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In this paper, I approach the question of mobiles in Asian countries by considering the case of Australia. I do so by way of a preliminary inquiry that seeks to explore the intersection between the emergence of mobiles in Australia with transformations in that country's sense of its relationship with Asia. First I discuss the history of the mobile phone in Australia, noting some important uses and representations that formed part of its social shaping. Second, I explore mobiles and the paradoxes of multiculturalism, and also how digital technologies became central to political culture and identity debates in Australia in the early to-mid 1990s. Third, I look at some important moments in the social shaping of text messaging, in which questions of cultural difference were decisive. Finally, I offer concluding remarks about future research on mobiles in Australia and how they are tied into Asian identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of music in community festivals is often to assist in constructing a particular identity of place, and music functions in such instances as a means to provide a sense of belonging for participants. However, multicultural festivals complicate any simple relationship between place and identity, because such festivals demonstrate the heterogeneous state of both identity and place. Anxieties that arise around issues of cultural authenticity within such festivals point to concerns of hybrid identities that may challenge and threaten the maintenance of clearly demarcated identities in the face of transnational relations. Drawing on ethnographic material and theoretical conceptualizations of the self, this paper explores the dynamic and fluid constructions of identity at two Australian community music festivals, and raises questions on the sorts of practices that seek to regulate the ways in which these identities are constituted and performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]