Theories of citizenship and, in particular, its exclusionary features in a period of globalization have particular significance for an avowedly immigrant society such as Australia with a policy commitment to multiculturalism. The nature of Australian national identity and citizenship reemerged on the political agenda in conjunction with the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations of European settlement. Debate continues as moves towards becoming a republic with an Australian head of state replacing the British monarch strengthen. As elsewhere, government is focusing attention on the need for citizenship and civics education. An important constituency in this process are the immigrants, especially those from Asia whose ancestors were the target of nationalistic exclusion critical to the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia. This article examines the views on citizenship and identity of a national sample of recent Asian immigrants to Australia. We argue that for considerable numbers an instrumental conception of citizenship underlies their approach to acquiring Australian citizenship. This ‘instrumental citizenship’ is located within their migratory experience and the political traditions of their homelands as well as within their Australian settlement experiences. For many, legal citizenship has not led to a sense of full incorporation into Australian society as indicted by their continuing perception of themselves as ‘migrants’. Reasons for this are complex and involve an interplay of personal factors as well as attitudes and experiences in Australian society whose significance varies from group to group. Such a disjuncture between legal citizenship and personal identity has implications for both governmental policies and theorization about the nature of citizenship.
Chinatowns have long constituted one of the most visible social indicators of overseas Chinese communities. Their origins owe as much to the enforcement of segregation by majority groups and colonial governments as they do to the desire of Chinese immigrants to maintain their cultural links to the homeland and provide for their own welfare. Yet, changes since the 19th century mean that such analyses fail to adequately reflect the new circumstances and situation of Chinese minorities in a globalizing and transnational world where the very nature of minority incorporation has been undergoing extensive change. This paper examines the changing nature and role of Chinatown among the Sydney Chinese. In doing so, it questions the extent to which the metaphor of Chinatown or the alternative model of ethnoburb to describe Chinese settlement in North America necessarily captures the reality of Chinese patterns of settlement in Sydney with its relatively large and diverse Chinese population.
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