This article considers the question of conviviality in everyday multiculturalism. It elaborates the concept of ‘convivial multiculture’ through case studies from Sydney and Singapore. In comparing these two contexts, the article considers what underpins conviviality across three themes: spatial ordering, where consideration is given to the role of built environment and material furnishings of place in shaping encounters with difference; connecting and bridging work, where we discuss the concept of ‘transversal enablers’, and intercultural gift exchange; and intercultural habitus, where disposition, habit and linguistic accommodation are discussed. It closes with some reflection upon larger forces that mediate local encounters, and the necessity to consider the full range of interactions, patterns, behaviours and meanings at work, and the interconnection between ‘happy’ and ‘hard’ forms of coexistence.

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In this article, we develop the concept of the translocal village as a subset of transnationalism to describe the highly circumscribed social relations that often emerge from small‐scale translocalized rural villages. In the article we explore the translocal dimensions of a rural South Indian village in Tamil Nadu as a case study to advance this theoretical position. Like all transnational communities involved in the production of locality, identity and social viability, Soorapallam villagers and fellow Musuguntha Vellalar caste members now based in Singapore maintain strong social and cultural ties with their village. However, what is most interesting about this community is that its involvement in translocal practices is determined by a moral economy of obligations and responsibilities based on caste membership, which, in turn, is regulated by regimes of affect and policed through the gaze of fellow translocals. We will demonstrate the specific ways in which this moral economy is reproduced and maintained across distance.

The study of temporary skilled migration in Australia is relatively new. As a rapidly emerging source of labour and settlers for Australia’s immigration programme, temporary skilled migration will have a major and potentially long-lasting impact on Australia. Since the mid-1990s, temporary skilled migration (under the subclass 457 visa programme) has overtaken permanent migration to Australia. India is now the largest and fastest growing source of temporary skilled migrants. This is a major new development in Australian migration history; yet, to date, there has been little qualitative research into the subjective experiences, motivations and settlement patterns of Indian temporary skilled migrants in Australia, from the perspective of the migrant. This article presents findings from a 3-year qualitative study on the experiences of temporary skilled migrants from India living and working in Australia. It argues that many of the quantitative studies on this topic fail to offer a nuanced reading of these workers’ experiences in Australia, in particular, their situations of vulnerability engendered by the recruitment process, visa conditions, unlawful employment practices and living arrangements.

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