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Chapter Four

5. Conclusion

Tasmania lived its industrial revolution more than a century after the European one. It was expressed through the Hydro-Electric Scheme, which was based totally on the shoulders of the migrants by offering a cheap labour force. In the crucial issue, for more than a century, of the low level of population in Tasmania the immigration policy was the vital solution.1 This

thesis argued that migrants were Tasmania human and social capital, taking as case-study Greek migrants, which by its turns produced financial and cultural capital for the development of the state. To a noteworthy degree they managed to contribute creatively to Tasmania’s development despite the multiple difficulties of their new environment and the lack of an extensive administrative contact. The thesis focused on specific pioneers in order to support the argument that the place is a social construction, created by migrants who in the case of Tasmania played an important role as they influenced the place with their particular nature, their skills, their desire for success, their ethos.

The examination of the way that migrants’ lives were formed in the Tasmanian environment, as the social is also constructed by the place, should be further investigated in an attempt to understand how migrant societies

1 That has been argued from the presented scholarly work in this thesis. People are the greatest

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interact with the environment.2 The study of a migrant’s life in a particular

environment apart from stimulating the interest for the cultural heritage clarifies the troubled issue of identity that the next generations of migrants face. For a person or a society to understand its own identity it is necessary to understand and appreciate its origin.

The migration study also increases the level of tolerance in society. Australian authorities were found in a dead end with the assimilation policy. The policy changed and a multicultural model prevailed, allowing the cultural and racial identity to be kept, but with certain limitations. Half a century later a multicultural policy with primary concern only the welfare of the migrants, through the migrant resource centers programs, detached from the consideration of being a multicultural country. The specific multicultural policy, on how the Australian state conceives its migrants constitutes discrimination, because migrants are literally part of the State. The people from different ethnic groups of the Tasmanian state have formed this place and should be seen as the developers of this broad community, and not only as temporary alien citizens. A basic step for this direction is the understanding through an extended presentation of the origins and identity

2 Historical research for the relation between some ethnic groups in Tasmania and their new

environment has been undertaken, but until now there has been no extensive research into the Greek historical footprint in the Tasmanian society. The present study is a starting point of the Greek migration to Tasmania. Issues of identity are still trouble the migrants’ descendants. A study on particular ethnic groups and their evolvement in the present society could reveal the small details that shape an ethnic culture, by exposing these unknown aspects. At the same time, most of the research is focus on the immigration, the conditions related to assimilation and accommodation. The aspect of how these people and their ethnic identity have been evolved has not been researched. The history of the way Greek migrant’s lives were formed according to the applied theory, the mentality, habits, the way of living that have created is an interesting case to be researched.

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of the ethnic groups that comprise of Tasmanian society. The knowledge of the ‘alien’ will both improve the willingness for interaction and will enforce a common action. At the moment, that is a demand by the global economic trends which have forced economic immigration and their presence is still perceived with hostility. The understanding of the formation of a place is necessary to avoid a hostile and racist behavour.3

An important factor for Australia’s nationalism was the country’s isolation from other nations. The Australian immigration scheme reinstated the country's growth model through the involvement of different ethnic groups and officially accepted the policy of multiculturalism. Today the fundamental question that search for answer is if the nationalistic identity should and could be surpassed by the above suggested model? Could Australia as a migrating nation play a significant role leading this pathway? Those are questions that lead the migration debate. Australia by avoiding admitting the heterogenic of its society in different levels and insisting in a false sense of homogeneity prevents the spread of knowledge about the foundation of its society by actually decrease tolerance and growth. Australia having a rich environment of natural resources needs the other two factors described by Pounds, humans and the technology that they can provide. The blend of these factors reshapes beneficially the community and the place.

3 The paradigm of the rise of extreme right parties on the 2014 election for the European parliament

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Bibliography

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