Framing Interfaith Dialogue in Australia's Multicultural Setting: Mounting an Interfaith and Intercultural Network in Melbourne's Northern Region

Abstract

By examining the experience of an innovative and ambitious initiative in the evolution of the interfaith movement in Australia, this article analyses three contested themes: first, how to connect religion more closely with culture, thereby placing interfaith relations within the context of intercultural awareness; second, how to develop a regional initiative which, informed by Australia's urban history and sociology, would complement and dovetail with preexisting interfaith and intercultural activities; and third, how to translate the general principles of dialogue into the operational environments of local communities. By analysing the insertion of dialogue into the modalities of ‘everyday’ life, this article illuminates how a multidimensional approach to interfaith dialogue can resonate with the cultural–political specificities of a major metropolitan concentration.