Reflexivity or orientation? Collective memories in the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press

TL;DR: This article examined how, and in what ways, collective memories of empire were reflexively used in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games.

Abstract: With regard to the notion of ‘national reflexivity’, an important part of Beck’s cosmopolitan outlook, this article examines how, and, in what ways, collective memories of empire were reflexively used in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games. In contrast to Beck, it is argued that examples of national reflexivity were closely tied to the history of the nation-state, with collective memories of the former British Empire used to debate, critique and appraise ‘the nation’. These memories were discursively used to ‘orientate’ each nation’s postcolonial emergence, suggesting that examples of national reflexivity, within the press’ coverage, remained closely tied to the ‘historical fetishes’ enveloped in each nations’ imperial past(s). This implies that the ‘national outlook’ does not objectively overlook, uncritically absorb or reflexively acknowledge differences with ‘the other’, but instead, negotiates a historically grounded and selective appraisal of the past that reveals a contingent and, at times, ambivalent, interplay with ‘the global’.

Summary

Introduction

• This article examines how the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press reported on the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games.
• This is especially apparent during transnational and international events, such as, the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games (Black, 2015).

Cosmopolitanism

• Studies of globalisation have frequently considered the ways in which global interactions go beyond the confines of the national context to include transnational processes of collaboration.
• This, Bewes (1997) argues, forms part of Beck’s (1992; Beck et al., 2003) ‘reflexive modernization’, a perspective that is extended in his work on cosmopolitanism, which explores how national cultures have become more ‘open’ to global diversity (Beck, 2006).
• There is, in both Beck (2006) and Sreberny-Mohammadi’s (1991) remarks, a tendency to direct attention towards the impossibility of accounting for the ‘effects’ of ‘post-modern’ cultural ambivalences; an approach that circumvents the opportunity to explore how such assemblages, differentiations and contradictions are historically and ideologically defined.
• Specifically, Skey (2013) contests that there ‘are different forms of engagement with particular “others”, informed by vastly different social resources and constraints’ (2013: 248).
• Following Skey’s (2013) critique, it is apparent that ‘the analytical dimensions of the concept [cosmopolitanism] remain much too broad, premised on the idea of “openness” and a willingness to engage with “others”’ (2013: 249 see also Ryan, 2014).

Cosmopolitan Memory

• It was noted in the previous section that understandings of cosmopolitanism can overemphasise, and, in some instances, under-theorise, the extent to which interactions with ‘the other’ are performed (Skey, 2013).
• Such scrutiny of the ways in which national cultures engage with global processes, has underscored work that has examined the application of the cosmopolitan perspective (Kennedy, 2013; Ryan, 2014; Skey, 2013; 2014; Weenink, 2008).
• While Levy and Sznaider (2002) demonstrated the extent to which national collective memories revealed a degree of similarity, this was a process that was tempered by each nation’s history and the extent to which global collective memories combined ‘to form something new’ (2002: 89).
• National identity and imperial loyalty were closely entwined, securing the spread of British culture, while also creating a context from which the dominions could develop symbols and narratives that exhibited their own emerging identities as ‘separate’ nation-states (Gare, 2000; Holt, 1989; Llewellyn, 2015; Maguire, 1999; McDougall, 2005; McGregor, 2006; Ward, 2007).
• When considered in conjunction with the ‘reflexive awareness’ that characterizes cosmopolitanism, it is proposed that collective memories can offer a ‘means of orientation’ that, in the case of national newspapers, can serve an important function in positioning, managing and demarcating ‘the nation’.

Method

• This study selected the following national newspapers for analysis: The n and The Age ; The Globe and Mail and the Vancouver Sun ; and the Dominion Post and New Zealand Herald (New Zealand).
• Following this coding process, each newspaper was inductively examined in order to identify themes that critically reflected upon each ‘nation’ as well as the ‘Commonwealth’ (open coding).
• These examples reflect a complex coalescence of national and Commonwealth affiliation (Foster-Bell, 2012; The Globe and Mail, 2012), through which the apparent ‘global’ benefits of the Commonwealth were covalent with national sovereignty/identity (Hape, 2012).
• Indeed, the purpose here is not to deny the involvement of Australians in both the organisation of the 2012 games and the success of ‘Team GB’, but instead, to draw attention to the ways in which the above examples were closely bound by rivalries that reflected former ‘imperial’ clashes (Maguire, 1993; Malcolm, 2012).
• As Rudman’s (2012) comments suggest, changes in the relationship between New Zealand and Britain – and the emerging interdependence of New Zealand with Asia – were framed through narratives that paradoxically emphasized the Queen’s ‘foreign’ characteristics (‘Buckingham Palace’/‘English farming family’) (Milne, 2012) while at the same time appraising New Zealand’s assistance in supporting the former ‘motherland’ (Rothwell, 2012).

An ‘inevitable’ Republic and Australian anxiety

• It is apparent that ‘a consistent feature of contestation surrounding decolonizing Whitesettler nationalisms is the “resolution” of the critique and historical reassessment of colonialism and its legacy that challenges nationalist unity’ (Falcous, 2007: 387).
• Clearly, Australia’s ties to Britain, and the values that underpinned the ‘Anglosphere’ were presented as a prominent feature of Australia’s domestic politics, a relationship that should not be displaced because of offended ‘neighbours’.
• The above examples reveal that discourses of oppression, can be continued into the present, albeit in more symbolic ways.

Summary and Conclusion

• Across the Commonwealth press, both Commonwealth and monarchical attachments were clearly evoked.
• Moreover, it fails to elucidate upon those examples where the nation’s past stands as ‘the other’ (Cole, 2001).
• In doing so, examples of ‘national reflexivity’ did not objectively overlook, uncritically absorb or acknowledge differences with ‘the other’ (Beck, 2006), but instead, were closely related to collective memories drawn from each nation’s ‘imperial history’.
• Collective memories of the British Empire provided an interpretative matrix through which ‘selective renditions’ (Falcous and Newman, 2013) from each nation’s imperial past were rendered through a process of ‘memory conflict’ (Ryan, 2014) that could both assert or undermine ‘the nation’ (Rothwell, 2012).
• In doing so, the British Empire/Commonwealth provided a wealth of past and present reflections that were reflexively used to ‘orientate’ each nation’s postcolonial emergence.

Full text

Reflexivity or orientation? Collective memories in the
Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press
BLACK, Jack <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1595-5083>
Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at:
http://shura.shu.ac.uk/15672/
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Published version
BLACK, Jack (2020). Reflexivity or orientation? Collective memories in the
Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press. Memory Studies.
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This is an author’s accepted manuscript for ‘Memory Studies’, online first, copyright
SAGE.
Reflexivity or Orientation? Collective memories in the Australian, Canadian and
New Zealand national press
Dr. Jack Black, Academy of Sport and Physical Activity, Faculty of Health and
Wellbeing, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Hall, Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield,
S10 2BP

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Reflexivity or Orientation? Collective memories in the Australian, Canadian and
New Zealand national press
Jack Black, PhD
Academy of Sport and Physical Activity, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
Abstract
With regard to the notion of ‘national reflexivity’, an important part of Beck’s
cosmopolitan outlook, this article examines how, and, in what ways, collective
memories of empire were reflexively used in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand
national newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic
Games. In contrast to Beck, it is argued that examples of national reflexivity were
closely tied to the history of the nation-state, with collective memories of the former
British Empire used to debate, critique and appraise ‘the nation’. These memories were
discursively used to ‘orientate’ each nation’s postcolonial emergence, suggesting that
examples of national reflexivity, within the press’ coverage, remained closely tied to the
‘historical fetishes’ enveloped in each nations’ imperial past(s). This implies that the
‘national outlook’ does not objectively overlook, uncritically absorb or reflexively
acknowledge differences with ‘the other’, but instead, negotiates a historically grounded

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and selective appraisal of the past that reveals a contingent and, at times, ambivalent,
interplay with ‘the global’.
Introduction
This article examines how the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press
reported on the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games. As noted by Skey
(2013), ‘the media are crucial in allowing people to access and engage with “otherness”
across different contexts in the process providing “spaces” for new forms of imagination
and, perhaps, solidarity to emerge’ (2013: 237). This is especially apparent during
transnational and international events, such as, the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic
Games (Black, 2015). In fact, while ‘national’ events provide an important role in
sustaining national identifiers, they can also carry great risk, as often there are multiple
national histories to be told and numerous versions of the nation to be portrayed (Barnes
and Aughey, 2006). When considered in relation to the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and
London Olympic Games, it is apparent that for the former dominions of Australia, Canada
and New Zealand, representations of the ‘past’ required delineating between a past
indebted to the British Empire and a present that maintained, albeit in a far different
arrangement, Commonwealth relations, sporting rivalries and political, economic and
social interactions (Belich, 2001; McIntyre, 2004; Malcolm, 2012).
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Consequently, in this article, attention will be afforded to examining how
collective memories of empire were used by the commonwealth press as a form of
national ‘orientation’.
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That is, with regard to Beck’s (2002; 2005) work on
‘cosmopolitanism’ as well as literature on ‘collective memory’ (Phillips and Reyes, 2011;
Ryan, 2014; Zerubavel, 1985), the notion of ‘national reflexivity’ will be critically
considered in order to explore how collective memories of empire were reflexively used
within Commonwealth press coverage. In accordance with work that has highlighted how
collective memories serve to demarcate ‘the nation’ amidst wider global processes (Bell,
2003; 2006; Levy and Sznader, 2002), how one makes sense of this demarcation for
national groups – whose history is closely entwined with the history of former imperial
empires – can help to elucidate upon the transmission, negotiation and reconstruction of
collective memories (Bell, 2003).
Cosmopolitanism
Studies of globalisation have frequently considered the ways in which global interactions
go beyond the confines of the national context to include transnational processes of
collaboration. Notably, Beck’s (1992; 2002; 2005; 2006; Beck et al., 2003) work
demonstrates an intermediate position in global and national debates. For Beck (1992),
modernity is marked by processes of reflexivity through which the nation is made aware

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What was the role of the monarchy in the republican debates?

Apart from providing an enduring legacy of British imperialism, the role of the monarchy continued throughout republican debates, revealing the importance that the monarchy continues to play indiscussions regarding identity and citizenship within the former dominions. 

Q2. What is the meaning of ‘cosmopolitan memory’?

Ryan (2014) highlights that:Cosmopolitan memory as a concept, although excellently delineated, is fraught with the dangers of potential conceptual reductionism, for a lack of precision in defining the exact nature of its relationship with national memory cultures may culminate in its theoretical deployment as an all-encompassing term, which signifies that national memory cultures adopt universal ethical criteria, without an attendant scrutiny of the intricacies of their relationship (2014: 511). 

Q3. What was the role of New Zealand in the Olympic Games?

In other instances, both the Diamond Jubilee and Olympic Games provided theopportunity for the former dominions to subjugate their colonial pasts for narratives that emphasised their own national autonomy and identity. 

Q4. What was the biggest source of talent for London 2012?

(The Weekend Australian, 11/08/12a)Similarly, Wilson (2012) stated:Britain’s openness to people, trade and ideas also helped London 2012 to do a better job than any other host city by using foreign talent to stage the Games, with the biggest source of that talent being Australia. 

Q5. What is the significance of the New Zealand code?

whereas such codes sought to ‘invert’ New Zealand’s colonial past, paradoxically, these codes were ambivalently located alongside New Zealand’s history of Anglo-European migration and the tendency for Pakeha attributes to hold salience in New Zealand’s national mythology (Bell, 1996; Falcous, 2007). 

Q6. What is the definition of ‘reflexive modernization’?

Bewes (1997) argues, forms part of Beck’s (1992; Beck et al., 2003) ‘reflexive modernization’, a perspective that is extended in his work on cosmopolitanism, which explores how national cultures have become more ‘open’ to global diversity (Beck, 2006). 

Q7. What was the main point of Carney’s reflections?

As can be seen, Carney’s (2012) reflections were laden by the failure for republican debates to gain any substantial support within the former dominions.