Bogan Culture: A Cultural Report
Executive summary The first thing to understand is that “bogan” is not really the name of a single, coherent social group. It is a remarkably flexible Australian cultural label. At various times it has meant: That last transformation is probably the most interesting. “Bogan” began largely as an insult but has been partly reclaimed as a badge of authenticity, national identity and resistance to cultural snobbery. Linguist Roslyn Rowen describes it as a distinctive Australian cultural keyword whose negative meaning can be transformed into positive self-identification and Australian nationalism. And there is a delicious paradox at the heart of it: The bogan has become fashionable precisely because the bogan is…

Bogue