In Your Face: A Case Study in Post Multicultural Australia

Australia has now gone beyond multiculturalism. The slow dismantling of the multicultural policy during the Howard years has been replaced with a policy of social inclusion by the Labor government. How do these policy shifts affect one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities in Australia? Drawing on interviews with children, youth and adults from diverse backgrounds in Darwin, this book sets out to answer this question. It focuses on issues of race and ethnicity using the idea of racialised practice to examine the social dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. There is an additional personal dimension, because my daughter was born in Australia, of Indonesian/Scottish descent. It was her struggle to find a way to belong as an Australian in Australia, and my own helplessness in the face of those struggles that prompted this study. Margot Ford lived many years in the Northern Territory, working in education. She studied at the University of Queensland and is currently a lecturer in education at the University of Newcastle, NSW.Chpt. 1: Introduction -- Chpt. 2: Weaving a way through meanings -- Chpt. 3: Politics of the past -- Chpt. 4: Politics of the present -- Chpt. 5: Politics of the everyday -- Chpt. 6: Politics of identification -- Chpt. 7: The politics of intervention -- Chpt. 8: Politics of fear and hope -- References -- Index