stereotypedimpressions o International students. Having been given the opportunity to be part o a discussion groupmade up o a mix o Domestic students and International students, the topic o oreign languages and theperceptions around language communication, let me quite humbled and a lot more enlightened on the

personal experiences and challenges acing our ellow students rom overseas.

really use the language can eel the easeo tting in culturally though there isa time actor involved in learning theinormal language ie. colloquialism”.Sovic (2009), ound that “Internationalstudents need time to adapt to dierentaccents, acronyms, slang, and the speedo conversations, and they oten eelthat home students lack goodwill andpatience” (p. 755). It was agreed in thegroup that it probably takes one to twogenerations or this to occur.

So i our exposure to language started earlier ie. in primary school - would it help? A Domestic student rom country WAresponded that “learning Indonesian as alanguage in primary school helped me toalso learn the culture, even though manyo my peers did not continue with thelanguage. We did however gain a generalunderstanding o other cultures eventhough we lived in a small country town”.

Do you agree that a lack in the ability to communicate well in a language isoten interpreted as a lack in intellect/ decision making/knowledge/awareness?One International student stated that,

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“because I look dierent it is assumedthat I can’t speak English. I have elttotally misunderstood and peoplehave elt the need to ‘help’ me. Sodue to appearance, then language, ie.poor English, it was assumed I wasincapable”. Another example was giveno an International student who raiseda good point in a class but expressedthemsel poorly due to paucity olanguage and was treated dismissively,only to have a Domestic student makethe same point more succinctly and beacknowledged or it.

An International student in thediscussion oered that “language is onlythe rst key to express ideas. Ater Iknow English and more about Australianpeople, I need to know more abouttheir habits. How do you make riendswith Australians? I eel Australiansput up a barrier. International peoplewould extend hospitality to others ie.

guests, but Australians don’t do thatwith International people”. AnotherInternational student agreed: “I havean International riend who is always

“Language is not merelya tool o communication

however and can still

render one inadequate inan unamiliar culture.”

“Learning language and going overseas breakdown stereotypes”

Ross Aiko Philippa Asep

Raafi RachelleReneeAkiWendy

trying to make conversation withpeople in Australia and having dicultybecause Australians get a bit suspiciouso this approach”. The response roman Australian student was “we areso used to people being rom othernationalities, we don’t automaticallyassume they are visitors, unlikeAustralians in other countries, probablybecause we are a multicultural society”.

Economic and technological globaldominance o English speaking and European cultures are irreversibly inuencing many more cultures. Doyou agree? An International studentresponded “Japan is one o the mostAmericanised countries. We love‘Starbucks’! Also, younger people usemore English words than the olderpeople, because it’s ‘cool’!” AnotherInternational student agreed: “Even theBahasa Indonesia has changed overthe last ty years due to inltration

o English. Ater Suharto, billboardschanged to English. Beore this, Bahasawas more prominent.

In international education, other thanthe export dollars, what beneft does Australia get by interacting with oreigncultures and people? According toKhawaja & Dempsey, 2007, oreignstudents bring with them “an arrayo experiences that refect individual,cultural and social elements o theirlives”(p.13). One group participantremarked, “the primary unctiono learning language and/or goingoverseas breaks down stereotypes eg.Indonesians as terrorists”. The nalword then perhaps belongs to thisInternational student - “I would likeAustralian students to tell us how toknow them better”.

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HAND IN HAND? Or, AT ODDS?

Three Murdoch academics comment on therelationship of modern science and cultural traditions

5 Diversity Matters @ Murdoch Semester 1 2010

Has the progress o science been more otenat odds with culturalsensitivity, than inagreement?

Philip: I regard science asa human cultural activitythat is devoted to observing,recording and explainingthe behaviour o the

natural world. Science is animportant part o all humancultures. In some cultures,science was integrated withreligion and social customs.As science developed it hasbecome more secular andinternational and it now hasits own transnational culture.This has brought it intoconfict with some politicaland religious leaderswhen it has questionedsome o their core belies.The essence o modernscience is intellectualhonesty, nothing is beyondquestion and every theorymust be subjected to anexperimental test. Thisidea is clearly at odds withsome traditional belies.However, most modernsocieties recognise the valueo science and understandits strengths and limitationsand the confict is now part

o the general debatethataccompanies the progress oscience.

Sally: Scientists need tolisten to ‘local’ knowledge.While modern Science iswelcome, in some cases, itdoes delineate people romtradition/culture/village-lie.Example: techniques ogrowing the ‘Wonder Food’in India or rice-growingin Mozambique have

treated people as customerswith scant value or theirliestyle. While modernScience and big companies

implementing Scienceare important, it is alsovery important to embedscientic principles in thesocial and natural context.

Robert: Several areas oScience are at odds, viz,developing GM ood. Hugeexpansion in MolecularBiology has enabledintroduction o genesinto plants that help resistdisease and insects. But,such modications are seenas potentially harmul:introduced genes will get astranglehold on plants andgenerate compounds thatare not sae and natural.Genetic Engineering ocuseson the necessity to providemore ood. There is a lacko understanding o GeneticEngineering.

Likewise, Stem Cell researchis seen as ‘playing God’.Genetic arguments are to

Have the changesbrought about by scientifc inquiry and discovery/invention beentoo rapid or culturalsensitivities to stomach?

Philip: Science hasproduced revolutionarychanges in our view othe world and this hassometimes had implicationsor religion and culturalpractices. There wasconsiderable confictbetween science andreligion in RenaissanceEurope and later betweenscience and ideology inNazi Germany and StalinistRussia. Today we seetensions between scientistsand creationists andbetween meteorologists and

climate change sceptics.Science has also acceleratedthe rate o technologicalchange and this hasexacerbated some socialand political conficts andhas given some nations thepower to destroy all humancivilisation. We are stilllearning how to managetechnology eectively.

Sally: Polio or Bird Fluvaccines are needed.They are important. Butbeing wary o change isnot unnatural. Cars, cellphones, iPods have changedeven lesser developedsocieties orever. It is hardto know what is wrongor right. Who will decidei introducing electricity

in a remote Bangladeshivillage will result in thesociety abandoning itsage-old tradition or thetelevision!!

Robert: Yes, itis probably true.There is a lack oappreciation inthe public o whatscientic inventionreally means. Thereneeds to be thorough

public debate on thepace and purposeo technologicaladvancement.Currently, peopleare unable

help people overcome geneticdiseases. But, that is seen asinterering with the NaturalSelection which may notbe benecial to particularspecies. Genetic manipulation

can help select the geneticmake-up o children. Whereto draw the line?!

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to grasp the purpose oadvancements happeningat a high pace. For example,DNA Proling and peoples’privacy need to be thrashedout through communityconsultations.

In today’s world,how can the scientifccommunity work

collaboratively withcultural traditions thatare based on worldly and spiritual wisdomgathered over millennia?

Philip: I believe it isimportant or scientists tounderstand and respect thecivilising role o culture inhuman society. Scientistsneed to be aware o theglobal implications o

their work and they must

try to oresee their impacton society. Scientists andtechnologists need to bemore broadly educated sothat they are aware o thehistory o social and culturalimpacts o their work andthey need to have a goodunderstanding o social justice and proessionalethics. Creating this

awareness is an importantpart o University educationand Murdoch University’sgraduate attributes seek toaddress these issues.

Sally: The modern scienticcommunities should listento and understand localtraditions. Local armersare ‘community scientists’.They have the wisdomand knowledge that workor humans. Nature is

their laboratory. While agenetically modied seedmay be seen as ‘successul’,it destroys the ability oarmers to grow crops thenext time rom seeds savedin the earlier cycle. Scientists,acting as saviours, shouldocus more on the cause oproblems (eg, land clearanceas per European arming,water erosion) rather thantreating the symptoms.

Robert: Greater awarenesson the value o traditionalwisdom is needed, butwith caution. The medicalproession has embracedtraditional knowledge, viz,in Chiropractic, Chinesemedicines, Acupuncture.Modern drugs sourceingredients rom sourcesknown to age-old traditions.There is surely a nexus. Wehave become more sensitiveto seek scientic validity on

traditional approaches thatwe adopt condently.

More? Less? Not at all?!Globalisation and Democracy: can weexpect more or less democracy in theworld due to economic globalisation?

Jane HutchisonSenior Lecturer, Politics and International Studies, Murdoch University

Those who answer ‘more’ tend to see democracy andmarket capitalism as a package. They believe that, aseconomies become more integrated through marketglobalisation, their political systems will invariably be moreopen, accountable and competitive. Witness the number opeople who predict this or China. These people ocus onthe relationships between political and economic reedoms,so they tend to understand democracy as a system thatprotects individual liberties in relation to the state.

Those who answer ‘less’ tend to believe that democracy is diminishedby globalisation because economic processes now extend beyondthe territorial jurisdiction o democratically-elected governments. Thisposition is not generally associated with the view that democracy andmarket capitalism go hand in hand, but with the understanding thatdemocracy is an important constraint on market capitalism because itenables the proper reckoning o alternative social values over those oprice and prot.

Further, others believe that globalisation will not see the spread odemocracy because it is not universally embraced within all cultures.Rather than having an interest in the links between economic andpolitical change, this position regards democracy as an institutionalexpression o social values. To my mind, this is one o the weakestpositions. This is not because I think that globalisation will sweepaway all cultural dierences, it is because I consider that democracyis better regarded as an institutional expression o particularconfgurations o power and interests.

In relation to China or example, the question is not whether Chineseculture is (or is not) compatible with democracy. The more pertinentquestions are: What are the emerging, powerul economic groups inChina? How are they connected to the ruling party and the state? Dothey derive an economic benet rom the maintenance or loosening opolitical controls? And what o other social groups who have done lesswell rom globalisation? Where do they perceive their political intereststo lie? What is the orm and strength o demand-making in relation to

the ruling party and the state?

In short, I am suggesting that the best questions about globalisation anddemocracy are the empirical ones about the nature o ensuing socialtransormations. From this perspective, economic globalisation will notnecessarily produce more or less democracy in the world. Its infuence iscontingent on the mix o historical and contemporary actors in specicplaces that are not reducible to ‘culture’. To imagine otherwise is to missthe social and political conficts that invariably accompany the economictransormations that globalisation can bring on.

Sally PaulinLecturer

Sustainability

Philip JenningsProfessor

Energy Studies

Robert MeadAssociate Professor

Biochemistry

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Diversity Matters @ Murdoch Semester 1 2010

TERROR INTERRITORY

Globalisation,Terrorism andAustraliaRajat Ganguly

Senior Lecturer

Politics and International Studies

Murdoch University

Due to Canberra’s blanket support o the American-led ‘global war on terror’ and its military involvement

in Aghanistan and Iraq, Australia is now squarely inthe crosshairs o transnational terrorist groups. Thesegroups have greatly beneted rom the orces oglobalisation and nowhere is this more apparent thanin the eorts o al Qaeda to orge links with sala

jihadist terrorist organisations in various parts o theworld and in the ability o these groups to inltrateinto western societies and states.

For Australia, the al Qaeda aliate that has posed the mostserious threat has been Jemaah Islamiya (JI), based in Indonesia.However, concentrating our attention solely on the JI would bea serious mistake. This is because, unknown to many Australians,the most powerul and lethal al Qaeda aliate in the worldtoday is a group called al Shabab, which is based in Somalia butaspires to operate globally. Meaning ‘The Youth’ in Arabic, theal Shabab grew out o the Somalia Islamic Courts Council thattook control o most o southern Somalia or six months in 2006but was then ousted rom power by the US-backed governmentorces with support rom the Ethiopian military. Takingadvantage o Somalia’s weak government and the widespreadresentment generated among the Somali people by the presenceo Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia, the al Shabab has grown rapidlyand has organised terrorist training camps in southern Somaliaor a large number o local and oreign jihadis.

Groups like al Shabab can directly threaten the Australianhomeland by recruiting, training and activating terrorist cellsrom within Australia’s own population. In the wake o the 9/11attacks, as western states including Australia tightened their bordersecurity controls, terrorist organisations started concentratingon recruiting personnel rom mostly immigrant communitieswithin western societies themselves. A key mechanism in therecruitment process was the internet. The recent arrests inMelbourne o several Somali immigrants, who were intending toattack the Holsworthy military base in Sydney, demonstrate clearlythe existence o linkage between domestic terrorist cells andtransnational terror networks. Although this planned attack wasnipped in the bud by the Australian Federal Police, terrorist attackson the Australian homeland has become a real possibility in the

near uture. This may have serious implications or Australia’simmigration, asylum and multicultural policies.

Produced by: Equity Access & DiversityMurdoch University

http://equityaccess.murdoch.edu.au/

Contact details: Equity Access & DiversityRoom 1.6 Social Sciences building

Murdoch UniversitySouth StreetMURDOCH WA 6150

Telephone: 61-8-9360 6084

Facsimile: 61-8-9360 6502Email: [email protected]

© Murdoch University 2010

Jane Hutchison

Caroline Hughes

Rajat Ganguly

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