This research investigates particular ways that memorialising and mourning can be made manifest through public commemorative objects and spaces such as memorials and through smaller scale personal mementos. It also examines ways that these physical reminders can act as repositories and markers for memory, and as metaphors for identity. In particular the research is focussed on Traditional Southern Italian customs, reflecting on the ways that keepsakes and the cenotaph can provide allegories for declining cultural practices of Southern Italian migrants in Australia. The data collected for this thesis is based partly on participant observation, and on informal conversations with migrants from Southern Italy, regarding their funerary practices and stories told about the rural areas left behind in Italy. Research of visual and published material in the area of memorialising and memorial object are examined in order to gain an understanding of the language of death. The thesis also examines the use of Catholic religious objects in what anthropologist Per Binde has coined 'transactional acts', during supplication and remembrance and during times of mourning. An exploration of memorial and memento objects, by contemporary practitioners including Christian Boltanski, Lindy Lee, Julie Blyfield and Maya Lin has also been included. Inclusion of contemporary artists reflects on how memorials continue to play an important role in today's society as well as being integral in reflecting identity and maintaining connections with the past. Investigation of this genre is expressed through the research document and a body of studio-based research connected to the traditions of Memorialising. The studio research is expressed in the exhibition 'In Black' through the language of Catholic religious objects, memory boxes, personal mementos and cultural signifiers in wax, metal, and installation. These works, as time capsules are filled with significant representations of individuals and events that evoke memories through depictions of life, significant places and words descriptive of time and place.

This thesis examines the construction of ?Chineseness? by Australian-born Chinese through their interactions with mainstream ?white? society and Chinese diasporic communities in Australia. It represents an interdisciplinary study based on qualitative research and critical analysis of forty-three in-depth interviews with Australian-born Chinese whose families have resided in Australia for three generations or more. Diasporic narratives, fraught with contentions over belonging and difference, often lead to ambiguous ramifications of identity formation. While the notion of hybridity problematises the unsettling boundaries of identities, there is still a continuing perception that ethnic identification decreases over successive generations, resulting in assimilation. However, contrary to this assumption, this study shows that subsequent generations also encounter complicated experiences involving both feelings of cultural ambivalence and enrichment. While the rewriting of identity takes place against the varying circumstances of resettlement, the experiences and transitions across the respondents? life course concurrently inscribes Chineseness onto their lives in diverse ways. Furthermore, Chineseness is continually (re)constructed through decentered connections with an imaginary homeland. Consequently, despite generational longevity, strong affinities with Australian society and longstanding national identities grounded in Australian culture, Chineseness is still a significant part of their identity, whether they willingly choose to associate with it or not. The focus on revaluating the concept of Chineseness and elucidating the sense of identity of sequential generations has important ramifications for the development of a more informed theoretical model for understanding the long-term effects of migration, especially on the process of identity formation and feelings of home and belonging.

The broad argument underpinning this thesis is that a feature of contemporary city life deserving further critical attention is that of the ‘extraordinary everyday.’ I coin this term as a way of identifying and describing an increasingly common place articulation or ‘interface’ between the extraordinary (that is, the production and experience of spectacle and intense affective states within the context of technologically mediated, contemporary urban space), and the everyday (the seemingly banal routines and structures that organise our day to day existence in a consumer society).

This thesis examines the music of the Subanen people of the Zamboanga Peninsula in western Mindanao, the Philippines through an investigation of their most important ceremony, the Buklog. Esteemed as the most elaborate and expensive socio-religious festival of the Subanen, the Buklog derives its name from a wooden structure holding the dancing platform called buklog. The Buklog is generally celebrated to propitiate the gods in some specific event in which the entire Subanen community participates. The occasion may be a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, for healing, or for prestige for a new leader or a home comer. A Buklog may also be held as a memorial for the recent dead to reinstate their souls to heaven or as a fulfilment of a ritual vow or debt to restore order and salvation to creation after natural disasters, calamities and epidemics. (For complete abstract open the document)

Whanau is often qualified as synonymous to the description family, or extended family. The purpose of this study is to show that whanau is not only a social grouping belonging to Maori society, but an aspect of cultural identity central to the future development of Maori. Whanau is a concept belonging to Te Ao Maori, and the development of this concept has been challenged through the history of Aotearoa by external cultural influences and internal responses to these influences. These influences include Western paradigms and societal norms introduced through colonisation and leading to the modern perception that whanau is a mirror image of the concept of family.Modernisation, as an example of a Western developmental theory is applied in this study to demonstrate the impact of an ethnocentric notion on the concept and experience of whanau - culturally, socially, economically and spiritually. It is observed by the writer that whanau remains central to strategies for development as a people notwithstanding this experience. This observation required that the study explore the key elements retained by whanau, for the concept of whanau to have achieved sustainability. Although the effects of external influences have impacted on the structural, functional and relational aspects of whānau, it is evident in the findings from this study conducted with descendents of Ngati Te Oro that the practice of whanau as a cultural grouping was significant to retaining a cultural identity. This finding has strengthened the position that there are specific contributing aspects towards a secure whanau identity that provides the foundations as well as the vehicle to progress the development of Maori.

This study examines the experience of managing Type 2 diabetes from the perspective of Part-European people from Fiji who have this disorder. A qualitative approach was used, and the methodology was grounded theory based on the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism. Data was collected from the in-depth interviews of nine participants who have been living with Type 2 diabetes. Text from the interview transcripts was analysed using the version of grounded theory advocated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). This process facilitated the discovery of 'Carrying On With Life And Living' as the main concern shared by Part-Europeans managing Type 2 diabetes. It also identified the substantive theory of 'Walking The Line' as the core category and the basic social and psychological process by which Part-Europeans resolve their main concern of 'Carrying On With Life And Living'. This was a three-stage process involving firstly 'Carrying on Regardless', secondly 'Attempting Balance in Time and Motion and Control', and thirdly 'Balancing, Unbalancing, and Recovering Balance'. The results of this study reveal that the social and historical contexts of Part-European culture, such as heavy drinking, carrying on with life and living in the face of adversity, and taking traditional medicine impact significantly throughout their managing process. Findings of this study may contribute to development of some culturally aware strategies that could assist healthcare services to provide appropriate support, intervention, and education for Part-Europeans with Type 2 diabetes. This study also addresses the lack of studies concerned with the management of Type 2 diabetes in Pacific peoples and serves to inform research initiatives and priorities set by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Since its independence in 1984, politicians and nationalists in Brunei Darussalam have appealed to traditions in their efforts to create a national identity based on Brunei Darussalam’s national philosophy, `Malay Islamic Monarchy’. Weaving is one of the traditions related to Brunei traditional culture, thus traditional textile is used to construct national identity. This study focuses on the role played by powerful institutions in the creation of new tradition in order to foster national awareness in the `new state’ of Brunei Darussalam and I examine how traditional textiles are incorporated into the project of nation building. In Bruneian society, traditional woven cloths have multiple roles whose meanings vary according to the situation in which the traditional cloth is utilized. This research explores the significance of traditional textiles in Brunei Darussalam, focusing on the consumption of locally woven textiles in its traditions and the relationships to the expression and construction of identity. Since Islam came to Brunei Darussalam, it has become one of the predominant markers of identity of the Malays. This study analyse the influence of Islam in the production and consumption of traditional textile in Brunei Darussalam. The continuity of the production and consumption of traditional woven textile in Brunei Darussalam is very much dependent on its significant in the traditions of Brunei society as a whole. In order to prove this, this study focuses its investigation upon the production and uses of traditional textiles in the social customs of Malay society in Brunei Darussalam. Traditional woven textiles are employed to construct social identity in the reproduction of distinction. Traditional textiles are also offered to signify privilege and power. I examine how traditional textile is being used to distinguish social status and political prominence, denote offices, and display wealth and prestige.

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Bibliography: leaves 64-66. Argues that the sustainable lifestyle of traditional Aboriginal communities acheived the teleological harmony suggested as a possible conceptual framework for the emerging area of study known as ecological economics.

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