Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia
At the onset of COVID-19, many Local Government Areas (LGAs) indicated they were struggling to communicate effectively with multilingual migrant communities. Communities were isolated from vital LGA support due to factors including the digital divide, barriers to language access, and top-down commun...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2024
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94223 |
| _version_ | 1848765848892735488 |
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| author | Lamping, Sally Dryden, Stephanie Dobinson, Toni Chen, Julian Mercieca, Paul Kuzich, Sonja |
| author_facet | Lamping, Sally Dryden, Stephanie Dobinson, Toni Chen, Julian Mercieca, Paul Kuzich, Sonja |
| author_sort | Lamping, Sally |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | At the onset of COVID-19, many Local Government Areas (LGAs) indicated they were struggling to communicate effectively with multilingual migrant communities. Communities were isolated from vital LGA support due to factors including the digital divide, barriers to language access, and top-down communication strategies. The pandemic also provided insights into the ways migrant communities mitigate hardship by engaging in placemaking and place-shaping, using existing networks and resources to provide vital support during crisis, which requires significant invisible labour. In this article, we present three case studies from a larger community-based project which began in early 2020 with an LGA in Western Australia. We use case narratives to illustrate and analyse three common actions migrant women used to engage their communities prior to, and during, COVID-19 recovery. These simple, yet profound actions, which include visiting communities, acknowledging challenges, and identifying opportunities further evidence the ways community leaders facilitate culturally sustaining placemaking, even during crisis; they underscore the intense emotional, cultural, and linguistic labour required to enact support in contexts where resources are inaccessible or misaligned with community stories. We argue it is only in partnership with communities that LGAs can learn to address some of the long-standing issues COVID-19 highlights. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:41:47Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-94223 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:41:47Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-942232024-01-22T12:05:36Z Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia Lamping, Sally Dryden, Stephanie Dobinson, Toni Chen, Julian Mercieca, Paul Kuzich, Sonja At the onset of COVID-19, many Local Government Areas (LGAs) indicated they were struggling to communicate effectively with multilingual migrant communities. Communities were isolated from vital LGA support due to factors including the digital divide, barriers to language access, and top-down communication strategies. The pandemic also provided insights into the ways migrant communities mitigate hardship by engaging in placemaking and place-shaping, using existing networks and resources to provide vital support during crisis, which requires significant invisible labour. In this article, we present three case studies from a larger community-based project which began in early 2020 with an LGA in Western Australia. We use case narratives to illustrate and analyse three common actions migrant women used to engage their communities prior to, and during, COVID-19 recovery. These simple, yet profound actions, which include visiting communities, acknowledging challenges, and identifying opportunities further evidence the ways community leaders facilitate culturally sustaining placemaking, even during crisis; they underscore the intense emotional, cultural, and linguistic labour required to enact support in contexts where resources are inaccessible or misaligned with community stories. We argue it is only in partnership with communities that LGAs can learn to address some of the long-standing issues COVID-19 highlights. 2024 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94223 10.1080/1369183X.2024.2303068 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Taylor & Francis fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Lamping, Sally Dryden, Stephanie Dobinson, Toni Chen, Julian Mercieca, Paul Kuzich, Sonja Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title | Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title_full | Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title_fullStr | Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title_short | Locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in Australia |
| title_sort | locked out, but not disconnected: multilingual community engagement in australia |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94223 |