ICS Seminar Series

UPCOMING

Presenter: Fethi Mansouri

Discussant: Andrew Jakubowicz

Chair: Valentina Bau

Date & Time: 27 August 2026 | 11:30am - 1:00pm

Room: EA.G.18 Parramatta South Campus

Abstract

Public and political debate increasingly frames migration, ethno-religious diversity, transnational attachments and minority political mobilisation as potential threats to national security, shared values and social cohesion. The concept of social cohesion has consequently acquired considerable political prominence while remaining normatively and analytically ambiguous. It is variously invoked to denote interpersonal trust, national belonging, institutional legitimacy, community harmony, integration and the absence of conflict. This ambiguity enables social cohesion to operate both as a supposedly inclusive democratic objective and as a disciplinary discourse through which migrants and minority communities are expected to demonstrate loyalty, cultural conformity and behavioural integration. Drawing on scholarship of multiculturalism, interculturalism, racism, migration and diversity governance, this paper critically examines the construction of social cohesion in contemporary Australian public discourse. Through critical discourse analysis of a purposive corpus of significant policy and public statements between 2024 and 2026, it identifies recurring tendencies that seem to place a disproportionate burden for social cohesion on minorities while underplaying structural inequality, racism, institutional adaptation, and the responsibilities of political and media actors. Against this socio-political context, the paper advances an emerging conceptual and policy paradigm: a complementary approach to diversity governance involving both multiculturalism and interculturalism: the former provides the institutional and normative architecture of recognition, equal citizenship, rights and representation; the latter emphasises dialogue, reciprocal engagement, meaningful contact and connectedness across difference. Neither is sufficient alone. A sustainable Australian model of ‘social cohesion’ must therefore combine multicultural justice with transformative intercultural practice.

Biography

Distinguished Professor Fethi Mansouri is the founding Director of the Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University (2015-26). In 2013, he was awarded the UNESCO Chair in comparative research on Cultural Diversity and Social Justice. Since 2010, he has been serving as an expert advisor to various UN agencies and regional bodies on cultural diversity, migration and intercultural relations. He is the author of twenty scholarly books, most recently Racism in Australia Today (2021) and The Global Politics of Forced Migration (2023). He has published over 220 academic articles, book chapters and research reports, and presented more than 200 keynotes, plenaries and other invited papers. His books include Cultural, Religious and Political Contestations: The Multicultural Challenge (2015, Springer) and Global Perspectives on the Politics of Multiculturalism in the 21st Century: A Case Study Analysis (2014, Routledge). His 2004 book Lives in Limbo was shortlisted for the Australian Human Rights Medals and Awards. Prof Mansouri is an elected fellow of the Australian Social Sciences Academy (2020-) and was named by the Australian Newspaper Research Magazine as Australia’s Top Researcher in the field of Human Migration in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

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Semester 2 Program

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