Andrew Jakubowicz is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Technology Sydney and a consultant sociologist in private practice. In his years at UTS from 1987 to 2017 he was firstly a Principal Lecturer and then Professor of Sociology. In his last decade he was Co-director of the UTS Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Key Research Strength (Research Centre). He headed the Social and Political Change Academic Group in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He has published widely in the fields of cultural diversity, social policy, refugees, Jewish cultural studies, media sociology, and new media. The website that he co-ordinates Making Multicultural Australia in the 21st Century is designed for teachers and students interested in cross-curriculum diversity perspectives, and was produced in conjunction with state education and arts bodies around Australia. It provides an extensive research site for scholars involved in cultural diversity questions in Australia, and a publishing environment for cultural diversity scholarship using digital media. The research website he produces The Menorah of Fang Bang Lu is an online documentary about the Jewish communities of Shanghai. He also headed the online communities and human rights project at the not-for-profit Institute for Cultural Diversity.which was closed in 2018 after a decade of operation. He was an appointed member of a number of government bodies including the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS 1983-1986) and the Advisory Board to MulticulturalNSW (2016-2019).
Andrew lives in Sydney and is married to Mara Moustafine.
He recorded a Christmas/Chanukah program with ABC Local radio in December 2008. Listen to it at The Second hour: Andrew Jakubowicz 20 Dec 2008
Andrew Jakubowicz 
Hi Andrew,
I’m from the Department of Training and Workforce Development in WA. Can you please send me your email address, so that we can add you onto our contact list.
Many thanks,
Dawn Quinn
Andrew
It’s been a bit of a while, and it’s a bit wetter, than we chatted at Coogee.
Are you part of the team that wrote “A Line in the Sand”?
I’m doing a piece for http://www.onlineopinion on racism. Perhaps you can tell me how I can get a copy of the book?
I’ve been back for a couple of months from Europe. Barcelona, Geneva, Vienna, London. A lot of races there ! Loved Barcelona especially- what a history. And Vienna, too, for a music lover, really exciting.
Let me know how to get the book?
My no is 04 03 808 244
add
38 Birrell St., Bondi Junction 2022
Hi Peter
The book should be in bookshops or online via Dymocks or Gleebooks. Yes I have a chapter in it, and also I blog on Online Opinion. My current Blog “On the beach” may turn up there too in the current focus on In the Mirror.
A
Invitation
Dear Andrew, feel free to visit my website
For such a well-educated gentleman, and considering the formal manner in which the text is written, it is surprising that you write ‘Christmas’ as ‘Xmas’. It’s almost as if you want to ‘cross’ out a certain idea from this traditionally Anglo celebration. Have you ever looked at Kevin B. Macdonald’s website?
Hi Greg
Point taken and the word is corrected – the aim was not however to “cross” out any idea but was a sub-voce comment on commercialisation of this celebration. I would suggest though that claiming Christmas as an Anglo celebration is a bit imperial; the vast majority of Christians in the world are not Anglos, and even in Australia a significant proportion of Christians come from other parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. My guess is that the majority ( by a small margin) of practising Australian Christians are not Anglo – if we include the Australian born children of non-Anglo parents.
Hello Andrew,
A quick note about your quote in today’s Fairfax opinion piece.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/toowhite-tv-must-tune-in-to-the-real-team-australia-20111125-1nz8l.html#ixzz1emqs0QpD
I’ll preface my remark by stating that I am an advocate of high immigration levels to Australia, and a lover of the diversity of Australian urban society, whilst generally suspicious of the multiculturalism and race relations (and race grievance) industries. I am not familiar with your work so I don’t know whether you belong to this industry or not.
As for the article, I agree with it’s general thrust that most television in Australia regrettably does not reflect our multicultural society. I am not a fan of tokenism, enforced cultural rules or quotas, but I believe a more accurate and realistic portrayal of our society’s diversity is in itself a good for no other reason that it allows all of it’s members to feel they are a part of their new home, welcomed and appreciated.
My issue with your quote is that, while a concern, this is very very far from “racism at its most systematic, unselfconscious and destructive.” Note that my argument is not “there are bigger things to worry about” rather, that such strong language should be reserved for higher, more obvious, more pernicious and more damaging forms of racism, such as violent racial supremicist groups, discrimination actually enshrined in law, and so on. You leave yourself no headroom to describe worse crimes in a way they deserve. You also run the risk, if you truly believe this is the worst form of racism, of not being taken seriously.
Just a thought. Feel free to contact me if you feel I am unfair.
Regards,
James.
Hi
What I originally wrote and the bit selected from it by The Age are not exactly the same: however I agree that media racism does not equate with extermination, genocide etc. My argument which follows though points out that exclusion from narratives of the nation and the everyday delegitimises significant parts of Australian society for no other reason that the media makers do not see them as mainstream. Yo can hardly be expected to identify with a society that does not recognise that you are part of it, unless you are a threat of some kind. Over time that erodes social cohesion and undermines the solidarity of community.
Andrew,
You tutored me for Sociology back at UNSW in the early 70s!! Can you recommend a philosopher / theorist who writes about the way small things in life have a ripple effect on many people? The sort of ideas from the film ‘ Babel’ or ‘ Crash’….I need this for one of my English students in high school. hope you are well and staying healthy…call me if you wish on 0417264084…
Hi Michael
That’s placing me in time! The notion of unintended consequences is a central part of most historical analyses, where the larger flow of time (the longue duree) confronts the intricacies of individual lives and circumstances. The most famous “theory” would be existentialism and the best known example is a short story The Wall by J-P Sartre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_(book))
Andrew
Hi Andrew
I have just read your article regarding multiculturalisim and how you spoke of how the vietnamese are a model minority. The social and cultural elites in Australia usually live in affluent suburbs, commute in cars and are not really exposed to living with poor immigrants in outer suburbs of our major capital cities. Suburbs like Dandenong, Noble Park, St Albans, Broadmeadows etc. The crimes stats show that the percentage per capita in these area’s shows a very high represetation of new arrivals particularly east Africa. I myself have worked in a mental health service in the sth east suburbs of Melbourne and found it exhausting and utterly fruitless trying to help these new African arrivals address their mental health issues. Our budgets were stretched due to a large influx of referrals from African cultural backgrounds. The trauma they have had to endure is horrific. The stories that I have heard, especially from Sudanese women is especially distubing. The incidence of sexual violence is extreme. What we are left to work with are people who are covered in jagged edges of pain and memories of horror. And then they are meant to casually and calmly intergrate into society in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. The federal government are effectively dumping these needy people into our local communities well before they have had their issues addressed. I feel that a vetting program to ensure that the arrivals are not ticking time bombs just waiting to overburden our already overstretched health and justice systems. Plus an SRS hostel based system that allows new arrivals from traumatic backgrounds to check back in their hostel at night to talk with caseworkers about how their new experience in a new country is going, because the current system is way underfunded to do any justice to helping these desperate people start new lives. If the feds cant do it properly, then they shouldnt do it at all.
Dear Andrew, I have been looking – for a long time, for those antecesors that stayed in Poland when my great-grandmother Gitel/Gusta Kol migrated to Chile, with her husband, my grandmother and three children more. I think your great-grandmother is Roza Kol, sister to Gitel? I have now found out something about the history of your family: Estera, Halina, Miran, Michael, etc. If this makes some sense to you, please contact me. Otherwise, contact me also, so I can continue searching! Best regards! Marcela