Central African Refugee Women Resettled in Australia: Colonial Legacies and the Civilising Process. (4th March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ramsay, Georgina
• Is Part Of: Journal of intercultural studies. Volume 38:issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 170
• Page End: 188
• Publication Date: 2017-03-04
• Subjects: Refugees -- refugee settlement -- forced migration -- racism -- everyday racism -- racialisation -- gendered racialisation -- whiteness -- Central African migrants -- postcolonialism -- resettlement; Cross-cultural studies -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals; Civilization, Modern -- Periodicals; Internationalism -- Periodicals; Globalization -- Periodicals; 306
• DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2017.1289904
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0725-6868

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores how experiences of racialisation toward women who are resettled in Australia from Central African countries of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo reflect a colonial imaginary and a legacy of postcolonising dominance in Australia. Drawing on 18-months of ethnographic research, I describe how assumptions of difference, dirtiness, and savagery become attached to women resettled in Australia from Central Africa by the persons they encounter within their everyday lives. Although resettled refugees are provided with civic inclusion in the nation as permanent residents, such experiences of marginalisation in contexts of everyday life represent a form of mis-interpellation, in which their inclusion as residents does not equate to being treated with social worth. I argue that the resettlement of refugees in Australia is as much a civilising process as a process of providing resettled refugees with protection.