Mobility, belonging and bodies: understanding discourses of anxiety towards temporary migrants in Australia

Abstract

The figure of the temporary migrant is one which puts into question the forms through which public sphere sensibilities on mobility, belonging and sociality are forged. This article argues that the temporary migrant can be a site of anxiety resulting from the perceived complexity of flows of mobility in a trans- and/or post-national context in which migration is not necessarily always permanent, social mobility does not occur within the site of the nation, and close kinship networks may be spread across multiple regions of the globe. The article investigates the 2012 case of politician Teresa Gambaro's claims that temporary migrants in Australia on 457 visas required hygiene training, including the wearing of deodorant in order to integrate into the national community. The question raised by these statements is why permanent migrants bodily, food and other cultural practices are more readily incorporated into Australian liberal-multiculturalism, while temporary migrants' bodies are made a site for practices of shaming. It is argued that a ‘networked’ understanding of mobility rather than a migrational, transnational or globalizational perspective opens opportunities for a more ethical response to temporary migrants co-habiting as temporary members of a (national) population.