Governing through ‘ <i>Othering’</i> : Problematising ‘culture’ in the NSW child protection system

In the Australian child protection system, there is a growing emphasis on ‘culturally safe’ practices to better understand the cultural needs of racialised children and families. This article explores how ‘culture’ is represented in the NSW child protection system, drawing on an analysis of key policy documents. Using Carol Bacchi's ‘What's the problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) approach, this article draws attention to how ‘culture’ is institutionalised through policy and how racialised children and families are governed through the population category ‘Culturally and Linguistically Diverse’ (‘CALD’). The article finds that ‘culture talk’ is exclusively produced for racialised children and families, and that ‘CALD’ as a population category becomes knowable through policy directives around a set of performative ‘cultural’ tasks. In addition, throughout the policies ‘culture’ is associated with interpersonal experiences of racism rather than institutional racism. It is argued that this problematisation reinforces Otherness and invisibilises institutional Whiteness and racism.