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Mobilities, Diversity and Multiculturalism

Mobilities, Diversity and Multiculturalism

The Mobilities, Diversity and Multiculturalism stream critically addresses the opportunities and challenges of the movement of peoples, ideas, information and capital in a global, and digital world. Our work spans issues about migration and diverse societies; racism and racialisation, social inclusion and cohesion; the plurality of mobile identities; interconnectedness and mediation of local, national and global relationships; and the changing nature of place and communities, from local neighbourhoods to digital platforms.

Dr Rose Butler

Rose is a Senior Research Fellow in Sociology. She studies class, mobility, migration, education and inequality in Australia, with a focus on youth and family. Rose is particularly interested in how new and emerging forms of social mobility are enabled and stymied through intersections of social class, migration and place in contemporary Australia. Much of her research has centred rural lives and experiences.  

Dr Matteo Vergani

Matteo Vergani is a senior lecturer in Sociology at Deakin University, and a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. His research mainly focuses on the risk and protective factors of prejudice, discrimination, hate speech, hate crime and identity-based terrorism, using an interdisciplinary approach.

Our Research

Our research sits within studies of colonialism, migration and mobility, and engages with anthropological, sociological, economic, and political questions about the diversity of cultural, political, social and religious practices, as well as places and relationships in changing times.

Specifically, we focus on how intersectional identities and subjectivities are formed, negotiated and contested across time and space; how communities, communications and networks are challenged by mobilities and diversification; and how the articulation and re-articulation of such ideas as multiculturalism, religiosity, difference, place, indigeneity, and the digital are played out in a neo-liberal and global age. The stream includes scholars across the humanities and social sciences and is committed to promoting multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, collaborations and conversations.

Key Research Questions

  • How do considerations of local and transnational everyday practices and spatial and temporal mobilities provide insight into different kinds of connections that may challenge normative ideas of identity and belonging?
  • How can multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research contribute to in-depth analyses of social and cultural changes facing communities to support more inclusive and equitable futures?
  • What new concepts, theories and methods are needed to account for different worldviews that now encounter and challenge each other in local, global and digital forums?
  • How do different theoretical perspectives, including cosmopolitanism, interculturalism and transnationalism, and the ways in which these concepts travel and are (re)interpreted across and within different local and regional contexts, serve us in understanding mobilities, diversity and multiculturalism today?
  • How are opportunities and ideas regarding citizenship, rights and justice changing in a globalised, interconnected, and increasingly stratified world?

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