Indigenous Australians ’ Attitudes Towards Multiculturalism , Cultural Diversity , ‘ Race ’ and Racism

There is a perception that Indigenous Australians are uneasy with or distrustful of multiculturalism. Such unease has been attributed to the problematic positioning of Indigeneity within immigrant focused concepts of multiculturalism and its associated policies in a settler society. What are the attitudinal implications of this concern? There has been scant research on Indigenous Australians’ attitudes to cultural diversity. Nationwide survey findings reveal that despite perceived concerns with multiculturalism, Indigenous people are not uneasy with cultural diversity as such. In fact, Indigenous respondents are largely supportive of diversity, which is one of the central tenets of multiculturalism. In most respects their attitudes on cultural diversity and views on old racisms are similar to those of non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians are, however, more likely than nonIndigenous Australians to recognise the problems of racism generally and Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege. Indigenous Australians, multiculturalism and cultural diversity Since the implementation of multicultural policies in Australia in the early 1970s, and immigration policies encouraging a culturally diverse population, there has been little scholarship on Indigenous peoples‟ perspectives and responses to such policies. Under the umbrella concept of cultural diversity, Indigenous Australians are assumed to be one ethnic group amongst a myriad of ethnic groups in Australia who have equal opportunity and equal claims to belonging (Curthoys 2000: 29; Read 2000: 57-81; van den Berg 2002: 130131). Contrary to this all-inclusive positioning, Indigenous and multicultural discourses are in fact quite different. The political position of Indigenous Australians is perceived as “revolv[ing] around the cleavage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples” particularly within the context of colonisation and such issues as land, health, heritage, identity, education and forced removal of children in a settler society (Curthoys 2000: 21). Immigrant discourse, on the other hand, centres on non-Anglo background immigrants‟ “challenge to Australian society at large” and focus on cultural diversity, ethnic politics and immigration policy (Curthoys 2000: 21). Whilst such research foci correctly reflect the very different histories and experiences of Indigenous and immigrant Australians, the relationship between Indigeneity and ethnicrelations has been largely overlooked (Cohen 2003; Hage 1998: 24). * Kevin M. Dunn and Alanna Kamp are from the School of Social Sciences, University of Western Sydney; Wendy S. Shaw is from the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales; James Forrest is from the Department of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University; and Yin Paradies is from the School of Population Health, University of Melbourne. 1 It is acknowledged that this positioning of the Indigenous within the rubric of multiculturalism is problematic and this will be discussed in the following paragraphs.