Hansel and Gretel Revisited: Quixotic Reflections of Online Dating

The unprecedented wave of immigrants relocating to western societies makesthis a propitious time for interdisciplinary research to focus on identity negotiation.Studies in multicultural contexts offer fascinating insights into the complexitiesof human interaction, revealing that – irrespective of age – dynamicremodelling of identity still occurs ( Blackledge & Pavlenko, 2001; Giguère,Lalonde, & Lou, 2010; Mahtani, 2002). The transitional processes of acculturationin Australia from the sixties onwards provide compelling evidence thatour social interactions are in stark contrast with those within our culturalgroup. Placed in relief with the host national group, the perceptions of self,derived from these interactions thus give rise to the dynamic negotiation ofour identity. The traumatised childhood of young migrants whose identity wastransformed through ‘intercultural mirrors’ projecting racism and discriminationcan leave residual effects on intimate adult relationships. This chapterexplores the impacts of the quixotic images projected from online datingthrough the lens of a fifty-something, Franco-Australian professional, Coco.Her ethnographic chronicle and introspection place her identity reconstructionthrough intercultural contact with her suitors under the microscope,1 anddocuments simultaneously how those mirrors are effecting dynamic changesto sociocultural norms.