Absence of respect : South Sudanese experiences of Australian government and social institutions

Abstract

This micro empirical research reports on the resettlement experiences of South Sudanese Australians. It develops an argument to explain why the South Sudanese community persistently report a strong sense of disrespect from the Australian Government and Australian society more generally. The study demonstrates that the community's call for respect is a summation of their protest against economic and social exclusion in the public domain and interference from care and protection authorities in the private domain of the family. Members of the Sudanese community see education and employment as the main pathways to inclusion in their new society and to regaining their dignity lost in forced migration. But their efforts to obtain employment are often thwarted by structural impediments and discrimination from employers. As a consequence they feel robbed of the opportunity to participate and to attain respect in their new environment. The experience of being prevented from fully realising identities to which they aspire in their new society heightened the importance of preserving heritage values and structures within Sudanese families. These structures, while giving form and meaning to family members, have also become highly contested in their new cultural environment both from within and outside the Sudanese community. Care and protection authorities were quick to respond to inter-generational conflict and violence among Sudanese families. Yet, lack of cultural knowledge and understanding of the reasons for non-compliance with Australian family law among Sudanese parents led to inappropriate interventions, undermining Sudanese family structures. Parents at large were left feeling disempowered in their parenting roles and confused about the purpose of government interventions. Rather than engaging with the confusion of Sudanese parents, agencies rebuffed their growing grievance and anger adding to the emerging narrative in the Sudanese community of their unfair and disrespectful treatment at the hands of authorities. Threatened and distrustful that care and protection were eroding their families' future and the heritage virtues underpinning their cultural and self-identities, Sudanese parents responded by socially distancing themselves. The last part of the thesis takes a psycho-social approach to show how the Sudanese Australians' strong sense of disrespect is linked to a range of systemic barriers or threats from the government and its authorities to pursue and cultivate aspects of their selves that are fundamental to their core identity. The community's call for respect was an expression of grievance and resistance to elicit some response of care and concern from those holding economic and social power over them. It was their protest, the purpose of which was to assert their personal dignity and to object to their neglectful treatment. It was an appropriate and responsible demonstration of engagement with their new country: the Australian Government needed and had a responsibility to hear their voices. The research concludes by arguing that a more inclusive and responsive handling of resettlement support by the government is more likely to result in positive resettlement outcomes, including a sense among humanitarian migrants that their treatment is fair, just, and respectful of their positive understanding of themselves.