Amanda Wise

Hope and belonging in a multicultural suburb

In this paper I explore the complex nature of multiculturalism as place-sharing, of cross-cultural interaction, or multiculturalism of inhabitance. I investigate, in particular, the struggles over and potentials for a sense of hopefulness and belonging in a culturally diverse suburb shared by more than one ethnic group. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, I present a series of ethnographic vignettes that represent what I term ‘hopeful intercultural encounters’. I theorise these in terms of Simmels notion of gratitude, and Hages notion of ‘hope on the side of life’ as a means of reflecting on the social possibilities for new forms of integration in culturally diverse localities.

Sensuous Multiculturalism: Emotional Landscapes of Inter-Ethnic Living in Australian Suburbia

Every day, people from different backgrounds mix together, whether by design or necessity, in our multicultural neighbourhoods and cities. This article explores how senses, sensibilities, habitus and affects influence quotidian intercultural encounters in culturally diverse cities. The article is based upon ethnographic research in an Australian suburb which has seen large-scale Chinese migration to the area in recent years and experienced the associated rapid changes to the shops along the local high street. Focusing on a range of sites or ‘contact zones’ along the suburban high street, the paper explores the notion of cross-cultural habitus, in particular the sensuous and affective dimensions of what I term the ‘haptic habitus’. It then examines the sensuous and embodied modes of being that mediate intercultural interactions between long-term Anglo-Celtic elderly residents in the area and newly arrived Chinese immigrants and their associated urban spaces. Ranging through the senses, from sight, smell, sound and the haptic system, the article reflects upon how the senses, affect, habitus, nostalgia and memory articulate with localised experiences of diversity. I develop the notion of ‘sensuous multiculturism’—which foregrounds embodied experience in this scenario of cultural difference—and go on to argue that the dis-synchronisation of senses, embodied place-memory and habitus contribute to some forms of intercultural anxiety and everyday racism.

Everyday Cosmopolitanism and the Labour of Intercultural Community

The oft-proclaimed ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ has entailed a raft of both theoretical and political criticisms. Theoretically, the identity focus of multiculturalism is seen to be incapable of capturing the cultural complexity of contemporary societies. Politically, as a set of policies and programmes, it is seen to be inadequate for servicing that complexity, or addressing concerns around cultural division and the desire for social cohesion. In its place, a clutch of ideas has emerged to fill this void and offer alternative visions for grappling with the consequences of diversity in an increasingly globalised world. The interest in notions of cosmopolitanism is central here because they shift the focus away from a politics of identity, which reifies categories of ethnicity, towards an ethics of cohabitation. This shift, however, has not been without its problems — cosmopolitanism has been too often constrained by its philosophical and ethical orientation, and its preoccupation with elites, and rarely used to explore the pragmatics of living with difference in diverse settings.

Everyday Multiculturalism: Transversal Crossings and Working Class Cosmopolitans

This chapter is based upon a research project entitled ‘Contact Zones’ that explored what I have termed ‘everyday multiculturalism, or ‘multiculturalism from below’.1 The project focused on quotidian modes of intercultural crossing in culturally diverse localities. It aimed to identify points of affinity and disjuncture in order to better understand how, where, and why diverse Australians ‘get along’ or ‘rub along’ (Watson 2006: 2) together (or not) and how they negotiate the ‘accident’ of propinquity in shared multicultural spaces. In this chapter, I argue that there exist certain ‘everyday’ individuals I term ‘transversal enablers’ who employ and facilitate ‘transversal practices’ which, in essence, are forms of exchange and gift relation that foster everyday relationships across cultural difference in multicultural settings.

Conviviality in everyday multiculturalism: Some brief comparisons between Singapore and Sydney

This article considers the question of conviviality in everyday multiculturalism. It elaborates the concept of ‘convivial multiculture’ through case studies from Sydney and Singapore. In comparing these two contexts, the article considers what underpins conviviality across three themes: spatial ordering, where consideration is given to the role of built environment and material furnishings of place in shaping encounters with difference; connecting and bridging work, where we discuss the concept of ‘transversal enablers’, and intercultural gift exchange; and intercultural habitus, where disposition, habit and linguistic accommodation are discussed. It closes with some reflection upon larger forces that mediate local encounters, and the necessity to consider the full range of interactions, patterns, behaviours and meanings at work, and the interconnection between ‘happy’ and ‘hard’ forms of coexistence.

Introduction: Multiculturalism and Everyday Life

The food court of our local suburban shopping mall is deliciously rich with everyday multicultural encounters. We live in a suburb where more than 70 languages are spoken and on a typical day a good portion of these can be heard in this food court. The food stalls include an Indian place run by Tamil speakers from South India who’ve modified their menu to encompass more North Indian dishes because most of the international students living nearby are Punjabis. Next door is a Thai place popular with everyone, and next to them a Chinese buffet, a sandwich shop owned by Chinese, a Turkish kebab house, and the usual big fast-food outlets. There is a distinct temporal rhythm to the space. On weekdays one length of tables are occupied by a group of ten or so elderly Italian men who meet there each morning to talk, debate, play cards, and generally while away the time. They buy their coffee from the Italian-themed coffee shop owned and run by local Chinese immigrants. Large-screen TVs hanging above hum with the sound of Oprah or the news. The tables in the middle are occupied by a few elderly white men (we suspect widowers living alone), usually with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Typically they’ll be sitting alone but apparently enjoying the light-touch company of others occupying this public space. There is a soup kitchen up the road so there are often homeless men occupying tables near the TVs and we’ve seen the Chinese coffee shop owners give free coffee and cake to a couple of them who come regularly.

Introduction: Migration, Affect and the Senses

While scholars are increasingly aware of embodied experience, in some ways we are only beginning to understand how sensory and affective bodies articulate at the interface of cultural difference, a...

Convivialities: An Orientation

Conviviality has become one of the latest groovy things. Along with cosmopolitanism and a host of other terms, it is (almost) everywhere (see, Hinchliffe and Whatmore 2006, Karner and Parker 2011, Hollingworth and Mansaray 2012, Noble 2013, Blommaert 2014, Wise and Velayutham 2014, Harris 2014, Heil 2014, Wessendorf 2014, Neal et al. 2015, Padilla et al. 2015, Da Costa 2016, Valluvan 2016) so much so that some scholars now talk of the ‘convivial turn’ (Neal et al. 2013), the latest in a series of ‘turns’ over the last 2–3 decades. It has become a preoccupation with good reason. In this special issue of the journal, we focus on the critical but productive possibilities of this ‘turn’ as scholars from around the world grapple with the challenges of intercultural relations in an increasingly globalised world, and the consequences this has for local relations of living together. We do not intend to offer a literature review of this ‘turn’ here as others have covered that territory (see, Heil 2014, Nowicka and Vertovec 2014). In what follows, we wish to map some of the reasons for this ‘turn’, and its methodological and conceptual consequences.

Second-generation Tamils and cross-cultural marriage: Managing the translocal village in a moment of cultural rupture

The paper is based on an auto-ethnographic study of transnational Tamils living in Singapore who retain strong links to their village in India. We explore the challenges posed by increasingly hybrid cultural practices and cross-cultural connections among the second-generation members of this translocal village which spans India, Singapore and Australia. Through a case study of a cross-cultural and ‘out-marriage’ which took place in the village in India, we explore how those charged with maintaining and reproducing the cultural boundaries of the village in transnational circumstances responded to this cultural ‘rupture’. We analyse some of the factors that were pivotal in reproducing the continued viability of the moral economy of this translocal village and explore some of the means deployed to maintain the boundaries of this social field. We develop the concept of ‘transnational affect’ to describe the function of bodily emotions such as shame and pride that compel participation in and conformity to the transnational social field. We also discuss the deployment of strategies of creative improvisation such as the filling-in of ritual gaps in order to maintain ritual integrity. We show how this ensures that the role of ritual in reproducing membership and a sense of obligation to the community is not disrupted.

Pyramid subcontracting and moral detachment: Down- sourcing risk and responsibility in the management of transnational labour in Asia

Major transformations in the organisation of labour are having a profound effect on the moral character of the labour-capital contract. Using two small case studies undertaken in Singapore as a starting point, this article reflects on the moral economies of supply chain capitalism. Detailing examples of the human impacts of down-sourcing risk through ‘flexible’ modes of transnational employment, it analyses the strategies whereby firms and governments distance themselves from these consequences. Precarious forms of employment based on pyramid subcontracting arrangements allow a disruption of the moral relation (however tenuous) that is present in traditional face-to-face employment arrangements. The article explores four strategies of moral detachment on the part of the employers, contractors and brokers in the supply chain.