ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how some creative aspirants of Arab-Australian backgrounds become involved in community politics; around issues of ethnicity, racism, and representations of an 'authentic' cultural group. It argues that processes of racialisation produce specific vocational identities, namely that of the ethnic minority, community artist who use their creative forms of expression in order to redress social inequalities. The chapter suggests that this particular vocational trajectory is in part indicative of the classed, exclusionary, and hierarchical nature of the creative industries and, further, that this trajectory speaks more broadly to contemporary issues of ethnic and class prejudice. Finally, it focuses on interviews with three Arab-Australian young men, Hamid, Saad, and Walid, who, like Yassin, make their living as community artists training aspiring creative young people in various organisations across Western Sydney.
