ABSTRACT

This article examines the role of a politics of diversity in local strategies to respond to economic and demographic stagnation in regional Australia. In a context of a market-driven migration agenda, local councils increasingly ‘compete’ as desirable places for mobile populations to settle by evoking a local multicultural imaginary. Internationally, there has been some suggestion that devolving power to the local level can help resolve economic and social problems that are argued to be at the root of populist politics and be productive of new forms of local solidarity and collective action. Yet, our account of the local multicultural politics at work in the regional town of Shepparton, sees deeply structural problems left unresolved. Drawing on interviews with members of government and civil society, and an analysis of council policy, we show how, at a local level, multiculturalism is mobilised as a depoliticised and deracialised form of community relations. Such articulations may support metrics that measure ‘success’ and attract funding from central governments, but limit opportunities for mobilising the tension and ambivalence of cultural difference in ways productive of new kinds of solidarities and representative forms of imagining.

摘要

本文探讨了多元化政治在应对澳大利亚地区经济和人口停滞的地方战略中的作用。在市场驱动的移民议程的背景下，地方议会通过唤起当地多元文化的想象，越来越多地“竞争”为流动人口定居的理想场所。在国际上，有一些建议认为，将权力下放到地方一级有助于解决经济和社会问题，这些问题被认为是民粹主义政治的根源，并有助于形成新形式的地方团结和集体行动。然而，我们对Shepparton地区城镇的当地多元文化政治的描述，看到了深刻的结构性问题没有得到解决。通过对政府和民间社会成员的采访以及对理事会政策的分析，我们展示了如何，在地方一级，多元文化作为一种​​去政治化和去种族化的社区关系形式被动员起来。这种表述可能支持衡量“成功”的指标并吸引中央政府的资金，但限制了以产生新型团结和代表性想象形式的方式调动文化差异的紧张和矛盾心理的机会。