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AbstractBlack African migrants have recently become a visible presence in Australia. Many arrived through the humanitarian resettlement programme, but far greater numbers come through the "skilled stream". This paper explores recent research into these populations to tease out how material, social and existential elements of settlement intersect with belonging. As a heuristic, it uses Ager and Strang's ten markers and means of integration: material aspects (employment, housing, education and health); social connections internally and externally; facilitators (language, cultural knowledge, safety, stability); and rights and citizenship. A range of challenges to positive settlement and integration are identified, using these domains. However, Australian research has focused almost exclusively on African migrants of refugee background, with most sampling South Sudanese, making generalization impossible, even dangerous. The urgent need for research using wider samples, and more large‐scale quantitative work, is called for and a range of policy recommendations suggested.

Academic debate about the anachronism of national borders is extensive. The general population, however, has been less keen to embrace the idea of a 'postnational' world. This paper offers evidence from focus groups with Australians suggesting that in some quarters talking beyond the nation is occurring. However, the ideology of the nation-state remains strong, and such talk is quickly shut down using a particular rhetorical device. This is 'the principle/practical' dichotomy, which insists that dropping national borders is impractical for a range of reasons, despite it perhaps being a valuable idea in principle. The paper explores the ways this occurs, using detailed critical discourse analysis. Practical objections are generally framed in terms of governance rather than cultural issues. However, practical examples of existing 'no borders' situations are used to make the counter-argument that a postnational world is possible.

Muslims are often the target of those arguing that diversity threatens social cohesion. However, little research has focused on the settlement and integration of migrant Muslims. This article reports research comparing skilled Muslim refugees' experiences of integration into the Australian employment market and the wider society with the experiences of skilled non-Muslim refugees. Quantitative data from the study indicates no relationship between religion and social exclusion as evidenced in negative employment outcomes, social networks, satisfaction with life or perceptions of discrimination, although qualitative data shows some skilled Muslim refugees and some employers see religion as a key facet of cultural difference disadvantaging Muslims. The influence of religion on other aspects of settlement, including social engagement, integration and well-being is also surprising, demonstrating that Muslims in the sample generally feel no more excluded than other refugees. The findings challenge the assumptions that skilled Muslim refugees find it more difficult than others to adapt to 'western' culture, and that religious difference threatens social cohesion.

AbstractAustralian nationalism, once seen as laconic and understated, has become increasingly shrill over the last fifteen years. One evidence is the growing popular use of Australian flags, particularly their display on cars to celebrate the national day. Popular use of the flag has been encouraged by relevant government bodies, such as the National Australia Day Council. This article explores migrants' responses to the flag display. Qualitative interviews and focus group discussions identified a continuum of reactions ranging from inclusion to exclusion. Contrary to expectations, many migrants see it as simply a demonstration of festivity and pride, in which they feel included. While recognizing that the flag display could represent exclusionary nationalism, migrants carefully attribute this usage to a limited number of individuals, rather than seeing it as emblematic of a more generally held sentiment. Additionally, migrants tend to read the flag through civic, transnational, and multicultural lenses, in order to see themselves as included in the identity that it is seen to portray.

AbstractThe long established distinction between civic nationalism and ethnonationalism is useful heuristically to understand different dimensions of nationalism and perhaps track a movement from ethnic forms to civic allegiances, though some have challenged its empirical veracity and others question the normative implications of such a distinction. This paper demonstrates the ways in which the two are elided in everyday discourses about migrants in Australia. We argue suspicion of cultural difference, identified more than three decades ago as the new racism, has given way to talk of the need for migrants to 'follow the law'. This serves rhetorically to reinforce the notion that migrants, often implied to overlap with the category 'Muslims', are insisting on breaking the law and/or changing it and are therefore culturally incompatible with a modern liberal democracy. We argue that since ethnic nationalism, like racism, is out of favour normatively, ethnic nationalist arguments are now superficially concealed beneath the acceptable language of civic nationalism. The manner in which this occurs is mapped discursively using data from a corpus of twenty seven focus groups conducted around Australia.