KEY regional leaders met with academic researchers at Mount Gambier’s Uni SA campus today to explore the increasing social and cultural diversity of rural areas.
The rural and regional mobilities workshop was an opportunity for Limestone Coast local government representatives to discuss the challenges associated with expanding regional communities.
University of South Australia sociology lecturer Dr David Radford said the workshop would aim to enable local government to effectively respond to these challenges.
“Regional mobilities, broadly, is looking at the way people are moving in and around regional communities and the impact this is having on those communities,” Dr Radford said.
“It can be urban-to-rural migration, or rural-to-urban particularly with the outward mobility of young people leaving for university and other pursuits, as well as the inward mobility of international migrants who are moving increasingly into regional communities.
“The goal of this workshop is to bring together academics who have been doing research in regional communities across Australia and overseas to meet with key regional leaders, because they are the ones on the ground finding ways to thrive in the midst of these challenges.”
Dr Radford said rural researchers had begun to explore the impacts of diverse mobilities on education, health, development, social cohesion and local government.
“The challenges include practical issues around employment, available and affordable housing, services that are able to support migrants, schooling facilities and support within schools for that increasing diversity,” he said.
“Retention in regional communities is a big issue and part of that is about belonging – how do migrants arrive in a place and feel they belong and how do local communities adapt and transform so they can embrace these migrants.
“Hopefully the discussion today will raise questions, we will not necessarily have all the answers.”
Presenters included mayor Erika Vickery OAM who discussed the impact of migrants in the Naracoorte-Lucindale area and associate professor Anna Ziersch of Flinders University who spoke about the regional resettlement experiences of refugees in Mount Gambier.
The workshop was attended by Mount Gambier mayor Andrew Lee, Kingston mayor Reg Lyon and Grant District Council mayor Richard Sage.
