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Identity Politics in Australian Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2012

DENISE VARNEY
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Extract

Identity mobilises feminist politics in Australia and shapes discursive and theatrical practices. Energised by the affirmative politics of hope, celebration and unity, Australian feminism is also motivated by injustice, prejudice and loss, particularly among Indigenous women and minorities. During the 1970s, when feminist theatre opened up creative spaces on the margins of Australian theatre, women identified with each other on the basis of an unproblematized gender identity, a commitment to socialist collectivism and theatre as a mode of self-representation. The emphasis on shared experience, collectivism and gender unity gave way in the 1980s to a more nuanced critical awareness of inequalities and divisions among women based on sexuality, class, race and ethnicity. My discussion spans broadly the period from the 1970s to the present and concludes with some commentary on recent twists and turns in identity politics.

Type
Identity Politics Forum
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 71 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2012

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References

NOTES

1 Varney, Denise, Radical Visions 1968–2008: The Impact of the Sixties on Australian Drama (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2011), pp. 25–6Google Scholar.

2 Tait, Peta, Original Women's Theatre (Melbourne: Artmoves, 1993), p. 11Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 9.

4 Ibid., pp. 31–2.

5 See Fensham, Rachel and Varney, Denise, The Dolls Revolution: Australian Theatre and Cultural Imagination (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2005)Google Scholar.

6 Boucher, Georgie and French, Sarah, ‘Postfeminist Pleasure and Politics: Moira Finucane and The Burlesque Hour’, Australasian Drama Studies, 58 (April 2011), pp. 193–211, here p. 194Google Scholar.

7 Fredericks, Bronwyn, ‘Reempowering Ourselves: Australian Aboriginal Women’, Journal of Women in Culture & Society, 1 March 2010, pp. 546–50, here p. 547CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Ibid., p. 547.

9 Enoch, Wesley and Mailman, Deborah, The Seven Stages of Grieving (Brisbane: Playlab Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

10 Harrison, Jane, Stolen (Sydney: Currency Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

11 Julie Szego, ‘Revolution Is Worth a Shout’, The Age, 25 June 2010, p. 5.