Abstract
Multicultural policy settings have played a major role in the shaping of Australia’s urban landscapes for over four decades. Recently, however, new social and cultural dynamics in the cities in which most immigrants settle have prompted a small but growing number of Local Government Authorities to forgo their multicultural approaches in favour of the ‘Intercultural Cities’ model promoted by the Council of Europe. This chapter offers a case study of this notable but little researched new direction in urban diversity policy through a case study of the City of Melton, a peri-urban municipality located on the western edge of Melbourne.
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Notes
- 1.
The exception is a study of an intercultural approlach adopted outside of the ICC programme, Mansouri, F., Kenny, S., & Strong, C. (2007). Promoting intercultural understanding in Australia: An evaluation of local government initiatives in Victoria. Deakin University; Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights (CCHR).
- 2.
The UK thinktank Comedia directed by Phil Wood (2004) has been particularly influential.
- 3.
Contributing to its complexity is the fact that it has encompassed not only European city-based intercultural models but also the very different Quebecois interculturalism articulated by Bouchard and Taylor (2008).
- 4.
There has, however, been growing interest in interculturalism in the spheres of education, health, corporate leadership and media (Mansouri & Modood, 2020).
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Acknowledgement:
I would like to thank Aneta Podkalicka for her comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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Ballantyne, G. (2022). From Multicultural Nation to Intercultural City: The Case of Melton. In: Levin, I., Nygaard, C.A., Newton, P.W., Gifford, S.M. (eds) Migration and Urban Transitions in Australia. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91331-1_12
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