Understanding ethnic residential cluster formation: new perspectives from South Australia’s migrant hostels

Throughout Australia’s history, successive governments have lamented the clustering of non-English-speaking migrants in ‘ethnic enclaves’ or ‘ghettos’. From the early Chinatowns of the 1800s till today, urban concentrations of ethnic groups have raised concerns and fears in local populations and authorities alike, despite decades of international research which suggests that ethnic residential clusters actually aid long-term assimilation and adjustment. Many of the ethnic residential clusters in contemporary Australia have been claimed to be a direct consequence of the migrant hostels and reception centres which operated between 1948 and the 1990s. This paper traces migrant settlement patterns in South Australia in rich detail, revealing the complexities of lived experiences that shape migrant settlement decisions. Against the background of public and scholarly debates over ‘ethnic enclaves’, and drawing on quantitative and qualitative historical research on the lived experiences of former hostel migrants, it analyses how migrant hostels and reception centres contributed to the settlement experiences of diverse migrants. We conclude that migrant hostels were just one among various factors that led to the growth and maintenance of ethnic residential clusters.Karen Agutter and Rachel A. Anken