Skip to main content

Lifeworlds and Cultures of Australian Youth in a Globalised World

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Youth Cultures in a Globalized World

Abstract

Young people in Australia are situated within generationally unique conditions of socio-economic change wrought by economic and cultural globalisation. To some extent, these are trends that are evident across the world, albeit with important local distinctions: a differentiation that is increasingly acknowledged in youth studies. Australia is a de-industrial multicultural settler-colonial state located in the Asia-Pacific region. This chapter highlights the significance of this context in shaping young Australians’ lifeworlds and cultures. It addresses the limitations and the capacities of the key intellectual traditions informing youth culture studies in Australia in the context of these specificities. It shows how new approaches are needed to capture the ways Australian youth cultural formations are emerging around diasporic, transnational and mobile youth experiences in an interconnected, globalised and digital world.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abdel-Fattah, R. (2018). Islamophobia and everyday multiculturalism in Australia. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abidin, C., & Cover, R. (2019). Gay, famous and working hard on YouTube: Influencers, queer microcelebrity publics, and discursive activism. In P. Aggleton, R. Cover, D. Leahy, D. Marshall, & M. Rasmussen (Eds.), Youth, sexuality and sexual citizenship. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aquino, K. (2018). Racism and resistance among the Filipino diaspora: Everyday anti-racism in Australia. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnot, M., & Swartz, S. (2012). Youth citizenship and the politics of belonging: Introducing contexts, voices, imaginaries. Comparative Education, 48(1), 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2012). Leaving Australia forever? http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features20Dec+2012#SOURCES. Accessed 18 December 2015.

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Snapshot%20of%20Australia,%202016~2.

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017a). Census reveals a fast changing, culturally diverse nation. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release3.

  • Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017b, June). 3101.0 Australian Demographic Statistics. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0.

  • Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2018). Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander adolescent and youth health and wellbeing 2018. In brief. Cat. no. IHW 198. Canberra: AIHW.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, S., Robards, B., & Buttigieg, B. (Eds.). (2015). Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2009). Global generations and the trap of methodological nationalism for a cosmopolitan turn in the sociology of youth and generation. European Sociological Review, 25(1), 25–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, A. (1999). Subcultures or neotribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical taste. Sociology, 33(3), 599–617.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, A. (2015). Australian subcultures: Reality or myth? In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulbeck, C. (2004). The ‘white worrier’ in south Australia: Attitudes to multiculturalism, immigration and reconciliation. Journal of Sociology, 40(4), 321–340.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butcher, M. (2011). Managing cultural change: Reclaiming synchronicity in a mobile world. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butcher, M., & Thomas, M. (2003). Situating youth cultures. In M. Butcher & M. Thomas (Eds.), Ingenious: Emerging youth cultures in urban Australia. North Melbourne: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, R. (2018). Class, culture and belonging in rural childhoods. Singapore: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, R., Ho, C., & Vincent, E. (2017). “Tutored within an inch of their life”: Morality and ‘old’ and ‘new’ middle class identities in Australian schools. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(14), 2408–2422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, B., & Frazer, R. (2018). Social media mob: Being indigenous online. Sydney: Macquarie University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castles, S., & Miller, M. J. (2003). The age of migration: International population movements in the modern world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2007). Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, A., Swartz, S., & Mahali, A. (2019). Disentangled, decentred and democratised: Youth studies for the global south. Journal of Youth Studies, 22(1), 29–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cover, R., Aggleton, P., Rasmussen, M. L., & Marshall, D. (2019). The myth of LGBTQ mobilities: Framing the lives of gender- and sexually diverse Australians between regional and urban contexts. Culture, Health and Sexuality, 22(3), 321–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2019.1600029.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuervo, H., & Wyn, J. (2012). Young people making it work: Continuity and change in rural places. Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Finney, S. (2015). Playing Indian and other settler stories: Disrupting western narratives of indigenous girlhood. Continuum, 29(2), 169–181.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dolby, N., & Rizvi, F. (2008). Introduction: Youth, mobility and identity. In N. Dolby & F. Rizvi (Eds.), Youth moves: Identities and education in global perspective. New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrugia, D. (2014). Towards a spatialised youth sociology: The rural and the urban in times of change. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(3), 293–307.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrugia, D., Threadgold, S., & Coffey, J. (2018). Young subjectivities and affective labour in the service economy. Journal of Youth Studies, 21(3), 272–287.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldman-Barret, C. (2015). Documenting the subcultural experience: Towards an archive of Australian youth histories. In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • France, A., Roberts, S., & Wood, B. (2018). Youth, social class and privilege in the antipodes: Towards a new research agenda for youth sociology. Journal of Sociology, 54(3), 362–380.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gomes, C. (2018). Siloed diversity: Transnational migration, digital media and social networks. Singapore: Palgrave Pivot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hage, G. (2011). Multiculturalism and the ungovernable Muslim. In R. Gaita (Ed.), Essays on Muslims and multiculturalism. Melbourne: Text Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanckel, B., & Morris, A. (2014). Finding community and contesting heteronormativity: Queer young people’s engagement in an Australian online community. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(7), 872–886.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. (2013). Young people and everyday multiculturalism. New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. M. (2017). Creativity, religion and youth cultures. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. (2018). Youthful socialities in Australia’s urban multiculture. Urban Studies, 55(3), 605–622.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A., Baldassar, L., & Robertson, S. (2020). Settling down in time and place? Changing intimacies in mobile young people’s migration- and life-courses. Population, Space and Place, 26(8), e2357. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2357.

  • Harris, A., & Herron, M. (2017). Young people and intercultural sociality after Cronulla. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38(3), 284–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A., & Hussein, S. (2018). Conscripts or volunteers? Young Muslims as everyday explainers. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2018.1516547.

  • Harris, A., & Johns, A. (2020). Youth, social cohesion and digital life: From risk and resilience to a global digital citizenship approach. Journal of Sociology, May, https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783320919173.

  • Harris, A., & Roose, J. (2014). DIY citizenship amongst young Muslims: Experiences of the “ordinary”. Journal of Youth Studies, 17(6), 794–813.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herron, M. (2018). A revised approach to racism in youth multiculture: The significance of schoolyard conversations about dating and desire. Journal of Youth Studies, 21(2), 144–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hickey-Moody, A. (2013). Youth, arts and education: Reassembling subjectivity through affect. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howie, L., & Campbell, P. (2016). Guerrilla selfhood: Imagining young people’s entrepreneurial futures. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(7), 906–920.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hugo, G., McDougall, K., Tan, G., & Feist, H. (2014). The CALD youth census report 2014. Carlton: The Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network (MYAN) Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Idriss, S. (2015). “What every other Leb wears”: Intra-ethnic tensions among Lebanese-Australian youth. In S. Baker, R. Robards, & B. Buttigeig (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives (pp. 115–124). Ashgate: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Idriss, S. (2018). Young migrant identities: Creativity and masculinity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Idriss, S., & Atie, R. (2020). Race in Australia’s youthful urban leisure scenes. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(10), 1854–1871.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffrey, C. (2010). Geographies of children and youth I: Eroding maps of life. Progress in Human Geography, 34(4), 496–505.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johns, A. (2014). Muslim young people online: “Acts of citizenship” in socially networked spaces. Social Inclusion, 2(2), 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johns, A. (2015). Battle for the Flag. Melbourne University Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, T. (2018). Black metal not Black-metal: White privilege in online heavy metal spaces. Media International Australia, 169(1), 94–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, F. (2017). Mobile self-fashioning and gendered risk: Rethinking Chinese students’ motivations for overseas education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 15, 706–720.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, F., & Rizvi, F. (2014). Making Melbourne: Digital connectivity and international students’ experience of locality. Media, Culture and Society, 36(7), 1016–1031.

    Google Scholar 

  • McLeod, J., & Yates, L. (2003). Who is ‘us’? Students negotiating discourses of racisms and national identification in Australia. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 6(1), 29–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minestrelli, C. (2016). Australian indigenous hip hop: The politics of culture, identity, and spirituality. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, G. (2015). Gangsta warrior bro: Hip hop and urban Aboriginal youth. In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives (pp. 161–172). Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, G., & Nelligan, P. (2018). The creativity hoax: Precarious work and the gig economy. London: Anthem Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, G., & Wood, J. (2014). Creative accommodations: The fractured transitions and precarious lives of young musicians. Journal of Cultural Economy, 7(1), 64–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nilan, P. (2011). Youth sociology must cross cultures. Youth Studies Australia, 30(3), 20–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nilan, P. (2017). Muslim youth in the diaspora: Challenging extremism through popular culture. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nilan, P., & Feixa, C. (Eds.). (2006). Global youth? Hybrid identities, plural worlds. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, G. (2009a). Everyday cosmopolitanism and the labour of intercultural community. In A. Wise & S. Velayutham (Eds.), Everyday multiculturalism. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, G. (Ed.). (2009b). Lines in the sand: The Cronulla riots, multiculturalism and national belonging. Sydney: Institute of Criminology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, G. (2015). Learning to be otherwise: Ethnicity and the pedagogic space of youthful subjectivities. In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble, G., Poynting, S., & Tabar, P. (1999). Youth, ethnicity and mapping of identities: Strategic essentialism and strategic hybridity among male Arabic-speaking youth in South Western Sydney. Communal/Plural, 7(1), 29–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, S. (2016). Friendship networks and encounters in student-migrants’ negotiations of translocal subjectivity. Urban Studies, 55, 538–553.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, S., Harris, A., & Baldassar, L. (2017). Mobile transitions: A conceptual framework for researching a generation on the move. Journal of Youth Studies, 21, 203–217.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, D., & Wiesel, I. (2018). Australian urban geographies of housing in the context of the rise of China in the “Asian century”. Geographical Research, 56(4), 393–400.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, D., Wong, A., & Nelson, J. (2017). Public perceptions of foreign and Chinese real estate investment: Intercultural relations in global Sydney. Australian Geographer, 48(4), 437–455.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schech, S., & Haggis, J. (2000). Migrancy, whiteness and the settler self in contemporary Australia. In J. Docker & G. Fisher (Eds.), Race, colour and identity in Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: University of NSW Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sim, S., & Baker, S. (2015). Where are the straight edge women? In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skrbis, Z., Woodward, I., & Bean, C. (2014). Seeds of cosmopolitan future? Journal of Youth Studies, 17, 614–625.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson, P. (2010). Home-growing Islam: The role of Australian Muslim youth in intra- and inter-cultural change. NCEIS Research Papers, 3(6), 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Takayama, K. (2016). Deploying the post-colonial predicaments of researching on/with ‘Asia’ in education: A standpoint from a rich peripheral country. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(1), 70–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thornton, S. (1995). Club cultures: Music, media and subcultural capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Threadgold, S. (2018a). Youth, class and everyday struggles. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Threadgold, S. (2018b). Creativity, precarity and illusio: DIY cultures and ‘choosing poverty. Cultural Sociology, 12(2), 156–173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuck, E., & Wayne Yang, K. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554.

  • Turner, G. (1992). Of rocks and hard places: The colonized, the national and Australian cultural studies. Cultural Studies, 6, 424–432.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, R. (Ed.). (1999 [2012]). Youth subcultures: Theory, history and the Australian experience. Hobart, Tasmania: ACYS Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Windle, J. (2008). The racialisation of African Youth in Australia. Social Identities, 14(5), 553–566.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wong, J., & Hjorth, L. (2016). Media and mobilities in Australia: A case study of Southeast Asian International students’ media use for well-being. In C. Gomes (Ed.), The Asia Pacific in the age of transnational mobility: The search for community and identity on and through social media. London: Anthem Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodman, D., & Wyn, J. (2015). Holding it all together: Researching time, culture and belonging after subcultures. In S. Baker, B. Robards, & B. Buttigieg (Eds.), Youth cultures and subcultures: Australian perspectives. Surrey: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J. (2013). Education that equips young people in changing times. In A. Wierenga & J. R. Guevara (Eds.), Educating for global citizenship. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J. (2015). Young people and belonging in perspective. In A. Lange, C. Steiner, H. Reiter, et al. (Eds.), Handbook of child and youth sociology. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J. (2017). Educating for late modernity. In A. Furlong (Ed.), Routledge handbook of youth and young adulthood. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J., & Harris, A. (2004). Youth research in Australia and New Zealand. Young, 12(3), 271–289.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyn, J., & White, R. (2015). Complex worlds, complex identities: Complexity in youth studies. In D. Woodman & A. Bennett (Eds.), Youth cultures, transitions and generations. Palgrave: Basingstoke.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, X. (2019). Disconnective intimacies through social media: Practices of transnational family among overseas Chinese students in Australia. Media International Australia. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X19837684.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zwangobani, K. (2016). Convivial multiculture and the perplication of race: The dynamics of becoming African Australian. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anita Harris .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Harris, A., Idriss, S. (2021). Lifeworlds and Cultures of Australian Youth in a Globalised World. In: Knapp, G., Krall, H. (eds) Youth Cultures in a Globalized World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65177-0_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65177-0_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-65176-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-65177-0

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics