Non-metropolitan productions of multiculturalism: refugee settlement in rural Australia. Issue 14 (14th November 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wilding, Raelene; Nunn, Caitlin
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 41:Issue 14(2018)
• Page Start: 2542
• Page End: 2560
• Publication Date: 2018-11-14
• Subjects: Refugee resettlement -- multiculturalism -- rural imaginary -- non-metropolitan -- diversity -- Australia; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1394479
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In spite of the widespread backlash against multicultural policies, diversity remains a feature of globalized societies, requiring better understandings of how cultural difference is negotiated in rapidly transforming communities. Building on existing studies of multiculturalism in metropolitan contexts, we use interviews and ethnographic research to consider the transformation of a non-metropolitan community from a relatively homogeneous to an increasingly diverse place resulting from recent humanitarian resettlement flows. We argue that the new arrivals and established settlers in this regional city collaborate in the discursive and practical production of a form of multiculturalism that is shaped by the particularities of a rural imaginary, which they assert as distinct from urban experiences of super-diversity. At the same time, the local emphasis on rurality contributes to the reproduction of power inequalities that limit opportunities for eliminating discrimination and social exclusion in spite of evidence of conviviality in formal and informal encounters.