Cultural identity is the feeling of belonging that an individual feels towards a particular set of group. It is the part of an individual's concept and perception of self. Cultural identity is often related to nationality, religion, ethnicity and locality or any social group with its own culture.
Cultural identity has two distinct dimensions to it – a psychological dimension and a sociological dimension. According to psychology, cultural identity is the "identity of a group or culture, or of an in digital as far as she/he is influenced by her/his belonging to a group or culture". On the other hand, from sociological view point, cultural identity can be defined as the feeling of belonging that a person feels to the five basic sources of identity. These sources include nationality, age, gender, ethnicity, and region.
Cultural identity differs from person to person. A person living in one country, will identify himself as a resident or national of that country and characterise himself similarly like the other inhabitants of that same country. Whereas the person living outside that country, identifies the country based on some pre conceived notions that he or she may have. These preconceived notions are called stereotypes. Along with this, comes the concept of insider and outsider. An insider of a group, that is, a person belonging to a particular group will have much more intimate knowledge about the group. He shall known the workings of the group including its values, morals and code. An outsider, on the other hand lacks the intimate knowledge of the group and hence just assumes values and morals of the group. These assumed values and morals of the group usually remain unchanged unless the outsider comes in close contact with the group and is forced to change his preconceived notions, which bare referred to as stereotypes. Stereotypes are defined as "a thought that can be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain way of doing things". These thoughts, may not necessarily, reflect the reality.
The stereotypes that characterise the culture of Australia are usually quite unrealistic. These sometimes pertain to the fact that the lifestyle of Australians is mostly based on beverages such as bear and the fact that every day in Australia is spent leisurely without much work or the fact that the wardrobe of almost all Australians consists mostly of beachwear. Sometimes it even extends to the facts that Australians are very self absorbed where as Indian, Chinese holidays are celebrated with equal vigour as those of Christmas and Easter are.
Australia is a uniquely diverse continent which sustains life from different background. It's is due to this diversity that some times people face a difficult time in understanding the Australians national identity. The debate over the Australian national identity has been going on for some time and it involves how the Australians view themselves and how the world views the Australia and it's inhabitants – coming back in a full circle to the concept of insider and outsider.
According to the history of Australia, British culture has had a strong influence in that of Australia's. During the time when Australia was a British colony, it adopted the British language, religion and government. Till date, Australia is a part of the British commonwealth and owes it's allegiance to the British monarch. Since then, the national identity of Australia has been evolving – from bush to beach. As Hugh McCoy has rightly pointed out that Australia is "multiracial". Although many researchers have supported this ideology of Australia being multiracial, many believe that this very concept threatens the national identity of the continent. These researchers have blamed the mass immigration policies of the government for the decaying sense of national identity.
Keeping this aside, the research that was conducted by me, for this project brought to light certain characteristic elements of the population that seems to bind the identity of the nation. These elements include an egalitarianism attitude, tolerance towards the different religious beliefs, ideologies and ethnicity that surround the region, a basic friendliness and an outgoing nature, a self deprecating sense of humour, a stability towards the major institutions and a concern for the total quality of life than the materialistic part of living.
For this research I have chosen the wearable portion of the national identity. During research I didn't not come across any national uniform costume that Australia has, yet it is evident that a style has emerged die to the local lifestyle and the climate of the region. An Australian style can be explicitly observed in the main types of local dresses such as bush wear, swimwear and the indigenous designs of the natives. All of these above have formed an outdoor style lifestyle. The styles and the types of the dresses that the Australians wear is a part of the cultural borrowing due to globalisation.
Australian local dress differs from Australian fashion in the sense that the local style is influenced by the experience of living in a rugged country with a mixture of the beach culture. This is also reflected the fabrics which consist of drill cotton.
The evolution of the bush wear started in the 1930s, when an image of the squatter's daughter and the aviatrix model had helped in the construction of the female bush figure. Squatters' daughters and the aviatrices had developed the trousers and this in turn contributed it the trousers becoming a popular icon of modern Australian women. The popularity of the trousers were cemented during the women's experience in the world war in the 1940s. Along with this, Fletcher Jones made popular the smart, well-made trousers for men with the help of on vigorous Italian tailoring and factories and outlets. Australian dress that was developed by the stockmen and the diggers was in response to the colonial bush experience. It marked their preference for drill cotton and moleskin for texitle and khaki pants or shorts for the style of clothing. Along with this, they wore worsted wool coats, oilskin coats, rabbit-fur hats and elastic-sided riding boots.
These items are today sold not only by bush outfitters such as R.M Williams and Baxter Boots, but also by companies like Rivers and Colorado.
This localised dress of bushwear was made to be a form of Australia's national dress by the Australian Prime Miniter durung the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2007.
The inspiration for the surf wear come from Annette Keller man, who was swimmer and also the first person to sell the modern day one piece swimsuit for women. Later in the 1950s, brightly coloured t-shirts, similar to the styles in Hawaii and Fiji became a part of the mail beach dress. To adapt to the beach experience, surf board shorts have been also adapted as a national dress code by both the males as well as the females. Females have extended the adoption policy to the loose flowing sarong from Indonesia and sulk from Fiji Islands.
The qualities of mateship, that is so quintessential to the Australian culture and the larrikin attitude have also contributed to the Australian dress style. This style distinctly contrasts the bush and beach style. This style is characterised by the cabbage palm hats. In 1960s, boot wearing rockers were also added to this particular style.
Coming to footwear, it is mainly dominated by footwear and thongs. Thongs are seen as essential footwear during the summer months
The first emotional value that is inherent in these categories of the wearable is the attached to the experiences that people have in Australia along with the lifestyle. It is evident that the people chose to adapt these particular styles for the comfort that they provide also for its innate ability to adapt to the different climates that is inherent in Australia.
The reason I chose the wearable area of a national identity is because, it shows the cultural of a place in full form even after making sure that the segregated positions of it don't go unnoticed.