24 - Australian Multicultural and Folk Festivals

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of folk and multicultural festivals in Australia, especially as to how these events have been important to the creation and celebration of community identity since the 1950s. It begins with a brief outline and critique of the policies that have shaped modern Australia as a culturally diverse nation and the role of festivals as a vehicle for representing ethnic identity, inclusivity and tolerance. This discussion also considers the contentious positioning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures as part of a broader notion of diversity, as well as debates raised by a focus on the performance of ethnic identity that emphasises authentic practice and devalues cross-cultural collaboration. This is followed by a discussion of the origins of an Australian folk culture in British folk music traditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the revivalist folk movement of the 1960s. The final section outlines the development of national folk festivals as events representing an authentic Australian folklore and culture that, like multicultural festivals, offer insight into the problematic relationships between place, community, belonging and the national space.