Journal articles on the topic 'Racisme sans race'

Que signifie affirmer qu’une université, en tant qu’institution, est, ou non, raciste ? Avec quelle conception du racisme peut-on opérer pour déterminer si les valeurs et les relations de pouvoir examinées, évaluées, transmises, défendues par l’université promeuvent une plus grande inclusivité des acteur·rice·s « sans distinction de race », ou non ? Cette question conduit à s’interroger sur la pertinence et sur le sens de la notion de racisme institutionnel lorsque l’expression est appliquée à l’institution universitaire. L’article défend une conception du racisme institutionnel qui dépasse la dichotomie entre racisme individuel et racisme systémique en insistant sur une conception dynamique et relationnelle de l’institution universitaire. Grâce aux outils de la phénoménologie critique, le racisme institutionnel à l’université est redéfini comme processus d’institutionnalisation d’habitudes ou de régularités qui produisent ou reproduisent des inégalités raciales tout en étant constituées d’expériences inaperçues.

Partant des controverses sociales et scientifiques sur l’antiracisme et ses reconfigurations, l’article examine les enjeux d’une pédagogie antiraciste renouvelée par les apports de l’éducation antiraciste et des pédagogies critiques. En nous appuyant sur l’enseignement de l’esclavage et des traites négrières, nous montrons la prédominance d’une vision antiraciste déracialisée, où les rapports de pouvoir sont invisibilisés ou dilués par une pédagogie colorblind qui, au mieux, se limite à déconstruire un a priori raciste de l’esclavage. Considérant l’usage récurrent par les élèves des catégories ethno-raciales comme un matériau pédagogique pertinent pour développer une pédagogie antiraciste critique, nous tentons d’en esquisser quelques axes en privilégiant une approche systémique et intersectionnelle du racisme, en prise avec leurs expériences sociales et scolaires.

Comme le disait James Baldwin, « L’histoire n’est pas le passé, c’est le présent. Nous portons notre histoire en nous. » Ainsi, l’esclavage est inscrit dans l’ADN des corps noirs, il fait partie de leur histoire. Ayant commencé sa vie d’artiste sous le nom de SAMO (Same Old Shit) patronyme illustrant les traumatismes du racisme marquant les âmes noires. Cet éternel jeune homme nous interpelle : comment parler du futur, lorsqu’on ne peut se débarrasser des fantômes du passé ? En me fondant sur la Critical Race Theory, approche qui prend notamment en compte l’expérience du racisme anti-noir, j’analyserai certaines œuvres cruciales de Basquiat, porteuses de récits, pour appréhender la société. Ces œuvres nous parlent toujours en faisant de Basquiat un prophète. Dans Water-Worshipper, (1984), il expose l’esclavage et rompt le silence en exposant les séquelles sociales écrasantes et implacables. Et comment ignorer sa clairvoyance alors qu’il nous parle dans Defacment?(1983) de Michael Stewart qui est une illustration des traitements des corps noirs, cette œuvre nous parle aujourd’hui des noirs assassinés, de George Floyd. Ce que nous enseigne Basquiat : pas de futur sans reconnaissance du passé.

L'objectif de l'étude était de déterminer la résistance aux tiques des races Goudali et Wakwa respectivement pure sang zébu et demi-sang Brahman. Cinq taurillons de chaque race ont été mis dans un même parc pendant les mois de juillet-août. Les dénombrements de tiques ont été effectués chaque semaine pendant un mois par stade, espèce et sexe. Les résultats ont montré que les espèces adultes recueillies étaient, par ordre décroissant d'abondance : Amblyomma variegatum, Rhipicephalus lunulatus et Hyalomma spp. Les taurillons Wakwa présentaient davantage de tiques que les Goudali (en particulier A. variegatum et Hyalomma spp.) sans que cette différence soit statistiquement significative. La signification d'une variabilité intra-raciale montre qu'une sélection pour la résistance aux tiques, surtout Amblyomma variegatum, pourrait être effective. Ces observations indiquent clairement qu'une étude de plus longue haleine serait nécessaire pour déterminer l'importance réelle de la différence de populations de tiques observée chez les deux races bovines, pour évaluer les mécanismes biologiques de résistance à Amblyomma variegatum et pour estimer l'héritabilité de la résistance aux tiques.

À travers l’histoire d’Annalise Keating, brillante avocate sans scrupules, la série How to Get Away with Murder (2014-2020) met en scène les liens complexes entre des enjeux de genre, de race et de traumatismes trans-générationnels. À partir de trois scènes emblématiques évoquant la féminité noire consacrées au soins des cheveux, le présent article examine les façons dont la série contribue à changer durablement l’esthétique et les conditions de production de la télévision états-unienne dans le sens d’une démarche féministe intersectionnelle. Dans ce contexte, l’article interroge notamment la stratégie du colorblind casting comme possible élément d’une idéologie post-raciale ou comme proposition inédite d’identification et de mise en visibilité par surreprésentation de minorités racisées.

À la frontière de Melilla, le massacre du 24 juin 2022, perpétré par des forces marocaines et espagnoles, a provoqué la mort d’au moins 27 personnes et la disparition de plus de 70 autres, a fait plusieurs centaines de blessés et au moins 100 prisonniers. Pour tenter de comprendre ces évènements qui s’ancrent dans un continuum de violences antimigratoires qui perdure en toute impunité depuis deux décennies, il faut replacer cette frontière dans sa matrice raciale et décrypter les rapports de genre en jeu. Se basant sur un long travail ethnographique mené entre 2015 et 2017, et sur une contre-enquête collective réalisée en 2023, le présent article dissèque la violence sous le prisme des rapports de race et de genre. Cette approche permet de comprendre que la reproduction constante de masculinités guerrières autour de la frontière, pour la défendre ou protester contre elle, a fait augmenter, année après année, l’intensité de la violence envers les migrants Noirs jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Cet affrontement perpétuel de masculinités militarisées à la frontière, engendré par les politiques migratoires européennes, espagnoles, et leur externalisation au Maroc, a renforcé un ordre raciste qui, inéluctablement, continue de semer la mort sans parvenir à étouffer complètement les résistances.

Abstract This article examines a 1779 legal dispute involving Pierre Chapuizet, a wealthy and well-connected sugar planter of the north province of Saint-Domingue who was denied a commission as an officer in the colonial militia due to allegations of mixed-race origin. Although the Conseil Supérieur of Cap Français had recognized Chapuizet's status as “white and unblemished” (blanc et ingénu) in 1771, the colonial administration and much of the white elite argued that his descent from a Black great-great-grandmother made him ineligible for the honor of a militia commission. This article argues that the Chapuizet affair demonstrates a shift in the boundaries of whiteness in the French Antilles. Traditional “color prejudice,” in which skin color was one factor among many others, such as wealth and family connections, gave way to modern scientific racism defined by biological descent, according to which a single Black ancestor, however remote, sufficed for exclusion from the white elite. Cet article examine une dispute légale de l'année 1779 qui visait à Pierre Chapuizet, un colon riche et renommé de la province nord de Saint-Domingue, à qui on refusait une commission d'officier de milice à cause des allégations qu'il était d'origine sang mêlé. Bien que le Conseil supérieur du Cap Français l'eût reconnu comme « blanc et ingénu » dans un arrêt de 1771, l'administration coloniale et la plupart de l’élite blanche considéraient que son ascendance, notamment son arrière-grand-mère noire, l'excluait de l'honneur d'une commission militaire. A travers l'affaire Chapuizet on constate une modification des identités raciales et du statut de l'homme blanc dans les Antilles françaises. Le « préjugé de couleur » traditionnel, selon lequel la couleur de la peau n’était qu'un facteur parmi d'autres comme la richesse et les alliances familiales cède au racisme scientifique moderne, défini par la filiation biologique, selon lequel un seul aïeul noir, aussi lointain qu'il soit, suffit pour l'exclusion de l’élite blanche.

Dr. C.K. Clarke (1857-1924) was one of Canada’s most prominent psychiatrists. He sought to improve the conditions of asylums, helped to legitimize psychiatry and established formal training for nurses. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Canada experienced a surge of immigration. Yet – as many historians have shown – a widespread anti-foreigner sentiment within the public remained. Along with many other members of the fledgling eugenics movement, Clarke believed that the proportion of “mental defectives” was higher in the immigrant population than in the Canadian population and campaigned to restrict immigration. He appealed to the government to track immigrants and deport them once they showed signs of mental illness. Clarke’s efforts lead to amendments to the Immigration Act in 1919, which authorized deportation of people who were not Canadian-born, regardless of how many years that had been in Canada. This change applied not only to the mentally ill but also to those who could no longer work due to injury and to those who did not follow social norms. Clarke is a fascinating example of how we judge historical figures. He lived in a time where what we now think of as xenophobia was a socially acceptable, even worthy attitude. As a leader in eugenics, therefore, he was a progressive. Other biographers have recognized Clarke’s racist opinions, some of whom justify them as keeping with the social values of his era. In further exploring Clarke’s interest in these issues, this paper relies on his personal scrapbooks held in the CAMH archives. These documents contain personal papers, poems and stories that proclaim his anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views. Whether we allow his involvement in the eugenics movement to overshadow his accomplishments or ignore his racist leanings to celebrate his memory is the subject of ongoing debate. Dowbiggin IR. Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada 1880-1940. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. McLaren A. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada 1885-1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. Roberts B. Whence They Came: Deportation from Canada 1900-1935. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.

Le racisme est un phénomène à géométrie variable, une réalité complexe et multiforme. Les tentatives de définition de cette notion ne sont pas consensuelles. Plusieurs questions font débat : Comment s’exprime le racisme et quelles formes prend-il ? Sur quoi s’ancre le racisme ? De quoi parle-t-on quand on énonce l’existence d’un « racisme sans race » ? Comment les sciences sociales ont elles tenté de décrire ce phénomène, de l’expliquer ?

Un des arguments des historiens qui avancent que la question raciale ne prend forme qu’à l’époque contemporaine consiste à montrer que l’évocation du sang est métaphorique avant l’avènement du racisme dit scientifique. Il se serait agi d’évoquer la place de l’identité lignagère à travers une image, celle du sang qui coule de génération en génération. Le présent article, s’appuyant sur des sources à la fois normatives et littéraires, entend montrer au contraire que, dès la fin du Moyen Âge, le sang réel est institué comme le porteur des qualités et de la dignité des personnes dans l’ordre social.

Notion aujourd’hui incontournable tant se sont multipliés les travaux scientifiques qui s’y réfèrent et les politiques publiques ou les recommandations internationales qui s’en réclament, l’intersectionnalité est d’abord l’héritière des débats portés dans un contexte militant par les féministes nord-américaines – plus particulièrement les féministes africaines-américaines et le courant black feminist. Dans sa prise de position de 1977, le Combahee River Collective critique en effet le « biais blanc de classe moyenne » du féminisme. Il introduit alors la question de la représentation politique de celles pour lesquelles la domination subie articule plusieurs rapports de pouvoir. Il pointe par conséquent le fait que les femmes blanches qui sont alors leaders dans les groupes féministes occupent en fait une position de domination. De même, la critique black feminist va mettre en lumière comment les hommes noirs sont également en position de dominants dans les mouvements antiracistes. En d’autres termes, être femme et noire induit une domination subie autre que celle éprouvée par les femmes blanches ou par les hommes noirs. C’est dans cette perspective de complexification de l’analyse des rapports de pouvoir que Kimberlé W. Crenshaw (1989) forge, en juriste, la notion d’intersectionnalité. L’enjeu est alors de rompre avec une lecture strictement arithmétique de la domination qui la conçoit comme l’addition systématique des facteurs d’oppression. Crenshaw suit en cela également ce que les New Slavery Studies ont pu montrer pour les sociétés plantocratiques : l’articulation de la race, du genre et de la classe ou du statut produisent une reconfiguration de la domination qui ne s’appréhende pas seulement comme une addition de handicaps pour les femmes ou comme un renforcement du patriarcat en faveur des hommes (Davis 1981, Carby 1982, Fox-Genovese 1988). La démarche de Crenshaw va donc consister à interroger la non-représentation de celles qui sont soumises à des formes plurielles et croisées de domination dans les catégories de l’action publique. Par exemple, en utilisant la catégorie générique de « femme », les politiques de lutte contre les violences domestiques occultent la situation spécifique des femmes racialisées. Elle montre ainsi comment ces catégories participent à la reproduction des rapports de pouvoir en favorisant les membres des groupes dominants mais aussi, et peut-être surtout, en contribuant à l’occultation des expériences d’oppression situées à l’intersection de plusieurs principes de hiérarchisation. D’ailleurs, ce que Crenshaw met en lumière à partir d’une analyse des catégories de l’action publique relève de phénomènes similaires à ce que la tradition francophone matérialiste a thématisé sous les concepts de consubstantialité ou d’imbrication – c’est-à-dire que le genre, la race, la classe ou encore l’âge et la catégorie de sexualité se déploient de manière liée en se renforçant ou en s’euphémisant (Kergoat 1978, 2001 et 2012 ; Galerand et Kergoat 2014). Deux textes sont ici fondateurs pour saisir la notion d’intersectionnalité. Le premier paraît en 1989 et s’intitule « Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex. A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics ». Inscrit explicitement dans l’héritage des théoriciennes du Black feminism comme Gloria T. Hull, Barbara Smith ou Bell Hooks, il en revendique la démarche radicalement contre-hégémonique en l’appliquant au raisonnement juridique. Son argument est le suivant : « les femmes noires sont parfois exclues de la théorie féministe et du discours antiraciste parce que l’une comme l’autre sont élaborés sur un ensemble d’expériences séparées qui ne reflète pas de manière précise les interactions qui existent entre la race et le genre » (1989 : 140 ; nous traduisons). Les discours et les pratiques militantes ou politiques qui ont pour but l’émancipation sont donc aussi en bonne partie aveugles aux rapports de pouvoir qu’ils (re)produisent en ne prenant pas en compte celles qui font une expérience de la domination à l’intersection de ces deux catégories. Le second, « Mapping the Margins : Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color » paraît deux ans plus tard, en 1991. Crenshaw y développe son analyse des mouvements sociaux et de la manière dont ils affirment des identités univoques et dominantes. Mais elle fonde ici sa critique en pointant l’essentialisme des catégories de l’action publique sur lesquelles s’appuient les politiques de l’identité promues par ces mouvements. En prenant le cas des violences conjugales que subissent les Africaines-Américaine, elle montre qu’elles se trouvent au croisement du racisme et du sexisme et que, dans la majorité des cas, elles ne sont pas prises en compte par les politiques de l’identité – c’est-à-dire les discours et les programmes qui visent à lutter soit contre le racisme soit contre le sexisme. Ce n’est donc pas tant l’incapacité de ces « Identity politics » à dépasser la différence qui pose problème, comme on aime habituellement à le souligner, mais c’est au contraire précisément parce qu’elles éludent les différences qui traversent le groupe des femmes qu’elles sont problématiques et critiquables. L’auteure pointe ainsi la principale conséquence de cette réification des identités car elle rend impossible la prise en compte de l’intérêt des personnes qui font partie de catégories nullement pensées comme sécantes. Ce texte a joué un rôle crucial dans la réappropriation universitaire de la notion d’intersectionnalité. En reprenant les formes de conceptualisation de l’intersectionnalité propres au Black feminism et plus largement aux mouvements sociaux, il a rendu possible leur traduction théorique et épistémologique suivant trois lignes de réflexion. D’abord, il affirme que l’étude des situations intersectionnelles relève d’une épistémologie du point de vue qui reconnaît le rôle des expériences individuelles – en l’occurrence celles des femmes noires mais plus largement celles d’autres groupes minorisés – comme instrument de production du savoir. On retrouve cette idée dans plusieurs travaux revendiquant une démarche intersectionnelle, comme ceux par exemple de Patricia Hill Collins (2000). Dans The Social construction of Black Feminist Thought, Hill Collins cite la parole de femmes conscientes de ce que leur condition permet de faire et de voir. Elle insiste sur le fait que cette situation est définie par la classe, le genre et la race et qu’elle complexifie par exemple le rapport patronne/aide-ménagère en l’articulant à la division des femmes entre blanches et noires. L’exigence d’un savoir situé en appelle également à une responsabilité de la chercheuse ou du chercheur dont Crenshaw donne une traduction pratique dans les initiatives d’« intersectionnalité en actes » (Intersectionnality in Action) mises en œuvre par les campagnes de l’African American Policy Forum comme #BlackGirlsMatter, #HerDreamDeferred, #SayHerName, #WhyWeCantWait ou #BreakingTheSilence. Ensuite, dès « Mapping the Margins », Crenshaw (1991) insiste sur l’importance de contextualiser l’intersectionnalité et d’en user comme un outil d’analyse dynamique – et non comme « une grande théorie ». Contrairement à certaines critiques qui lui ont été faites sur le caractère abstrait et statique du concept d’intersectionnalité, elle rappelle la nécessité de rapporter l’analyse intersectionnelle au contexte socio-politique et au cadre juridique et légal. Cet effort de contextualisation appelle d’ailleurs à faire preuve de réflexivité sur les usages qui sont faits de la notion d’intersectionnalité tout en prévenant l’effacement possible de l’une de ses dimensions par l’effet de son importation dans un autre contexte national que celui des États-Unis ou plus largement de l’Amérique du Nord (Crenshaw 2016). Ainsi, l’acclimatation de l’intersectionnalité au contexte européen et plus précisément la traduction de cette notion dans des travaux français et francophones ne doivent pas donner lieu à un oubli de la dimension raciale au motif que ce point serait spécifique au contexte états-unien. Il s’agit plutôt de réfléchir à la manière dont race, genre, classe et autres principes de hiérarchisation s’articulent dans des contextes qui ont connu des formes de structuration raciale des rapports sociaux autres que l’esclavage et la ségrégation (Rocca i Escoda, Fassa et Lépinard 2016). Enfin, sans se départir d’une approche juridique, Crenshaw revendique dès son texte de 1991 la plasticité disciplinaire de l’approche intersectionnelle qui s’inscrit d’ailleurs dans la lignée des Women Studies. Parmi les nombreux travaux qui enrichissent l’analyse intersectionnelle sur le plan méthodologique et conceptuel, on peut citer ceux de Candace West et Sarah Fenstermaeker (1995). Ceux-ci s’appuient en effet sur une démarche ethnométhodologique pour saisir à un niveau microsociologique et de manière dynamique l’actualisation des assignations de race, de genre et de classe. Dans cette veine, Julie Bettie (2000) montre pour sa part comment, dans le contexte états-unien, la renégociation de l’identité de classe passe pour des jeunes filles mexicaines par un jeu qui renforce les codes genrés et racialisés. En articulant arguments théoriques et enquêtes empiriques, l’anthropologue colombienne Mara Viveros Vigoya (2017) s’appuie sur le Black Feminism et les épistémologies décoloniales pour interroger la construction des masculinités au croisement de formes plurielles de domination (sociale, raciale et sexuelle). D’autres travaux proposent une complexification de l’approche intersectionnelle opérant un déplacement dans la manière même d’appréhender la notion d’intersectionnalité, qui devient un objet de recherche davantage qu’une méthode (Mazouz 2015). D’autres encore proposent une démarche plus théorique, comme l’atteste par exemple l’ouvrage de Floya Anthias et Nira Yuval-Davis (1992), ou encore celui de Chela Sandoval (2000). Enfin, certaines recherches adoptent une approche réflexive sur les usages de l’approche intersectionnelle, contribuant ainsi à enrichir son épistémologie. C’est le cas par exemple de Sébastien Chauvin et Alexandre Jaunait (2015). Les deux auteurs se demandent tout d’abord si l’intersectionnalité est vouée à faire partie du problème qu’elle décrit. Ils interrogent ensuite le sens épistémologique et politique d’un programme normatif intersectionnel constitué en impératif universel de prise en compte constante de toutes les formes de domination. En ce sens, l’intersectionnalité ne constitue pas tant une théorie unifiée qu’un champ de recherche transnational (Cho, Crenshaw et McCall 2013 ; Roca i Escoda, Fassa et Lépinard 2016 : 11). En témoignent d’ailleurs les débats et les désaccords qui persistent au sein des études féministes sur la manière de rendre opératoire le potentiel heuristique de cette notion. Si son succès lui fait courir le risque de ne servir qu’une fonction d’affichage, le principal défi lancé aux chercheur.e.s est « d’élaborer des méthodes à la fois rebelles et susceptibles d’être reconnues au sein des différentes disciplines » (Crenshaw 2016 : 47) seules à même de conserver la dimension « insurgée » du concept (Cho, Crenshaw et McCall 2013).

La notion de race est ancienne, et ses significations n’ont jamais cessé de se transformer. Dès le XVIe siècle, le mot race désignait les membres d’un lignage. Par conséquent, l’espèce humaine devenait une race puisque la Bible lui donnait pour ancêtres communs Adam et Ève. Un peuple se réclamant d’un ancêtre mythique pouvait également être qualifié de race : on disait par exemple que les Juifs étaient de la race d’Abraham. Le terme a parfois été synonyme de dynastie royale, elle aussi dotée d’un ancêtre commun. L’Encyclopédie utilise le terme principalement dans ces trois acceptions, parlant aussi bien de race humaine que de race d’Abraham ou de race des Capétiens (L’Encyclopédie 1777 et 1778). Parallèlement, le XVIIIe siècle voit se répandre l’usage zoologique de la notion de race, employée pour désigner les variétés infra-spécifiques d’animaux, surtout des animaux domestiques, tels les chiens, les chevaux ou les bovins (Buffon 1749a et 1755). En même temps, les naturalistes étendent son application aux variétés de l’espèce humaine. On considère alors que les différences biologiques entre groupes humains géographiquement séparés sont solidaires de leurs différences culturelles, les unes et les autres engendrées par l’influence conjointe du sol, du climat et de la nourriture (Buffon 1749b). En accord avec la théorie humorale alors en vogue, on pense que le sol, le climat et la nourriture influencent les quatre humeurs physiologiques (bile jaune, sang, bile noire, pituite), dont l’interaction détermine le degré d’un tempérament (mélancolique, flegmatique, bileux, sanguin), lequel décide à son tour à la fois de l’anatomie des hommes et de leur caractère, mentalité, mœurs et organisation sociale (Greenwood 1984). Aucun consensus n’existait en revanche quant au nombre de races d’hommes, tantôt porté à plusieurs dizaines, tantôt réduit à trois et dont chacune était assimilée à la descendance d’un des trois fils de Noé. Les races humaines étaient disposées sur les échelons supérieurs de la Grande Échelle des Êtres, qui menait des formes animales les plus simples jusqu’à l’homme le plus perfectionné, identifié invariablement au Blanc. Le Noir, et plus particulièrement le Hottentot, occupait la limite inférieure de l’humanité, où il côtoyait l’Orang-outang placé au sommet du monde animal (Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, 1819, Sebastani 2013). Si la plupart des Européens du XVIIIe siècle croyaient à la supériorité des Blancs, tous n’en déduisaient pas les mêmes conclusions. Certains estimaient que les autres races pouvaient éventuellement acquérir la civilisation et devenir, avec le temps, à la fois égales aux Blancs et blanches de peau, blanchies sous l’effet de la civilisation. D’autres restaient convaincus que la supériorité des Blancs était un immuable fait de nature, ce qui condamnait les autres races, surtout les Noirs, à une éternelle soumission, faisant d’eux ce que Aristote avait appelé les esclaves par nature. Les débats raciologiques du XIXe siècle consacrèrent l’opposition plus ancienne entre le monogénisme et le polygénisme (Blanckaert 1981). Les monogénistes clamaient qu’il n’y a qu’une seule espèce humaine, différenciée à partir d’un type originel ; les polygénistes soutenaient qu’il existe depuis toujours plusieurs espèces humaines invariables, pourvues de propriétés spécifiques, aussi bien biologiques que mentales. La théorie darwinienne (1859) n’a modifié que modestement les grandes lignes de ce débat : les degrés de l’Échelle des Êtres seront désormais considérés comme les étapes consécutives de l’évolution, tandis que les races inférieures se verront identifiées aux races moins évoluées. Les polygénistes darwiniens pouvaient renoncer à l’axiome de l’invariabilité des races dans la très longue durée préhistorique, mais ils s’accordaient avec les monogénistes darwiniens à établir une hiérarchie linéaire des races selon leurs formes anatomiques, auxquelles on croyait pouvoir associer une gradation de facultés morales, intellectuelles et civilisatrices, tenues pour héréditaires et difficilement modifiables dans la courte durée historique. Dès la fin du XVIIIe siècle, des mesures anthropométriques variées ont commencé à être proposées, dans l’espoir de quantifier le degré d’avancement moral et mental des races à partir d’indices anatomiques : ce fut l’un des fondements de l’anthropologie physique du XIXe siècle. La théorie darwinienne de la sélection naturelle a contribué à légitimer la vieille idée de la lutte des races pour la survie. On s’est mis à redouter que les races inférieures, réputées plus fertiles, n’en viennent à bout des races supérieures. Le XIXe siècle fut particulièrement marqué par la hantise du mélange racial, censé conduire à la contamination de la « substance germinative » des races supérieures et à leur dégénérescence consécutive. Dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, l’idéologie nazie offrit l’un des aboutissements extrêmes de cette conception. On y trouve une combinaison de nombreuses composantes des théories raciologiques antérieures : une classification raciale rigide, la hiérarchisation des races en supérieures et inférieures, la conviction que les différences anatomiques correspondent aux différences culturelles, l’idée d’une inégalité morale, intellectuelle et civilisatrice des races, la crainte d’une dégénérescence raciale par le métissage qui altère le « sang » de la race supérieure, la croyance qu’une menace pèse sur la race supérieure du fait de la fertilité plus grande des races inférieures, la doctrine de la lutte entre les races comme force motrice du progrès. L’idéologie nazie fut une sinistre synthèse d’au moins deux siècles de développement de la pensée raciale. Lorsque la Deuxième Guerre prit fin, l’Occident tenta de faire le procès à son héritage intellectuel. L’UNESCO exprima une conviction alors inédite en inscrivant dans sa constitution l’idée selon laquelle les atrocités de la récente guerre avaient été rendues possibles par la croyance à l’inégalité des races. Pour rendre impossibles de nouveaux Auschwitz, on décida alors de faire disparaître la notion de races humaines, source présumée de l’horreur suprême. Dans leur déclaration de 1950, les experts de l’UNESCO affirmèrent l’unité fondamentale de l’espèce humaine et reléguèrent la diversité biologique des hommes à un second plan, en tant qu’épiphénomène de divers mécanismes évolutifs de différentiation. La Déclaration de l’UNESCO portait les marques de la toute récente théorie synthétique de l’évolution, dont les principes ramenaient la « race » à un résultat éphémère de la circulation des gènes entre les populations, seules entités réellement observables (UNESCO 1950, Stoczkowski 2008). La conjonction du contexte politique et de l’émergence de la génétique des populations conduisit, à partir des années 1950, à l’abandon progressif de la notion de race, surtout en sciences sociales. Les humanités multiples des théories raciologiques se muèrent en l’Homme universel de l’UNESCO. Pourtant, la génétique des populations n’a pas tenu les promesses dont on l’avait initialement investie en espérant que la recherche allait démontrer l’inexistence des races humaines, ce qui devait invalider toute possibilité de rabattre les différences de culture sur les différences de nature, selon le subterfuge séculaire qui avait maintes fois servi à justifier les inégalités, les discriminations et les oppressions. N’étaient pas moindres les attentes suscitées ensuite par l’exploration du génome humain : elle devait porter le coup de grâce au concept de race et aux préjugés que ce concept implique. En juin 2000, lors des célébrations qui marquèrent la publication de la première esquisse de la carte du génome humain, J. Craig Venter, directeur de l’entreprise de recherche génétique Celera, répéta que « la notion de race n’a aucun fondement génétique ni scientifique » (Marantz Henig 2004). Aujourd’hui, les résultats de la recherche sur le génome humain semblent moins univoques (Stoczkowski 2006). Il est certes réconfortant de savoir qu’aucun doute ne subsiste sur l’unité génétique de l’espèce humaine. Pourtant, après une première période consacrée à la description des similitudes génétiques, les travaux actuels s’orientent de plus en plus vers l’exploration de la diversité de notre espèce. Plusieurs études publiées récemment tendent à démontrer que des données génétiques permettent bel et bien de faire la distinction entre les individus originaires d’Europe, d’Afrique et d’Extrême-Orient, c’est-à-dire entre les populations traditionnellement réparties par la pensée ordinaire entre les trois grandes « races » : blanche, noire et jaune (Bamshad et al. 2003, Rosenberg et al.,2002, Watkins et al. 2003). Ces travaux dérangent et inquiètent. Ils dérangent car on s’attendait à ce que la génétique rende définitivement illégitime toute classification biologique des humains. C’est le contraire qui semble advenir sous nos yeux. Au lieu de prouver que l’ordre du phénotype, privilégié par la pensée ordinaire, s’écarte de l’ordre du génotype étudié par la science, les travaux récents suggèrent que certaines classifications « raciales » – pour autant qu’elles soient fondées non sur la seule morphologie, mais plutôt sur l’origine géographique – peuvent refléter approximativement une partie de la diversité humaine établie par la génétique moderne (Bamshad et al. 2003; Rosenberg et al. 2002; Watkins et al. 2003). Ces travaux inquiètent aussi, car nul n’ignore que l’étude des différences entre les hommes peut fournir des arguments à ceux qui veulent diviser l’humanité, porter les distinctions à l’absolu, les juger scandaleuses et insupportables. Les généticiens ne manquent pas de souligner que les groupements formés à partir de leurs modèles diffèrent des anciennes catégories raciales, puisque les écarts entre les classes génétiques sont statistiques, relatifs, mouvants, soumis aux vicissitudes de l’histoire faite non seulement de séparations, mais aussi de migrations et de croisements. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le risque existe que les résultats de ces travaux nourrissent à nouveau le phantasme de divergences insurmontables inscrites dans le corps des humains. Les controverses sur la classification infra-spécifique des humains sont loin d’être closes. Quelles que soient les conclusions qui remporteront finalement le consensus de la communauté scientifique, il est probable que la pensée antiraciste soit confrontée dans un avenir proche à une nouvelle légitimité scientifique des classements des humains à partir de critères biologiques, cette fois dans un contexte social où l’aspiration à l’égalité ne passe plus par l’effacement des différences biologiques mais, au contraire, par leur revendication de la part des dominés. Après l’expérience du nazisme, dont l’intérêt exacerbé pour les différences biologiques déboucha sur l’abomination de la Shoah, on était enclin à considérer que toute théorie de la différence biologique devait nécessairement conduire au racisme. On en est moins sûr de nos jours, en observant que les minorités auparavant opprimées cherchent à adosser leur combat contre les inégalités à une théorie de la différence biologique (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Hier, désireux d’expier le péché de racisme, l’homme blanc fit appel à la science pour rendre insignifiantes les différences biologiques entre les humains ; aujourd’hui, réclamant le droit à l’égalité, l’homme de couleur emploie la science pour donner aux différences biologiques une signification nouvelle. Cette résurgence de l’intérêt de la recherche pour la diversité de l’espèce humaine, en dépit du danger bien réel d’un détournement idéologique de ses résultats, encore très provisoires, peut devenir un antidote contre les spéculations naïves sur la race, qui ne manqueront pas de foisonner dans la culture populaire tant que les chercheurs seront incapables d’expliquer pourquoi les hommes, appartenant tous à la même espèce biologique, n’ont pas pour autant tous la même apparence.

Une enquête au sein du Front national comme celle conduite par l’auteur de 1996 à 1999 serait sans doute irréalisable aujourd’hui du fait de l’encadrement bureaucratique auquel les sociologues sont désormais astreints par le biais des dispositifs éthiques (notamment le RGPD) et des plans de gestion des données. C’est ce qui est apparu en toute clarté lors du traitement des archives de cette enquête pour la « banque de données qualitatives » beQuali. Comment protéger les militants, pour certains admirateurs de Hitler et hostiles aux mélanges entre races, dont aucun accord par ailleurs n’a été sollicité, sans désincarner les données et les rendre inutilisables ? Comment protéger l’enquêteur, dont certaines réactions semblent racistes ou réactionnaires, sans occulter une partie de son journal, jusqu’à le rendre insipide ? Contre les tentatives de mise au pas au nom de la morale et du Bien public, nous avons à faire valoir un héritage qui nous vient de nos prédécesseurs : l’aventure du savoir critique sur le monde social.

Né il y a une quarantaine d’années suite à l’invention en 1970 du terme speciesism par le psychologue britannique Richard Ryder, l'antispécisme est un mouvement fondé sur l'impératif moral selon lequel tout être vivant doit être protégé de la souffrance et de la domination. Fortement inspiré par l'utilitarisme de Jeremy Bentham (1963 (1789)) consistant à évaluer une action en vertu de sa capacité à maximiser le bien-être de tous les êtres sensibles, ce mouvement a été théorisé et popularisé par Peter Singer (1983 (1975)) puis Tom Regan (1983). Par sa radicalité, il se distingue de la défense animale dite « réformiste » (Société Protectrice des Animaux (SPCA), écologisme, etc.). En effet, les antispécistes prônent la déprédatisation généralisée (sans proies ni prédateurs) du monde, la « libération animale » et un « devoir d’ingérence animalitaire » qui passe, par exemple, par une alimentation végétarienne de l’animal de compagnie, fût-il carnivore (Dubreuil 2013). Selon les militants antispécistes, dans la conception des relations entre espèces animales, le spécisme - ou espécisme (Gandolfo et Teboul 2014) - serait l’équivalent du racisme ou du sexisme au sein de l’espèce humaine, équivalence qui ne va pas de soi car si les espèces et les sexes existent, on ne peut rien dire de tel pour les races.

Pour une publication sur Épisiciences. The comparative legal scholar authors, working a broad project mapping how law conceptualizes and operationalizes race, ethnicity and nationality, provide an assessment of the triadic relationship between law, identity (making and claims recognition) and science. The project focuses on race and ethnicity, excluding the discussion of gender identity, but the latter is used as a point of reference to demonstrate the transformative changes in the past years in how the meaning of the terms of identity are assigned and conceptualized in social sciences and humanities, and to a certain degree in politics and law. Yet, there is a debilitating lack of linguistic and conceptual resources, cultural tools, and a solid and proper vocabulary for thinking about racial identity, which is particularly stark in the field of law, especially international law, which habitually operates with the concepts of race, ethnicity, and nationality when setting forth standards for the recognition of collective rights or protection from discrimination, establishing criteria for asylum, labeling actions as genocide, or requiring a “genuine link” in citizenship law, without actually providing definitions for these groups or of membership criteria within these legal constructs. The paper provides an overview of the obstacles, challenges and controversies in the legal institutionalization. In technical terms, the operationalization of ethnic/racial/national group affiliation can follow several options: self-identification; authority given to elected or appointed members (representatives) of the group (leaving aside legitimacy-, or ontological questions regarding the authenticity or genuineness of these actors); classification by outsiders, through the perception of the majority; or by outsiders but using “objective” criteria, such as names, residence, et cetera. The paper also provides an assessment of how “objective” criteria, data and constructions provided by science translate into the legal discourse. Case studies will be used from anthropological/historical “scientific knowledge,” and the operationalization of (performative) whiteness and otherness in the US, to contemporary examples of requiring DNA-heritage certificates in naturalization and Diaspora-programs (for example for birthright schemes in Israel); race-focused forensic datasets; and race-based medicine and reproductive technologies – where the methodology and conceptualization of “scientific race” is analyzed in a comparative and critical framework. Les auteurs, juristes comparatistes, travaillant sur un vaste projet qui cartographie la manière dont le droit conceptualise et opérationnalise la race, l’ethnicité et la nationalité, fournissent une évaluation de la relation triadique entre le droit, l’identité (la reconnaissance de l’identité et des revendications) et la science. Le projet se concentre sur la race et l’ethnicité, excluant la discussion de l’identité de genre, mais cette dernière est utilisée comme point de référence pour démontrer les changements transformateurs de ces dernières années dans la façon dont la signification des termes d’identité est assignée et conceptualisée dans les sciences sociales et humaines, et dans une certaine mesure dans la politique et le droit. Pourtant, il existe un manque débilitant de ressources linguistiques et conceptuelles, d’outils culturels et d’un vocabulaire solide et approprié pour réfléchir à l’identité raciale, ce qui est particulièrement flagrant dans le domaine du droit, notamment le droit international, qui utilise habituellement les concepts de race, d’ethnicité et de nationalité lorsqu’il établit des normes pour la reconnaissance des droits collectifs ou la protection contre la discrimination, qu’il établit des critères pour l’asile, qu’il qualifie des actions de génocide ou qu’il exige un « lien authentique » dans le droit de la citoyenneté, sans réellement fournir de définitions pour ces groupes ou de critères d’adhésion dans ces constructions juridiques. L’article donne un aperçu des obstacles, des défis et des controverses liés à l’institutionnalisation juridique. En termes techniques, l’opérationnalisation de l’affiliation à un groupe ethnique/racial/national peut suivre plusieurs options : auto-identification ; autorité donnée aux membres (représentants) élus ou nommés du groupe (en laissant de côté les questions de légitimité ou ontologiques concernant l’authenticité ou l’authenticité de ces acteurs) ; classification par des personnes extérieures, à travers la perception de la majorité ; ou par des personnes extérieures mais en utilisant des critères « objectifs », tels que les noms, la résidence, etc. L’article fournit également une évaluation de la manière dont les critères, données et constructions « objectifs » fournis par la science se traduisent dans le discours juridique. Des études de cas seront utilisées, allant de la « connaissance scientifique » anthropologique/historique et de l’opérationnalisation de la blancheur (performative) et de l’altérité aux États-Unis, à des exemples contemporains d’exigence de certificats d’héritage ADN dans les programmes de naturalisation et de diaspora (par exemple pour les programmes de droit de naissance en Israël) ; des ensembles de données médico-légales axées sur la race ; et de la médecine et des technologies de reproduction fondées sur la race – où la méthodologie et la conceptualisation de la « race scientifique » sont analysées dans un cadre comparatif et critique.

This study aims at critically examining the process of mixed-raced identity construction with a claim of uniqueness among mulatto.as with African ancestry in the American society. It focuses on this burgeoning scholarship that theorizes on the exclusivity of multiracial people’s social condition, a social class that lots of Americans with a black parent/ancestry today embrace. Their claim, which transgresses the fundamentals of the traditional patterns of racial assignment in the American monoracially structured society, creates its own literary space in the mosaic of emerging identity assertions. This politics is spearheaded by scholars, writers, and activists such as Heidi Durrow whose novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, is taken as case study. This essay reads, through a postcolonial grid, the experiential account of Durrow’s auto-inflected protagonist which brings up issues related to black people’s racial assignment and self-concept development in the so-called “mulatto millennium”, within a society yesterday unequivocal about the one-drop rule. Le présent travail de recherche vise à examiner de manière critique le processus de construction identitaire multiraciale, avec des revendications d'unicité, chez les métis.ses d’ascendance noire dans la société américaine. Il se focalise sur ce champ de recherche naissant qui affirme l'exclusivité de la condition sociale des personnes d’ascendance mixte, cette classe sociale dont se réclament aujourd’hui bon nombre de métis.ses de parents noirs. Leur revendication, qui transgresse les principes fondamentaux des modèles traditionnels de formation raciale dans la société américaine à structure monoraciale, crée son propre espace littéraire dans la mosaïque des revendications identitaires émergentes. Des universitaires, écrivains et militants tels que Heidi Durrow se font porte-voix de cette nouvelle politique identitaire. Le roman de cette dernière, La fille tombée du ciel, y est pris comme cas d’étude. La revendication expérientielle exceptionnelle incarnée par la protagoniste auto-infléchie de Durrow soulève quelques problèmes liés à l'assignation raciale et au développement du concept de soi parmi les sujets d’ascendance noire en ce début de millénaire baptisé «millénaire des métisses», au sein d'une société qui se voulait hier sans équivoque sur le one-drop rule. C’est le sujet sur lequel se penche le présent article. Le cadre théorique et méthodologique utilisé est l’approche postcolonialiste. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0973/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

In a letter responding to the Federal Government’s refusal to offer a formal apology to the ‘Stolen Generation’ of Indigenous Australians, members of the Vietnamese-Australian community expressed an understanding (often lacked by Anglo-Australians) of the need to appreciate their position as migrants in relation to the Indigenous community: "We are here now, living in cities and towns that once were their hunting grounds, their camping places, their sacred sites. We are the beneficiaries of their dispossession, and we acknowledge their loss. We understand about the loss of home, family and cultural values, and we too would like to express our deep sorrow to all indigenous Australians for their suffering and offer our support for genuine reconciliation." (Le and Nguyen 14) This letter remains one of the few instances in which the contemporary positioning of migrant and Indigenous peoples is discussed in relation to one another. It is demonstrative of some of the points of continuity between the ways Aboriginal and migrant collectivities (especially those who are racially ‘marked’) experience Australian society but, more often than not, these connections remain under-theorised. In Australian debates concerning the significance of descent, belonging and culture, there have been two distinct, yet connected currents (Curthoys 21). One of these debates concerns the positioning of Indigenous and settler Australians within a (continuing) history of colonisation and genocide. The other debate centres on immigration, multiculturalism and ethnic/cultural diversity. Ghassan Hage argues that such distinctions are a reflection of a white governmental tendency that conceives ‘white-Aboriginal’ and ‘Anglo-Ethnic’ relations in oppositional terms. The whites "relating to Aboriginal people appear as totally unaffected by multiculturalism, while the ‘Anglos’ relating to the ‘ethnics’ appear as if they have no Aboriginal question about which to worry" (24). It is only since the mid to late 1990s that debates on both Indigenous and immigration policies (re-ignited by independent member of parliament Pauline Hanson in 1996) have been explicitly connected. This article examines the ambiguous and often strained relationship between the positioning of Indigenous and migrant peoples in contemporary Australian society. While the above letter suggests a degree of sympathy and empathy between recent migrant collectivities and Aboriginal people, such a level of recognition and understanding cannot be taken for granted. The following account of Aboriginal-migrant relations indicates that these are structured by both "complex conflicts and points of solidarity" (Perera and Pugliese 5). Given that both diasporic and Indigenous communities can be the targets of white supremacist ideologies and hostilities, some commonalities between these collectivities become apparent. The "attraction of outsiders to fellow outsiders, the stranger (the [I]ndigenous made a stranger in her or his own land) to the stranger from elsewhere" (Docker and Fischer 15), can result in the creation of common interests and affiliations. However, diasporic communities do not share the same history of colonisation (in Australia, at least) with Indigenous Australians, and may be perceived as yet another set of invaders. Just like the colonisers, more recent migrants are beneficiaries of the original dispossession and (continuing) colonisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The Indigenous and the Diasporic: Tensions and Uncertainties The shared knowledge of being located on the margins of white Australian society has enabled Aboriginal and non-white racial minorities to see many similarities in their circumstances and experiences. Both Aboriginal and non-Anglo migrant collectivities have largely been excluded from dominant ideologies of Australian national belonging. Those migrants who have come to Australia as refugees can often appreciate the feelings of cultural domination and loss that many Aboriginal people experience on a daily basis. Both Aboriginal and NESB collectivities have also come under pressure to adopt the assumed monolithic Australian culture. The assimilation policy offered a chance for Aborigines and NESB migrants to ‘fit in’, but this was on the proviso that they conform. Both NESB and Aboriginal communities experience ongoing structural disadvantages in Australian society and its economy. These collectivities can also suffer discrimination and hostility in their social relations with fellow Australians. Despite these similarities, however, there is often a lack of identification between Aboriginal and migrant collectivities. Australian Indigenous and immigrant peoples have very divergent histories and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people often resist being drawn under the rubric of multiculturalism. Instead, many Indigenous Australians have attacked multiculturalism, claiming that the idea of the equal validity of every culture "reduces them to the status of just another ethnic minority" (Bulbeck 273). Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wish to reinforce their status as the ‘first’ or Indigenous peoples of this country; an insistence that does not necessarily assist recognition of the ways in which racism and ethnocentrism impact upon ‘Other’ minorities. Another reason for the relative lack of engagement between Indigenous and diasporic communities is that the political agenda of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is different from that of other minority collectivities. Indigenous activists have expressed understandable and substantiated fears that the focus on multiculturalism not only overlooks the Indigenous status of Aborigines as ‘first peoples’, but can distract attention from the issues of land rights and Native Title (Gunew 455). Lois O’Donoghue recognises both advantages and disadvantages in contemporary multiculturalism: "Perhaps Aboriginal people have benefited from the greater appreciation of cultural diversity which has resulted from the admission of other points of view". However, "we are the original inhabitants of this land, and our sufferings, past and present, make some form of special recognition a moral imperative" (qtd. in Bulbeck 274). Another difficulty lies is that newly arrived migrants are extended various social rights and privileges that have only relatively recently been granted to Indigenous Australians. Many Indigenes have resented the fact that new groups may be better treated than themselves, with some migrants taking on "the racist stereotypes of Anglo-Australian society" (Vasta 51). In Sang Ye’s interviews with various Chinese migrants in The Year the Dragon Came, for instance, one interviewee claimed that: "Nearly all the Aborigines are unemployed or refuse to take jobs that are available; they’re outside the pubs or on the grass getting drunk on beer" (182). These comments show very clearly that the common experiences of racism that many NESB and Aboriginal Australians share do not automatically guarantee understanding or political solidarity between the two groups (Perera and Pugliese 14). The above quotation also illustrates the way in which NESB Australians can reproduce dominant white Australian characterisations of contemporary Aboriginality. Aboriginal people continue to face popular conceptions of themselves as drunken, lazy, intellectually inferior, or as suitable only for servile or menial work (Morris 171-173). As Ruby Langford Ginibi maintains: They’ve got us stereotyped as nothing but lazy layabout boongs, you know, and they see a Koori fella staggering down the street charged up and they say, ‘Oh, they’re all like that,’ but they never stop, or pause to think, ‘Hey, what’s made this person like this?’ You can’t do what has been done to a race of people without it having disastrous results. (qtd. in Little 105 As long as Anglo- and NESB Australians focus on the low socioeconomic position of Aboriginal people without considering the lasting effects of colonialism, Aborigines will continually be cast as the culprits of their own positioning. Widely-circulated conservative ideologies that blame Aboriginal people for their own victimisation overlook the enduring legacies of colonisation. As Arthur Corunna states in Sally Morgan’s My Place: "You see, the trouble is that colonialism isn’t over yet" (212). According to Suvendrini Perera and Joseph Pugliese, "[i]t is vital that the structural disadvantages and racisms faced by indigenous peoples not be relegated to history, but be seen as ongoing in contemporary Australia" (10). Many Aboriginal communities also feel that because migrants have not, in Australia at least, suffered the same extent of cultural domination, they are less disadvantaged. John Docker argues that each individual in 1788 and since who has come to Australia, however variegated their experiences and "however much there has been racism and ethnocentrism and differential access to power ha[s] benefited from the original invasion and dispossession of the Aboriginal peoples, and still benefit[s]" (54). For Aboriginal people migrant groups could be seen as another set of invaders, "not brothers and sisters on the margins, not the fellow oppressed and dispossessed" (Docker 54). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have thus avoided conflating their own political agendas – at the foreground of which are land rights and Native Title – with the very different concerns of various migrant communities (Brewster 16). Many Aboriginal people feel that because those migrating to Australia can retain their language, and often have families or communities to go to, they are less disadvantaged. Langford Ginibi’s comments are illustrative: Even the people who migrate here are on a higher social level than we are, and we’re the first people of this land! My people were forced to give away using our language and culture, and adopt the ways of the white man, but the people who migrated here don’t give away their language or culture to become Australian citizens." (52) In her autobiography Born a Half-Caste, Marnie Kennedy makes similar claims: "Every nationality in Australia is allowed to speak its language. They have their own gatherings. These are the things that make Aborigines very bitter because they were made to give up everything that was sacred to them" (4-5). Given the tensions and contradictions outlined above, long-lasting and productive relations between Aboriginal and NESB peoples can sometimes be difficult to forge, but it is important that NESB people recognise their responsibility in the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous Australians. NESB migrants (and all non-Aboriginal Australians) remain the beneficiaries of colonisation but, unlike their Anglo-Australian counterparts, non-white migrants have been racially marked and had their ability to claim the title ‘Australian’ questioned. Ongoing analysis of the positioning of NESB collectivities in relation to Aboriginal peoples will assist in undermining the central conflict of Black vs. white in reconciliation debates. Further research might also help disrupt the continuing cleavage of ‘the immigrant’ and ‘the Indigene’ in contemporary paradigms of reconciliation, providing a space for discussion on the potential role and contribution of NESB Australians to the reconciliation process. References Brewster, Anne. Literary Formations: Post-colonialism, Nationalism, Globalism. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne UP, 1995. Bulbeck, Chilla. Social Sciences in Australia: An Introduction. Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993. Curthoys, Ann. "An Uneasy Conversation: The Multicultural and the Indigenous." Race, Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand. Eds. John Docker and Gerhard Fischer. Sydney: U of NSW P, 2000. 21-36. Docker, John. "The Temperament of Editors and a New Multicultural Orthodoxy." Island Magazine 48 (1991): 50-55. Docker, John, and Gerhard Fischer. "Adventures of Identity." Race, Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand. Eds. John Docker and Gerhard Fischer. Sydney: U of NSW P, 2000. 3-20. Gunew, Sneja. "Multicultural Multplicities: US, Canada, and Australia." Meanjin 52.3 (1993): 447-461. Kennedy, Marnie. Born a Half-Caste. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1985. Langford Ginibi, Ruby. My Bundjalung People. St. Lucia, Qld: U of Queensland P, 1994. Le, Thanh Van , and Thang Manh Nguyen. "Vietnamese and Aborigines: Letter." Age 3 Apr. 1998: 14. Little, Janine. "Talking with Ruby Langford Ginibi." Hecate 20.1 (1994): 100-121. Morgan, Sally. My Place. South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre P, 1987. Morris, Barry. "Racism, Egalitarianism and Aborigines." Race Matters: Indigenous Australians and 'Our' Society. Eds. Gillian Cowlishaw and Barry Morris. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies P, 1997. 161-176. Perera, Suvendrini, and Joseph Pugliese. "Detoxifying Australia?" Migration Action 20.2 (1998): 4-18.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:DoNotRelyOnCSS /> <o:DoNotOrganizeInFolder /> <o:DoNotUseLongFilenames /> <o:PixelsPerInch>0</o:PixelsPerInch> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">In this article, we use the framework of critical race theory (CRT) to show how race, language, and schooling have played out in the historical project of the Italian nation-state. We then demonstrate how this historic racialized identity construction is currently excluding immigrants from Italian national identity. 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This paper explores South African hip-hop activist Emile YX?'s work to suggest that he presents an alternative take on mainstream US and South African hip-hop. While it is arguable that a great deal of mainstream hip-hop is commercially co-opted, it is clear that a significant amount of US hip-hop (by Angel Haze or Talib Kweli, for example) and hip-hop beyond the US (by Positive Black Soul, Godessa, Black Noise or Prophets of da City, for example) present alternatives to its co-option. Emile YX? pushes for an alternative to mainstream hip-hop's aesthetics and politics. Foregoing what Prophets of da City call “mindless topics” (Prophets of da City “Cape Crusader”), he employs hip-hop to engage audiences critically about social and political issues, including language and racial identity politics. Significantly, he embraces AfriKaaps, which is a challenge to the hegemonic speech variety of Afrikaans. From Emile's perspective, AfriKaaps preceded Afrikaans because it was spoken by slaves during the Cape colonial era and was later culturally appropriated by Afrikaner Nationalists in the apartheid era to construct white, Afrikaner identity as pure and bounded. AfriKaaps in hip-hop therefore presents an alternative to mainstream US-centric hip-hop in South Africa (via AKA or Cassper Nyovest, for example) as well as Afrikaner Nationalist representations of Afrikaans and race by promoting multilingual hip-hop aesthetics, which was initially advanced by Prophets of da City in the early '90s.Pursuing Alternative TrajectoriesEmile YX?, a former school teacher, started out with the Black Consciousness-aligned hip-hop crew, Black Noise, as a b-boy in the late 1980s before becoming an MC. Black Noise went through a number of iterations, eventually being led by YX? (aka Emile Jansen) after he persuaded the crew not to pursue a mainstream record deal in favour of plotting a career path as independent artists. The crew’s strategy has been to fund the production and distribution of their albums independently and to combine their work as recording and performing artists with their activism. They therefore arranged community workshops at schools and, initially, their local library in the township, Grassy Park, before touring nationally and internationally. By the late 1990s, Jansen established an NGO, Heal the Hood, in order to facilitate collaborative projects with European and South African partners. These partnerships, not only allowed Black Noise crew members to continue working as hip-hip activists, but also created a network through which they could distribute their music and secure further bookings for performances locally and internationally.Jansen’s solo work continued along this trajectory and he has gone on to work on collaborative projects, such as the hip-hop theatre show Afrikaaps, which looks critically at the history of Afrikaans and identity politics, and Mixed Mense, a b-boy show that celebrates African dance traditions and performed at One Mic Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 2014 (48 Hours). This artist’s decision not to pursue a mainstream record deal in the early 1990s probably saved Black Noise from being a short-lived pop sensation in favour of pursuing a route that ensured that Cape hip-hop retained its alternative, Black Consciousness-inspired subcultural edge.The activism of Black Noise and Heal the Hood is an example of activists’ efforts to employ hip-hop as a means of engaging youth critically about social and political issues (Haupt, Stealing Empire 158-165). Hence, despite arguments that the seeds for subcultures’ commercial co-option lie in the fact that they speak through commodities (Hebdige 95; Haupt, Stealing Empire 144–45), there is evidence of agency despite the global reach of US cultural imperialism. H. Samy Alim’s concept of translocal style communities is useful in this regard. The concept focuses on the “transportability of mobile matrices – sets of styles, aesthetics, knowledges, and ideologies that travel across localities and cross-cut modalities” (Alim 104-105). Alim makes the case for agency when he contends, “Although global style communities may indeed grow out of particular sociohistoric originating moments, or moments in which cultural agents take on the project of creating ‘an origin’ (in this case, Afrodiasporic youth in the United States in the 1970s), it is important to note that a global style community is far from a threatening, homogenizing force” (Alim 107).Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concepts of ethnoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes and mediascapes, Alim argues that the “persistent dialectical interplay between the local and the global gives rise to the creative linguistic styles that are central to the formation of translocal style communities, and leads into theorizing about glocal stylizations and style as glocal distinctiveness” (Appadurai; Alim 107). His view of globalisation thus accommodates considerations of the extent to which subjects on both the local and global levels are able to exercise agency to produce new or alternative meanings and stylistic practices.Hip-Hop's Translanguaging Challenge to HegemonyJansen’s “Mix en Meng It Op” [“Mix and Blend It / Mix It Up”] offers an example of translocal style by employing translanguaging, code mixing and codeswitching practices. The song’s first verse speaks to the politics of race and language by challenging apartheid-era thinking about purity and mixing:In South Africa is ek coloured and African means black raceFace it, all mense kom van Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionEk’s siek en sat van all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s om te expose onse behoort aan een rasHou vas, ras is las, watch hoe ons die bubble barsPlus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir daai potjie want ons wietie wattie mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSoe hulle moet gemix het om daai clicks to employ(Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; my emphasis)[In South Africa I am coloured and African means black raceFace it, all people come from Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionI’m sick and tired of all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s to expose the fact that we belong top one raceHold on, race is a burden, watch as we burst the bubble Plus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir that pot because we don’t know what the mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSo they must have mixed to employ those clicks]The MC does more than codeswitch or code mix in this verse. The syntax switches from that of English to Afrikaans interchangeably and he is doing more than merely borrowing words and phrases from one language and incorporating it into the other language. In certain instances, he opts to pronounce certain English words and phrases as if they were Afrikaans (for example, “My” and “land’s”). Suresh Canagarajah explains that codeswitching was traditionally “distinguished from code mixing” because it was assumed that codeswitching required “bilingual competence” in order to “switch between [the languages] in fairly contextually appropriate ways with rhetorical and social significance”, while code mixing merely involved “borrowings which are appropriated into one’s language so that using them doesn't require bilingual competence” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, he argues that both of these translingual practices do not require “full or perfect competence” in the languages being mixed and that “these models of hybridity can be socially and rhetorically significant” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, the artist is clearly competent in both English and Afrikaans; in fact, he is also departing from the hegemonic speech varieties of English and Afrikaans in attempts to affirm black modes of speech, which have been negated during apartheid (cf. Haupt “Black Thing”).What the artist seems to be doing is closer to translanguaging, which Canagarajah defines as “the ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages, treating the diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). The mix or blend of English and Afrikaans syntax become integrated, thereby performing the very point that Jansen makes about what he calls “the lie of purity” by asserting that the “mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sir” (Emile XY? “Mix en Meng It Op”). This approach is significant because Canagarajah points out that while research shows that translanguaging is “a naturally occurring phenomenon”, it “occurs surreptitiously behind the backs of the teachers in classes that proscribe language mixing” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). Jansen’s performance of translanguaging and challenge to notions of linguistic and racial purity should be read in relation to South Africa’s history of racial segregation during apartheid. Remixing Race/ism and Notions of PurityLegislated apartheid relied on biologically essentialist understandings of race as bounded and fixed and, hence, the categories black and white were treated as polar opposites with those classified as coloured being seen as racially mixed and, therefore, defiled – marked with the shame of miscegenation (Erasmus 16; Haupt, “Black Thing” 176-178). Apart from the negative political and economic consequences of being classified as either black or coloured by the apartheid state (Salo 363; McDonald 11), the internalisation of processes of racial interpellation was arguably damaging to the psyche of black subjects (in the broad inclusive sense) (cf. Fanon; Du Bois). The work of early hip-hop artists like Black Noise and Prophets of da City (POC) was therefore crucial to pointing to alternative modes of speech and self-conception for young people of colour – regardless of whether they self-identified as black or coloured. In the early 1990s, POC lead the way by embracing black modes of speech that employed codeswitching, code mixing and translanguaging as a precursor to the emergence of music genres, such as kwaito, which mixed urban black speech varieties with elements of house music and hip-hop. POC called their performances of Cape Flats speech varieties of English and Afrikaans gamtaal [gam language], which is an appropriation of the term gam, a reference to the curse of Ham and justifications for slavery (Adhikari 95; Haupt Stealing Empire 237). POC’s appropriation of the term gam in celebration of Cape Flats speech varieties challenge the shame attached to coloured identity and the linguistic practices of subjects classified as coloured. On a track called “Gamtaal” off Phunk Phlow, the crew samples an assortment of recordings from Cape Flats speech communities and capture ordinary people speaking in public and domestic spaces (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”). In one audio snippet we hear an older woman saying apologetically, “Onse praatie suiwer Afrikaan nie. Onse praat kombius Afrikaans” (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”).It is this shame for black modes of speech that POC challenges on this celebratory track and Jansen takes this further by both making an argument against notions of racial and linguistic purity and performing an example of translanguaging. This is important in light of research that suggests that dominant research on the creole history of Afrikaans – specifically, the Cape Muslim contribution to Afrikaans – has been overlooked (Davids 15). This oversight effectively amounted to cultural appropriation as the construction of Afrikaans as a ‘pure’ language with Dutch origins served the Afrikaner Nationalist project when the National Party came into power in 1948 and began to justify its plans to implement legislated apartheid. POC’s act of appropriating the denigrated term gamtaal in service of a Black Consciousness-inspired affirmation of colouredness, which they position as part of the black experience, thus points to alternative ways in which people of colour cand both express and define themselves in defiance of apartheid.Jansen’s work with the hip-hop theater project Afrikaaps reconceptualised gamtaal as Afrikaaps, a combination of the term Afrikaans and Kaaps. Kaaps means from the Cape – as in Cape Town (the city) or the Cape Flats, which is where many people classified as coloured were forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act under apartheid (cf. McDonald; Salo; Alim and Haupt). Taking its cue from POC and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Mr FAT, who asserted that “gamtaal is legal” (Haupt, “Black Thing” 176), the Afrikaaps cast sang, “Afrikaaps is legal” (Afrikaaps). Conclusion: Agency and the Transportability of Mobile MatricesJansen pursues this line of thought by contending that the construction of Shaka Zulu’s kingdom involved mixing many tribes (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”), thereby alluding to arguments that narratives about Shaka Zulu were developed in service of Zulu nationalism to construct Zulu identity as bounded and fixed (Harries 105). Such constructions were essential to the apartheid state's justifications for establishing Bantustans, separate homelands established along the lines of clearly defined and differentiated ethnic identities (Harries 105). Writing about the use of myths and symbols during apartheid, Patrick Harries argues that in Kwazulu, “the governing Inkatha Freedom Party ... created a vivid and sophisticated vision of the Zulu past” (Harries 105). Likewise, Emile YX? contends that isiXhosa’s clicks come from the Khoi (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; Afrikaaps). Hence, the idea of the Khoi San’s lineage and history as being separate from that of other African communities in Southern Africa is challenged. He thus challenges the idea of pure Zulu or Xhosa identities and drives the point home by sampling traditional Zulu music, as opposed to conventional hip-hop beats.Effectively, colonial strategies of tribalisation as a divide and rule strategy through the reification of linguistic and cultural practices are challenged, thereby reminding us of the “transportability of mobile matrices” and “fluidity of identities” (Alim 104, 105). In short, identities as well as cultural and linguistic practices were never bounded and static, but always-already hybrid, being constantly made and remade in a series of negotiations. This perspective is in line with research that demonstrates that race is socially and politically constructed and discredits biologically essentialist understandings of race (Yudell 13-14; Tattersall and De Salle 3). This is not to ignore the asymmetrical relations of power that enable cultural appropriation and racism (Hart 138), be it in the context of legislated apartheid, colonialism or in the age of corporate globalisation or Empire (cf. Haupt, Static; Hardt & Negri). But, even here, as Alim suggests, one should not underestimate the agency of subjects on the local level to produce alternative forms of expression and self-representation.ReferencesAdhikari, Mohamed. "The Sons of Ham: Slavery and the Making of Coloured Identity." South African Historical Journal 27.1 (1992): 95-112.Alim, H. Samy “Translocal Style Communities: Hip Hop Youth as Cultural Theorists of Style, Language and Globalization”. Pragmatics 19.1 (2009):103-127. Alim, H. Samy, and Adam Haupt. “Reviving Soul(s): Hip Hop as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in the U.S. & South Africa”. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice. Ed. Django Paris and H. Samy Alim. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2017 (forthcoming). Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Modernity. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.Canagarajah, Suresh. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London & New York: Routledge, 2013.Canagarajah, Suresh. “Codemeshing in Academic Writing: Identifying Teachable Strategies of Translanguaging”. The Modern Language Journal 95.3 (2011): 401-417.Creese, Angela, and Adrian Blackledge. “Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching?” The Modern Language Journal 94.1 (2010): 103-115. Davids, Achmat. The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims. Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2011.Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Journal of Pan African Studies, 1963, 2009 (eBook).Erasmus, Zimitri. “Introduction.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness”. Black Skins, White Masks. London: Pluto Press: London, 1986. 48 Hours. “Black Noise to Perform at Kennedy Center in the USA”. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://48hours.co.za/2014/03/11/black-noise-to-perform-at-kennedy-center-in-the-usa/>. Haupt, Adam. Static: Race & Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media & Film. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2012.———. Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008. ———. “Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. London & Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.Hart, J. “Translating and Resisting Empire: Cultural Appropriation and Postcolonial Studies”. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. Eds. B. Ziff and P.V. Roa. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.Harries, Patrick. “Imagery, Symbolism and Tradition in a South African Bantustan: Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkatha, and Zulu History”. History and Theory 32.4, Beiheft 32: History Making in Africa (1993): 105-125. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1979.MacDonald, Michael. Why Race Matters in South Africa. University of Kwazulu-Natal Press: Scottsville, 2006.Salo, Elaine. “Negotiating Gender and Personhood in the New South Africa: Adolescent Women and Gangsters in Manenberg Township on the Cape Flats.” Journal of European Cultural Studies 6.3 (2003): 345–65.Tattersall, Ian, and Rob De Salle. Race? Debunking a Scientific Myth. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011.TheatreAfrikaaps. Afrikaaps. The Glasshouse, 2011.FilmsValley, Dylan, dir. Afrikaaps. Plexus Films, 2010. MusicProphets of da City. “Gamtaal.” Phunk Phlow. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu, 1995.Prophets of da City. “Cape Crusader.” Ghetto Code. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu & Ghetto Ruff, 1997.YX?, Emile. “Mix En Meng It Op.” Take Our Power Back. Cape Town: Cape Flats Uprising Records, 2015.

Background: Kidney transplantation, while improving outcomes for patients with end-stage renal disease, comes with a risk of potentially life-threatening infections such as infection with cytomegalovirus (CMV), a virus associated with allograft rejection, organ dysfunction, and increased mortality. Objectives: To characterize whether the choice and dose of immunosuppressant therapy and the duration of antiviral prophylaxis after transplant are associated with the incidence of CMV viremia. Methods: This study was a retrospective review of all kidney-only transplant recipients at the authors’ centre from 2012 to 2016, with a minimum 1 year of follow-up. Patients with CMV viremia (defined as serum CMV viral load greater than 1000 IU/mL) were compared with patients who did not have viremia to investigate potential demographic and treatment-related risk factors. Results: A total of 653 patients were included in the study, of whom 161 (25%) met the criteria for CMV viremia. In univariate analysis, patients with CMV viremia had older age (55 versus 53 years, p = 0.038) and lower mean body weight (75 versus 79 kg, p = 0.015); in addition, the CMV viremia group included larger proportions of patients with Asian descent (40% [64/161] versus 21% [104/492]) and donor-positive/recipient-negative CMV serostatus (29% [47/161] versus 14% [70/492]). With respect to immunosuppressant therapy, patients with CMV viremia more frequently received antithymocyte globulin (ATG) induction (50% [80/161] versus 28% [138/492], p < 0.001) and received a higher weight-based cumulative ATG dose (mean 4.5 versus 4.1 mg/kg, p = 0.038). The multivariate analysis retained use of ATG, cumulative dose of ATG, Asian descent, and CMV serostatus as risk factors for CMV viremia. No statistically significant differences were found for the maintenance immunosuppressant dosing or duration of antiviral prophylaxis. Conclusions: Use of ATG for induction and higher weight-based dose of ATG were associated with an increased risk of CMV viremia. In addition, a component of race may also be involved, with patients of Asian descent being at higher risk. No differences were found in the maintenance dose of immunosuppression or the duration of antiviral prophylaxis. RÉSUMÉ Contexte : La transplantation rénale, bien qu’elle améliore les résultats des patients atteints d’insuffisance rénale en phase terminale, s’accompagne d’un risque d’infections potentiellement mortelles telles que l’infection par le cytomégalovirus (CMV) : un virus associé au rejet d’allogreffe, à un dysfonctionnement d’organe et à une plus grande mortalité. Objectifs : Caractériser si le choix et la dose du traitement immunosuppresseur et la durée de la prophylaxie antivirale après la transplantation sont associés à l’incidence de virémie à CMV. Méthodes : Cette étude était un examen rétrospectif de tous les receveurs d’une transplantation rénale uniquement mené au centre des auteurs de 2012 à 2016, avec un suivi d’au moins 1 an. Les patients atteints de virémie à CMV (définie comme une charge virale sérique CMV supérieure à 1000 UI/mL) ont été comparés à des patients sans virémie; cette comparaison avait pour but d’étudier les facteurs de risque démographiques ou liés aux traitements. Résultats : L’étude comprenait 653 patients, dont 161 (25 %) répondaient aux critères de virémie à CMV. En analyse univariée, l’âge des patients atteints de virémie à CMV était plus élevé (55 contre 53 ans, p = 0,038) et leur poids corporel moyen était moins élevé (75 contre 79 kg, p = 0,015); en outre, le groupe des patients atteints de virémie à CMV comprenait une plus grande proportion de patients d’origine asiatique (40 % [64/161] contre 21 % [104/492]) et de statut sérologique CMV donneur positif/receveur négatif (29 % [47/161] contre 14 % [70/492]). En ce qui concerne le traitement immunosuppresseur, les patients atteints de virémie à CMV ont reçu plus fréquemment une induction de sérum anti-lymphocytaire (SAL) (50 % [80/161] contre 28 % [138/492], p < 0,001) ainsi qu’une dose cumulative de SAL plus élevée en fonction du poids (moyenne de 4,5 contre 4,1 mg/kg, p = 0,038). L’analyse multivariée a retenu l’utilisation du SAL, la dose cumulative de SAL, l’origine asiatique et le statut sérologique du CMV comme facteurs de risque de virémie à CMV. Aucune différence statistiquement significative n’a été trouvée pour la posologie d’entretien des immunosuppresseurs ou la durée de la prophylaxie antivirale. Conclusions : L’utilisation du SAL pour l’induction et une dose plus élevée de SAL en fonction du poids étaient associées à un risque accru de virémie à CMV. De plus, une composante raciale pourrait également être impliquée – les patients d’origine asiatique étant plus à risque. Aucune différence n’a été trouvée dans la posologie d’entretien des immunosuppresseurs ou la durée de la prophylaxie antivirale.

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? - Habakkuk 1:13 Australia's official national anthem since 1984 has been a song entitled 'Advance Australia Fair'1. This paper asks, very simply, what is the meaning of the word fair in the title and the song. The song is about a collective effort, not so much at being a nation as at being seen to be one, being worthy of the name. The claim is justified on two grounds: possession and intention. We have golden soil, wealth, youth, the ability to toil, freedom, a beautiful country possessed of nature's gifts, boundless plains and so on. We make no particular claim to have done anything as yet but we have good intentions, specifically to toil with hearts and hands to make our nation famous as such. The setting of the song then is temporally ambiguous: we have x and we're about to y. The question naturally enough is: who are we? The song is naturally enough, as an anthem, about answering and not answering that question. Note that the hymn-like qualities of 'God save the Queen' are absent from the new anthem. And yet the song begins as if it were a hymn or a prayer, with the formula: 'Let us (pray/sing?)'. A pseudo-hymn. Who is addressed? We are. The temporal setting of the hymn is substituted with the imminence of an imperative: 'Let us rejoice.' Rejoicing is something we should all do for a long list of reasons. That being the case, 'let us sing'. In 'Advance Australia Fair' it is the imminent future to which voices attend in their act of unison. Whose act of unison? Who is the we? Anthems are always coy about this question which touches on their function and their efficacy. The unspoken answer which the song implies is however that the we addressing and addressed the self-identifying we of the song is fair and going to be fair, and will get there by being fair. That kind of fairness I would argue is characteristic of the we of white man's burden. 'Advance Australia Fair' is eat your cake and have it too stuff: we want to be a young nation about to play on the world's stage but at the same time we want to pretend that what is ours has an eternal quality. We want to borrow the timeless land myth; we don't want to acknowledge the time before our coming. We don't anymore even want to acknowledge our coming. We want to have always been here; but in an ahistoric way. The past should be irrelevant to the way we are now. This consciousness of an identity of pretended eternal rights is only achieved by multiple erasure: of time before the historic, of our historic consciousness of time. It is achieved by means of the terra nullius myth, the myth of an empty land prior to our coming. The song as it stands, the anthem as it is, is the perfect representative of that myth. The explanation of 'the historic facts' in the original version has been removed as an embarrassment. The emptiness posited by 'Advance Australia Fair' is deeply ironic. It represents a refusal of the ethical question which must lie under European presence in Australia. The land is empty because we emptied it. We have land to share because we took land. We only get to look generous because of a theft for which we do not wish to acknowledge responsibility. We sing from an emptiness wrought on ourselves in the act of emptying; the emptying of the land and at once the popular consciousness: emptying it of the fact of the emptying. Emptying ourselves of truth is the reflective act of nation: the basis of the collectivity on which a polity is claimed. It is a making colourless. How fair would that be? The 'Australians all...' update leaves untouched two serious problems with the song, these being the ways in which it might be unsatisfactory from the point of view of indigenous Australians (i.e. their erasure) and, linked with this, the serious ambiguity of the title and the chorus: the problem with the word 'fair'. The word-order inversion in the title/chorus is a kind of pseudo-archaism which tilts the song in the direction of the unintelligible. The inscrutable sign of identity becomes a kind of rite of passage; something which needs to be explained to children and migrants alike. Perfect form of mystification to express as collective sentiment the sentiment of collectivity; no one can definitively know what these words mean. The unknowable privileges a teachers' grasp of the archaic as originary lore: the teacher says it means 'Let's all work together to make Australia a beautiful country, a great country' or 'We should all be proud of Australia because it's such a great country, so we should pull together to make it even better.' Fair enough. Who could object? The central ambiguity means that when we sing the song we don't know whether we are describing how things are or how they should be. Advance Australia because it is fair or so that it will be fair or both reasons: to keep the fair fair? Of course this speculation begs the question about the meaning of the word 'fair'. Of all the various dictionary entries for the word fair the three which seem to coalesce in this usage are: fair as in beautiful, fair as in just and fair as in white. I would argue that these three uses coalesce likewise in the use of fair equally in that typically Australian expression, fair enough: characteristic expression of a country seriously worried for most of its European history about the risk of racial impurity even from 'other' Europeans. In the song the line is emphatic because it is actually repeated in each rendition of the chorus. It is the point the song is making. Or we could say it is the question the song asks: how should Australia be advanced? But this form of the question implies an adverbial construction. An adverb in this position would imply process and therefore a future orientation toward the quality of that process: how Australia ought to be advanced. But if the 'fair' of the chorus is really an adjective then the implication is that Australia is already a 'fair' entity; in advancing Australia one advances its already attained quality of fairness. The beautiful inhabit a just polity. A just polity is a white polity. This is the advance, in the song, that is happening, or has happened, in Australia. In fact this is the advance which the European word (Latin made English down here) constitutes for the continent formerly known to Europe as New Holland: Australia is becoming a white man's country. This song is specifically about the civilising process, about the white man's burden, as it applied to this particular far-flung reach of empire. The advance of the title concerns the progress of civilisation; it assigns to this process a very specific metaphor, that of a military movement. The progress of the white race over the continent is an advance. What appears to be an external motion (promote Australia abroad) belies an internal one: the still ongoing process of conquest and likewise the encouragement to get that done without miscegenation. That Aborigines are given no specific role in this song becomes less mysterious in this light: it is not their country or nationality which is being described here; rather the advance of fair Australia, an advance which takes place at the expense of an unmentioned (unmentionable?) non-polity. The non-inclusion of Aboriginal people in the Australian polity prior to the 1967 referendum shocks many today. And it shocks as unjust, unfair, unreasonable. That it did not seem so for long stretches of white Australia's memory indicates that a different logic was then in force. The convergence of moral value or integrity with race, with language, with tribal membership, is certainly a widespread human phenomenon and one with plenty of Old Testament backing (and plenty of Old Testament caveat as well). And it is familiar to anyone over the age of about thirty in Australia today, to anyone who ever sang the hymn 'All things white and wonderful'. That it is a sentiment unacceptable today in a world dominated by human rights consciousness indicates that the ethics of the last couple of decades have evolved radically from those which preceded them. The British Empire may have carted a lot of white man's burden about the globe but it is fairly hard to claim that it did not primarily exist for the benefit of white men. To argue otherwise now is to acquiesce in a rhetoric which those of us who accept universal human rights have no choice but to reject as racist. Today the civilising mission of the white man and the personal gain it brought white men remain spectacularly successful even and perhaps especially as the colour has been drained from the map. The sun sets on one kind of empire but only because that empire has been succeeded by one more lucrative, and, like the words of the successful anthem, harder to pin down than those in the one that preceded it. As to the event of singing ourselves into the 'fair' future: three connotations just, beautiful, white conflate in an ambiguity where through repetition, through emphasis, and through the dignifying effect of an anthem setting, they come to imply each other. The unspoken terms of the song suffice to imply the conflation: the white man (now all the people) toil to make the land beautiful and just. Whether this is an accomplished fact or an uphill battle, regardless of who is now included in this mission, there is no doubt that this notion of progress as 'Australia-making' is owing to the coming of the white man. Should the question be asked of this chorus then: if this is not blatant racism, is it something subtler? Is it a kind of deep-seated racism which survives the bowdlerizing of those for whom white supremacist rhetoric might be a little close to the bone? One can go further: this polysemy, on which nothing can be pinned, might be a closet racist's gift, because it generates paranoia. It accumulates the force of an exclusion without resorting to any culpable act of exclusion as such. Is this racism at the inscrutable and unconscious core of the nation's sense of itself? Is this the taunting of those whom the nation defines itself as excluding? Is this song taunting them to sing themselves out of the picture? If so then note that they would have two ways to go: they could be assimilated (fair enough?) or they could see themselves excluded. If the effect of this chorus is to say that Australia should go forward under the stewardship of the fair=inter alia white race2, then it is not a question of a particular idea of progress being conveyed despite the erasure of a previous story. The erasure of a particular past, which we are too polite to mention, enables the new story. The other past is erased together with the others who inhabited it. In the world outside of the song however, the others, whom we might be too polite to see, do still inhabit. They inhabit the new story, not as flies on the wall but as flies in the ointment. Should the song be scrapped? Should the lyrics be scrapped? The project of dismantling empires and their signs is, as the eastern bloc has been learning, not as straightforward as it may seem. Cutting the star out of the flag may leave a star-shaped hole for all to see. Advance Australia Fair, its evolution, its status, its popular reading, taboo readings (e.g. this one), the suppression of its earlier version, the fact that what it says and fails to say is officially accepted by Australians to represent Australians: all these things are living reminders of where Australians come from, of the thinking that brought us, of what we possess and how we come to possess it. Fostering awareness of these is of great value to Australians both in understanding ourselves and in deciding where we should go with that knowledge. Thanks to my mother, Sylvia Kelen, for help with research on this paper. Notes 1 It first succeeded 'God Save the Queen' in that role in 1974 following a national opinion poll conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the then Labor government. Incoming Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, reinstated 'God Save the Queen' in 1976. 'Advance Australia Fair' was politically corrected (not a phrase in use at the time) when re-instated as national anthem in 1984, with a view to giving the girls a fair go. The original opening line of Peter Dodds McCormick's nineteenth century song was: 'Australian sons let us rejoice/for we are young and free'. The 'correction' of the present version of the song is noteworthy given the emphasis which the song, and particularly the chorus, places on historical consciousness, more specifically on the self-consciousness of an effort at nationhood. 2 Note that there is plenty of evidence for this in the evolution of the song, especially in the second stanza of the original version: When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd, To trace wide oceans o'er, True British courage bore him onTill he landed on our shore. Then here he raised old England's flag, The standard of the brave; With all her faults we love her still, 'Britannia rules the wave'In joyful, etc The fourth and fifth stanzas of the original version of Peter Dodds McCormick's song describe who would be acceptable as a migrant and what this new political entity would be defending itself from in the case of war:While other nations of the globe Behold us from afar, We'll rise to high renown and shineLike our glorious southern star;From England, Scotia, Erin's Isle, Who come our lot to share, Let all combine with heart and handTo advance and etc.Should foreign foe e'er sight our coast,Or dare a foot to land, We'll rise to arms like sires of yoreTo guard our native strand; Britannia then shall surely know, Beyond wide ocean's roll, Her son's in fair Australia's landStill keep a British soul, In joyful strains and etc. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kelen, Christopher. "How fair is fair? " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.3 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/fairisfair.php>. Chicago Style Kelen, Christopher, "How fair is fair? " M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 3 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/fairisfair.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Kelen, Christopher. (2002) How fair is fair? . M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(3). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/fairisfair.php> ([your date of access]).

I hate being misunderstood. I guess we all do, but it goes with the territory. I use the word coloured, and he seems offended: 'We Brits don't say 'coloured'. It's regarded as patronising. We say black, if we say anything. And if we do it's for reasons of simple practicality. It doesn't matter. ' Of course, what he seems to be missing, is that the word coloured in South Africa now refers less to skin colour, and more to a distinct cultural group, with it's own language (a dialect of Afrikaans), food (of Malay origin), and music. To say black in this context would be inaccurate, and cause confusion. Danya and Kyla attend the Yeoville Community School, situated in a vibrant and culturally diverse suburb of Johannesburg. On returning from school one day Danya announces: 'We have to do something at school about our culture. What is our culture Daddy?'To which her father replies, 'Go and ask your mother.' 'Well…we're sort of New Age, sort of holistic…', Toni fumbles. A few days later… 'So what did you do in the end?' Soli asks. 'Oh, us and all the other coloured kids sang, Daar Kom die Alabama'1 says Kyla. It would seem that children want to know where they come from. 'I want you to divide yourself up into your different race groups', the facilitator says. We are in a Managing Diversity workshop, and he means the old South African race classification system, but of course he wants to see what we do with it. We end up with a group of Blacks (including three 'Asians'); an African group (including two 'Whites'); a White group (two); and the Human Race (two).'Why didn't you join the white group?' Thloki asks the Human Race.'I don't define myself by my race', I reply.'Ha! Wait till there's a war over resources' he laughs, 'then you'll quickly pick a side!' The postmodernist argument ensues: 'There is no such thing as race…all these arbitrary classifications…it's nothing but a social construct!''Well you never lived as a black person under apartheid. It was very real to me!'The facilitator aims to mediate/translate for the rest of us: 'Well yes, it is just a social construct. But one which had very real consequences for people.' 'Nobody goes into town anymore' a woman says. To which Har Bhajan replies, 'When I was last in town, there were lots of people there.' Of course, what she means is, hardly any white people go into town anymore. (And she's right about that.) But what is that, the way certain people become invisible, depending on who's looking? My friend Karima and I attend an Al Jarreau concert. Fairly expensive tickets, and almost the entire audience is black. I'm not sure why I'm quite so surprised. But this is Sandton, the richest formerly white suburb of Johannesburg. Perhaps working in the NGO sector I've missed how much things are actually changing… I wonder how many people in the audience have been into town lately. With the shift in power, and the -- albeit slow -- levelling of the playing field, now it is possible for white South Africans to be at the receiving end of racial discrimination too… I am visiting my cousin. He is 60, and a musician. But times are tough for him now. His brother was shot dead in his driveway while someone stole his car. And it's hard for him to find work. 'I am too white, now', he says. He is not bitter, just saddened. In his day he had probably the most famous jazz club in Johannesburg. Rumours it was called. 'The best little bootlegger in Bellevue' he called himself. He was known for breaking the law then. His club was racially integrated long before it was allowed. Controversial South African artist, Beezy Bailey, has an alter ego: 'The creation of Joyce was born of the frustration of 'increasingly prevalent affirmative action'. Bailey submitted two artworks for a triennial exhibition. One was with the traditional 'Beezy Bailey' signature (rejected) the other signed 'Joyce Ntobe'! The latter now enjoys an honoured place in the SA National Gallery as part of its permanent collection. When the curator of the SA National Gallery wanted to work on a paper about three black women artists, Joyce Ntobe being one, Bailey let the cat out the bag which caused a huge media 'scandale'.' (Carmel Art) I spent three months in London, and I realised how easy it is to be white there. Or rather, how easy it is to not be white. Of course, it 'doesn't matter' there, because it doesn't matter. It's easy to donate a monthly cheque to Worldvision, and read about the latest chaos in Zimbabwe in the free rag on the tube, and never have to look overwhelming poverty and disease in the face. But when you live on the African continent, you are very aware of being white. At the diversity workshop, I realise how white South Africans seem to get to take the rap here for the actions of white people on the planet. It's not just the effects of apartheid that black South Africans are angry about it seems, it's also the effects of the global economy, that cause the rich to become richer, and the poor to become poorer. Oh sure, that's not just an issue of race, but the poorest on our planet remain 'people of colour', and wealth remains concentrated in the West/North. I realise also that the Black and African groups at the workshop have one thing that they agree on quite strongly - the importance of making the African continent one's focus. Though the two of us in the Human Race group have both read Naomi Klein's No Logo -- and care about the effects on the poor of economic globalisation -- our sense of 'internationalism' is not viewed in a positive light, but seen rather as 'elitist'. * * * 'The thing about the Dutch' says Gary, 'is that they're pragmatic. They're not politically correct -- call the prostitutes prostitutes, not sex workers, but tax them, and give them health care. They have a strong human rights culture.' The Afrikaners are descendents of these transparent, curtainless Dutch. Sometimes I can see it. 'It is not words that make for bigotry, but attitudes', says columnist Ira Pilgrim. 'Some of the most bigoted people I have known always used the 'correct' words.'2 I am not politically correct. There are certain words I'd never use, and couldn't bring myself to, not out of political correctness, but because they're invested with hate. But words like 'whitey', darkie' and 'honky', where I sit, are terms of endearment. I'd never use them on strangers, but amongst friends, they're terms of affection and irony, because we're laughing at ourselves, and each other. 'It's hard to explain to anyone' Gary continues, 'what it's like living in a place where -- from the time you wake up in the morning, till you close your eyes at night -- every breath that you take is politicised.' Gary left the country because he didn't want to be conscripted to fight a war he didn't believe in. He's done well for himself in Europe. But he had to give up his homeland. I catch a 'Zola', the mini-bus taxi named after South Africa's barefoot runner Zola Budd, probably most famous for inadvertently tripping Mary Decker at the 1984 Olympics (Finnegan). Zola was little and fast, like the taxi's that 'zip, zip, zip' -- often to the infuriation of other motorists -- hence the affectionate nickname. They're the peril of the road, but the saviour of the immobile masses, with their unique language and hand signals. I overhear bits of Zulu conversation, including 'Brooke…Ridge…Thorne.' Our soaps, too, are politicised. It would seem that even black South Africans watch The Bold and the Beautiful for light relief. Usually I am the only whitey here, but accepted as just another carless commuter moving from A to B. Despite the safety risks of bad driving, I enjoy it. I did a Zulu course a few years ago. I didn't learn much Zulu -- discovered I don't have the tongue or an ear for African languages -- but I learnt a lot from the course nevertheless. 'Tell us about an experience that you've had, that was a result of cultural misunderstandings' says the facilitator. 'I spent much of my first year at University hungry' says Nhlanhla. 'My white friends would offer me food when I was visiting, but I would refuse, because in our culture, if you ask you don't really want to give. We just hand you a plate.' Nombulelo tells of the time she went on a yoga retreat. She was confused when she started to undress openly in the dormitory, and got disapproving looks from the other women. 'Why?' she wondered, 'we are all women together?' But these were Hindu women, whose sense of modesty was different from the openness of African women. For the whiteys, the major confusion seems to come from the issue of timekeeping. 'African time' is often referred to. Though in London, I did hear talk of 'Caribbean time'. Perhaps the concept of being on time is a particularly Western one (Makhale-Mahlangu). We are visiting friends of friends. There's an unlikely combination at the dinner table. She is tall and dark. I am short and fair. 'So where do you two know each other from?' Cairo asks. 'I'm Andie's sister', Kim replies. She reads the dumbfoundedness in Cairo's face. 'What can I say…my line got a bit deviated!' she laughs. She has my father's sense of humour. So have I. I ask my father, when he first became aware of racial prejudice. 'I was about six years old', he says. 'I threw my ball out of the school grounds, and called to the black man outside: 'Boy, please would you throw my ball back to me?' And the man replied: 'I am not a boy. I am old enough to be your grandfather.'' I am thinking about the time in our lives before we become aware of race… A friend tells me a story about how her six-year-old daughter came home from school and asked, 'Mommy, what's a [racist-term-not-to-be-repeated]?' She'd been called that. The late Lenny Bruce, controversial American comedian and social critic in the sixties, argued that it is 'the word that gives it the power of violence'3, and if we used 'the words' colloquially often enough, and began to invest them with new meanings, they would lose their power to hurt us. I am about to board a bus…'Woza (come) Mama', says the driver. 'Uyaphi?' (Where are you going?) '…green green, I'm going away to where the grass is greener still', come the Reggae sounds from his radio. We are discussing whether we should be focusing on our sameness or our differences. 'Of course we all want the same things…a home, a job, an education for our children', says Karima, but it's our differences that make us interesting.' I agree. Notes 1 Daar Kom die Alabama (Here Comes the Alabama) is a traditional 'Cape Coloured' song, originally sung in tribute to the Alabama, a confederate ship that docked in Cape Town in 1863. On board were Al Jolson-esque (Burlesque) performers, whom the slaves admired, and they imitated their style of performance. This tradition continues still today with the 'Coon Carnival' held on New Years Day and 'Tweede Nuwe Jaar' (Second New Year). It is said that the custom of Tweede Nuwe Jaar originated as a holiday for the slaves, who were too busy attending to their masters' needs on the first. For more information on the Coon Carnival, see http://www.iias.nl/host/ccrss/cp/cp3/cp3-__171___.html. 2 While the author makes some important general points about the drawbacks of political correctness, his reference to South Africa (including the correction) are in fact incorrect. The apartheid government had four major 'population groups' in it's classification system: African (black), Coloured, Asian and White. (The term black was used then only informally.) These were then sub-divided into other categories. See http://www.csvr.org.za/race.htm for further details. 3 The relevant extract from Julian Barry's 1971 play Lenny, can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s271585.htm. References Barry, Julian. Lenny. Random House, 1971. http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/lennybruce/ Downloaded 14 April 2002. Carmel Art Galleries. Beezy Bailey Curriculum Vitae, at http://www.carmelart.co.za/site/cvbb.htm Downloaded 14 April 2002. Finnegan, Mark. 'The 10 worst mishaps in the history of sport.' Observer Sport Monthly 5 November (2000). http://www.observer.co.uk/osm/story/0,69... Downloaded 14 April 2002. Klein, Naomi. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. USA: Picador, 2000. http://www.nologo.org/ Downloaded 14 April 2002. Makhale-Mahlangu, Palesa. 'Reflections on Trauma Counselling Methods.' Seminar presented at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Johannesburg, 31 July 1996. http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artpales.htm Downloaded 14 April 2002. Martin, Denis-Constant. 'The Famous Invincible Darkies Cape Town's Coon Carnival: Aesthetic Transformation, Collective Representations and Social Meanings', 1998. http://www.iias.nl/host/ccrss/cp/cp3/cp3-__171___.html Downloaded 14 April 2002. Pilgrim, Ira. 'Kikes, Niggers, Queers, Scotchmen and Chinamen', Mendocino County Observer, 22 March (1990). http://www.mcn.org/c/irapilgrim/race02.html Downloaded 14 April 2002. Transfer of African Language Knowledge (TALK). http://www.icon.co.za/~sadiverse/about.htm Downloaded 14 April 2002. Andie Miller was born, and spent the first 23 years of her life at the Southern-most tip of the African continent, in Cape Town. She currently works as webmaster for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, and the National Development Agency in Johannesburg, South Africa. Links http://www.observer.co.uk/osm/story/0 http://www.iias.nl/host/ccrss/cp/cp3/cp3-__171___.html http://www.carmelart.co.za/site/cvbb.htm http://www.csvr.org.za/ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s271585.htm http://www.csvr.org.za/articles/artpales.htm http://www.nologo.org/ http://www.mcn.org/c/irapilgrim/race02.html http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/lennybruce/ http://www.icon.co.za/~sadiverse/about.htm http://www.csvr.org.za/race.htm http://www.nda.org.za/ Citation reference for this article MLA Style Miller, Andie. "Multiculturalism and Shades of Meaning in the New South Africa" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.3 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/shadesofmeaning.php>. Chicago Style Miller, Andie, "Multiculturalism and Shades of Meaning in the New South Africa" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 3 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/shadesofmeaning.php> ([your date of access]). APA Style Miller, Andie. (2002) Multiculturalism and Shades of Meaning in the New South Africa. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(3). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/0207/shadesofmeaning.php> ([your date of access]).

Ce concept, fondamental en biologie, a fortement influencé l’anthropologie avant qu’elle ne le conteste. Il importe toutefois de préciser que c’est bien toutes les disciplines qui se trouvent, de par la nature de leur objet, confrontées au changement, qui ont été amenées à réfléchir aux mécanismes auxquels ce dernier obéit (Richelle 2009). La question de l’évolution s’est donc posée avant, et en dehors des hypothèses évolutionnistes formulées en biologie. Ainsi, les travaux de Marc Zuer van Boxhorn (1602 ?-1653) et de William Jones (1746-1794), précurseurs de la linguistique historique qui allait s’épanouir au 19ème siècle, préfiguraient les notions de transformation et de filiation que Lamarck et Darwin allaient si remarquablement développer. Deux malentendus persistent lorsqu’on débat de l’influence de Darwin sur les sciences de l’homme. Il s’agit du darwinisme social et de l’eugénisme. Le darwinisme social, expression à connotation péjorative apparue dans les années 1880, désigne une transposition abusive d’éléments de la théorie de l’évolution au niveau des sociétés humaines. Herbert Spencer, au milieu du 19ème siècle, s’empara de l’idée de « survie du plus apte » (« survival of the fittest »), qui glissa souvent vers « survie du plus fort » et « lutte pour la vie » (« struggle for life ») et marqua une position idéologique sans rapport avec les idées de Darwin mais qui servit, par la suite, à discréditer toute tentative d’aborder les faits sociaux à l’aide de modèles tirés de l’évolutionnisme biologique. De même, l’eugénisme n’est nullement un concept darwinien. Des conduites d’intervention des hommes dans le cours naturel de la reproduction ont existé de tout temps, et ce dans diverses cultures. Le terme eugénisme (eugenics) a été forgé par Francis Galton et eu une très large diffusion au 19ème siècle. Ce concept demeure encore actuellement d’une importance majeure dans la réflexion éthique en biologie et en médecine.Dans l’Origine des espèces (1859), Darwin constatait une grande variabilité individuelle au sein des espèces, ce qui l’a amené à conclure à la sélection naturelle de certains individus par l’environnement. Il n’inclura l’espèce humaine dans sa réflexion que douze ans plus tard, dans la Filiation de l’homme (1871), ouvrage dans lequel l’auteur reconnaît un deuxième mécanisme agissant en synergie avec le premier : la sélection sexuelle active uniquement lors de la reproduction. Pour Darwin, la force de la jalousie humaine démontre le caractère fondamentalement social de l’espèce et imagine, à son origine, des sociétés composées de couples à partenaires choisis. Ces sociétés barbares, qui se reproduisaient sous le mode de la sélection sexuelle - par choix des partenaires - auraient progressivement établis des règles de non-choix des partenaires, régulant ainsi l’ordre du sensible (Laurent 2010). D’autres règles de protection des plus faibles, seraient également apparues : la sélection naturelle aurait ainsi cédé la place à l’éducation et à la civilisation. Cette anthropologie darwinienne met la culture directement en continuité avec la nature. La sélection sexuelle primitive explique la variabilité humaine. L’option alternative de sociétés soumises à un mâle dominant aux origines de l’espèce humaine n’aurait pu sélectionner un si fort sentiment de jalousie et ainsi l’auteur l’écarte. Le premier courant d’anthropologie à se revendiquer de l’évolutionnisme intégra cette idée d’évolution lente de sociétés par étapes économiques et intellectuelles (Morgan 1971 [1877]). Cette évolution historique générale des sociétés touche un point sensible des rapports entre l’évolutionnisme et les sciences humaines. La survivance, dans la nature humaine, de comportements hérités de l’époque où celle-ci s’est modelée dans un milieu et sous des contraintes qui n’existent plus, pose la question de notre possible inadaptation aux conditions nouvelles créées par l’histoire culturelle (Richelle 2009; de Duve 2010, 2011). Il y a également l’idée sous-jacente d’un noyau universel de la nature humaine, défini par des traits qui se seraient fixés au terme d’un processus de sélection naturelle ancien, ce qui rejoint une tendance récurrente à cerner la nature humaine dans son universalité, en n’attribuant qu’une importance au mieux marginale aux variations inter- et intra-individuelles (Richelle 2009). A tout le moins, l’influence du darwinisme a amené les sciences humaines à s’interroger de manière rigoureuse sur les origines évolutives de caractéristiques que nous tenons pour spécifiques à l’homme (langage, conscience). Certains voient toutefois dans cette naturalisation de l’homme un réductionnisme biologique. Dans le but de corriger ce biais, ils accentuent le passage à l’espèce humaine comme une rupture récusant la dimension biologique, vue comme une menace contre l’essence même de l’humanité, caractérisée par le vocable toutefois mal défini de liberté (Richelle 2009).Ainsi, Lévi-Strauss (1949) s’est opposé à cette idée de continuum entre nature et culture. Sa théorie générale, fondée sur l’option rejetée par Darwin pour l’origine des sociétés humaines primitives comme une résultante du meurtre du père, impose l’interdit de l’inceste, seul moyen pour les familles à mâle unique de ne pas s’exterminer. Pour l’auteur, l’alliance par échange des femmes devint le fondement des sociétés humaines impliquant une identité entre ces dernières. Ceci l’oppose à la variabilité et à la sélection sexuelle décrites par Darwin (Laurent 2012). L’alliance fit partie, avec l’apparition du langage, de la révolution culturelle suscitée par l’émergence de la fonction symbolique humaine à la base de la division du travail et de l’asymétrie homme-femme. L’analyse que Laurent (2012) fait de la théorie générale montre que pour affirmer la spécificité des sociétés humaines, et donc l’autonomie de l’anthropologie vis-à-vis de la biologie, Lévi-Strauss reste prudent quant à l’origine naturelle des sociétés humaines et s’oppose plus aux théories eugénistes et sociobiologiques qu’au darwinisme proprement dit. Ceci dit, il souligne une rupture entre nature et culture qui met en exergue la singularité humaine. S’appuyant sur l’idée de variabilité des espèces de Darwin, Laurent (2010) identifie un autre rôle joué par l’alliance, celui de réguler l’inégalité fondamentale due à la diversité humaine. Enfin c’est sous l’éclairage des avancées de l’éthologie et de la primatologie que Godelier (2012) propose un modèle selon lequel, à la suite de transformations cumulatives, un nouveau lien de parenté régissant les sociétés serait apparu. Il s’agit du lien de descendance dont l’importance vient de l’impératif de la transmission de biens, valeurs et rapports sociaux.Les rapports entre l’anthropologie, la génétique, l’évolution, l’hérédité, ainsi que les concepts de race humaine et d’origine de l’homme font toujours l’objet de débats loin d’être clos, et dont le caractère d’entreprise scientifique continue d’être menacé par la persistance de conceptions racistes et créationnistes (Curry 2009; Marks 2012)

Black women are treated as though we are a box of chocolates presented to individual white women for their eating pleasure, so they can decide for themselves and others which pieces are most tasty (hooks 80). Introduction bell hooks equates African-American women with chocolates, which are picked out and selected for someone else’s pleasure. In her writing about white women who have historically dominated the feminist movement, hooks challenges the ways that people conceptualise the “self” and “other”. She uses a feminist lens to question widespread assumptions about the place of Black women in American society. hooks’s work has been applied to the Australian context by Bronwyn Fredericks, to explore the ways that Aboriginal women and men are perceived and “selected” by the broader Australian society. In this paper, we extend previous work about the metaphor of chocolate to discuss the themes underpinning an art exhibition—Hot Chocolate—which was curated by Troy-Anthony Baylis and Frances Wyld. Baylis and Wyld are Aboriginal Australians who are based in Adelaide and whose academic and creative work is centred within South Australia. The exhibition was launched on 14 November 2012 as part of Adelaide’s Visual Arts Program Feast Festival 2012 (CroftWarcon and Fredericks). It was curated in Adelaide’s SASA Gallery (which is associated with the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia). This paper focuses on the development of Hot Chocolate and the work produced by Aboriginal artists contained within it, and it includes a conversation about the work of Pamela CroftWarcon. Moreover, it discusses these works produced by the artists and links them back to the issues of identity and race, and how some Aboriginal people are selected like chocolates over and above others. In this, we are interested in exploring some of the issues around politics, desire, skin, and the fetishisation of race and bodies. The Metaphor of Chocolate This work will focus on how Aboriginal Australians are positioned as “chocolates” and how people of colour are viewed by the wider society, and about whether people have a pliable “soft centre” or a brittle “hard centre.” It uses hooks’s work as a point of reference to the power of the metaphor of chocolate in considering questions about who is “tasty.” In the Australian context, some Aboriginal people are deemed to be more “tasty” than others, in terms of what they say, write, and do (or what they avoid saying, writing, or doing). That is, they are seen as being sweeter chocolates and nicer chocolates than others. We understand that some people find it offensive to align bodies and races of people with chocolate. As Aboriginal women we do not support the use of the term ‘chocolate’ or use it when we are referring to other Aboriginal people. However, we both know of other Aboriginal people who use the metaphor of chocolate to talk about themselves, and it is a metaphor that other people of colour throughout the world similarly might use or find offensive. Historically, chocolate and skin colour have been linked, and some people now see these connections as something that reminds them of a colonial and imperial past (Gill). Some Aboriginal people are chosen ahead of others, perhaps because of their “complementary sweetness,” like an after-dinner mint that will do what the government and decision makers want them to do. They might be the ones who are offered key jobs and positions on government boards, decision-making committees, or advisory groups, or given priority of access to the media outlets (Fredericks). Through these people, the government can say, “Aboriginal people agree with us” or “this Aboriginal person agrees with us.” Aileen Moreton-Robinson is important to draw upon here in terms of her research focused on white possession (2005). Her work explains how, at times, non-Indigenous Anglo-Australians may act in their own interests to further invest in their white possession rather than exercise power and control to make changes. In these situations, they may select Aboriginal people who are more likely to agree with them, ether knowingly or in ignorance. This recycles the colonial power gained through colonisation and maintains the difference between those with privilege and those without. Moreover, Aboriginal people are further objectified and reproduced within this context. The flip side of this is that some Aboriginal people are deemed to be the “hard centres” (who are not pliable about certain issues), the “less tasty” chocolates (who do not quite take the path that others expect), or the “brittle” types that stick in your teeth and make you question whether you made the right choice (who perhaps challenge others and question the status quo). These Aboriginal people may not be offered the same access to power, despite their qualifications and experience, or the depth of their on-the-ground, community support. They may be seen as stirrers, radicals, or trouble makers. These perceptions are relevant to many current issues in Australia, including notions of Aboriginality. Of course, some people do not think about the chocolate they choose. They just take one from the box and see what comes out. Perhaps they get surprised, perhaps they are disappointed, and perhaps their perceptions about chocolates are reinforced by their choice. In 2011, Cadbury was forced to apologise to Naomi Campbell after the supermodel claimed that an advertisement was racist in comparing her to a chocolate bar (Sweney). Cadbury was established in 1824 by John Cadbury in Birmingham, England. It is now a large international corporation, which sells chocolate throughout the world. The advertisement for Cadbury’s Bliss range of Dairy Milk chocolate bars used the strapline, “Move over Naomi, there's a new diva in town” (Moss). Campbell (quoted in Moss) said she was “shocked” by the ad, which was intended as a tongue-in-cheek play on Campbell's reputation for diva-style tantrums and behaviour. “It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black women and black people,” she said. “I do not find any humour in this. It is insulting and hurtful” (quoted in Moss). This is in opposition to the Aboriginal artists in the exhibition who, although as individuals might find it insulting and hurtful, are using the chocolate reference to push the boundaries and challenge the audience’s perceptions. We agree that the metaphor of chocolate can take us to the edge of acceptable discussion. But we also believe that being at the edge of acceptability allows us to explore issues that are uncomfortable. We are interested in using the metaphor of chocolate to explore the ways that non-Indigenous people view Aboriginal Australians, and especially, discussions around the politics of identity, desire, skin, and the fetishisation of race and bodies. Developing the Exhibition The Hot Chocolate exhibition connected chocolate (the food) and Hot Chocolate (the band) with chocolate-coloured people. It was developed by Troy-Anthony Baylis and Frances Wyld, who invited nine artists to participate in the exhibition. The invited artists were: Troy-Anthony Baylis, Bianca Beetson, Pamela CroftWarcon, Cary Leibowitz, Yves Netzhammer + Ralph Schraivogel, Nat Paton, Andrew Putter and Dieter Roth (CroftWarcon and Fredericks). The exhibition was built around questions of what hot chocolate is and what it means to individuals. For some people, hot chocolate is a desirable, tasty drink. For others, hot chocolate brings back memories of music from the British pop band popular during the 1970s and early 1980s. For people with “chocolate-coloured skin”, chocolate can be linked to a range of questions about desirability, place, and power. Hot Chocolate, the band, was based in Britain, and was an inter-racial group of British-born musicians and immigrants from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Grenada. The title and ethnic diversity of the group and some of their song lyrics connected with themes for curatorial exploration in the Hot Chocolate exhibition. For example: I believe in miracles. Where you from, you sexy thing? … Where did you come from baby? ... Touch me. Kiss me darling… — You Sexy Thing (1975). It started with a kiss. I didn’t know it would come to this… — It Started With A Kiss (1983). When you can't take anymore, when you feel your life is over, put down your tablets and pick up your pen and I'll put you together again… — I’ll Put You Together Again (1978). All nine artists agreed to use lyrics by Hot Chocolate to chart their journeys in creating artworks for the exhibition. They all started with the lyrics from It Started With A Kiss (1983) to explore ways to be tellers of their own love stories, juxtaposed with the possibility of not being chosen or not being memorable. Their early work explored themes of identity and desirability. As the artists collaborated they made many references to both Hot Chocolate song lyrics and to hooks’s discussion about different “types” of chocolate. For example, Troy-Anthony Baylis’s Emotional Landscape (1997-2010) series of paintings is constructed with multiple “x” marks that represent “a kiss” and function as markers for creating imaginings of Country. The works blow “air kisses” in the face of modernity toward histories of the colonial Australian landscape and art that wielded power and control over Aboriginal subjects. Each of the nine artists linked chocolate with categorisations and constructions of Aboriginality in Australia, and explored the ways in which they, as both Aboriginal peoples and artists, seemed to be “boxed” (packaged) for others to select. For some, the idea that they could be positioned as “hot chocolate”—as highly desirable—was novel and something that they never expected at the beginning of their art careers. Others felt that they would need a miracle to move from their early “box” into something more desirable, or that their art might be “boxed” into a category that would be difficult to escape. These metaphors helped the artists to explore the categories that are applied to them as artists and as Aboriginal people and, particularly, the categories that are applied by non-Indigenous people. The song lyrics provided unifying themes. I’ll Put You Together Again (1978) is used to name the solidarity between creative people who are often described as “other”; the lyrics point the way to find the joy in life and “do some tastin'.” You Sexy Thing (1975) is an anthem for those who have found the tastiness of life and the believing in miracles. In You Sexy Thing, Hot Chocolate ask “Where you from?”, which is a question that many Aboriginal people use to identify each others’ mobs and whom they belong to; this question allows for a place of belonging and identity, and it is addressed right throughout the exhibition’s works. The final section of the exhibition uses the positive Everyone’s A Winner (1978) to describe a place that satisfies. This exhibition is a winner, and “that’s no lie.” Pamela CroftWarcon’s Works In a conversation between this paper’s authors on 25 November 2013, Dr Pamela CroftWarcon reflected on her contributions to the Hot Chocolate exhibition. In this summary of the conversation, CroftWarcon tells the story of her artwork, her concepts and ideas, and her contribution to the exhibition. Dr Pamela CroftWarcon (PC): I am of the Kooma clan, of the Uralarai people, from south-west Queensland. I now live at Keppel Sands, Central Queensland. I have practised as a visual artist since the mid-1980s and have worked as an artist and academic regionally, nationally, and internationally. Bronwyn Fredericks (BF): How did you get involved in the development of Hot Chocolate? PC: I was attending a writing workshop in Brisbane, and I reconnected with you, Bronwyn, and with Francis Wyld. We began to yarn about how our lives had been, both personally and professionally, since the last time we linked up. Francis began to talk about an idea for an exhibition that she and Troy wanted to bring together, which was all about Hot Chocolate. As we talked about the idea for a Hot Chocolate exhibition, I recalled a past discussion about the writing of bell hooks. For me, hooks’s work was like an awakening of the sense and spirit, and I have shared hooks’s work with many others. I love her comment about Black women being “like a box of chocolates”. I can understand what she is saying. Her work speaks to me; I can make sense of it and use it in my arts practice. I thus jumped at the chance to be involved. BF: How do you understand the concepts that frame the exhibition? PC: Many of the conversations I have had with other Aboriginal people over the years have included issues about the politics of living in mixed-race skin. My art, academic papers, and doctoral studies (Croft) have all focused on these issues and their associated politics. I call myself a “fair-skinned Murri”. Many non-Indigenous Australians still associate the colour of skin with authentic Aboriginal identity: you have to be dark skinned to be authentic. I think that humour is often used by Aboriginal people to hide or brush away the trauma that this kind of classification can cause and I wanted to address these issues in the exhibition. Many of the exhibition’s artworks also emphasise the politics of desire and difference, as this is something that we as Indigenous people continually face. BF: How does your work connect with the theme and concepts of the exhibition? PC: My art explores the conceptual themes of identity, place and Country. I have previously created a large body of work that used found boxes, so it was quite natural for me to think about “a box of chocolates”! My idea was to depict bell hooks’s ideas about people of colour and explore ways that we, as Aboriginal people in Australia, might be similar to a box of chocolates with soft centres and hard centres. BF: What mediums do you use in your works for the exhibition? PC: I love working with found boxes. For this work, I chose an antique “Winning Post” chocolate box from Nestlé. I was giving new life to the box of chocolates, just with a different kind of chocolate. The “Winning Post” name also fitted with the Hot Chocolate song, Everyone’s A Winner (1978). I kept the “Winning Post” branding and added “Dark Delicacies” as the text along the side (see Figure 1). Figure 1.Nestle’s “Winning Post” Chocolate Box. Photograph by Pamela CroftWarcon 2012. PC: I bought some chocolate jelly babies, chocolates and a plastic chocolate tray – the kind that are normally inserted into a chocolate box to hold the chocolates, or that you use to mould chocolates. I put chocolates in the bottom of the tray, and put chocolate jelly babies on the top. Then I placed them into casting resin. I had a whole tray of little chocolate people standing up in the tray that fitted into the “Winning Post” box (see Figures 2 and 3). Figure 2. Dark Delicacies by Pamela CroftWarcon, 2012. Photograph by Bronwyn Fredericks 2012. Figure 3. Dark Delicacies by Pamela CroftWarcon, 2012. Photograph by Pamela CroftWarcon 2012. PC: The chocolate jelly babies in the artwork depict Aboriginal people, who are symbolised as “dark delicacies”. The “centres” of the people are unknown and waiting to be picked: maybe they are sweet; maybe they are soft centres; maybe they are hard centres. The people are presented so that others can decide who is “tasty”─maybe politicians or government officers, or maybe “individual white women for their eating pleasure” (hooks) (see Figures 4 and 5). Figure 4. Dark Delicacies by Pamela CroftWarcon, 2012. Photograph by Pamela CroftWarcon 2012. Figure 5. Dark Delicacies by Pamela CroftWarcon, 2012. Photograph by Pamela CroftWarcon 2012. BF: What do you hope the viewers gained from your works in the exhibition? PC: I want viewers to think about the power relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I want people to listen with their ears, heart, mind, and body, and accept the challenges and changes that Indigenous people identify as being necessary. Icould have put names on the chocolates to symbolise which Aboriginal people tend to be selected ahead of others, but that would have made it too easy, and maybe too provocative. I didn’t want to place the issue with Aboriginal people, because it is mostly non-Indigenous people who do the “picking”, and who hope they get a “soft centre” rather than a “peanut brittle.” I acknowledge that some Aboriginal people also doing the picking, but it is not within the same context. BF: How do you respond to claims that some people might find the work offensive? PC: I believe that we can all tag something as offensive and it seems to be an easy way out. What really matters is to reflect on the concepts behind an artist’s work and consider whether we should make changes to our own ways of thinking and doing. I know some people will think that I have gone too far, but I’m interested in whether it has made them think about the issues. I think that I am often perceived as a “hard-centred chocolate”. Some people see me as “trouble,” “problematic,” and “too hard,” because I question, challenge, and don’t let the dominant white culture just simply ride over me or others. I am actually quite proud of being thought of as a hard-centred chocolate, because I want to make people stop and think. And, where necessary, I want to encourage people to change the ways they react to and construct “self” and “other.” Conclusion The Hot Chocolate exhibition included representations that were desirable and “tasty”: a celebration of declaring the self as “hot chocolate.” Through the connections with the food chocolate and the band Hot Chocolate, the exhibition sought to raise questions about the human experience of art and the artist as a memorable, tasty, and chosen commodity. For the artists, the exhibition enabled the juxtaposition of being a tasty individual chocolate against the concern of being part of a “box” but not being selected from the collection or not being memorable enough. It also sought to challenge people’s thinking about Aboriginal identity, by encouraging visitors to ask questions about how Aboriginal people are represented, how they are chosen to participate in politics and decision making, and whether some Aboriginal people are seen as being more “soft” or more “acceptable” than others. Through the metaphor of chocolate, the Hot Chocolate exhibition provided both a tasty delight and a conceptual challenge. It delivered an eclectic assortment and delivered the message that we are always tasty, regardless of what anyone thinks of us. It links back to the work of bell hooks, who aligned African American women with chocolates, which are picked out and selected for someone else’s pleasure. We know that Aboriginal Australians are sometimes conceptualised and selected in the same way. We have explored this conceptualisation and seek to challenge the imaginations of others around the issues of politics, desire, skin, and fetishisation of race and bodies. References Croft, Pamela. ART Song: The Soul Beneath My Skin. Doctor of Visual Art (Unpublished thesis). Brisbane: Griffith U, 2003. CroftWarcon, Pamela and Bronwyn Fredericks. It Started With a KISS. Hot Chocolate. Exhibition catalogue. Adelaide: SASA Gallery, 24 Oct.-29 Nov. 2012. Fredericks, Bronwyn. “Getting a Job: Aboriginal Women’s Issues and Experiences in the Health Sector.” International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies 2.1 (2009): 24-35. Gill, Rosalind. Gender and the Media. Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress Education as the Practice of Freedom. London: Routledge, 1994. Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. “The House That Jack Built: Britishness and White Possession.” ACRAWSA Journal 1, (2005): 21-29. 1 Feb. 2014. ‹http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournal/?id=8› Moss, Hilary. “Naomi Campbell: Cadbury Ad “Insulting & Hurtful”. The Huntington Post 31 May (2011). 16 Dec. 2013. ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/31/naomi-campbell-cadbury-ad_n_868909.html#› Sweney, Mark. “Cadbury Apologises to Naomi Campbell Over ‘Racist’ Ad.” The Guardian 3 Jun. (2011). 16 Dec. 2013. ‹http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/03/cadbury-naomi-campbell-ad›

Now in its thirtieth season, in 2018, The Simpsons is a popular culture phenomenon. The series is known as much for its social commentary as its humour and celebrity appearances. Nonetheless, The Simpsons’ ratings have declined steadily since the early 2000s, and fans have grown more vocal in their calls for the program’s end. This article provides a case study of episode “That 90s Show” (S19, E11) as a flashpoint that exemplifies fan desires for the series’ conclusion. This episode is one of the most contentious in the program’s history, with online outrage at the retconning of canon and both fans and anti-fans (Gray) of The Simpsons demanding its cancellation or “fan euthanasia”. The retconning of the canon in this episode makes evident the perceived decline in the quality of the series, and the regard for fan desires. “That 90s Show” is ultimately a failed attempt to demonstrate the continued relevance of the series to audiences, and popular culture at large, via its appeal to 1990s nostalgia.“That 90s Show”“That 90s Show” begins with Bart and Lisa’s discovery of Marge’s Springfield University diploma. This small incident indicates an impending timeline shift and “retcon”; canonically Marge never attended college, having fallen pregnant with Bart shortly after completing high school. The episode then offers an extended flashback to Marge and Homer’s life in the 1990s. The couple are living together in the Springfield Place apartment complex, with Homer working a variety of menial jobs to support Marge while she attends college. Homer and Marge subsequently break up, and Marge begins to date Professor Stephan August. In his despair, Homer can no longer perform R & B ballads with his ensemble. The band changes genres, and their new incarnation, Sadgasm, are soon credited with initiating the grunge movement. Sadgasm gain worldwide fame for their songs “Margerine” (a version of “Glycerine” by Bush), and “Politically Incorrect/Shave Me” (set to the melody of “Rape Me” by Nirvana) – which is later parodied in the episode by guest star Weird Al Yankovic as “BrainFreeze”. Homer develops an addiction to oversized, sweetened Starbucks coffee, and later, insulin, becoming a recluse despite the legion of fans camped out on his front lawn.Marge and Professor August soon part company due to his rejection of heteronormative marriage rituals. Upon her return to campus, Marge observes an MTV report on Sadgasm’s split, and Homer’s addiction, and rushes to Homer’s bedside to help him through recovery. Marge and Homer resume their relationship, and the grunge movement ends because Homer claims he “was too happy to ever grunge again.”While the episode rates a reasonable 6.1 on IMDB, fan criticism has largely focused on the premise of the episode, and what has been perceived to be the needless retconning of The Simpsons canon. Critic Robert Canning notes: “…what ‘That 90s Show’ did was neither cool nor interesting. Instead, it insulted lifelong Simpsons fans everywhere. With this episode, the writers chose to change the history of the Simpson family.” Canning observes that the episode could have worked if the flashback had been to the 1980s which supports canonicity, rather than a complete “retcon”. The term “retcon” (retroactive continuity) originates from narrative devices used in North American superhero comics, and is now broadly applied to fictional narrative universes. Andrew Friedenthal (10-11) describes retconning as “… a revision of the fictional universe in order to make the universe fresh and exciting for contemporary readers, but it also involves the influence of the past, as it directly inscribes itself upon that past.” While Amy Davis, Jemma Gilboy and James Zborowski (175-188) have highlighted floating timelines as a feature of long running animation series’ where characters remain the same age, The Simpsons does not fully adhere to this trope: “… one of the ‘rules’ of the ‘comic-book time’ or ‘floating timeline’ trope is that ‘you never refer to specific dates’… a restriction The Simpsons occasionally eschews” (Davis, Gilboy, and Zborowski 177).For many fans, “That 90s Show” becomes abstruse by erasing Marge and Homer’s well-established back story from “The Way We Was” (S2, E12). In the established narrative, Marge and Homer had met, fell in love and graduated High School in 1974; shortly after Marge fell pregnant with Bart, resulting in the couple’s shotgun wedding. “That 90s Show” disregards the pre-existing timeline, extending their courtship past high school and adding the couple’s breakup, and Homer’s improbable invention of grunge. Fan responses to “That 90s Show” highlight this episode of The Simpsons as a flashpoint for the sharp decline of quality in the series (despite having long since “jumped the shark”); but also, a decline in regard for the desires of fans. Thus, “That 90s Show” fails not only in rewriting its canon, and inserting the narrative into the 1990s; it also fails to satiate its loyal audience by insisting upon its centrality to 1990s pop culture.While fans have been vocal in online forums about the shift in the canon, they have also reflected upon the tone-deaf portrayal of the 1990s itself. During the course of the episode many 90s trends are introduced, the most contentious of which is Homer’s invention of grunge with his band Sadgasm. While playing a gig at Springfield University a young man in the audience makes a frantic phone call, shouting over the music: “Kurt, it’s Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Cobain. You know that new sound you’re looking for…?,” thrusting the receiver towards the stage. The link to Nirvana firmly established, the remainder of the episode connects Homer’s depression and musical expression more and more blatantly to Kurt Cobain’s biography, culminating in Homer’s seclusion and near-overdose on insulin. Fans have openly debated the appropriateness of this narrative, and whether it is disrespectful to Cobain’s legacy (see Amato). Henry Jenkins (41) has described this type of debate as a kind of “moral economy” where fans “cast themselves not as poachers but as loyalists, rescuing essential elements of the primary text ‘misused’ by those who maintain copyright control over the program materials.” In this example, many original fans of The Simpsons felt the desire to rescue both Cobain’s and The Simpsons’ legacy from a poorly thought-out retcon seen to damage the legacy of both.While other trends associated with the 90s (Seinfeld; Beanie babies; Weird Al Yankovic; Starbucks; MTV VJs) all feature, it is Homer’s supposed invention of grunge which most overtly attempts to rewrite the 90s and reaffirm The Simpsons’ centrality to 90s pop culture. As the rest of this article will discuss, by rewriting the canon, and the 1990s, “That 90s Show” has two unrealised goals— firstly, to captivate an audience who have grown up with The Simpsons, via an appeal to nostalgia; and secondly, inserting themselves into the 1990s as an effort to prove the series’ relevance to a new generation of audience members who were born during that decade, and who have a nostalgic craving for the media texts of their childhood (Atkinson). Thus, this episode is indicative of fan movement towards an anti-fan position, by demanding the series’ end, or “fan euthanasia” (Williams 106; Booth 75-86) and exposing the “… dynamic spectrum of emotional reactions that fandom can generate” (Booth 76-77).“Worst. Episode. Ever”: Why “That 90s Show” FailedThe failure of “That 90s Show” can be framed in terms of audience reception— namely the response of original audience members objecting to the retconning of The Simpsons’ canon. Rather than appealing to a sense of nostalgia among the audience, “That 90s Show” seems only to suggest that the best episodes of The Simpsons aired before the end of the 1990s. Online forums devoted to The Simpsons concur that the series was at its peak between Seasons 1-10 (1989-1999), and that subsequent seasons have failed to match that standard. British podcaster Sol Harris spent four months in 2017 watching, rating, and charting The Simpsons’ declining quality (Kostarelis), with the conclusion that series’ downfall began from Season 11 onwards (despite a brief spike following The Simpsons Movie (2007)). Any series that aired on television post-1999 has been described as “Zombie Simpsons” by fans on the Dead Homer Society forum: “a hopelessly mediocre imitation that bears only a superficial resemblance to the original. It is the unwanted sequel, the stale spinoff, the creative dry hole that is kept pumping in the endless search for more money. It is Zombie Simpsons” (Sweatpants). It is essential to acknowledge the role of economics in the continuation of The Simpsons, particularly in terms of the series’ affiliation with the Fox Network. The Simpsons was the first series screened on Fox to reach the Top 30 programs in the US, and despite its overall decline, it is still one of the highest rating programs for the 18-49 demographic, enabling Fox to charge advertisers accordingly for a so-called “safe” slot (Berg). During its run, it has been estimated variously that Fox has been building towards a separate Simpsons cable channel, thus the consistent demand for new content; and, that the series has earned in excess of $4.6 billion for Fox in merchandising alone (Berg). Laura Bradley outlines how the legacy of The Simpsons beyond Season 30 has been complicated by the ongoing negotiations for Disney to buy 20th Century Fox – under these arrangements, The Simpsons would likely be screened on ABC or Hulu, should Disney continue producing the series (Bradley). Bradley emphasises the desire for fan euthanasia of the Zombie Simpsons, positing that “the series itself could end at Season 30, which is what most fans of the show’s long-gone original iteration would probably prefer.”While more generous fans expand the ‘Golden Age’ of The Simpsons to Season 12 (Power), the Dead Homer Society argues that their Zombie Simpsons theory is proven by the rise of “Jerkass Homer”, where Homer’s character changed from delightful doofus to cruel and destructive idiot (Sweatpants; Holland). The rise of Jerkass Homer coincides with the moment where Chris Plante claims The Simpsons “jumped the shark”. The term “jumping the shark” refers to the peak of a series before its inevitable, and often sharp, decline (Plante). In The Simpsons, this moment has been variously debated as occurring during S8, E23 “Homer’s Enemy” (Plante), or more popularly, S9, E2 “The Principle and the Pauper” (Chappell; Cinematic) – which like “That 90s Show”, received a vitriolic response for its attempt to retcon the series’ narrative history. “The Principal and the Pauper” focuses on Principal Skinner, and the revelation that he had assumed the identity of his (presumed dead during the Vietnam War) Army Sergeant, Seymour Skinner. The man we have known as Skinner is revealed to be “no-good-nik” Armin Tanzarian. This episode is loathed not only by audiences, but in hindsight, The Simpsons’ creative team. Voice actor Harry Shearer was scathing in his assessment:You’re taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we’ve done before with other characters. It’s so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it’s disrespectful to the audience. (Wilonsky)The retcon present in both “That 90s Show” and “The Principal and the Pauper” proves that long-term fans of The Simpsons have been forgotten in Groening’s quest to reach the pinnacle of television longevity. On this basis, it is unsurprising that fans have been demanding the end of the series since the turn of the millennium.As a result, fans such as the Dead Homer Society maintain a nostalgic longing for the Golden Age of The Simpsons, while actively campaigning for the program’s cancellation, a practice typically associated with anti-fans. Jonathan Gray coined the term “anti fan” to describe “… the active and vocal dislike or hate of a program, genre, or personality (841). For Gray, the study of anti-fans emphasises that the hatred of a text can “… produce just as much activity, identification, meaning, and ‘effects’ or serve just as powerfully to unite and sustain a community or subculture” (841). Gray also stresses the discourse of morality used by anti-fans to validate their reading position, particularly against texts that are broadly popular. This argument is developed further by Jenkins and Paul Booth.“Just Pick a Dead End, and Chill Out till You Die”: Fan EuthanasiaWhile some fans of The Simpsons have moved towards anti-fan practices (active hatred of the series, and/or a refusal to watch the show), many more occupy a “middle-ground”, pleading for a form of “fan euthanasia”; where fans call for their once loved object (and by extension, themselves) to “be put out of its misery” (Booth 76). The shifting relationship of fans of The Simpsons represents an “affective continuum”, where “… fan dissatisfaction arises not because they hate a show, but because they feel betrayed by a show they once loved. Their love of a text has waned, and now they find themselves wishing for a quick end to, a revaluation of, something that no longer lives up to the high standard they once valued” (Booth 78). While calls to end The Simpsons have existing since the end of the Golden Age, other fans (Ramaswamy) have suggested it is more difficult to pinpoint when The Simpsons lost its way. Despite airing well after the Golden Age, “That 90s Show” represents a flashpoint for fans who read the retcon as “… an insult to life-long Simpsons fans everywhere… it’s an episode that rewrites history… for the worse” (Canning). In attempting to appeal to the 90s nostalgia of original fans, ‘That 90s Show’ had the opposite effect; it instead reaffirms the sharp decline of the series since its Golden Age, which ended in the 1990s.Shifting the floating timeline of The Simpsons into the 1990s and overturning the canon to appeal to a new generation is dubious for several reasons. While it is likely that original viewers of The Simpsons (their parents) may have exposed their children to the series, the program’s relevance to Millennials is questionable. In 2015, Todd Schneider data mapped audience ratings for Seasons 1-27, concluding that there has been an 80% decline in viewership between Season 2 (which averaged at over 20 million American viewers per episode) to Season 27 (which averaged at less than 5 million viewers per episode). With the growth of SVOD services during The Simpsons’ run, and the sheer duration of the series, it is perhaps obvious to point out the reduced cultural impact of the program, particularly for younger generations. Secondly, “That 90s Show’s” appeal to nostalgia raises the question of whom nostalgia for the 1990s is aimed at. Atkinson argues that children born in the 1990s feel nostalgia for the era becausewe're emotionally invested in the entertainment from that decade because back then, with limited access to every album/TV show/film ever, the ones you did own meant absolutely everything. These were the last pop-culture remnants from that age when the internet existed without being all-consuming. … no wonder we still 'ship them so hard.Following this argument, if you watched The Simpsons as a child during the 1990s, the nostalgia you feel would be, like your parents, for the Golden Age of The Simpsons, rather than the pale imitation featured in “That 90s Show”. As Alexander Fury writes of the 90s: “perhaps the most important message … in the 90s was the idea of authenticity;” thus, if the children of the 90s are watching The Simpsons, they would look to Seasons 1-10 – when The Simpsons was an authentic representation of ‘90s popular culture.Holland has observed that The Simpsons endures “in part due to the way it adapts and responds to events around it”, citing the recent release of clips responding to current events – including Homer attempting to vote; and Trump’s tenure in the White House (Brockington). Yet the failure of “That 90s Show” marks not only The Simpsons increasingly futile efforts to appeal to a “liberal audience” by responding to contemporary political discourse. The failure to adapt is most notable in Hari Kondabolu’s documentary The Problem With Apu which targeted racist stereotypes, and The Simpsons’ poorly considered response episode (S29, E 15) “No Good Read Goes Unpunished”, the latter of which featured an image of Apu signed with Bart’s catchphrase, “Don’t have a cow, man” (Harmon). Groening has remained staunch, insisting that “it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended”, and that the show “speaks for itself” (Keveney). Groening’s statement was followed by the absence of Apu from the current season (Snierson), and rumours that he would be removed from future storylines (Culbertson).“They’ll Never Stop The Simpsons”The case study of The Simpsons episode “That 90s Show” demonstrates the “affective continuum” occupied at various moments in a fan’s relationship with a text (Booth). To the displeasure of fans, their once loved object has frequently retconned canon to capitalise on popular culture trends such as nostalgia for the 1990s. This episode demonstrates the failure of this strategy, as it both alienated the original fan base, and represented what many fans have perceived to be a sharp decline in The Simpsons’ quality. Arguably the relevance of The Simpsons might also remain in the 1990s. Certainly, the recent questioning of issues regarding representations of race, negative press coverage, and the producers’ feeble response, increases the weight of fan calls to end The Simpsons after Season 30. As they sang in S13, E17, perhaps “[We’ll] Never Stop The Simpsons”, but equally, we may have reached the tipping point where audiences have stopped paying attention.ReferencesAmato, Mike. “411: ‘That 90s Show.” Me Blog Write Good. 12 Dec. 2012. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://meblogwritegood.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/411-that-90s-show/>.Atkinson, S. “Why 90s Kids Can’t Get over the 90s and Are Still So Nostalgic for the Decade.” Bustle. 14 Apr. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://www.bustle.com/p/why-90s-kids-cant-get-over-the-90s-are-still-so-nostalgic-for-the-decade-56354>.Berg, Madeline. “The Simpsons Signs Renewal Deal for the Record Books.” Forbes. 4 Nov. 2016. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2016/11/04/the-simpsons-signs-renewal-deal-for-the-record-books/#264a50b61b21>.Booth, Paul. “Fan Euthanasia: A Thin Line between Love and Hate.” Everybody Hurts: Transitions, Endings, and Resurrections in Fan Cultures. Ed. Rebecca Williams. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018. 75-86.Bradley, Laura. “What Disney and Comcast’s Battle over Fox Means for Film and TV Fans.” Vanity Fair. 14 June 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/06/comcast-fox-bid-disney-merger-tv-film-future-explainer>.Brockington, Ariana. “Donald Trump Reconsiders His Life in Simpsons Video ‘A Tale of Two Trumps.” Variety. 23 Mar. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/the-simpsons-donald-trump-a-tale-of-two-trumps-1202735526/>.Canning, Robert. “The Simpsons: ‘That 90s Show’ Review.” 28 Jan. 2008. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://au.ign.com/articles/2008/01/28/the-simpsons-that-90s-show-review>.Chappell, Les. “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘The Principal and the Pauper’.” AV Club. 28 June 2015. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://tv.avclub.com/the-simpsons-classic-the-principal-and-the-pauper-1798184317>.Cinematic. “The Principal and the Pauper: The Fall of The Simpsons.” 15 Aug. 2012. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://cinematicfilmblog.com/2012/08/15/the-principal-and-the-pauper-the-fall-of-the-simpsons/>.Culbertson, Alix. “The Simpsons Producer Responds to Apu Controversy.” Sky News. 30 Oct. 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://news.sky.com/story/the-simpsons-indian-character-apu-axed-after-racial-controversy-11537982>.Davis, Amy M., Jemma Gilboy, and James Zborowski. “How Time Works in The Simpsons.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10.3 (2015): 175-188.Friedenthal, Andrew. Retcon Game: Retroactive Continuity and the Hyperlinking of America. USA: University Press of Mississippi, 2017.Fury, Alexander. “The Return of the ‘90s.” New York Times. 13 July 2016. 28 Sep. 2018. <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/t-magazine/fashion/90s-fashion-revival.html>.Gray, Jonathan. “Antifandom and the Moral Text: Television without Pity and Textual Dislike.” American Behavioral Scientist 48.7 (2005): 840-858.Harmon, Steph. “‘Don’t Have a Cow’: The Simpsons Response to Apu Racism Row Criticised as ‘Toothless’.” The Guardian. 10 Apr. 2018. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/apr/10/dont-have-a-cow-the-simpsons-response-to-apu-racism-row-criticised-as-toothless>.Holland, Travis. “Why The Simpsons Lost Its Way.” The Conversation. 3 Nov. 2016. 28 Sep. 2018. <https://theconversation.com/why-the-simpsons-has-lost-its-way-67845>.IMDB. “The Simpsons – That 90s Show.” 2 Oct. 2018 <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166961/>.Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: NYU P, 2006.Keveney, Bill. “The Simpsons Exclusive: Matt Groening (Mostly) Remembers the Show’s Record 636 Episodes.” USA Today. 27 Apr. 2018. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2018/04/27/thesimpsons-matt-groening-new-record-fox-animated-series/524581002/>.Kostarelis, Stefan. “This Genius Chart That Tracks the Decline in The Simpsons Is Too Real”. Techly. 21 July 2017. 2 Oct. 2018 <https://www.techly.com.au/2017/07/21/british-man-binges-all-simpsons-episodes-in-a-month-charts-decline-in-shows-quality/>.Plante, Chris. “The Simpsons Jumped the Shark in One of Its Best Episodes”. The Verge. 22 Aug. 2014. 20 Nov. 2018 <https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/22/6056915/frank-grimes-the-simpsons-jump-the-shark>.Power, Kevin. “I Watched All 629 Episodes of The Simpsons in a Month. 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Entertainment Weekly. 28 Sep. 2018. 26 Nov. 2018 <https://ew.com/tv/2018/09/28/simpsons-showrunner-season-30-preview/>.Sweatpants, Charlie. “Zombie Simpsons: How the Best Show Ever Became the Broadcasting Undead.” Dead Homer Society. 28 Sep. 2018 <https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/>.Williams, Rebecca. Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity, and Self-Narrative. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Introduction: Serial Space“It feels …like the edge of the world; far more remote than it actually is, perhaps because it looks at such immensity” (Godden “Black,” 38). This is the priest’s warning to Sister Clodagh in Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel Black Narcissus. The young, inexperienced Clodagh leads a group of British nuns through the Indian Himalayas and onto a remote mountain top above Mopu. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger adapted Godden’s novel into the celebrated feature film, Black Narcissus (1947). Following the novel, the film narrates the nuns’ mission to establish a convent, school, and hospital for the local population. Yet, immensity moves in mysterious ways. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) loses her managerial grip. Sister Philippa (Flora Robson) cultivates wild flowers instead of vegetables. Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) sheds nun’s attire for red lipstick and a Parisian dress. The young Indian woman Kanchi (Jean Simmons) becomes a force of libidinous disturbance. At the twilight of the British Empire, white, western nuns experience the psychical effects of colonialism at the precipice. Taking such cues from Pressburger and Powell’s film, Michelle Williams Gamaker, an artist, filmmaker, and scholar, responds to Black Narcissus, both film and novel. She does so through a radical interpretation of her own. Gamaker William’s 24-minute film, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten (forthcoming, London 2018) is a longer “short,” which breaks the mould of what scholar Linda Hutcheon would term an “adaptation” (2006). For Hutcheon, there is a double “mode of engagement” between an original work and its adapted form (22). On the one hand, there is a “transcoding” (22). This involves “transporting” characters from a precedent work to its adapted form (11). On the other, there is an act of “creative interpretation” (22). The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten transports yet recreates the Indian “beggar girl” Kanchi, played by a “blacked up” white Hollywood actor Jean Simmons (Black Narcissus), into Williams Gamaker’s contemporary Kanchi, played by Krishna Istha. In this 2018 instalment, Kanchi is an Asian and transgender protagonist of political articulacy. Hence, Williams Gamaker’s film engages a double tactic of both transporting yet transforming Kanchi, as well as Sisters Clodagh and Philippa, from the feature film into The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. To analyse Williams Gamaker’s film, I will make a theoretical jump off the precipice, stepping from Hutcheon’s malleable concept of adaptation into a space of “trans-serial” narrative.In what follows, I shall read The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten as an “episode” in a serial. The prior episodes, Williams Gamaker’s House of Women (London 2017, Berlin 2018) is a short, fictional, and surreal documentary about casting the role of Kanchi. It can be read as the next episode in Kanchi’s many incarnations. The relationship between Sister Clodagh (Kelly Hunter as voiceover) and Kanchi in House of Women develops from one of confrontation to a transgender kiss in the climatic beat of The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. Williams Gamaker’s film can be read as one of a series which is itself inflected with the elements of a “trans-serial.” Henry Jenkins argues that “transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels” (emphasis in original, “Transmedia”). I use the word “trans” to define the gap between novelistic texts and film. Throughout Williams Gamaker’s series, she uses many textual citations from Godden’s novel, and dialogue from Pressburger and Powell’s film. In other words, verbal elements as well as filmic images are adapted in Hutcheon’s sense and transmediated in Jenkins’s sense. To build the “serial” concept for my analysis requires re-working concepts from television studies. Jason Mittell introduces “narrative complexity” as the “redefinition of episodic forms under serial narration” (“Narrative,” 32). In serial TV, characters and narratives develop over a sequence of episodes and seasons. In serial TV, missing one episode can thwart the viewer’s reception of later ones. Mittell’s examples reveal the plasticity of the narrative complexity concept. He mentions TV series that play games with the audience’s expectations. As Mittell points out, Seinfeld has reflexive qualities (“Narrative,” 35) and Twin Peaks mixes genres (“Narrative,” 33). I would add that Lynch’s creative liberties offered characters who could appear and disappear while leaving their arcs hanging intriguingly unresolved. The creative possibilities of reflexivity via seriality, of characters who appear and disappear or return in different guises, are strategies that underpin William’s Gamaker’s short film serial. The third in her trilogy, The Eternal Return (in post-production 2018) fictionalises the life of Sabu, the actor who played the General’s son in Black Narcissus. Once again, the protagonist, this time male, is played by Krishna Istha, a non-binary transgender actor who, by taking all the lead roles in William’s Gamaker’s trilogy, grows over the serial as a malleable ethnic and transgender subject. Importantly, The Eternal Return carries residues of the characters from The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten by casting the same team of actors again (Charlotte Gallagher and myself Catherine Lord), and switching their genders. Istha played Kanchi in the previous two episodes. The General’s son, played by Sabu, courted Kanchi in Black Narcissus. In The Eternal Return, Istha crosses the character and gender boundary by playing Sabu. Such casting tactics subvert the gender and colonial hegemonies inherent in Pressburger and Powell’s film.The reflexive and experimental approach of Williams Gamaker’s filmmaking deploys serial narrative tactics for its political goals. Yet, the use of “serial” needs to be nuanced. Glen Creeber sets out three terms: “episodic,” “series” and “serial.” For Creeber, a series provides continuous storylines in which the connection between episodes is strong. In the serial format, the connection between the episodes is less foregrounded. While it is not possible to enjoy stand-alone episodes in a serial, at the same time, serials produce inviting gaps between episodes. Final resolutions are discouraged so that there are greater narrative possibilities for later seasons and the audience’s own game of speculative storytelling (11).The emerging “serial” gaps between Williams Gamaker’s episodes offer opportunities for political interpretation. From House of Women and The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi develops an even stronger political voice. Kanchi’s character arc moves from the wordless obedience of Pressburger and Powell’s feature to the transgender voice of post-colonial discourse in House of Women. In the next episode, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi becomes Clodagh’s guide both politically, spiritually, and erotically.I will read The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten as both my primary case-study and as the third episode in what I shall theorise to be a four-part serial. The first is the feature film Black Narcissus. After this is Williams Gamaker’s House of Women, which is then followed by The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, my central case study here. There may be immediate objections to my argument that Williams Gamaker’s series can be read by treating Pressburger and Powell’s feature as the first in the series. After all, Godden’s novel could be theorised as the camouflaged pilot. Yet, a series or serial is defined as such when it is in the same medium. Game of Thrones (2011-) is a TV series that adapts George R.R. Martin’s novel cycle, but the novels are not episodes. In this regard, I follow Hutcheon’s emphasis on theorising adapted works as forged between different media, most commonly novels to films. The adaptive “deliveries” scatter through The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten with an ecological precision.Eco SeriesEcological descriptions from Godden’s novel and Pressburger and Powell’s mise-en-scene are performed in The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten through Kelly Hunter’s velvety voiceover as it enjoys a painterly language: butterflies daub the ferns with “spots of ochre, scarlet, and lemon sherbet.” Hutcheon’s term transcoding usefully describes the channelling of particles from the novelist’s text into an intensified, ecological language and cinematic mise-en-scene. The intensification involves an ingestion of Godden’s descriptive prose, which both mimics and adds an adjectival and alliterative density. The opening descriptions of the nuns’ arrival in Mopu is a case in point. In the novel, the grooms joke about the nuns’ habits appearing as “snows, tall and white” (Godden “Black,” 1). One man remarks that they look like “a row of teeth” (Godden “Black,” 2). Williams Gamaker resists shots of nuns as Godden described them, namely on Bhotiya ponies. Rather, projected onto a white screen is an image of white and red flowers slowly coming into focus. Kelly Hunter’s voiceover describes the white habits as a set of “pearly whites” which are “hungry for knowledge” and “eat into the landscape.” White, western nuns in white habits are metaphorically implied to be like a consuming mouth, eating into Indian territories and Indian people.This metaphor of colonial consumption finds its corollary in Godden’s memoirs where she describes the Pressburger, Powell, and Simons representation of Kanchi as “a basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat” (“A House,” 24-5; 52). The nun’s quest colonially consumes Mopu’s natural environment. Presumably, nuns who colonially eat consume the colonised Other like fruit. The Kanchi of the feature film Black Narcissus is a supporting character, performed by Simmons as mute, feral and objectified. If Kanchi is to release herself from the “fruity” projections of sexism and racism, it will be through the filmmaker’s aesthetic and feminist tactic of ensuring that planets, trees, fruits and flowers become members of the film cast. If in episode 1 (Black Narcissus), plants and Asian subalterns are colonised, in episode 2, House of Women, these fruits and flowers turn up as smart, young Asian women actors with degrees in law and photography, ready to hold their own in the face of a faceless interviewer. In episode 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, it is important that Krishna Istha’s Kanchi, turning up like a magical character from another time and space (transformed from episode 1), commands the film set amidst an excess of flowers, plants and fruits. The visual overflow correlates with Kanchi’s assertiveness. Flowers and Kanchi know how to “answer back.”Like Black Narcissus the feature, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten relies heavily on a mise-en-scene of horticultural and mountain ecology. Just as Michael Powell filmed at Pinewood and Leonardslee Gardens in East Sussex, Williams Gamaker used Rotherhithe’s Brunel Museum roof Gardens and Sands Film Studios. The lusciousness of Leonardslee is film-intertextually echoed in the floral exuberance of the 2018 shots of Rotherhithe. After the crew have set up the classroom, interwoven with Kelly Hunter’s voiceover, there is a hard cut to a full, cinematic shot of the Leonardslee garden (fig. 1).Then cutting back to the classroom, we see Kanchi calmly surveying the set, of which she is the protagonist, with a projection of an encyclopaedic display of the flowers behind her. The soundtrack plays the voices of young women students intoning the names of flowers from delphinium to lupens.These meta-filmic moments are supported by the film’s sharp juxtaposition between classroom and outdoor scenes. In Pressburger and Powell’s school scenes, Sister Ruth attempts to teach the young General how to conjugate the French verb “recevoir.” But the lesson is not successfully received. The young General becomes aphasic, Kanchi is predictably mute and the children remain demure. Will colonialism let the Other speak? One way to answer back in episode 3 is through that transgressive discourse, the language of flowers.In The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, the young women study under Sister Clodagh and Sister Philippa (myself, Catherine Lord). The nuns teach botanical lists and their ecological contexts through rote learning. The young women learn unenthusiastically. What is highlighted is the ludicrous activity of repetition and abstractions. When knowledge becomes so objectified, so do natural environments, territories and people. Clodagh aligns floral species to British locations. The young women are relatively more engaged in the garden with Sister Philippa. They study their environment through sketching and painting a diverse range of flowers that could grow in non-British territory. Philippa is the now the one who becomes feral and silent, stroking stalks and petals, eschewing for the time being, the game of naming (fig. 2).However, lessons with colonial lexicons will be back. The young women look at screen projections of flowers. Sister Philippa takes the class through an alphabet: “D is for Dogbright … L is for Ladies’ Fingers.” Clodagh whirls through a list of long, Latin names for wild flowers in British Woodlands. Kanchi halts Clodagh’s act of associating the flowers with the British location, which colonizes them. Kanchi asks: “How many of us will actually travel, and which immigration border will test our botanical knowledge?” Kanchi then presents a radically different alphabet, including “Anne is African … Ian is Intersex … Lucy loves Lucy.” These are British names attributed to Africans, Arabs, and Asians, many of their identities revealed to be LGBQT-POC, non-binary, transgender, and on the move. Clodagh’s riposte is “How do you know you are not travelling already?” The flowers cannot be pinned down to one location. They cannot be owned by one nation.Like characters who travel between episodes, the travelling flowers represent a collision of spaces that undermine the hegemonies of race, gender and sexuality. In episode 1, Black Narcissus the feature film, the western nuns face the immensities of mountain atmosphere, ecology and an unfamiliar ethnic group. In episode 2, House of Women, the subalterns have transformed their role, achieving educational and career status. Such political and dramatic stakes are raised in episode 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. There is a strong focus on the overlapping oppressions of racial, colonial and ecological exploitation. Just as Kanchi has a character arc and serial development, so do plants, fauna, fruits, flowers and trees. ‘Post’-Space and Its AtmosphereThe British Empire colonised India’s ecological space. “Remember you and your God aren't on British Territory anymore” declares the auditioning Krishna Istha in House of Women. Kanchi’s calm, civil disobedience continues its migration into The Fruit is There to be Eaten between two simultaneously existing spaces, Mopu and Rotherhithe, London. According to literature scholar Brian McHale, postmodern worlds raise ontological questions about the dramatic space into which we are drawn. “Which” worlds are we in? Postmodern worlds can overlap between separate spaces and different temporalities (McHale 34-35). As McHale notes, “If entities can migrate across the semipermeable membrane that divides a fictional world from the real, they can also migrate between two different fictional worlds” (35).In The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, the semipermeable membrane between it and Black Narcissus folds together the temporalities of 1947 and 2018, and the terrains of India and London. Sister Philippa tells a Kanchi seeking Mopu, that “My dear, you are already here.” This would seem odd as Sister Philippa describes the death of a young man close to Saint Mary’s Church, London. The British capital and woodlands and the Himalayas co-exist as intensified, inter-crossing universes that disrupt the membranes between both colonial and ecological space-time, or what I term “post-space.”Williams Gamaker’s post-spaces further develop Pressburger and Powell’s latent critique of post-colonialism. As film scholar Sarah Street has observed, Black Narcissus the film performs a “post-colonial” exploration of the waning British Empire: “Out of the persistence of the colonial past the present is inflected with a haunting resonance, creating gaps and fissures” (31). This occurs in Powell’s film in the initial Calcutta scenes. The designer Alfred Junge made “God shots” of the nuns at dinner, creating from them the iconic shape of a cross. This image produces a sense of over-exactness. Once in the mountains, it is the spirit of exactitude that deteriorates. In contrast, Williams Gamaker prefers to reveal the relative chaos of setting up her world. We watch as the crew dress the school room. Un-ceremoniously, Kanchi arrives in shorts before she picks up a floral dress bearing the label “Kanchi.” There is then a shot in which Kanchi purveys the organised set, as though she is its organiser (fig. 3).Post-spaces are rich in atmosphere. The British agent Dean tells Clodagh in Black Narcissus the film that the mountain “is no place to put a nunnery” due its “atmosphere.” In the climactic scene of The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten, Kanchi and Clodagh face two screens revealing the atmospheric projection of the high mountains, the black cut between them visible, like some shadowy membrane. Such aesthetic strategies continue Powell’s use of technical artifice. Street details the extensive labour of technical and craft work involved in creating the artificial world of Black Narcissus, its mountains, artificial colours, and hence atmosphere, all constructed at Pinewood studios. There was a vast amount of matte painting and painting on glass for special effects (19).William Gamaker’s screens (projection work by Sophie Bramley and Nick Jaffe) reflexively emphasise atmosphere as artifices. The atmosphere intensifies with the soundscape of mountain air and Wayne Urquhart’s original and haunting music. In Powell and Pressburger’s feature, Brian Easdale’s music also invokes a sense of mystery and vastness. Just as TV series and serials maintain musical and mise-scene-scene signatures from one episode to another, so too does Williams Gamaker reframe her precursor’s cinematic aesthetics with that of her own episode. Thus, serial as stylistic consistency is maintained between episodes and their post-spaces.At the edge of such spaces, Kanchi will scare Clodagh by miming a tight-rope walk across the mountain: it is both real and pretend, dramatic, but reflexively so. Kanchi walks a membrane between colliding worlds, between colonialism and its transgression. In this episode of extreme spirituality and eroticism, Kanchi reaches greater heights than in previous episodes, discoursing on the poetics of atmosphere: “… in the midst of such peaks, one can draw near what is truly placeless … the really divine.” Here, the membrane between the political and cultural regions and the mountains that eschew even the human, is about to be breached. Kanchi relates the legend of those who go naked in the snow. These “Abominable Men” are creatures who become phantoms when they merge with the mountain. If the fractures between locations are too spacious, as Kanchi warns, one can go mad. In this episode 3, Kanchi and Clodagh may have completed their journeys. In Powell and Pressburger’s interpretation, Sister Ruth discards nun’s attire for a Parisian, seductive dress and red lipstick. Yet, she does so for a man, Dean. However, the Sister Clodagh of 2018 is filmed in a very long take as she puts on an elegant dress and does her make-up. In a scene of philosophical intimacy with Kanchi, the newly dressed Clodagh confesses her experience of “immensity.” As they break through the erotic membrane separating their identities, both immersed in their full, queer, transgender kiss, all racial hierarchies melt into atmosphere (fig. 4).Conclusion: For a Pitch By making a film as one episode in a series, Williams Gamaker’s accomplishment is to enhance the meeting of narrative and political aims. As an arthouse film serial, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten has enabled definitions of “serial” to migrate from the field of television studies. Between Hutcheon’s “adaptation” and Mittell and Creeber’s articulations of “narrative complexity,” a malleable concept for arthouse seriality has emerged. It has stretched the theoretical limits of what can be meant by a serial in an arthouse context. By allowing the notion of works “adapted” to occur between different media, Henry Jenkins’ broader term of “transmedia storytelling” (Convergence) can describe how particles of Godden’s work transmigrate through episodes 1, 2, and 3, where the citational richness emerges most in episodes 3, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten.Because one novel informs all the episodes while each has entirely different narratives and genres, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten is not a serial adaptation, as is Game of Thrones. It is an experimental serial inflected with trans-serial properties. Kanchi evolves into a postcolonial, transgender, ecological protagonist who can traverse postmodern worlds. Perhaps the witty producer in a pitch meeting might say that in its serial context, The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten is like a cross between two fantasy TV serials, still to be written: Transgender Peaks meets Kanchi Is the New Black. The “new black” is multifaceted and occupies multi-worlds in a post-space environment. ReferencesCreeber, Glen. Serial Television: Big Drama on the Small Screen. London: BFI, 2004.Godden, Rumer. 1939. Black Narcissus: A Virago Modern Classic. London: Hatchette Digital, 2013.———. A House with Four Rooms. New York: William Morrow, 1989. Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. 2nd ed. New York: New York University Press, 2012.Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.———. “Transmedia, 202: Further Reflections.” Confessions of an Aca-Fan 1 Aug. 2011. 1 May 2012 <http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2011/08/defining_transmedia_further_re.html>.McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987.Powell, Michael. A Life in Movies: An Autobiography. London: Heinemann, 1986.Mittell, Jason. “Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television.” The Velvet Light Trap 58 (Fall 2006): 29-40. Street, Sarah. Black Narcissus. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.FilmographyBlack Narcissus. Dirs. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Pinewood Studios, 1947.House of Women. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2017.The Fruit Is There to Be Eaten. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2018.The Eternal Return. Dir. Michelle Williams Gamaker. Cinema Suitcase, 2018-2019.