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African Australian identity

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African Australian identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an African Australian and as relating to being African Australian. As a group identity, African Australian can denote pan-African ethnic identity, as well as a diasporic identity in relation to the perception of Africa as a homeland.[1] This has been shown to be based on both a cultural association with Africa and blood-ancestry.[2]

Background

In 2011, chaired by Maria Vamvakinou, the Joint Standing Committee on Migration discussed the topic in relation to multiculturalism in Australia.[3] An analysis of Australian journalism in 2014 highlighted the use of generalising and discriminatory descriptions in media, such as "Sudanese gangs" and "Black Africans", to attribute "a homogeneous African-Australian identity" to people of African descent living in Melbourne.[4]

In 2017, two female students of South Sudanese heritage attending Bentleigh Secondary College were reported to have been discriminated against for being asked to remove their hair braids.[5] According The Age, the students believed the school was "attacking their African culture" and "identity".[6] Within the same school year, a similar incident occurred in Mildura, Victoria after a student of Nigerian ancestry, reported to wear "dreadlocks to express his West African roots",[7] was suspended from St Joseph's College for his refusal to remove them.[6]

In 2018, Australian Football League players of African descent released a joint press-statement encouraging African Australians to "be proud of your African identity". The AFL players, including Majak Daw, Aliir Aliir, Mabior Chol and Changkuoth Jiath, stressed that racial tensions in Victoria, Australia must not be allowed "to define everyone of African descent" in Australia.[8] Later that month, ABC's Talkfest podcast series discussed African Australian identity with four academics from the Wheeler Centre.[9] The following year, another ABC piece detailed a former SBS World News employee's experience of work-place discrimination when asked to remove her braided hairstyle. As a style specifically worn to express her "African identity", and as the only "Black African" being asked to make appearance-based changes, the request was perceived as an "attack" on her identity and "African culture".[5]

Specialising in intercultural parenting, Southern Cross University lecturer Dharam Bhugun has demonstrated Australian parents of African heritage ascribing and encouraging an African Australian identity onto their children. Published in 2020, the research indicated that this was based both on their "cultural association with Africa" and a descent-based concept of "African blood".[2]

Categories

African Australian identity can contain interconnecting subsections, some of which may constitute an individual's self-identification, such as:

  1. African Australian peoplehood, a sense of African Australians as a distinct ethnic group;
  2. African Australian culture, which may include aspects such as fashion and dressing customs,[10] such as braided or dreadlock hairstyle.[5] which despite causing suspensions and threats of exclusion at several national schools,[6] have been reported in Australian media as having up to a 3600-year-old connection to African culture.[7]

Academic research

Referencing social psychologist Gabriel Horenczyk's 2000 study Cultural identity and immigration, a 2011 Murdoch University research repository study, noted the intersection between the "African cultural memory" of diaspora and a sense of African Australian identity in the context of biculturalism.[11]

Research from Victoria University, Melbourne in 2015 demonstrated how African Australian identity was perceived as being closely linked to racial profiling and unjust lack of employment opportunity in Australia. The majority of focus group participants had arrived in Australia as refugees from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.[12] A further 2018 study at Victoria University also examined the distinct national linguistic and cultural aspects to various African nationalities, diaspora and their descendants in Australia, in relation to a broader African Australian sense of self.[13]

In research conducted at La Trobe University in 2018, participants demonstrated an internal self-identification conflict between relating to being African Australian versus nationally focused identities, such as Ethiopian Australian.[14] Australian National University academic, and Dickson College associate, Dr Kirk Zwangobani has been noted for his exploration of the emergence of African Australian identity in multiple research studies.[15][16] Zwangobani has outlined what he sees as a difficulty in the identity of "African Australianness", in that African migration to Australia is relatively recent in comparison with British and American history.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Abay Adhana (2017). "Strategic othering through 'African Australian' as a collective identity: A view from African background young people in Melbourne". La Trobe University. Externally Africans are collectively known as 'African Australians'. This label displays a generalised image for all African descent people. The colloquial phrase can be interpreted in two ways: first as group identity that signals pan-African ethnicity; and second as Diasporic identity appealing to reconnect back to their motherland.
  2. ^ a b Dharam Bhugun (2020). "Cultures Coming Together". Intercultural Parenting and Relationships: Challenges and Rewards. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 55. ISBN 978-3030140625. Children's identity as African Australian because they are being raised in Australia but still have cultural association with Africa ... They're Australian because they're being raised in the Australian society, but they have got the African blood.
  3. ^ "Joint Standing Committee on Migration", Multiculturalism in Australia, Australian House of Representatives: Parliament of Australia, 24 October 2011
  4. ^ Finex Ndhlovu (2014). "Language(s) and Nationality". Becoming an African Diaspora in Australia: Language, Culture, Identity. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 71. ISBN 978-1137414311. The following phrases are used interchangeably to describe a homogeneous African-Australian identity: 'African migrants', 'Sudanese refugees', 'Sudanese gangs'
  5. ^ a b c Santilla Chingaipe (21 October 2019). "My braided hair is more than a fashion choice — it's sending a message". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The girls, who are of South Sudanese heritage, said the school was attacking their African identity and refused to remove the braids.
  6. ^ a b c Henrietta Cook (30 March 2017). "Hair's a key to 'identity' but black students are being told to play it straight". The Age.
  7. ^ a b Nick Pearson (30 March 2017). "Mildura teen won't get rid of dreads despite school threats". Nine News. Dreadlocks have been historically documented as far back as the 3600-year-old Minoan civilisation on Crete.
  8. ^ Nick Baker (2 February 2018). "'Be proud of your African identity': Athletes call for unity after youth crime stigma". SBS World News.
  9. ^ "Talkfest: Identity". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 3 February 2018. This week on Talkfest Santilla Chingaipe, Soreti Kadir, Kirk Zwangobani and Monica Forson discuss African Australian identity.
  10. ^ Konneh, Ameisa Meima (2013). "Hair Is It, For Africans: African-Australian Hair Stories". University of Sydney. Finally, this thesis examines the industrial and personal economy of black hair as imbricated with the explicit and implicit labour of African-Australian identity.
  11. ^ Peter Mbago Wakholi; Peter Wright (2011), The Art of Migrant Lives. Bicultural Identity and the Arts: The African Cultural Memory Youth Arts Festival (ACMYAF) in Western Australia, Murdoch University, p. 2, Conscious reconstruction of participant's African cultural memory was assumed to be an important signifier of their African Australian identity and therefore an essential component to their bicultural identity competence (Gordon, 2007; Ferdman & Horenczyk, 2000; de Anda, 1984).
  12. ^ Hernan Cuervo; Ana Miranda, eds. (2019). Youth, Inequality and Social Change in the Global South. Springer Publishing. p. 139. ISBN 978-9811337499. Focus groups identified the most significant issues for young people as racial profiling in employment ... All of these issues were explained as being intertwined with 'African Australian identity' and 'representation of African people in the media'.
  13. ^ Olalekan Olagookun (2018), Negotiating Identity and Belonging for Young African Australians, College of Arts and Education: Victoria University, Melbourne, The African nation is characterised by different cultures, practices, values and complex linguistic repertoire. In this thesis, I have investigated African Australian identity but point out that each participant has a distinct language and culture from the actual country their families have left.
  14. ^ Abay Gebrekidan (2018), "'African-Australian' Identity in the Making: Analysing its Imagery and Explanatory Power in View of Young Africans in Australia", Australasian Review of African Studies, La Trobe University: African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, Findings suggest that while there is generalised use among participants of the label 'African- Australian', some participants reject it and prefer to self-identify using their respective ethno-national hyphenations, such as 'Ethiopian-Australian'.
  15. ^ "Exploring African identity in Australia". SBS World News. 29 April 2015.
  16. ^ "Africa Talks: Identity". Wheeler Centre. 21 April 2015. Kirk is an early career researcher who has theorised extensively on the formation of an African Australian identity
  17. ^ Kirk Zwangobani (2016), Convivial multiculture and the perplication of race: the dynamics of becoming African Australian, Australian National University, In this context, 'African Australianness' presents an especially interesting problem. An identity that has formed out of a relatively recent series of migrations, African Australianness does not have the history of the more researched African migrations to Britain, famously described by Paul Gilroy (1993) in his work on the Black Atlantic.
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