Ethnically mixed households signify decreasing social distance between ethnic groups, and have potential to transform urban ethnic landscapes. Quantitative research has revealed mixed-ethnicity couples' distinctive residential geographies, which interrupt established segregation patterns. Mixed-ethnicity couples often concentrate in diverse neighborhoods. Yet few studies have asked these couples to explain the reasons behind their residential decision-making. We respond to this gap, drawing on 48 interviews with mixed-ethnicity couples in Australia. Conventional concerns prevailed in discussions of neighborhood choice: dwelling characteristics, affordability, proximity to workplace and family and accessibility of services. Most expressed affinity for ethnically diverse neighborhoods, but rarely cited this as a primary decision-making factor. Our findings counter assumptions that ethnic differences are front-and-center of mixed-ethnicity families' everyday decision-making, and highlight their ordinariness. Mixed-ethnicity couples' seeming lack of focus on neighborhood ethnic composition shows that being surrounded by ethnically similar people is not always a driving force in people's residential lives.

In multi-ethnic societies, the rise in mixed-ethnicity partnerships has contributed to strong growth in populations of mixed-ethnicity individuals. Yet scholarship on ethnic residential geographies has predominantly focused on individuals with singular ethnic identities. Using 2011 Australian census data, this paper explores the residential patterns of mixed-ethnicity populations in Sydney, Australia?s most populous city. I deploy a mapping analysis to show that mixed-ethnicity populations? residential geographies are unique and do not match those of their constituent ethnic groups. In many cases, mixed-ethnicity individuals concentrate in inner-city areas, in contrast to the suburban hubs of their respective ethnic minority groups. They are also more likely to reside outside neighbourhoods with high proportions of their constituent ethnic groups, and instead gravitate towards moderately diverse neighbourhoods. The paper demonstrates the in-between nature of the geographies of mixed-ethnicity individuals, echoing established findings for mixed-race/ethnicity couples. Further, these geographies are powerfully differentiated according to birthplace and educational attainment. Australia-born mixed-ethnicity individuals and those with Bachelor degrees exhibit particularly extensive deviation from Sydney?s established ethnic landscape. The growing number of mixed-ethnicity individuals has implications for ethnic residential geographies both in this city, and in other diverse contexts.

Intersectionality, as an 'analytical sensibility', demands attentiveness to the multiple aspects of identity that interlock to shape privilege and marginality in specific spatial contexts and moments. Notwithstanding their fluidity, intersectional analyses have retained a core focus on the individualized self. This paper articulates an intercorporeal approach to intersectionality, based on interviews with adult members of mixed-ethnicity (mixed-race) families. In public space, family members are exposed to stares, questions, judgements and racisms that metamorphose depending on who they are with. Alone, with a visibly different partner, with mixed-ethnicity children, or as a family unit, the strands of each family member's multiple identities intersect with those of their loved ones. Each is interpellated - or feels interpellated - differently, in physical proximity to the other. Our empirical analysis sheds new light on the everyday lives of mixed-ethnicity families. Our theoretical pairing of intercorporeality and intersectionality presents an innovative extension to dominant interpretations of the latter. It highlights the analytical utility of adding an extra-individual lens to the intersectionality toolkit. While visibly different mixed-ethnicity families afford a potent example, our approach has broader resonance. An intercorporeal approach to intersectionality offers nuanced perspectives on place, identity and belonging. It is necessary because privilege and marginality are always lived, relationally.

The geographical distribution of mixed-ethnicity (or mixed-race) couples is an important indicator of the spatial dimensions of cultural ‘mixing’ in a given society. A small number of studies have mapped the residential geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples, revealing distinctive residential patterns that differ from those of each partner’s respective ethnic group. Most such analyses have adopted broad pan-ethnic or racial categories (e.g. ‘black-white’, ‘white-Asian’). The Australian Census – which eschews broad racial categories – provides an opportunity to explore the unique residential geographies of different ‘types’ of mixed-ethnicity couples . Using customised 2011 Census data, this paper maps the residential geographies of diverse mixed-ethnicity couples in Australia’s most populous cities: Sydney and Melbourne. We focus on couples where one partner nominated ‘Anglo-European’ ancestry and the other nominated one of five ‘minority’ ancestries. Our findings highlight the value in disaggregating the coarse pan-ethnic or racial groupings adopted in some existing studies, and prescribed in some national censuses. The residential geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples challenge established perspectives on urban ethnic landscapes. As these couples grow in number, particularly in immigrant societies, they have the potential to fundamentally reshape established ethnic residential geographies away from patterns of residential segregation. Fine-grained analyses such as ours provide scope to explore the myriad directions in which these shifts will unfurl. They also provide a starting point for better understanding the preferences and pressures that shape the residential geographies of diverse mixed-ethnicity couples.

ABSTRACT Mixed-ethnicity partnerships are becoming increasingly common in Australia and other countries of high immigration. Formal and de facto marriages involving partners from different ethnic backgrounds are key indicators of decreasing social distance between groups. Yet mixed-ethnicity couples have received scant attention from Australian geographers. We use customised data from the 2011 Australian census to analyse the nation-wide distribution of several types of mixed-ethnicity couples. We focus on couples comprised of an Anglo-European (ethnic majority) partner, and a partner from a ‘visible’ ethnic minority group. Our analyses explore the residential geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples vis-à-vis ‘co-ethnic couples’ (where partners share the same ethnicity). We find that mixed-ethnicity couples are more widely dispersed across Australian cities and regions than comparative co-ethnic couples. However, each type of mixed-ethnicity couple has its own unique residential pattern: there are multiple geographies of mixed-ethnicity couples in Australia. These distinctive patterns reflect the migration and settlement histories of the couples’ constituent ethnic groups, but also hold great potential to shift seemingly entrenched ethnic residential geographies in the present and future.

Deb Anderson Kay Anderson Neil Argent Mariana Atkins Robyn Bartel Andrew Beer Martin Bell Kathy Bowrey Chris Brennan-Horley Chantel Carr Jen Carter Stephen Castles John Connell (3) George Curry Amanda Davies (2) Anna de Jong Danielle Drozdzewski (2) Michelle Duffy Carol Farbotko Ruth Fincher Robert Fisher Ryan Frazer Alison Gates Deborah Gough Sonia Graham Vaughan Higgins Meg Holden Joanna Howe Richie Howitt Kurt Iveson Amity James Louise Johnson Alanna Kamp Hal Kendig Siew-Ean Khoo Natascha Klocker (2) Nick Lewis Yu Wai Li Edgar Liu Francis Markham Robyn Mayes Marie McAuliffe Phil McManus (2) Tom Measham Dave Mercer Melissa Neave Jacqueline Nelson Barbara Pini (2) Priya Rangan Susanne Schech Kate Senior Nick Skilton Erin Smith Ross Steele Elaine Stratford Alexander Tindale Brendan Tobin Matthew Tonts Frank Vanclay Mark Wang Zoe Wang Andrew Warren Dona Whiley Miriam Williams Sarah Wright Xiaojiang Yu

Rates of car ownership in Australia are among the highest in the world. Private cars have shaped the urban form of Australian cities and the daily routines of their residents, making it possible to fulfil geographically stretched responsibilities for work, family, and social lives. But the dominance of the private car in Australian lives and landscapes should not be confused with universality. Aggregate, population-wide statistics of car ownership and use mask the fact that not all Australians are equally car dependent. In this paper, we report on the results of a household sustainability survey conducted in metropolitan Sydney and Wollongong. Overseas-born persons, migrants, and (some) ethnic minority groups were found to own fewer cars – and to use them less – than their Anglo-Australian and Australian-born counterparts. These differences were not attributable to socio-economic or demographic factors. Our findings, which point towards the existence of diverse cultures of transport within the Australian population, are significant for transport planning and policymaking. Given profound concerns about the environmental implications of car use, the environmentally (more) sustainable transport behaviours of ethnic minorities and migrants should be supported. A shift in research focus away from the most car-dependent groups in Australian society may also be more widely instructive. The transport practices, experiences, and strategies of those who own and drive cars at below-average rates may indeed contribute practical lessons to inform planning for more environmentally sustainable transport futures.

Inter-ethnic couples are a growing population with unique and understudied residential geographies. Using customised 2006 Census data for the Greater Sydney region, we investigate the prevalence and geographic distribution of a socially significant subset of cohabiting inter-ethnic couples: ethnic majority–minority couples. These couples are comprised of an Anglo/European or (‘white’) Australian partner and a partner from a ‘visible’ ethnic minority group. We find that ethnic majority–minority couples are most concentrated in inner-city areas of moderate ethnic diversity and high socio-economic status; and are more residentially dispersed than their respective ethnic minority groups. Inter-ethnic partnership appears to alter the residential geographies of ethnic minority groups. By shifting the scale of analysis from the individual to the household, our findings complicate established understandings of the ethnic geographies of Australian cities.