ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates explaining how migrants settle. This is broadly significant in a world shaped by the increasing movements of people, but it is especially important in a country such as Australia that has depended both on migration for nation-building and on mutliculturalism as social policy for addressing the consequences of cultural diversity. Drawing on a single case study from a research project examining the settling experiences of Lebanese migrants to Australia, the chapter argues that settling is not an event but a trajectory whose temporal and spatial dimensions need to be explored. Further, it sees settlement not as something 'done to people', but a complex and changing process in which people are social actors in making themselves at home. Taking its cue from a number of emerging themes in the international and Australian research, the chapter borrows from the work of Goffman to frame this trajectory as a kind of 'career' which unfolds over time and across diverse contexts.
