About the Book
Displacement, Identity and Belonging is a book about difference. It deals with ethnicity, migration, place, marginalisation, memory and constructions of the self. The arts-based and auto/biographical performance of the many voices in the text compliment and interrupt each other to create a polyvocal rendition of experience. The text unfolds through fiction, memoir, legend, artworks, photographs, poetry and theory, historical, cultural and political perspectives. As such, it is a book that confronts what an academic text can be.
Written in the present tense, it weaves its narrative around one small Hungarian migrant family in Australia, who are not particularly special or extraordinary. Their experience may appear, at least on first blush, to be paralleled by the post-war diasporic experience for a range of nations and peoples. However in many ways, this is not necessarily so. It is this crucial aspect, of the idiosyncrasies of difference that is at the core of this work. The layering of stories and artworks build upon each other in an engaging and accessible reading that appeals to a multitude of audiences and purposes. The book makes significant contributions to the literature on qualitative research, and in particular to arts-based research, auto/biographical research and autoethnographic research. Displacement, Identity and Belonging is in itself an experience of journey in the reading, powerfully demonstrating a life forever in transit. This work can be used as a core reading in a range of courses in education, teacher education, ethnicity studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology, history and communication or simply for pleasure.
About the Author :
Dr Alexandra Cutcher is a multi-award winning academic at Southern Cross University, Australia. Her research focuses on what the Arts can be and do educationally, expressively, as research method, language, catharsis, reflective instrument and documented form. These understandings inform Alexandra’s teaching and her spirited advocacy for Arts education.
Review :
Displacement, Identity and Belonging offers an excellent example of the use of novel approaches to social research that are designed to raise important questions and provide unique insights into complex issues in various fields of the humanities. The inquiry and representational strategies employed here, as the subtitle suggests, arise from within what is known as arts-based research. This is a form of inquiry that honors the premises, principles, and procedures employed in the creation of works of art. And indeed the text itself resembles a talented work of artistry in both form and substance. Here, the particular form of arts-based research and scholarship is that of auto/biographical portraiture. So the text evidences various discursive modalities—some gloriously poetic; others decidedly prosaic—in the presentation and discussion of findings. The more aesthetic, storied forms of representation enable the reader to relive empathically the life experiences of the characters portrayed in the book. This arts-based dimension serves as ballast for the more lofty, scholarly discourse that, in turn, allows the text to escape what one might call the tyranny of the local and specific. Moreover, the complex discursive format of the book is in a mutual relationship with the important and timely content (or aesthetic substance) of the book: the immigrant experiences that are present in various parts of the world today. The multigenerational perspective of Hungarian migrants to, and immigrants in, Australia, disclosed and examined herein, is not merely a fascinating and urgent topic in itself. It also encourages and enables the reader to imagine analogous social phenomena in other places and times. This fact, in conjunction with an extraordinarily effective format, is what makes this, for readers of all sorts, an important and empowering book—one that I heartily recommend.—Tom Barone, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University (USA)
Alexandra Cutcher is an empowered Gypsy metaphorically weaving together fiction, art, poetry, and narrative to create a rich tapestry of memories and stories as she examines some of the most important issues of our time: displacement, identity and belonging. This compelling auto/biography grips the reader in a seductive way, reminding us that many nation states of today welcome displaced persons, immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees and transnational persons, and yet, much work needs to happen if we are to truly understand what these transitions mean to individuals and their families. Arts based research offers a distinctive array of aesthetic engagements that help us grapple with these stories in powerfully revealing and instructive ways. Cutcher does a remarkable job of bringing her auto/biography to life and ultimately provides an exceptional example for others.—Rita L. Irwin, Professor, Art Education and Curriculum Studies, The University of British Columbia (Canada)
This rich and layered book explores Alexandra Cutcher’s transformative search for a sense of belonging and identity through rediscovering her Hungarian heritage. Originally a ground-breaking and highly visual arts based doctoral portfolio, the research journey has fared well in its translation to a book. Through the well-crafted and warm personal stories and images we as readers are able to consider our own search for meaning and purpose and the resonances with our own lived experiences. At the same time and on another level Australia’s search for identity and struggle with difference and diversity, with inclusion and exclusion, can be explored. An important, highly readable contribution to this burgeoning field.—Robyn Ewing, AM, Professor of Education and the Arts, The University of Sydney (Australia)
Displacement, Identity and Belonging is an evocative, beautifully-written love letter to arts based research. Written in the first person, present tense, it compellingly urges readers forward in this blend of Hungarian legend, contemporary researcher, and feminist perspectives. We experience, first-hand, how these narratives are interwoven in the experience and voice of the author. Blending part history of Hungary after the war and Australia after post-war migration, the author importantly points out that this is “a particular story,” but a universal one. It is universal in the migrant experience, the leaving, the arriving, the suffering. The structure of the text is itself an unfolding, modelling the journey that the author narrates so that we readers can experience it for ourselves. Travelling, in this way, is also a central experience alongside displacement—that is, travelling or movement is itself a kind of emplacement, one that co-exists with the notion and experience of dis placement. Indeed, as the author says, “I have felt forever in transit,” and this text takes the reader on her lifelong journey right along with her, sharing the gypsy consciousness that pervades this wonderful book. Cutcher argues (as all good arts based researchers do) that telling is just not as good as doing, and this book is a first-hand ‘doing’ that every reader, every migrant, every parent, child, artist and scholar should experience for themselves. Go buy a copy now! You won’t be sorry.—Anne Harris, PhD, Monash University, (Australia)
This work has qualities which rank it on par with the very best research texts with which I have engaged. It is at once, thought provoking, polyvocal, narratively and visually coherent and, most of all, there is a strong and purposeful relationship between the various two-dimensional art forms and the written text, between the purpose of the scholarship and the bound work itself. It is a courageously successful piece of scholartistry, which combines the very best qualities of traditional, intellectually strong, vigorous scholarship with qualities which make for fine artistry. The power of narrative stories and the compelling nature of personal arresting, artful experience is very evident in this work; it is a sweeping manuscript. Cutcher has represented complex human experiences in a manner that is largely seamless. The polyvocal forms of the work are powerfully evocative and one can hardly not be moved by the textual narratives, the photographic narratives and the conceptual artwork and, together, these work to induce high levels of resonance; I was alternatively moved, face tear-streaked, inspired, informed, challenged and impressed. This work is accessible to many readers and the writing is gloriously strong.—J. Gary Knowles, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto (Canada)
