Volition Project

Australia is a diverse, multicultural society in which interactions between members of distinct social groups—or intergroup contact—are frequent. The Contact Volition Project is an ARC-funded program of research investigating voluntary intergroup interactions as compared to involuntary, such as mandated or accidental. It seeks to understand environmental and psychological factors that contribute to experiences of intentional engagement with people different from us. It also explores the consequences of contact volition on the quality of the interactions, social attitudes, trust, and civic participation. By examining the factors that shape diversity experiences and their impact, this research aims to generate a full anatomy of contact volition to inform intervention and policy.

As part of this broader program of work, the Australian Tracking Study builds on ground-breaking research by the international team in sectarian Northern Ireland (the 'Belfast Project') by examining continuous GPS data tracking to study people's ordinary, daily movements in Australian urban settings. These places can be reliably classified as ethnically diverse vs homogeneous through GIS census-based mapping. This innovative methodology will be paired with detailed psychological measurements capable of predicting, through multivariate profiling, people's voluntary approach and avoidance of diverse urban locations. The Contact Volition Project extends on an interdisciplinary framework for investigating how–through the choreography of daily life–individuals maintain or dismantle informal systems of segregation.