Sudanese Australians Research Articles

Australian Identity Politics Playing Tricks for Young South Sudanese Australians

ABSTRACT This article explores the key themes of African diaspora life for young people in Australia and their interplay with identity politics, primarily focusing on young South Sudanese Australians. This is captured through their participation in youth participatory action research (YPAR) facilitated by a small non-profit, Footprints. The notion of ‘identity politics playing tricks’ was derived from observing Footprints YPAR projects as South Sudanese Australian (SSA) Hip Hop artists discern their diaspora identities in the backdrop of a nation that often displays a political agenda about their presence. Alternatively, young people re-frame and assert their identity formation through their Blackness and pride in culture and establish themselves as social agents in the world. Utilising ‘critical race theories’ through the lens of ‘urban youth culture’, this article demonstrates how participants examine their multifaceted experiences whilst navigating cultural codes; how they negotiate and articulate their own identities in challenging circumstances and seeks to understand communities’ views on diaspora, social, national and cultural identities’ in a diverse environment. It addressed the themes of the politics of ‘reclaiming identity’. Findings point to the necessity to further explore racialisation discourses in localised contexts whilst prioritising the self-articulation of identities reviewing how young people enact agency and resilience.

Community-led vaccination programs: Getting the fundamentals right

In September 2021, South Sudanese Australians in Canberra, ACT, piloted a community-led COVID-19 vaccination program.

South Sudanese perceptions of health and illness in South Australia

Purpose South Sudanese people form the largest number of resettled refugees in Australia between 2003 and 2004. This study aims to explore how this community understands and responds to health and illness. No study has specifically examined the concept of health and illness in the broader socio-cultural context of the South Sudanese people in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The design was a qualitative study using interviews and focus group discussions with 33 South Sudanese people in Adelaide, South Australia. Participants were asked to reflect on their understanding of health and illness and influences on their access and use of health and other services. Data were electronically audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Findings Three main themes emerged from the analysis demonstrating complex and multifaceted views on health and illness. Participants described health as both a lack of disease and wider issues involving social belonging and participation, cultural well-being, living conditions and harmony in the society. They revealed that illnesses are predetermined by God or caused by a curse, breaking a cultural taboo, disharmony with the environment, community and ancestral spirits. Participants deeply tied their beliefs about illness causation and treatment to their historical, social and cultural lived realities, shaping their responses and health-care-seeking decisions. Originality/value The current study revealed a complex understanding of health and health-care-seeking practices amongst South Sudanese Australians. The multifaceted views of health and health-care-seeking practices underscore the importance of person-centred care for culturally and linguistically diverse people.

Sleep difficulties among South Sudanese former refugees settled in Australia.

This quantitative study investigated self-reported sleep, mental health and trauma related nocturnal behaviours among South Sudanese Australians (SSA), examined sex differences in their responses, and sought to determine risk factors for insomnia in this population. Comparisons were also made to a general Australian (AUS) sample of 1,512 respondents, obtained in a previously published study using the same questions regarding sleep difficulties. Self-reports of sleep difficulties, psychological distress (Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, K10), and nocturnal post-traumatic stress symptoms (Pittsburgh Sleep Questionnaire Inventory-Addendum, PSQI-A) were obtained from 117 former refugees (aged 16-60 years) who had been resettled for a decade on average. A key finding was that SSA men (n = 62) reported many more problems compared to both SSA women and AUS men. These problems included high rates of clinical insomnia (32%), clinical-level nocturnal post-trauma symptoms (57%), restless legs (31%), daytime sleepiness (40%), fatigue (43%), and waking unrefreshed (55%). Nearly one in five SSA men had "very high psychological distress," a rate 10 times higher than that of men in Victoria and twice as high as SSA women. Analyses suggest that for many SSA men memories and dreams of past traumas may be affecting sleep health, with some improvement over time. It was concluded that men within the South Sudanese Australian community report hitherto unrecognised significant problems with their sleep. The findings are consistent with the interpretation that unresolved pre-migration trauma stress may be affecting the sleep of about half of the South Sudanese men in Australia.

Perspectives on Negative Media Representations of Sudanese and South Sudanese Youths in Australia

ABSTRACT Negative media representations of refugee and migrant communities can have a significant impact on members of these communities’ overall lived experiences, causing issues regarding socio-political belonging and socio-economic security. In Australia, this has become a pertinent issue for young people from Australia’s Sudanese and South Sudanese communities. In recent times, young Sudanese and South Sudanese Australians have been the subject of persistent negative media attention. Utilising a voice-centred relational methodology (VCRM) approach, this paper presents and discusses qualitative findings regarding the perspectives of Australian Sudanese and South Sudanese youths and those from the community organisation sector on these media representations. The findings of this study suggest that negative media representations of Australian Sudanese and South Sudanese youths impact the everyday lived experiences of these young people, disrupting their overall sense of belonging in Australia. Many of the young people in this study believe these lived experiences are causing serious consequences for their overall social prosperity and well-being and creating barriers for their overall success. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of these lived experiences, placing the voices of participants at the centre of the research.

Regulating Immigrant Identities: the Role of Government and Institutions in the Identity Construction of Refugees and Other Migrants

This interdisciplinary paper explores the role of governments in the identity formation of people of resettled refugees. Using ethnographic data collected from 32 South Sudanese Australians and 9 professionals who work with this community, the paper outlines how participants face a range of systemic barriers and threats from government institutions relating to the cultivation of self-identity. We demonstrate how institutions poorly respond to the three typologies of self: moral, democratic, and status-seeking, and forward alternative institutional responses and possibilities. We conclude by arguing that rather than delivering a cohesive society, the regulation of cultural values and moral identities threatens the development of positive self-identities among resettled refugees and their children.

Pathways to offending for young Sudanese Australians

Many Sudanese Australians have faced re-settlement challenges since migrating to Australia from the late 1990s onwards. Challenges have included language barriers, obtaining stable housing, acquiring employment, acculturative stressors and discrimination. Moreover, many have been exposed to pre-migratory traumas and family fragmentation. Despite these difficulties, the vast majority of Sudanese Australians have integrated successfully into the fabric of Australian society. Yet a small number of young Sudanese Australians are at-risk for violence and other criminal activities, resulting in their over-representation in the criminal justice system. These circumstances have been the subject of sustained sensationalised media coverage in Australia. However, little academic attention has been afforded to these matters. This study aimed to address this gap in the literature by identifying the self-reported life experiences and offending patterns of Sudanese-Australian youth in custody. Findings illuminated a number of key risk factors for justice system contact and opportunities for intervention.

Settlement and employment experiences of South Sudanese people from refugee backgrounds in Melbourne, Australia

This article critically examines the settlement experiences of South Sudanese people from refugee backgrounds living in Melbourne, Australia, with a particular focus on unemployment and barriers to employment. Drawing on extensive primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 South Sudanese Australians, the article demonstrates how unemployment features centrally in participants' narratives and appreciation of their settlement in Australia. Participants relate unemployment to issues such as social isolation, family breakdown, and intergenerational conflict, and foreground discrimination as a key barrier to employment. We reflect on these findings by discussing suggestions for future policy and practice in the area of refugee settlement and employment.

Media and the politics of belonging: Sudanese Australians, letters to the editor and the new integrationism

ABSTRACTNolan, Burgin, Farquharson and Marjoribanks focus on media as a significant site through which a politics of belonging is played out, focusing particularly on coverage of Sudanese Australians. To this end, they analyse letters to the editor that concern Sudanese Australians in three Victorian newspapers in 2007, a highly significant year in which this group became the focus of significant levels of (predominantly negative) media coverage. Through textual and thematic analysis, the authors demonstrate how such letters worked to reiterate and extend a politics of ‘integrationism’ that, without entirely departing from Australia's commitment to multiculturalism, has rearticulated the latter along neo-assimilationist lines. In doing so, they show how, in many letters, Sudanese Australians are problematized for their failure or refusal to ‘integrate’ in ways that involve an explicit or implicit process of racialization. In the process, the article also critically considers the important role performed by media in the politics of belonging, particularly through their reiteration and contestation of the politics of race and multiculturalism in Australia. Rather than simply a matter of reproducing a hegemonic politics, it shows how such processes, despite the marked limitations of their framing within a ‘race debate’, also serve to demonstrate significant fault lines in the politics of belonging.

Rejecting Ahmed's ‘melancholy migrant’: South Sudanese Australians in higher education

This paper draws on related research studies in two urban centres (Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia) with South Sudanese men and women engaged in varying degrees with higher education. The co-authors examine some gendered differences in the process and demands of resettlement, including within employment and education, and its implications for rapidly changing public versus private gender roles. We argue against essentialising discourses of the ‘liberatory’ nature of education in the west, versus constructions of ‘cultural knowledge’ as innate, burdensome, and less useful in western contexts. Drawing on Ahmed's critique of discourses of the ‘melancholy migrant’ which position western knowledges and gendered practices as progressive and therefore more desirable, the authors interrogate the possibility of multiple forms of knowledge and new migrants – especially South Sudanese – as enriched by their previous experiences and knowledges, rather than impoverished by them.

Deleuze and narrative investigation: the multiple literacies of Sudanese families in Australia

AbstractSudanese families arriving in Australia bring with them a wealth of language and cultural resources that are currently not recognised by the Australian education system. This paper challenges such a position by investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians from a Deleuzian perspective. A Deleuzian perspective in education promotes the multiple literacies of the Sudanese Australians as a means to learn about and articulate important aspects of their changing circumstances. The families are not ‘othered’ or marginalised through this study, or compared to or against the normative cognitive functions that are produced by the current education system in Australia. Rather, an innovative way to look at the narratives of the Sudanese in Australia is explored by applying Deleuzian philosophy to education. Such a process uses the notion of the ‘virtual’ from Deleuze, which is a hybrid concept that engages with psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas from a fresh perspective. Such novel conceptual positioning is deemed necessary when investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians in order to think alongside the Sudanese in Australia. The final part of the paper takes the conceptual work from Deleuze and the investigation of the narratives, and makes pragmatic educational recommendations about literacy learning strategies for the Sudanese Australians.

The Process: Poetic Re-presentation as Social Responsibility in a Collaborative Documentary

In this essay I discuss the tension between ethical and aesthetic freedom in two documentaries that I made about aspects of the lives of Sudanese Australians. Focusing on issues of voice, framing and responsibility, I argue for a poetic approach in re-presenting auto/biographical stories that involve shared privacies and culturally sensitive material.

THE PROCESS: POETIC RE-PRESENTATION as Social Responsibility in a Collaborative Documentary

In this essay I discuss the tension between ethical and aesthetic freedom in two documentaries that I made about aspects of the lives of Sudanese Australians. Focusing on issues of voice, framing and responsibility, I argue for a poetic approach in re-presenting auto/biographical stories that involve shared privacies and culturally sensitive material.

Where are you from? Identity construction and experiences of ‘othering’ in the narratives of Sudanese refugee-background Australians

This article discusses collective identification among Sudanese refugee-background residents in Australia. The discursive data is drawn from semi-structured interviews through which identity self-categorizations and self-labelling were explored. In addition, mini-narratives about their experiences of intergroup communication with mainstream Australians were analysed in depth. In these narratives, the main topic was the story of being confronted with the question ‘Where are you from?’. This article applies positioning theory to the narrative accounts and discusses how participants position themselves in the story world as well as in the interactional world. The findings demonstrate that Sudanese Australians have a strong ethnic self-concept and a strong desire to obtain an Australian identity. However, their stories reveal that they are positioned as outsiders by mainstream Australians.

Mediated Multiculturalism: Newspaper Representations of Sudanese Migrants in Australia

While multiculturalism has been central to the Australian political and social landscape since the 1970s, it has been recently challenged, with the (re)emergence of discourses of ‘social cohesion’ and ‘integration’. In this paper, we engage with these contests by focusing on newspaper coverage of Sudanese Australians around the time of the 2007 Federal Election. We ask: how did the Australian print media represent Sudanese people during this period? In addition, what do such representations suggest about contemporary media discourses around multiculturalism? Drawing on a content analysis of 203 newspaper articles published in The Age, The Herald Sun and The Australian, we argue that dominant media discourses are both influenced by and contribute to integrationist agendas that situate Sudanese Australians as outsiders to the Australian mainstream, thereby providing a significant challenge to contemporary multiculturalism.