"We're multicultural mate!": regional Australian discourses of multiculturalism and the reproduction of 'white Australia as a national identity

Koerner, Catherine and Haggis, J (2010) "We're multicultural mate!": regional Australian discourses of multiculturalism and the reproduction of 'white Australia as a national identity. In: Social causes, private lives: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Australian Sociological Association. Maquarie University, Sydney. ISBN 978-0-646-54628-5

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Abstract

This paper considers the complexities of „everyday understandings‟ of multiculturalism as a discourse to deal with racialised difference. The paper is based on one of the author‟s doctoral researchi which analyses the complexities of how whiteness and race are socially produced and lived in regional Australia. Drawing on a set of qualitative interviews conducted in South Australia with 29 people who self-identity as „white Australian‟ we consider the social and political history of a „white Australia‟ continues to inform the terms of multiculturalism for these people. We argue that this reflects the ways that state multiculturalism manages diversity and obscures the language of race. As a consequence the white national identity remains raced without an everyday vocabulary to deal with it.

Item Type: Book Section
Field of Research (2008): 16 Studies in Human Society > 1608 Sociology > 160803 Race and Ethnic Relations
20 Language, Communication and Culture > 2002 Cultural Studies > 200209 Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-cultural Studies
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date Deposited: 01 Jun 2011 00:07
Last Modified: 20 Oct 2011 23:41
URI: https://eprints.batchelor.edu.au/id/eprint/257

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