1st Edition
Experience and Representation Contemporary Perspectives on Migration in Australia
Experience and Representation: Contemporary Perspectives on Migration in Australia provides a critical overview of influential theoretical perspectives and recent empirical material in the fields of migration, race, culture and politics. With a primary focus on Australia, the book explores the complexities surrounding migration; sets out the most appropriate frameworks to understand ethnicity and racism; and assesses the utility of the concepts of globalisation, transnationalism and multiculturalism for interpreting contemporary society. Specific chapters explore the experiences of migrants within the context of urban environments; the vexed issue of national identity; the meaning of home; and the ways that migrants are currently represented in the media, literature and film. Experience and Representation will be of interest to scholars of migration and those studying social theory, politics and the media.
Biography
Keith Jacobs is Associate Professor in the School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Australia
'If you are thinking about questions such as: "How is migration changing the world?", "Why are migrants linked to fear?", "What is the meaning of home?" and "How is migrant identity represented in contemporary literature and film?", then you should read this fabulously lucid, comprehensive and even-handed book.' Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne, Australia 'In this book Keith Jacobs takes aim, with an inventive sociological imagination, at the big questions of migration, identity and belonging in contemporary Australia. The result is a most articulate and discriminate sociological critique of migration in conditions of advanced globalisation.' Anthony Elliott, Flinders University, Australia and Open University, UK '... Keith Jacobs produces a fantastic interdisciplinary reconfiguration of the stories of migration. Drawing on the Australian experience the book speaks to a much wider audience, bringing together sociological, political economical, psychoanalytic and cultural geographical insights to produce a fascinating new take on the subjectivities of people that move and an understanding of the migration process.' Michael Keith, University of Oxford, UK '... by drawing on different disciplinary orientations, issues and fields - it allows the reader to reach a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of migratory experiences and representations of migrants in Australia and beyond. This is a major advantage of the book. Another advantage is that it shows, mostly indirectly, how migratory experiences, representations of migrants and cultural constructions of belonging and nationhood, are linked to real unequal relations of power and domination. In this way Jacobs' work transcends the specific context of which is about and has wider implications and repercussions... All in all, the book makes a very good read. It is very informative and at times illuminating and is characterised by a balance between theoretical insights and empirical examples an
