Abstract:
Historically, most multicultural exchanges have taken place across recognised
geographic borders. However postmodern multiculturalism, largely resulting from
ethnically diverse migration to advanced (post)industrialised countries, has led to
new modes of multicultural contact. For many people, multicultural exchanges
must now be negotiated in their everyday lives, often in their neighbourhoods and
home, as well as in the public domain. Undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of
built environment design and planning academics, this paper explores ways of
documenting and theorising the activities of 'everyday' built environment
professionals in Australia. It focuses on those who are attempting to sensitively
and effectively design for such encounters in the context of contemporary
multicultural urbanism.
Earlier studies of Australian multiculturalism in the built environment have
typically followed international trends in focusing on ghetto-like places; that is,
ethnically distinct, relatively segregated areas such as Melbourne's Chinatown or
the Vietnamese precinct in Sydney's Cabramatta. This paper avoids this focus on
overt ethnic stereotyping by focusing on places that may be visually unremarkable
but are culturally heterogeneous in their production and habitation. It documents
innovative strategies for multicultural negotiation developed by landscape design
and planning professionals working for local government in the low-income,
ethnically diverse suburbs of south west Sydney. The success of these strategies
suggests that the everyday negotiations of design professionals offer a valuable site
for study of the impact of cultural diversity on the evolution of the built
environment.
