Cosmopolitan Melbourne: Cultural Diversity and Social Cohesion

Research Themes

The city’s identity

The city has become central to the ways in which contemporary society is imagined, not only in the industrialised West but in the industrialising economies of Asia. Public bodies use or promote cultural activities to promote inward-looking ‘civic’ identities, and the representation of the city to its inhabitants through public and quasi-public events and spaces provide a sense of pride in place, tradition, and belonging. Cities also have outward-facing identities, both nationally (the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne) and globally (the projection of Sydney 2000 and Melbourne 2006). We are therefore concerned, on the one hand, with the city as a material and everyday public space occupied by social beings for whom the city is a primary location of personal identity; and on the other, with the city as a conduit acting regionally, nationally and globally. Our project looks at the city both as built environment and as representation in order to examine the shaping, selling and reception of those urban identities central to how contemporary societies are imagined.

The increasing diversity of urban society has corresponded to increasingly complex urban organisational structures, and images of the city have been employed for a variety of civic, artistic and commercial purposes. Bridge and Watson have noted: ‘As cities have become more complex, more global, and more diasporic it is harder to construct cultural markers which make for a simple image of the city with which to identify’ (Bridge and Watson, 2000). The difficulty of constructing inclusive images that will stand for the whole city has important implications for the staging of public events and the creation of public spaces aimed at promoting community and citizenship.

The image of the city is important for its ability to creatively adapt to new situations in politics and in business, and as a ‘talent magnet’. Richard Florida has written of a well-educated ‘Creative Class’ coming to dominate cultural life and stimulate economic growth (Florida 2004). Richard Florida has argued that the social structure of creativity requires ‘a broad social, cultural and geographic milieu conducive to creativity of all sorts’ (Florida, 2002: 48). For Peter Murphy, this milieu is generally based in portal cities, such as London, Shanghai and Chicago, all of which have played a disproportionate role in artistic, scientific, economic and social creation (Murphy, 2007: 56). The portal city is paradoxical—it is particularly porous in terms of its population and the goods and information that flow through it (what might be considered its cosmopolitanism), but it also engenders a strong sense of civic identification and patriotism (Murphy, 2007: 57). This is not the patriotism of nation (as in Herder’s idea of the importance of culture) but of the specific city: ‘National culture has a significant role in the identity formation of linguistic and territorial groups. Yet, as an innovation driver—a shaper of technological, economic and social forms with a high propensity for export—national difference is much less significant. The largest part of human innovation has for the longest time been tied to the culture of cities’ (Murphy, 2007: 36).

Cosmopolitan Melbourne

Melbourne promotes itself as a ‘cosmopolitan’ city, and occasionally describes itself as, ‘the cultural capital’ of Australia. Cosmopolitanism may be considered a form of description of multiculturalism, and is also something that is aspired to as a mark of tolerant sophistication. Yet, it may also be a feature of a community that undermines a strong sense of civic identity. As a political ideal and social ideal, cosmopolitanism looks outwards, and denies the importance of any particular identity. Jeremy Waldron presents the image of a cosmopolitan as someone who may live in San Francisco, be of Irish Catholic ancestry, ‘learns Spanish, eats Chinese, wears clothes made in Korea, listen to arias sung by a Maori princess on Japanese equipment, follows Ukrakian politics and practices Buddhist meditation techniques’ (1995, 95). For Waldron, the cosmopolitan’s identity is bound with none of these things; they are individuals on a world stage.

John Hartley has noted the relationship between the Creative Industries, the consumer and the city: ‘The Creative Industries can only be understood when we dump the behaviour model of the consumer, and instead begin an analysis that is sited on consumption as much as production….Cities reinvent and market themselves through the tastes and culture of their citizens’ (Hartley, 2005). The shift in language from consumer to citizen masks the ways in which those lacking consumer power are excluded from images of the city and denied publicly sanctioned urban identities.

Images of cities play an important role in promoting tourism and trade, and public policies actively remove from the preferred image of the city those elements that are regarded as undesirable and incongruous. This happened with the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, and there has been a long history of excluding indigenous Australians from public events and spaces. Policies may also exclude young people from public spaces because they are thought to scare tourists, and youth policy and public information campaigning may also serve to establish the parameters of the city’s image. The question of access to public space and the related notion of public trust are central to understanding the dynamic between the images of the city mobilised in public and leisure events and spaces and their impact on the social and cultural groups operating in, and around, the city.

Creative Industries and social inclusion

Public policy assumes a link between the Creative Industries and social identity: ‘Cultural expression enables us to respect and embrace difference and to establish identity and a sense of engagement with society’ (Creative Capacity +: Arts for All Victorians). Public policy may focus on the development of a specific ‘national’ or dominant identity to the exclusion of ‘others’ within the community, reflecting Herderian ideas of the relationship between arts and national identity (Herder, 1784). Ironically, such ideas can be seen in the promotion of an ‘Australian’ identity in the arts, as well as in multicultural arts policies. Ideals of multiculturalism, and the creation of a multicultural society, involve the celebration and recognition of cultural difference. According to the National Multicultural Advisory Council, Australian Multiculturalism is ‘a term which recognises and celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. It accepts and respects the right of all Australians to express and share their individual cultural heritage within an overriding commitment to Australia and the basic structure and values of Australian democracy’_ _(Australian multiculturalism for a new century: Towards Inclusiveness, 1999). The goal of multicultural creative industries projects in creating recognition of, and respect for, difference assumes that by acknowledging the creative productions of other cultures, we at the same time respect the people who produce those cultures (Taylor, 1994). Thus, public policy is forever balancing the relationship between a unified cultural identity and cultural difference, and it is not obvious that the recognition of ‘otherness’, and identity politics in general, necessarily invests people with a sense of belonging to, or identity with, the broader civic culture.

In recent years, various aspects of multicultural policies have been criticised for encouraging culturally and spatially distinct communities that promotes social dislocation and alienation. This issue has become critical since the terrorist attacks of 2005 in the UK. Ted Cantle has argued that the clustering of cultural groups in the UK has led to ‘segregated’ communities leading ‘parallel lives’, leaving people ‘with little or no opportunity… to build mutual respect… Meanwhile, racists can easily spread myths and false rumors and use this ignorance of each other to demonise minorities’ (Cantle 2005, cited in Landry, 2006). It is argued that multicultural policies encourage dislocation because the maintenance of difference becomes ‘the very currency by which status is gained and resources allocated’ (Landry, 2006).

Charles Landry has suggested that the solution to this dilemma is the promotion of intercultural cities, with arts policies aimed at collaboration between cultural groups. Interculturalism ‘goes beyond equal opportunities and respect for existing cultural differences to the pluralist transformation of public space, institutions and civic culture’ (Landry, 2006). The intercultural has been identified as a source of dynamic interaction between cultural groups within the city that promotes mutual understanding, and also as a source of inspiration that supports creativity in numerous fields. Like cosmopolitanism, its focus is on a celebration of cultural hybridity and fluidity. This is a proposal for the promotion of social cooperation and cohesion, rather than identification with a particular set of broad social values, or a place. If a sense of identity does emerge from such projects, it should be seen as a ‘by-product’. Yet, it might be thought, it is through such interaction in creativity, and in public spaces, that Melbourne as a city might be said to become truly cosmopolitan.

Registration