On Being Italian, Canadian and Global Knowledge, power and the implications of digitization for ethnographic practice

Ethnographic practice l ‘Knowledge, however interesting, can never be disinterested’ (Acciaioli, 1981, p. 23). l Participant observation is the central and innovative method of anthropology. It provides the research with grounded close observation of individual and collective social action within a cultural context.

Multicultural Canada l Digital democratisation l Globalisation l Circulation (multiculturalisms) and local productions - nationalisms l Knowledge/power - abundant, tacit, elided, and secret l Objects of Knowledge? Community, nation, data

Mark Poster - What’s the Matter With the Internet (2001) l Internet is ‘underdetermined’ because it doesn’t direct users into clear paths and encourages ‘social construction and cultural creation… it remains an invitation to a new imaginary.’ l The internet is transgressive because it enables instantaneous many to many communications, dislocates communication from the space of the nation

The Global Gathering Place and Inspector Relic  The Multicultural History Society of Ontario  Schools, culture and history  Globalisation - locally produced  The Lucky Immigrant

Networks and Linkages

Boundaries and Borders Sophia Loren Narratives of seeing Workers of the World

Civic incorporation  Citizenship  Agency and bureaucracy/ government policy  Knowledge silences

Italian Lives in Western Australia A cultural history and archives of migrants and migration ARC Linkage Project Project Website Italo-Australian Welfare and Cultural Centre JS Battye Library Western Australian Museum Office of Multicultural Interests Cassamarca Foundation

Project Aims: To produce a comprehensive historical study of Italian migrants and migration in Western Australia. the need for migration and impact of government attempts to control migration flows; the merits of multiculturalism as a government policy to ‘manage’ difference; the challenge to traditional concepts of nationhood posed by transnational migration networks the ageing migrant community and its needs.

Community Engagement Project Launch (November 2004) Media Campaign (Italian & English) Ongoing

Naples, Italy and underground economies

Creative ‘immigrant’ economies

Technologies of migration

Surveillance and Digital Controls