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Migrants rely on social capital when (re)settling in host communities. Connections with organisations are fundamental to developing local ties and accessing services. While scholarship is replete with studies on bonding and bridging ties, little is known about organisations' ties with migrants. Less is known about how digital technologies facilitate these links. Our article draws on interviews conducted at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis with 23 organisations that support migrants. Our research involved: understanding how digital linking ties were developed; ways that organisations transitioned from in-person to digital engagements during the Covid-19 lockdowns; and how this transition facilitated engagement/reach across migrant communities. Our findings showed that organisations maintained ties with migrants when digital platforms enabled reciprocal engagement. We highlight challenges to creating linking ties largely due to resources constraints. This article contributes nuanced understandings of linking social capital and the impacts of a crisis on the development of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractNew Zealanders are currently the largest nationality group of people deported from Australia. When a non-citizen has their visa cancelled on character grounds under Section 501 of the Migration Act (Cth) by a delegate of the Immigration Minister, they have the opportunity to appeal at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). AAT Members (decision makers) decide the fate of the applicant by weighing up the perceived risk of the individual to community safety against a series of mitigating factors that relate to the life the applicant has established in Australia. As a site of investigation into s501 visa cancellation decision making practice, this paper quantitatively and qualitatively examines a set of AAT visa cancellation decisions from 2015–2018 under Ministerial Direction No. 65, for 97 New Zealander long term residents. It focuses on how AAT decision makers considered and valued mitigating factors in a decision making process that is inherently imbalanced toward constructing non-citizens as a risk. Our analysis reveals that of all mitigating factors considered, evidence of rehabilitation and legal representation at the AAT hearing are associated with reduced perceptions of risk. When comparing two AAT decisions that are matched on all relevant factors but have different decision outcomes, we find that even where mitigating factors for reducing perceptions of risk are present, potential for inconsistencies in AAT decision making remains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00707.x Byline: Rebecca Wickes (1), Michael Emmison (2) Abstract: Abstract The concept of 'doing gender' was placed on the sociological agenda by West and Zimmerman. In their seminal paper published in 1987, they provided a systematic theory of gender as a routine and ongoing process and outlined a distinctly ethnomethodological approach to investigating how gender is enacted, understood and rendered accountable. West and Zimmerman's notion of 'doing gender' has subsequently become a central concept in many fields of sociological research, however, upon closer examination although many authors claim to be using the concept - in effect to be doing'doing gender'- the concept's intellectual roots in ethnomethodology are not always recognised or reflected: in short not all are passing. The purpose of our study is to explore the career trajectory of this concept and to systematically assess the manner in which 'doing' has been employed. From a review of 226 journal articles, books, dissertations and association papers, we provide an overview of the uses of this construct and examine the ways in which 'doing gender' has been assimilated into current theoretical and methodological practice. Author Affiliation: (1)Griffith University (2)University of Queensland Article History: Received 20 July 2005Finally accepted 30 August 2006

The lines of difference between women and men, in aggregate and within social subgroups, in orientation to contesting visions of the nation are investigated using data from a national sample survey of 2071 Australians. Results reveal the absence of strong disparities between women and men, also pointing to the importance of remaining sensitive to the subtler and nuanced ways in which gender informs national imaginings at the individual level.

Fear of crime among older people has been a frequent topic in ageing research, criminology and urban studies. The 'environmental docility hypothesis' assumes that older people are more vulnerable to adverse neighbourhood conditions than younger age groups. Yet, few studies have tested this influential hypothesis using samples of respondents covering the complete adult lifespan. Looking at fear of crime, we investigated the person–environment interaction of age and neighbourhood disadvantage, using two independent surveys comprising 12,620 respondents aged 25–90 years residing in 435 neighbourhoods in four cities in Germany and Australia. We used multi-level analysis and cross-level interactions to model age-differential effects of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear. Contrary to the hypothesis, we found a weakening of neighbourhood effects on fear with age. The strong effect of neighbourhood disadvantage on fear of crime dropped by around half from the youngest (25 years) to the oldest age (90 years) in both countries. Younger people were almost as fearful as older people in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, but older people were considerably more fearful than younger ages in better-off neighbourhoods. We found limited empirical support for the assumption that this diminished association between neighbourhood disadvantage and fear can be explained by the stronger neighbourhood attachment of older people. The limitations of the analysis and potential future directions of research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of a politics of diversity in local strategies to respond to economic and demographic stagnation in regional Australia. In a context of a market-driven migration agenda, local councils increasingly ‘compete’ as desirable places for mobile populations to settle by evoking a local multicultural imaginary. Internationally, there has been some suggestion that devolving power to the local level can help resolve economic and social problems that are argued to be at the root of populist politics and be productive of new forms of local solidarity and collective action. Yet, our account of the local multicultural politics at work in the regional town of Shepparton, sees deeply structural problems left unresolved. Drawing on interviews with members of government and civil society, and an analysis of council policy, we show how, at a local level, multiculturalism is mobilised as a depoliticised and deracialised form of community relations. Such articulations may support metrics that measure ‘success’ and attract funding from central governments, but limit opportunities for mobilising the tension and ambivalence of cultural difference in ways productive of new kinds of solidarities and representative forms of imagining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]