Altruism or Orientalism? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Australian representations of RAMSI

Abstract

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was Australian-led and largely Australian-funded, taking place over a 14-year window from 24 July 2003 to 30 June 2017. A mere few months beforehand, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer argued that the deployment of Australian troops to the Solomon Islands would be unjustifiable to Australian taxpayers and likely resented in the region. This thesis seeks to investigate how RAMSI became ‘thinkable’ as a policy option through an examination of the representations of Australia and Solomon Islands in Australian political discourse during the mission’s early years (2003-2007). Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse archival material produced primarily by DFAT and AusAID as well as newspaper articles produced by The Australian from 2003-2007. While Australian foreign aid is often portrayed as altruistic, this thesis finds that the parallel representations of Solomon Islands as a ‘failing state’ harkens back to the inherently racialised paradigm of development and is a reiteration of the colonial discourses of the past.