African Diasporic Migration Trends, Relocation, and Resettlement

Abstract

Abstract This chapter debates the centrality of migration to population and economic growth and nation-building in Australia and the tensions between continued migration and simultaneous tendencies toward insularity. It argues that insularity manifests through efforts to differentiate between “desirable” and “undesirable” migrants based on identity markers. The chapter uses historical and contemporary migration policies and laws in Australia to illustrate dominant attitudes, practices, and trends that inform the experience of migrants to Australia. In doing so, it focuses on research on African migration to Australia, unsettling the dominant perception that Africans are recent newcomers to Australia. The chapter concludes that immigrants’ experiences of migration and resettlement through successive phases of migration policies in Australia provide an illuminating lens on past, current, and future trends and challenges for migration to Australia. It urges the use of a decolonial and intersectional perspective to analyze these key issues.