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Exclusions and inclusions: multiculturalism in contemporary Taiwanese and Australian picturebooks

journal contribution
posted on 2007-01-01, 00:00 authored by Clare BradfordClare Bradford, H L Huang
In a 1990 essay on multiculturalism and Australian children's literature, John Stephens points out that in texts of the 1970s and 1980s, examinations of multicultural issues are conducted within a relatively conservative set of paradigms where views of cultures other than Anglo-Celtic are filtered through the perspectives of Anglo-Celtic, middle-class characters, and multiculturalism is valued only in so far as it is seen to contribute to the wellbeing (economic and psychological) of the dominant culture. In Taiwan, as social groups previously marginalised seek justice through the practices and policies of multiculturalism, long-standing resentment at the authoritarian conduct of the Nationalists has manifested in texts which examine the political conflicts and cultural clashes of the past: the silenced truth is uncovered and the stigmatisation of certain ethnic groups is gradually removed.
But these texts typically address ideas of cultural difference obliquely and by way of analogies, rather than through the realist representations of WhoeverYou Are and Fang Fang's Chinese NewYear.

History

Journal

Bookbird: a journal of international children's literature

Volume

45

Issue

3

Pagination

5 - 12

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press

Location

Baltimore, Md.

ISSN

0006-7377

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal; C Journal article

Copyright notice

2007, Johns Hopkins University Press

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