ABSTRACT
The lives of Indian-Australians have attracted a great deal of global media attention due to the spate of racist attacks on taxi-drivers and students that took place in Melbourne in 2009–2010 (AAP, 2010). These attacks were followed by a protest by taxi-drivers outside Flinders Street Station, a prominent public space in Melbourne (Roberts & AAP, 2009). Continuing strong negative reactions towards these ‘visible’ migrant newcomers often expressed in metropolitan dailies suggest that their willingness to come together in solidarity, assert their rights as urban citizens or challenge dominant cultural norms that regulate acceptable social behaviour is not always welcomed (Squires, 2015; The Age, 2009). In this context of extreme reactionary discourses in a multicultural Australia more comfortable with expressions of migrant gratitude and economic contributions that can build a socially cohesive nation, it is crucial to turn the analytic spotlight on the diversity of the Indian diaspora and their intercultural encounters in public spaces. But so far, stories of visceral racism and multisensory convivial encounters or everyday multiculturalism have focused overwhelmingly on Sydney and Melbourne, large immigrant-receiving southern cities (Fincher & Shaw, 2011; Wise, 2010). Within this literature members of the Indian diaspora have attracted little scholarly attention. The outcome is that there is little understanding of how members of the growing Indian diaspora ‘go on’, survive, thrive and belong in Australian cities when the force of whiteness ‘stresses’ and fatigues their bodies. Although approaches that explore experiences of particular religious communities or regional groups such as Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Anglo-Indians and Punjabis are emerging, there is little attention to social challenges in small northern cities that have a visible Aboriginal as well as a growing ethnic minority migrant population of diasporic Indians (Bilimoria et al., 2015; Lobo & Morgan, 2012). Strands of existing migration literature that draw on quantitative data and analyse factors that attract these temporary/permanent immigrants, though valuable, provide little understanding of these social challenges (Schech, 2014). Given the increase in both the numbers and diversity of the Indian-born migrants in Australia, particularly in small towns and cities, there is a need for more ethnographic research of this growing diasporic group and its continuously evolving, creolising cultures (ABS, 2013; Khorana, 2014).
