Challenging State Multiculturalism: industrial heritage, migrant labour and Gippsland Immigration Park

This ‘phantasmatic diversity’, this multiculturalism ‘for all of us’, dissuades recognition of diversity as structural difference with historical antecedents… While the political struggles over migrant rights aren’t at the centre of Gippsland Immigration Park, the local history of the coal industry and its implications for working life and mobility, are. Here, the Park challenges celebratory state multiculturalism and histories of industrial progress.

Europeana Migration Collection and Australian infrastructure

Large, well-funded digital archives provide the means to facilitate not only the collection and preservation of migrant-related collections, but also their promotion and uptake by researchers and other members of the public. This requires a coordinated effort on the part of large institutions, like the National Library of Australia—and I would argue, given the topic is migration, it calls for transnational collaboration. Enter: Europeana Migration Collection, a new initiative as part of the Europeana digital archive.