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How is Globalisation and Ethnicity Linked?
In
recent years, refugees have become a divisive political issue
in Australia and other western countries. This is a complex debate,
but it is partly to do with conflict and policies in the Middle
East, partly to do with the end of the Cold War, and partly to
do with the rise of the disaffected and popular right in Australia,
Europe, and the United States (many claim that this is a consequence
of the structural changes of economic globalisation).
Australia
is perhaps the most multicultural country of all the advanced
Western countries and has welcomed more than 6 million immigrants
in the post-war period (or doubled its population in little more
than a generation). However, as a consequence of the immense inequalities
of economic globalisation, Australian and many other Western governments
are now elected on policies that are not so welcoming of political
or economic refugees. This is a short-sighted response from national
governments that do not really know how to tackle global inequalities.
Can
you determine what the themes are in relation to ethnic diversity
in Fitzroy and how these themes may relate to larger global concerns?
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