'I would like to take a moment here to celebrate the truly international nature of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing. In this issue alone we are proud to publish the work of colleagues from across the globe: Canada, India, Australia, Norway and Portugal as well as the UK. This is a tremendous achievement. Postcolonial studies, rather than being subsumed under broader and seemingly more comprehensive categories such as world, global or transnational literary studies, has instead continued to explore, from a variety of locations and socio-political contexts, the cultural manifestations that come about as a result of power imbalances across the world.' (Anastasia Valassopoulos, Editor's note introduction)
'Kim Scott’s 1999 novel Benang has often been read in terms of the anxieties raised by Australia’s Stolen Generation Report. However, this article argues that the novel is not a direct attempt to lay bare white Australia’s neurosis. Rather, the novel aims to interrogate the colonial discourse that formed the basis of the exploitative, white, monologic, modern nation. Benang also deals with the strategic cultural resistance and negotiating manoeuvrings of the Nyoongars seeking to establish their distinct identity and envision an “ethnonation” within a modern nation. Benang thus examines how simultaneous and contrary discourses of nation formation, one modern and the other ethnic, one hegemonic and the other performative, simultaneously make and unmake Australia. The representation of these two contesting nations in Benang is assessed here with reference to modern theories of nation and nationalism.' (Publication abstract)
