Symbolic Boundaries and National Identity in Australia

Working broadly within the late-Durkheimian tradition of cultural sociology, the symbolic boundaries of the Australian national community are conceptualized in terms of a typology composed of two dimensions: 'friends'/'enemies' and 'internal'/'external'. The typology is operationalized, and the specific empirical content of the four cells examined using quantitative data from the Australian National Social Science Survey (1984-85). The paper investigates how emotional attachment to the Australian national community causally effects attitude formation on three national issues; monarchism, aboriginality and multiculturalism. Also, the social determinants behind variation in emotional attachment to orthodox symbolic conceptions of the Australian national community are systematically investigated and measured.