Everyday inter-ethnic tensions and discomfort in a culturally diverse Australian workplace

Tran Nguyen, Selvaraj Velayutham*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Australian workplaces are increasingly becoming culturally diverse. As a space of involuntary encounter of racial difference, multicultural workplaces are significant sites for understanding how workers deal with cultural difference. Involuntary cross-cultural encounters are a facet of living with cultural difference which can produce discomfort, tension and conflict in the workplace. The study of workplace social relations has traditionally focused on practices of racial discrimination. In this paper, we shift the focus to examine different modes of negative inter-ethnic interactions at work through the lens of discomfort. It suggests that analysing tension and conflict arising in multicultural workplaces as racially motivated or simply racist fails to capture other factors that adversely affect inter-ethnic interaction. This paper presents findings from a research into workplace interaction in the Australian employment services providers to emphasise that changing work conditions and increasing cultural diversity have profound impact on the workers’ experiences of workplace relations.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)779-794
    Number of pages16
    JournalSocial Identities
    Volume24
    Issue number6
    Early online date23 May 2017
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2 Nov 2018

    Keywords

    • everyday racism
    • inter-ethnic relations
    • multiculturalism
    • workplace relations

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