Mediating Multiculturalism. Daniella Trimboli
deemed intolerable. After all, if ethnic Australians adopt Anglo-Celtic Australian values, they can be awarded what Stratton (2009, p. 16) refers to as ‘honorary whiteness’, or become, in Rosanna Gonsalves’s (2011, in Khorana 2014, p. 258) term, ‘de-wogged’. But, being able to bypass explicit racism via ‘symbolic whiteness’ (Khorana 2014, p. 260) does not demonstrate the eradication of historical forms of racism. Being an honorary white is not the same as being a ‘real’ white – at any moment the acclaim can be, and often is, stripped from the ethnic Australian whose body inevitably renders them inauthentic (see Stratton 1998; Ahmed 2000, p. 97; Ford 2009, pp. 171–73). Ultimately, these new critiques of multiculturalism that argue cultural racism has replaced historical forms of racism are problematic and as such this book does not adopt their methodologies.
Everyday multiculturalism
Perhaps more useful for mapping today’s migrant communities is the emergent field of everyday multiculturalism, a contemporary form of critical multiculturalism that responds to the renewed demystification with multiculturalism that has surfaced in the past decade. Although the field is gaining traction across the world, it is primarily located in Western contexts, in which a perceived gap exists between how multiculturalism is managed and conceptualised and how it is actually experienced in daily life. Australian scholars, most notably, Melissa Butcher, Anita Harris, Greg Noble, Scott Poynting and Amanda Wise, are pioneering everyday multiculturalism, giving the trajectory of the field a particularly Australian orientation. However, the framework of everyday multiculturalism is being rapidly adopted in the transpacific and beyond, applied to a range of ethnographies where interculturalism, cultural diversity and social cohesion are explored. A quick glance at the preeminent book Everyday Multiculturalism by Wise and Velayutham (2009b) attests to this global adaptation: contributing authors draw on case studies from Brooklyn, London, Sydney/Eora,6 Singapore, Malaysia and Southern Italy, among others.7
The field is interested in exploring how practices of everyday life shape and reshape identities, and how this relates to the broader terrain of multiculturalism (Wise and Velayutham 2009a, p. 3). The article titled ‘Pedestrian Crossings: Young People and Everyday Multiculturalism’ in the 2010 special edition of the Journal of Intercultural Studies succinctly summarises the field as having a focus on ‘(1) everyday practices of intercultural encounter and exchange (the “doing” of multiculturalism); and (2) sites and spaces where tensions and possibilities around multicultural community and nation building occur (the places where multiculturalism is done)’ (Butcher and Harris 2010, p. 450). The need to specifically examine the everyday practices and sites of multiculturalism is linked to a feeling of disconnection between official discourse and on-the-ground experience.8 Jon Stratton (2011) illustrates how the dominant culture interprets this feeling of disconnection as a residue of migrant culture, feeling that Australian life has been undermined or overrun by non-Anglo-Celtic Australians. This sense of disconnection is also evident in the fact that racism is perpetually experienced in present-day Australia, despite Australian multiculturalism being celebrated as a national accomplishment. Recent empirical research on young people and everyday multiculturalism demonstrates this polarity. The research shows that incidents of racialised tension put a daily stress on ethnic youth, either because of mistranslations of language, fear of being harassed for dressing or looking a particular way and/or the social expulsion of ethnic youth from public areas (see Butcher and Harris 2010; Frisina 2010; Harris 2010; Noble and Poynting 2010; Rathzel 2010).
Countless studies have pointed to this gap and ultimately raise the question: are we doing multiculturalism in our day-to-day lives in a way that is removed from both the political and theoretical ideal of multiculturalism? Indeed, even though the above examples suggest that the disconnection manifests in negative fashions, Anita Harris (2010) illustrates that this is not always the case. There also appears to be some detachment between the governmental idea of multiculturalism as a united Australian identity and the positive interactions that occur on the street in spite of diverse and fragmented identity alliances. As Harris explains, young people create ‘spatial communities’ which often go beyond ‘expected ethnic and gender belongings’ (p. 582). They do so because of ‘everyday debates, disagreements and encounters’ (ibid.). These tensions emerge over cultural differences, but they ultimately create ‘the foundation for productive and ongoing dialogue and engagement with others as equals’ (ibid.). In other words, Australian youths demonstrate positive intercultural exchange not only in spite of difference but because of it. The sense of equality and conviviality that can emerge is not, therefore, based on the managerial claim of a ‘unified’ Australian identity or way of life.
The perceived need for a new field of study is compounded by a perception that a similar gap exists in multiculturalism literature. As Noble (2009, p. 46) claims, theoretical discussions of multiculturalism tend to focus on identity categories that are inadequate to discuss the complexity of ethnicity, and the politics of multiculturalism also struggle to service this complexity. Noble goes on to suggest that this problem is created because intercultural encounters are not recognised as such; they are ‘just done’ (ibid.). Many scholars are attempting to bridge the so-called gap by researching the diversity of multicultural experiences of daily life (see, e.g., Phillips 2001; Gow 2005; Ford 2009; Wise 2009, 2016; Wise and Velayutham 2009a,b, 2019; Butcher and Harris 2010; Frisina 2010; Harris 2010; Rathzel 2010; Ho 2011; Hewitt 2016; Radford 2016; Knijnik 2018).
Although everyday multiculturalism is a relatively new field of study, the attempt to critically examine on-the-ground aspects of multiculturalism certainly is not. Everyday multiculturalism has been used under different guises for over two decades in academic scholarship (Wise and Velayutham 2009a, p. 3). The work of Ang, Essed, Hage and Stratton has explored the dynamic between ordinary citizens and multiculturalism discourse in various ways for several years. For example, Stratton (1999, 2011) explores the dynamic between citizens and multiculturalism, and Philomena Essed’s (1991) notion of ‘everyday racism’ has also been highly influential. Hage’s White Nation (1998) took up a critical analysis of the wider discourses at play in constructing the fantasy of multiculturalism, arguing that although the lives of migrants in Australia may have driven the policy formations of multiculturalism, their lives remain mis- or under-represented. It is also clear that although aspects of theory and policy have not always addressed the on-the-ground tensions at play, subset policies, programmes and organisations have been consistently aware of these issues and attempted to engage them in various ways. In their study of Australia’s multicultural and multilingual broadcasting service SBS,9 Ang et al. (2008, p. 50) note that the broadcaster’s latest platform fed into the popular theory of multiculturalism for everyday life, ‘warts and all’. SBS’s corporate plan for 2004–2006 aimed at ‘a more mundane and everyday multicultural spirit’ (ibid.).
The current work of everyday multiculturalism builds on these foundational studies of everyday cultural life. The first attempt to map the small but growing field was made by Amanda Wise and Selvaraj Velayutham (2009b) in the edited book Everyday Multiculturalism. The collection includes essays from sociology, cultural studies, literary studies and political science. Common to all approaches is the underlying use of everyday multiculturalism as a way to problematise multiculturalism as both a policy-driven concept and a lived experience. Wise and Velayutham (2009a, pp. 2–3) identify 11 sub-themes of this problematisation as follows: (1) habitus and cultural capital; (2) embodiment, reciprocity, gift exchange and social exchange; (3) affect and the senses; (4) humour; (5) everyday exchanges and transformation; (6) hybridities and the notion of being ‘together in difference’; (7) everyday racism and tensions; (8) notions of civility and incivility; (9) networks; (10) material culture and modes of consumption; and (11) power and interplaying discourses. These sub-themes are certainly not mutually exclusive, and several overlaps exist between each one. Sites of study typically include spaces deemed reflective of everyday life, for example, housing and neighbourhood planning projects, food rituals, ethnic precincts, education, crime and youth participation in public space and