Anxious Nation – How historical anxieties shape Asian-Australians today

Anxious Nation – How historical anxieties shape Asian-Australians today In 1999, in his landmark book, which explored Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850 – 1939, historian David Walker described Australia as an “anxious nation.” In 2001, cultural studies academic Ien Ang further suggested that Australia’s uneasiness with the outside world – a source of danger, threat and insecurity – continues to play out in many levels of Australian society. This includes its government policy towards Asia, particularly China. Twenty years on, during the recent pandemic, Australia locked its borders. Further, despite growing numbers of new migrants arriving in Australia since the abolition of the White Australia Policy in the 1970s, sporadic racism against Australians with Asian backgrounds remains. Many of the anxieties towards people with Asian backgrounds began during Australia’s colonialisation and have been preserved through its governing processes, legislation and organisations.

Historically, Asian-Australians have primarily remained invisible, with their voices absent in mainstream life. However, despite now making up close to 15% of the population, Asian-Australians only represent 3% of leadership positions. Some Gen X Asian-Australian leaders are now more conscious of the challenges and advocate for change in their organisations. However, Asian-Australian millennials are more impatient for change, especially since the #blacklivesmatters movement, and actively voice their views through social media.

As a country where 30% of people were born overseas and increasingly more significant numbers are skilled migrants, Australians of all backgrounds inherit collective trauma and inequities from previous generations. These anxieties continue to exist below the surface and hold long term change towards a more equitable society back.

Through the lens of Asian-Australian leaders, including the author, experiences in roles and in negotiating their identity transitions in families, school and Australian work systems will be explored. The influence of intergenerational collective trauma and family values impact the leadership values of Asian-Australians. Parental and other caregiver expectations and anxieties significantly impact their behavioural attachment patterns adopted in situations of anxiety, guiding their leadership journeys. Further, transference patterns often influence the type of relationships preferred at work. Finally, family systems affect the ‘organisation in the mind’ that many Asian-Australian leaders prefer. In addition, understanding their more recent interest in a social movement for more representation of Asian-Australians in leadership positions will be examined. Their family experiences and preferences impact their roles as activists for change in their organisations and society and build the pipeline of the next generation of Asian-Australian talent. Given the Australian historical context, how effective the social movement may be in the longer term will be considered.

References

Ang, I. (2001). On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West. Routledge.

Cardona, F., & Damon, S. (2019). Family Patterns at Work: How casting light on the shadows of the past can enhance leadership in the present. In A. Obholzer & V. Z. Roberts (Eds.), The Unconscious at Work: A Tavistock Approach to Making Sense of Organizational Life (pp. 187-195). Routledge.

Ho, C. (2020). Aspiration & Anxiety: Asian Migrants and Australian Schooling. Melbourne University Press.

Long, S., & Chapman, J. (2018). Australia: Leadership Identity in the Making. In S. Western & E.-J. Garcia (Eds.), Global Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis (pp. 36-43). Sage.

Loon, K. (2021). Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: How Asian-Australians become partners in Big 4 firms in Australia. INSEAD. Singapore.

Loon, K. (2022). Fostering Culturally Diverse Leadership in Organisations: Lessons from Those who Smashed the Bamboo Ceiling. Routledge.

Tcholakian, L. A., Khapova, S. N., van de Loo, E., & Lehman, R. (2019). Collective Traumas and the Development of Leader Values: A Currently Omitted, but Increasingly Urgent, Research Area. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1-13.

Visholm, S. (2021). Family Psychodynamics in Organizational Contexts. Routledge.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion

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Taming the Beast: Exploring the lateral dynamics between the social movement and its opposition side and the need to shift from polarization to co-existence.

Social movements, that represent minority interests in society, often require an initiatory force to mobilize members, strengthen their voice and develop courage to stand their ground. This initiatory force must contain aggression, fueled by feelings of the anger and injustice. But as the social movement grows stronger in voice and presence, it also threatens the opposite side. Soon it will be attacked and become part of a strong polarizing dynamic. Its ideas will be caricatured and stereotyped and fought back with contra arguments “Black Lives Matter” will be responded with “All Lives Matter” or “Pro-choice” with “Pro-life”. Its members might find themselves tormented by even more intense feelings of injustice that originally.

The risks of staying trapped in this perpetuating dynamic are multiple: the social movement might act out the stereotypes projected on it proving opposition right; its members might remain tormented by injustice and hatred; the opposite side might grow even stronger, and the entire dynamic might get abused by the vertical axis, e.g. political leaders, to raise to power through “divide and conquer” tactics. How could the social movement abstain this seductive polarizing force of the Lateral Axis which is “feeding the beast”?

The paper uses concepts of lateral dynamics to explore the phenomenon of polarization between the social movement and its opposition. Through the psychoanalytic studies of siblings to explores how sibling envy, hatred and rivalry are necessary unavoidably initiatory stages of separation and individuation. In siblings those urges are then transformed to coexistence, through the vertical function. Mitchell’s concept of “law of the mother” (2003) proposes that the parental function is teaching siblings how individual needs can be met, without being experienced as antagonistic, and therefore social justice can be built on the premise of fairness, rather than equality.

Unfortunately, the social movement will experience parties seeking to sustain status-quo and political leaders sustaining rivalry and polarization, to gain popularity. The paper proposes that for a social movement to achieve sustainable impact, it requires two opposing operating functions: one is the mobilizing force of anger and opposition, that enables it to develop and sustain its potency. The other is the integrative function, that seeks to understand the needs, fears and desires of the opposing side, and ultimately put efforts to play with and educate it. To “tame the beast”, instead of “feeding” it, and imagining the possibility of co-existence instead of extermination.

References
Armstrong, D. (2007); The Dynamics of Lateral Relations in Changing Organizational Worlds; Organizational and Social Dynamics, 7(2), pp. 193-210.

de Gooijer, J. (2018); Doing business together: Lateral and vertical relations in the institutional partnering for a Group Relations conference; in Aram, E., Archer, C., Kelly, R., Strauss, G. and Triest, J. (eds.) Doing the Business of Group Relations Conferences: Routledge, pp. 43-59.

Halton, W. (2004); By what authority? Psychoanalytical reflections on creativity and change in relation to organizational life;, in Huffington, C., Armstrong, D., Halton, W., Hoyle, L. and Pooley, J. (eds.) Working Below the Surface : The Emotional Life of Contemporary Organizations. London: Routledge.

Long, S. (2008) The Perverse Organisation and its Deadly Sins. Taylor & Francis.
Mitchell, J. (2003) Siblings. Oxford, Polity, 2003.

Oratis, P. (2019); Polarization on the lateral axis and the breakdown of collaboration:
Where can containment and authorization be found in contemporary organizations?;, ISPSO AM2019 Perspectives on Polarties: Thinking Below The Surface, New York, June 24-30, 2019.

Stein, M. (2021); Lord of the flies: a psychoanalytic view of the gang and its processes;, Organisational and Social Dynamics, 21(1), pp. 11-27.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion

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‘Why He Orders the Steak’ An exploration of gender differences within the animal rights movement.

Description: With regards to attitudes to animals and vegetarian or vegan eating, there are significant differences between men and women. Women eat less meat, are more likely to be vegetarian or semi vegetarian, engage in grassroots animal advocacy, oppose animal research and join an animal protection organisation (Cooney, 2014, and Herzog, 2010). Various reasons have been put forward for this difference. These include:
• The feminist/ cultural perspective that because women have less power in the dominant culture, they are more alert to exploitation and disempowerment of other species (Adams, 1990).
• The ‘hormone’ argument that body chemistry affects our interactions with other species- oxytocin being instrumental in the human-animal bond, and testosterone having the opposite effect on empathy (Olmert, 2010).
• The societal perception that meat eating is a masculine activity, and that men need meat more than women do (Ruby & Heine, 2011).
• The ‘nurture’ theory that our culture instils more indifference to animal suffering in boys than girls (Luke, 2007).
• The notion that men and women are motivated by different values with regards to eating less meat: men being more motivated by health reasons, women by concern for animal welfare (Rothgerber, 2012).
• The argument that men and women tend to have different strategies for preventing the guilty feelings that come from eating meat (Cooney, 2014).
But what if we apply a psych-analytic lens to this question? Perhaps the early stages of ‘differentiation’ can give us clues as to why women are more inclined to empathise with animals and become active about animal welfare. The ‘separation-individuation’ process a child goes through as it moves from a “narcissistic relation to reality” (Chodorow, 1997) to a perceived demarcation between self and the object world could potentially shed light on the gender difference to identifying with, empathising with, and eating or choosing not to eat animals.

In this session, we will examine existing theories on the gender difference in the animal rights social movement, as well as explore a psycho-analytic perspective on how gender identity and a sense of masculinity and femininity develop for men and women, and how this development may lead to differences in viewing the ‘other’.

Finally, we will explore what these theories mean for activists in the movement for better treatment of animals. What implications does an awareness of the difference between the genders on the way we treat animals have for the animal rights movement?

References
Adams, C.J. (1990) The Sexual Politics of Meat. A Feminist- Vegetarian Critical Theory. 2017 Reprint. Bloomsbury, New York.
Chodorow, N. J. (1997) ‘Gender, Relation, and Difference in Psychoanalytic Perspective’. In Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, pp 8-20. Edited by Meyers, D.T., Routledge, London.
Cooney, N. (2014) Veganomics: The surprising science on what motivates vegetarians, from the breakfast table to the bedroom. CPSIA, USA.
Herzog, H. (2010) Some we Love, Some we Hate, Some we Eat Why it’s so Hard to Think Straight about Animals. HarperCollins, New York.
Luke, B. (2007) Brutal: Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals. University of Illinois Press, US.
Olmert, M. D. (2010) Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond. Little Brown, US.
Rothgerber, H. (2012) ‘Real Men Don’t Eat (Vegetable) Quiche: Masculinity and the Justification of Meat Consumption’. Psychology of Men and Masculinity 14(4), 363–375
Ruby, M.B. and Heine, S.J. (2011). ‘Meat, Morals and Masculinity’. In Appetite 56: pp447-450.

Session schedule

5 MINS

Introduction

30 MINS

Paper presentation

20 MINS

Small group discussion; impressions of the paper and developing questions for the presenter

20 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; moderated for the speaker to elaborate their ideas

10 MINS

Discussion forum with the presenter; themes from the discussions

5 MINS

Break

30 MINS

Whole symposium open reflection discussion

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The following are presenting at this time