Being South Sudanese in the diaspora : exploring the relationship between pre-migration, identity and labelling

This chapter builds on a growing body of work highlighting the range of pre-migration experiences of refugees who are resettled in countries such as New Zealand and Australia. It goes beyond limited and static notions of pre-migration experiences that focus predominantly on torture and trauma, in the case of refugees, to instead show the diverse and heterogeneous experiences and sites from which new arrivals originate. This chapter is based on doctoral research conducted by the author as part of a larger Australian Research Council Linkage project and specifically focuses on twelve in-depth interviews conducted with five women and seven men of South Sudanese origin. Using empirical data from a country with one of the largest South Sudanese diasporas, I show how premigration can play a greater role in informing understandings of the identities of the South Sudanese diaspora in Australia.