Swimming Upstream

INTRODUCTION

The diversity of Victoria’s population is well recognised. People are different from one another by virtue of many factors including those of gender, age, cultural and ethnic background, Indigeneity, religious belief, sexual orientation and (dis)ability. At the same time, individual and collective identities are drawn from shared characteristics and a sense of membership of, or belonging to, different social groupings. Increasingly, respect for and a commitment to cultural and social diversity, to the diverse make-up of peoples’ identities, is being used to form the foundations for a fairer, more equitable society. It is enshrined in recent legislative reform and reflected in government policy developments articulating an agenda of equality.

The concept of ‘multiple identity’ is a useful way to understand the complexity of individual and social identity. It recognises that a person’s everyday experience is characterised by overlapping memberships of multiple social groups. At the same time, it also suggests that people can experience multiple barriers to equality through the processes of marginalisation, exclusion and discrimination. While diversity and difference are often celebrated, the experiences of people who fall within multiple minority identities - described by participants in the research project as a minority within a minority - is less clear. This project aims to give visibility to these perspectives that have remained largely invisible.