Rubbing shoulders in the global city

Abstract

This article investigates how recently arrived refugees living in Fair-field - the most culturally diverse locality in Sydney - relate to citizenship and experience belonging in a global city context, where different people are compelled to live side by side. Extending Ang’s notion of ‘togetherness in difference’, the discussion explores the formation of horizontal alliances in a multicultural locality. Two small-scale empirical examples demonstrate how locations for citizenship are actualized outside the frame of the nation state, and signal the contours of a progressive multicultural politics, in this case, neighbours collectively dealing with landlord authorities, and young people discussing their encounters with Australia’s immigration regime.