Lines in the Sand: The Cronulla Riots, Multiculturalism and National Belonging.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Fishwick, Elaine
• Date: 01 August 2010

Lines in the Sand: The Cronulla Riots, Multiculturalism and National Belonging

Edited by Gregory Noble

Sydney: Institute of Criminology Press, 2009

On December 11, 2005, a series of events, which came to be known as the Cronulla riots, took place in Sydney. A crowd of mainly White Anglo young men went on a rampage in the beachside suburb of Cronulla. They physically and verbally attacked anyone who was identified as being of Middle Eastern appearance. In response, young Australian men of non-Anglo background travelled in convoys of cars to Cronulla and other beachside suburbs as part of what was said to be retaliatory action, yelling abuse and attacking those of Anglo appearance. Against a background of saturation and often sensationalist media coverage, the New South Wales (NSW) government launched an inquiry, headed by the Assistant Commissioner for Counter-Terrorism and Public Order Management, that introduced a range of new criminal sanctions and expanded police powers.

Lines in the Sand is a collection of essays edited by Greg Noble that uses the riots as a tool for reflecting on cultural diversity, social order and national identity in Australia. The book aims to pull apart what Noble identifies as oversimplistic narratives of cultural conflict (p. 3), in order to offer dynamic, complex ways of reading what occurred. As such, it is a very welcome contribution to critical debates about contemporary Australia and the Institute of Criminology ought to be congratulated for its willingness to publish material that may not have a significant international market share, but is nonetheless crucial for deepening our understanding of localised experiences of global changes.

The book's contributors come from a range of academic disciplinary backgrounds and the collection also includes autobiographical accounts of growing up and living in 'the Shire'. This interdisciplinary approach is both a strength and weakness of the book. Its strength lies in the fact that it encourages the reader to look at Cronulla from many different angles, pushing us to step outside our disciplinary comfort zones to read what went on in new and often challenging ways. On the downside, the amalgamation of different disciplines means that there is a fair bit of overlap and repetition across the chapters as similar issues, concepts, ideas and examples are discussed from slightly different perspectives.

In a subversion of the Tourism Australia advertisement, Greg Noble...