Martina Boese

Multiculturalism and Social Inclusion in Australia

The discussion in this paper is based on the Multiculturalism and Social Inclusion symposium, convened by The Australian Sociological Association’s (TASA) Migration Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (MEM) Thematic Group and the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University on 8 July 2010 in Melbourne. Bringing together over 50 researchers, practitioners and policy-makers, the symposium aimed to respond to the absence of multiculturalism within the Australian Federal Government’s Social Inclusion Agenda. It commenced with preliminary remarks by Dr Andrew Jakubowicz (University of Technology Sydney), Ms Jenny Semple (Settlement Council of Australia and South Eastern Region Migrant Resource Centre), Ms Neela Kareemy (South Eastern Region Migrant Resource Centre), Ms Nyadang Dei Wal (Migrant Information Centre and Sudanese Community Association of Australia) and Mr George Lekakis (Victorian Multicultural Commission). Key thematic areas of focus in the symposium included employment, community and belonging, active citizenship and fostering inclusion for new and emerging refugee and migrant communities (these sessions were facilitated by Martina Boese, Karen Farquharson, Louise Jenkins and Raelene Wilding). This paper reviews critical developments within Australian multicultural policy against the backdrop of the Federal Government’s Social Inclusion Agenda and situates outcomes of the symposium within the broader international debate.

Temporary migrant nurses in Australia: Sites and sources of precariousness

Temporary migrant workers are widely regarded as a precarious group of workers. This precariousness is often traced back to the sphere of employment, though recent research also points to the implications of the limited rights entailed by temporary migrant status. This article draws on empirical work among registered nurses who have participated in the Australian 457 visa scheme – the major programme for temporary migrant workers in Australia. Using a range of empirical sources, including in-depth interviews with 26 temporary migrant nurses, we examine whether these nurses experience precariousness and locate the sites and sources of precariousness. The article draws attention to the importance of the regulatory context that defines different pathways from the country of departure to employment in the Australian healthcare system. We suggest that, although temporary migrant nurses are well integrated within the healthcare workforce in terms of formal wages and conditions, other stages in their migration pathways can be associated with precariousness. This in turn has significant impact on experiences at work and outside the workplace.

Restricted entitlements for skilled temporary migrants: the limits of migrant consent

ABSTRACT Temporary labour migration programmes have often attracted significant controversy, particularly with regard to provisions that restrict the social entitlements available to temporary migrant workers, compared with other categories of residents. Advocates of such restrictions have argued that migrants freely choose to participate in temporary migration schemes on the prevailing terms, and are free to leave at any time if such participation no longer serves their interests. Our central goal in this paper is to critically evaluate such consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements of temporary migrant workers, with reference to empirical evidence concerning the practical social and economic conditions of choice experienced by these temporary migrants. Drawing on evidence from one major receiving country – Australia – we show that consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements fail to fully account for either the practical complexity of individual migration choices, or the de facto operation of Australia’s skilled temporary migration programme as a ‘test run’ for potential future permanent residents or citizens. By bringing sociological analysis of lived migrant experiences into critical engagement with normative debates about restricted social entitlements, we contribute to the bridging of empirical and normative migration debates, which too often evolve in parallel.

The roles of employers in the regional settlement of recently arrived migrants and refugees

This article identifies and analyses different roles played by employers of recently arrived migrants and refugees in regional locations. Based on a study of regional settlement in Victoria, Australia, it highlights the scope for employer influences on regional settlement through attracting migrants and refugees to regional locations; the informal provision of settlement support; the role of cultural ambassadors and hosts; the role of determinants of current and future residency; and the role of perpetrators of discrimination and exploitation. The often combined exercise of these complex and partly contradictory roles of employers is examined in the context of the regulation of regional settlement and the provision of government-funded settlement assistance. The analysis shows that these structural factors enable the position of employers as current or future sponsors of migrant workers and as principal providers of settlement support in regional and rural locations, which needs to be considered in future analyses of regional settlement.

Multiculturalising at the Interface of Policy and Practice

Multiculturalism as a contemporary policy framework and practice has been the subject of sustained criticism and debate. Our research on the resettlement experiences of newly arrived migrants and refugees shows how Australian multiculturalism has become a limited symbolic cultural space where “ethnic Others” are permitted to perform their minority ethnicity to the white ethnic majority group. We argue that the official and public meanings of multiculturalism today remain constrained by its past, specifically the historical legacy of White Australia and the contested but still entrenched remnants of the pressure to “assimilation”. As a result, new arrivals and existing cultural Others are expected to gradually “blend in” – a euphemism that in effect, veils a form of cultural assimilation. Based on our recent research findings we argue that such a process occurs however alongside emerging practices of active, reciprocal and ongoing cultural, political and social exchange within and between all diverse communities of Australia. We term this more transformational form of multiculturalism as “multiculturalising”. This notion points to a multi-layered and ongoing process of engagement and negotiation that involves new arrivals and long term residents alike and seeks to encapsulate some of the ways in which multiculturalism operates across a variety of public and private settings in Australia.

Insider research on migration and mobility. International perspectives on researcher positioning

The notion of ‘Insider- research’ in migration and mobility scholarship – may evoke the image of a ‘visible’ or ‘audible’ migrant scholar subject researching other ethnically or racially marked sub...