Where+I'm+from+(1)

The purpose of the three 'Where I'm from" wiki pages is to build a platform from which to think about our own formative years and the sociocultural and political circumstances that have impacted on the development our personal (and group) 'weltanschauung' or worldview, especially in terms of 'interculturality', that is, issues of identity and engagement.

"Where I'm from (1)" is a personal account of growing up in an isolated mining town. Everyone has this sort of story. What is yours? "Where I'm from (2)" is a broader interpretation of Australian-ness as posited by the current Australian Government. It's always interesting to see how a government expresses fundamental national values. Does the US Government do something similar? "Where I'm from (3)" uses imagery to provide a different account of things (from an Australian perspective.) It produces a feeling of dis-ease in me as the pictures build a tapestry of fear of Otherness and intolerance. Our history is our history, yet a commitment to transformation through internationalisation processes requires a recognition and reconciliation of issues of identity and engagement.

I was born in Broken Hill, a mining town of about 33,000 people in semi-arid western New South Wales, 700 miles from the capital of the state, Sydney. Broken Hill is pretty isolated. It's 333 miles to the closest large city, Adelaide, the capital of South Australia and, because of its proximity when compared with Sydney, it is the //de facto// capital of Broken Hill. Let's face it, after 30 years of living in Adelaide, I'm a South Australian - a 'croweater' - but Broken Hill and its environs is my spiritual home. There's something about the ancient land and its rich, red colour. Thinking about my 18 years in Broken Hill, because of the isolation you were either from there or you weren't. And if you weren't, you were viewed with some suspicion. You were either an A-grouper or a B-grouper, an insider or an outsider, from 'here' or from 'away', trusted or not trusted, cultured or a barbarian. I knew where I stood and I placed others as a result. This reminds me of Hall's (1997) description of the marginalisation of Others by the English through "the nature of the 'English eye', the all-encompassing 'English eye' ... strongly centred, knowing where it is, what it is, it places everything else" (pp. 20-21). I was born in Broken Hill. The wheels were set in motion but living in Japan for a year changed things forever.
 * Where I'm from (1)**



Hall, S. (1997). The local and the global: Globalization and ethnicity. In King, A. (Ed.), //Culture, Globalization, and the world system: Contemporary conditions for the representation of identity// (pp.19-39). University of Minnesota Press.
 * Reference**