Mobile Belonging and Migrant Youth in Australia

In Australia, migrant youth have become a site of significant political contestation in debates about multiculturalism. This chapter is concerned with the provisional and material practices of belonging that take place among migrant youth against the backdrop of disciplinary policy agendas which position them as problematic and risky subjects. It argues that policies and categorisations forged on the basis of ‘nationality’ and ‘country of birth’ cannot adequately capture the complex and highly dynamic nature of youth affiliations and patterns of belonging. Drawing on data from the first census of Australia’s migrant youth, the Multicultural Youth Australia Census 2017, this chapter affirms the need for broadening official definitions of cultural and ethnic identification. The data reveals that migrant youth are optimistic and engaged, despite experiencing high levels of discrimination, and highlights the ways in which they practice ‘belonging-in-difference’ through cross-cultural dispositions that enable them to navigate diversity in cultures, norms and values.