Sensuous Multiculturalism: Emotional Landscapes of Inter-Ethnic Living in Australian Suburbia

Abstract

Every day, people from different backgrounds mix together, whether by design or necessity, in our multicultural neighbourhoods and cities. This article explores how senses, sensibilities, habitus and affects influence quotidian intercultural encounters in culturally diverse cities. The article is based upon ethnographic research in an Australian suburb which has seen large-scale Chinese migration to the area in recent years and experienced the associated rapid changes to the shops along the local high street. Focusing on a range of sites or ‘contact zones’ along the suburban high street, the paper explores the notion of cross-cultural habitus, in particular the sensuous and affective dimensions of what I term the ‘haptic habitus’. It then examines the sensuous and embodied modes of being that mediate intercultural interactions between long-term Anglo-Celtic elderly residents in the area and newly arrived Chinese immigrants and their associated urban spaces. Ranging through the senses, from sight, smell, sound and the haptic system, the article reflects upon how the senses, affect, habitus, nostalgia and memory articulate with localised experiences of diversity. I develop the notion of ‘sensuous multiculturism’—which foregrounds embodied experience in this scenario of cultural difference—and go on to argue that the dis-synchronisation of senses, embodied place-memory and habitus contribute to some forms of intercultural anxiety and everyday racism.

Keywords:

• Multiculturalism
• Senses
• Everyday Multiculturalism
• Habitus
• Embodiment
• Intercultural Relations

Notes

1. The title of this paper obviously references Paul Stoller (1997), who gave me some important feedback at a previous conference presentation of this paper in 2004.

2. ‘Anglo-Celtic’ is used in the Australian context to denote the dominant white majority community. Anglo-Celtic signals the broadly intermeshed culture of white descendants of English, Irish and Scottish immigrants to Australia, who made up the majority population in Australia until the 1970s. It should be noted that this is a somewhat contested term as it elides the fact that there were significant hostilities between English and Irish (Protestant and Catholic) descended Australians up until as late as the 1960s. However the term ‘white’ is somewhat of a misnomer to refer to the dominant majority as, in the Australian context, immigrants from Southern Europe were, until the 1980s, not considered ‘white’.

3. This needs to be seen in the context of 1960s Australia where speaking a ‘foreign’ language in public was frowned upon. This woman is drawing her picture of the ‘good migrant’ from this era.

4. As a female researcher I had built up a good relationship with this women's group over time which meant that these women felt comfortable talking to me about their lives in the area. However as an Anglo-Celtic Australian I was also perceived to be an outsider—hence the women's discomfort at revealing their feelings to me when the discussion took the turn it did.

5. There is actually quite a bit of science to support this proposition. Studies in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience tend to support the idea of collectively shared facial responses to a set range of expressions (Adolphs 2002; Carroll and Russell 1996; Dimberg et al. 2000).

6. Thanks to Ghassan Hage for pointing me to el-Zein's work.