Everyday multiculturalism

Catching the bus in Darwin, Australia

Bibliographic Data

ID3204701
AuthorsM Lobo (0000-0001-7733-666X, Deakin University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume15
Issue7
Pages714-729
Publication date2014-10-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2014.916743
OpenAlexW2067097041
LanguageEN
Citations received47
References cited36

Following acts of violence in major cities, the future of multiculturalism as a philosophy and a state-sponsored policy to promote peace and interdependence in white majority societies seem uncertain. Ethnographic research that explores the lived experience of multiculturalism in shared public spaces, however, offers the possibility to explore emotional stress as well as possibilities for change in culturally diverse cities. Within this literature, however, there is little grounded research that explores Indigenous–ethnic minority relationships. This paper foregrounds and describes a seemingly mundane event such as catching a bus that entangles my body with an Aboriginal woman and a migrant woman from Fiji in Darwin, Australia. The paper demonstrates how injury, anger, shame and discomfort unfolds when bodies of colour are sites of stress. I explore the emergence of this bodily stress that has outcomes for the capacity of racially differentiated bodies of colour to respond ethically in encounters with strangers. I argue that thick descriptions of events, conceptualisations of agency as distributed and broader understandings of the social have the potential to contribute to anti-racist agendas in Euro-colonial societies with separate Indigenous and multicultural policy frameworks in ways that do not require bodies to ‘accumulate’ or ‘inhabit’ whiteness

Agency (philosophy · Colonialism · Ethnic group · Ethnography · Indigenous · Multiculturalism · Political science · Shame · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History of Emotions Research · Law

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