Melissa Phillips

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.

Economies of transit: exploiting migrants and refugees in Indonesia and Libya

Increasingly restrictive border protection measures cause more asylum seekers, refugees and labour migrants to attempt to reach their destinations by unauthorised means and enable illicit markets that facilitate irregular migration to form and expand. Smuggling networks, funds for journeys, and access to sites where passages can be negotiated allow irregular migration to flourish. The micro-economies that form at transit sites because of the irregular presence of migrants and refugees are a less recognised aspect of transit. This article compares transit sites in Indonesia and Libya - key transit locations on routes to Australia and Italy - and investigates the exploitation of transit migrants in both countries. It illustrates that those crossing borders are exploited not only in illicit spaces but also when under government control or management by international organisations. It argues that these economies of transit encourage informal networks that prey on transit migrants and extend their exploitation.

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.