ABSTRACT

The paper explores unstable, interconnected and dynamic processes of diasporic nation-building and memory-making of adult members of the Greek diaspora in Australia as they recall their childhood experiences. The paper makes two key original contributions. First, we identify the importance of the re-membered and embodied diasporic child and childhood spaces to hybrid Greek and Australian adult national identities. Second, the paper provides an empirical example of the contribution that adults’ re-membered childhoods can make to children’s geographies – these are not direct representations of the past but are creatively, affectually, individually and collectively re-membered timespaces. These contributions emerge through three interconnected themes emerging from the adults’ accounts: the importance of childhood ‘work’, particularly language acquisition, to being an embodied adult Greek and Australian; nostalgia towards homelands and, crucially and originally, Australian childhood diasporic spaces; and Forging hybrid subjectivities: the presence of the diasporic child in the Greek and Australian adult. Therefore, the paper brings together in novel ways, work on diasporic childhoods and memories, the ways in which adults in diaspora use these past timespaces in present processes of nation-building and national belonging and the value of using re-memories as a method on children’s geographies.

摘要

该论文探讨了在澳大利亚的希腊侨民成年成员回忆童年经历时，他们的侨民国家建设和记忆形成的不稳定、相互关联和动态过程。这篇论文做出了两个关键的原创性贡献。首先，我们确定了重新成员和体现的侨民儿童和童年空间对混合希腊和澳大利亚成人民族身份的重要性。其次，本文提供了一个实证例子，说明成年人记忆的童年可以对儿童地理做出的贡献——这些不是过去的直接表现，而是创造性地、情感地、个人和集体地重新记忆的时间空间。这些贡献是通过成年人叙述中出现的三个相互关联的主题而产生的：童年“工作”的重要性、特别是语言习得，成为成熟的希腊人和澳大利亚人；对家乡的怀旧，尤其是对澳大利亚童年流散空间的怀念；和锻造混合主体性：希腊和澳大利亚成年人中散居儿童的存在。因此，本文以新颖的方式汇集了关于侨民童年和记忆的工作，侨民成年人在当前的国家建设和民族归属过程中如何使用这些过去的时间空间，以及使用回忆作为一种方法的价值。儿童地理。