Virginia Mapedzahama

Ordinary Cosmopolitans: Sydney Muslims’ attitudes to diversity

ABSTRACT A significant body of research as well as political advocacy outline the difficulties of Muslims living within Western countries. For virtuous reasons this scholarship assumes that Muslims are being prevented from belonging through mechanisms of social exclusion, and, it would follow, are at risk of losing faith in the prospects of harmony and social compact around religious diversity. Yet there is very little evidence that such exclusion generates disaffection and despondency. The emerging scholarship on ‘ordinary cosmopolitanism’ eschews an a priori assumption of exclusion. A survey of 585 Muslims living in Sydney (Australia) derived their attitudes to diversity, racism and national belonging. We critically assessed whether perceived disaffection and incompatibility (non-belonging, radicalisation) were as widespread as public commentaries and some research infers. The results show a very strong level of everyday support for cultural diversity and a rejection of assimilationist impulses, exceeding the average for the general population. This is despite the global Islamophobia attached to terror discourses and to the violent extremism of a minority of Muslims.

Blackness as Burden? The Lived Experience of Black Africans in Australia:

Skin color is broadly accepted as a conspicuous marker of difference and racial belonging. Yet while the body is understood as a given, it is also socially inscribed: heavily sexualized, gendered, and even “colored.” This article is about African bodies that are colored Black. It critically discusses the experiences of black embodiment for African diaspora bodies that are coded “black” and inscribed with blackness in Australia. The article is written from a black African experience perspective to call into question current distorted and problem-centered narratives of African Blackness in Australia. Adopting standpoint theory and critical race theory’s unique voice of color thesis as conceptual framework for making sense of focus group data with black African migrants living in New South Wales and Victoria, the article’s main contention is that black African embodiment is experienced as a (symbolic and material) burden; what we call the “the burden of Blackness.” We discuss four dimensions of this burden: problematic stereotypes and social constructions, the paradox of in/visibility, burden of racial “two-ness,” and burden of minimization.

A Clash of Paradigms? Ethnography and Ethics Approval:

Obtaining ethics approval from university ethics committees is an important part of the research process in Australia and internationally. However, for researchers engaging in ethnographic work, obtaining ethics approval can (re)present significant hurdles to overcome in planning and facilitating a research project. In this article, we discuss potential challenges of reconciling the differences between institutional ethical review standards and the reality of ethnographic research. To do so, we reflect on our own experiences seeking ethics approval for a study on racialized visibility in rural nursing and another on the experiences of gender and sexuality diverse older women. We focus on two particular queries from ethics committees that reaffirm, for us, the incompatibility of biomedically informed ethics guidelines for naturalistic, ethnographic research. The article draws on four major points of contention regarding ethical approval processes designed for biomedical research and applied to social research. With respect to social research, these are (a) the associated risks, (b) predictive informed consent, (c) the power held by social researchers, and (d) biomedical emphasis on distance and universalism within the research relationship. This article suggests a reformulation of ethics guidelines and structures such that ethics committees are better able to engage with ethnographic (and other social) research. Although these debates and structural changes may not be relevant for all social or ethnographic research, exploring these ethical difficulties is paramount to redefining expectations and the positivist standards upon which social research is often measured.

Media Event, Racial Ramblings, or Both? An Analysis of Media Coverage of the Tamworth Council Sudanese Refugees Resettlement Case (2006)

This article presents our analysis of Australian media reporting of the 2006 Tamworth City Council’s decision to refuse the resettlement of five Sudanese families in Tamworth (NSW) and subsequent reversal, supposedly due to the pressure brought to bear on the council as a result of the media “hype.” The question at the core of our analyses is as follows: Did the media play a role in the over-(re)presentation of this case as racist or was it just a case of the media reporting racism? Informed by media framing theory, we examine print media reports for patterns of presentation as well as representations of both the council and the refugees who were the focus of the reporting. We conclude that while the media played a significant role in making visible a case built on racial stereotypes, their reporting also contained racializing and paternalistic stereotyping that contribute to the reproduction of both everyday and systemic racism.