Beyond the demands of integration: African refugee resettlement in contemporary multicultural Australia

This paper uses the example of negatively racialised refugees from the African continent to reiterate the racialised nature of migrant and refugee experiences in Australia. This is a context that remains deeply influenced by a violent history of British colonisation and racist migration laws, including the restrictive White Australia Policy (1901–1973). Drawing on the authors’ research and personal experiences of working with, and navigating, the Australian resettlement system this article examines the racialised violences inherent in expectations of ‘integration’ for (former) African refugees in a settler colonial country. This paper proffers a principle level re-imagining of refugee resettlement in Australia that challenges patriarchal white sovereignty. It proposes a meaningful consideration of resettlement practices that are community-led, localised, relational and that recognise the agency of refugees who settle in Australia. This paper disrupts dominant tropes of refugees as perpetually vulnerable and deficit, by centering the agency, needs and expectations of a good life as it is lived in community, rather than dictated by the state.