Multiculturalism, Whiteness and Otherness in Australia

This book examines the experience of race and ethnicity in Australia after the withering away of official multiculturalism. The first chapter looks at the formation of the Australian state, the role that multiculturalism has played, and the impact of neoliberal ideas. The second chapter takes nightclubbing in the city of Perth during the 1980s, the peak period for official multiculturalism, to exemplify how diversity and exclusion functioned in everyday life. The third chapter considers the imbrication of Christianity in the Australian socio-cultural order and its impact on the limits of multiculturalism with particular concentration on Islam and the Australian Muslim experience. Subsequent chapters discuss the exclusionary experience of various groups identified as non-white through the lens of films, popular music and television programs.

 Jon Stratton is an adjunct professor at the University of South Australia. He is attached to the UniSA Creative unit. Jon has published widely in Cultural Studies, Australian Studies, Popular Music Studies, Jewish Studies, and on race and multiculturalism. Jon’s most recent book related to the present topic is Uncertain Lives: Culture, Race and Neoliberalism in Australia (2011).