Abstract
In Australia official multiculturalism has been replaced by a social order founded in the tenets of neoliberalism. This chapter examines the background and history of this development. It considers the importance of exclusion as a key aspect of the modern state, one that has become privileged in present-day Australia. The chapter provides a brief history of the transformation of the Australian state from its concern with inclusion during the era of official multiculturalism to a system based in reciprocal obligation where skin colour and religion continue to determine the degree of one’s acceptance. The chapter identifies those most excluded as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Muslims and people of black African descent. These people disproportionally populate what in neoliberalism has been constructed as the underclass.
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Stratton, J. (2020). Introduction: Logics of Exclusion. In: Multiculturalism, Whiteness and Otherness in Australia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50079-5_1
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