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While conversations about the ready availability of take-away sushi, or the authenticity of the local Vietnamese pho restaurant may represent the discourses of taste, consumption, race and nation at their most superficial, they also entreat us to take a look Australian cultural politics at its most interesting. In this thesis I present four related case studies, each exploring the ways in which various textual productions within food culture, and culinary tourism in particular, negotiate the cross-hatched issues of cultural labour, ethnic identities, multicultural representation and nationalism in the Australian context. These case studies are based on my readings of Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia (2005) produced by Maeve O’Meara and Joanna Savill, Banquet (1999) by Annette Shun Wah and Greg Aitkin, Kylie Kwong’s Heart and Soul (2003) and various promotional materials produced by Fairfield City Council, which construct the suburb of Cabramatta as an ethnic food-scape. I examine each of these sites in relation to the discourses of cultural and ethnic diversity which they reflect and produce, as well as the material conditions of power in which they circulate. I have selected texts with a specifically multicultural aspect, and each of those chosen is authored, produced or hosted by Asian-Australian cultural workers, or represents Asian-Australian foods and identities. I am particularly interested in the discursive construction of Asian- Australian identities, both produced and productive within these sites, and the understandings those constructions bring to bear for broader readings of Australian multiculturalism. This thesis examines a range of food related media such as cookbooks, food shows, websites and pamphlets and treats them as significant sites for cultural analysis.
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