ABSTRACT
Most of the active ‘response to the migrant presence’ recounted occurred within a context of meaning that portrayed migrants as problems—or, more acceptably, as people with problems. Structural change in established institutions, the development of new structures—in the form of broker organisations, and migrant and inter-ethnic pressure groups—and the growing prominence of definers with acknowledged migrant affiliations are thus interdependent developments. The professionals, ‘sub-professionals’ or ‘ancillary workers’ who have emerged as strategically important in changing social knowledge about migrants may operate within any of these three contexts, or, as a series of unorganised, individual voices, may constitute a fourth structural context through which ethnic interests are explicated. In Australia public endorsement of a safe cultural pluralism includes both elements: symbolic as a substitute for substantive response and an emphasis on the priority of individual attitudes over social forms.
