Macquarie University

Living Diversity: Multiculturalism, Racism and Nation - SOCI318

We live in an age of super-diversity. Like Canada, the US, and the UK, Australia’s major cities are now home to people from all corners of the globe. In a time of resurgent nationalisms, there is hardly a more urgent task than learning to coexist with cultural and religious difference. Drawing on examples from a range of national contexts, this unit explores the complexities of co-existence in an age of global diversity. The first part of this unit will explore current debates around superdiversity and global cities; the sociology of migrant settlement, social mobility and inequalities; and different models of multiculturalism across the western world. The attention then shifts to everyday multiculturalism and the lived experience of religious and cultural difference. The second part of the unit examines the sociology of race, discrimination and racism – from the structural to the everyday. We will explore what sociology has to say about the surge in national populisms and the rise of the far right and why it is that race, immigration and Islam so commonly animate such movements. We will also consider the role of social media in this resurgence. Finally, the unit explores anti-racism and the tools available to challenge discrimination, and students will be introduced to concepts surrounding post-colonial sociology.