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Everyday Multiculturalism: Transversal Crossings and Working Class Cosmopolitans

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Everyday Multiculturalism

Abstract

This chapter is based upon a research project entitled ‘Contact Zones’ that explored what I have termed ‘everyday multiculturalism, or ‘multiculturalism from below’.1 The project focused on quotidian modes of intercultural crossing in culturally diverse localities. It aimed to identify points of affinity and disjuncture in order to better understand how, where, and why diverse Australians ‘get along’ or ‘rub along’ (Watson 2006: 2) together (or not) and how they negotiate the ‘accident’ of propinquity in shared multicultural spaces. In this chapter, I argue that there exist certain ‘everyday’ individuals I term ‘transversal enablers’ who employ and facilitate ‘transversal practices’ which, in essence, are forms of exchange and gift relation that foster everyday relationships across cultural difference in multicultural settings.

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Authors
  1. Amanda Wise
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University, Australia

    Amanda Wise (Senior Research Fellow) (Senior Research Fellow)

  2. Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, Australia

    Selvaraj Velayutham (Lecturer in Sociology) (Lecturer in Sociology)

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© 2009 Amanda Wise

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Wise, A. (2009). Everyday Multiculturalism: Transversal Crossings and Working Class Cosmopolitans. In: Wise, A., Velayutham, S. (eds) Everyday Multiculturalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244474_2

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