Rethinking Ethnic Concentration: The Case of Cabramatta, Sydney

Abstract

The concentration of Indo-Chinese-Australians in and around the vicinity of Cabramatta in Sydney, NSW, has been unfavourably depicted by most media, policy-makers and academics. Positive aspects of ethnic concentration in Cabramatta are rarely ever discussed. It has been axiomatic in much of the urban studies literature that ethnic concentrations were manifestations of societal malady. This assumption was based upon the premise that social distance equated with spatial distance. However, a just system of urban and social planning requires a perspective which does not automatically pathologise cultural difference. Such a system should not enforce cultural assimilation through strategies such as migrant residential dispersal. To this end, urban researchers require fresh perspectives for the analysis of ethnic concentration. One such perspective is the 'politics of difference' approach proposed by Iris Marion Young and others. A politics of difference approach celebrates institutional practices which give rise to diverse cultural expressions, and rejects the previous denial of difference which was dominant in much of urban social science. This perspective allows urban scholars to adopt a more progressive position in contemporary urban political debates about migrant settlement. It also provides a less partial assessment of ethnic concentration by seriously theorising the advantages and the dynamism of unassimilated cultural difference in a place like Cabramatta.