Suchergebnisse

This book reveals the structures of poverty, power, patriarchy and imperialistic health policies that underpin what the World Health Organization calls the "hidden disease" of vaginal fistulas in Africa. By employing critical feminist and post-colonial perspectives, it shows how "leaking black female bodies" are constructed, ranked, stratified and marginalised in global maternal health care, and explains why women in Africa are at risk of developing vaginal fistulas and then having adequate treatment delayed or denied. Drawing on face-to-face, in-depth interviews with 30 Kenyan women, it paints a rare social portrait of the heartbreaking challenges for Kenyan women living with this most profound gender-related health issue - an experience of shame, taboo and abjection with severe implications for women's wellbeing, health and sexuality. In absolutely groundbreaking depth, this book shows why research on vaginal fistulas must incorporate feminist understandings of bodily experience to inform future practices and knowledge

Abstract
Theorising how race and Africanness intersect in the professional lives of African immigrants can provide a nuanced understanding of how racial identities shape the professional identities of Black Africans in Australia. This article is contextualised within a larger study that sought to explore the Afro-diasporic experiences of highly skilled Black African immigrants in South Australia. Particularly, it examines how Black African professionals experience their workplace. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews with twenty-seven Black African professionals in South Australia. The findings from this study reveal that the often-accepted narrative of race-free workplaces is not one that is supported by Black African immigrants' experiences, as they report constant, subtle and covert patterns of racial microaggressions in the workplace. Utilising critical race theories, this article makes the invisibility of microaggressions visible by probing how the Black body is worn as a burden in the workplace, which consequently produces psychological distress and racial battle fatigue. This study will provide social work practitioners with a critical understanding of the various challenges facing African professionals in the workplace, and how processes of racialisation at work may impact on psychological safety in this environment.

Chapter 1—Contextualising Afrodiasporic cultures and identities -- Chapter 2—The politics of blackness: Theorising Afrodiasporic identities and experiences -- Chapter 3—The boundaries of belonging: Misrecognition and challenges of representation -- Chapter 4—The workplace as a racial battleground and devaluation of Black expertise -- Chapter 5—Families growing through change: Dynamics in the Afrodiasporic family -- Chapter 6—Parenting Black children in white spaces -- Chapter 7—Afro-masculinities in an Australian context -- Chapter 8—Resilient narratives: Telling our stories, our way -- Chapter 9—Conclusion: A way forward for policy, practitioners and researchers.

AbstractBelonging is political. While it is a felt‐and‐embodied experience, it is also heavily mediated by power. For racially and culturally minoritised people, belonging is expressed in hidden, often racialised codes articulated through an "us and them" framework. Within this systematic scoping review, critical issues of belonging are made visible, indicating that belonging for Black Africans in Australia is a highly racialised and complex cultural experience and significantly impacts their sense of self, identity, agency, citizenship and participation, social integration and inclusion. This study found the core themes on experiences of belonging for this cohort, are: (1) Racialised (non)belonging, (2) Belonging as access, (3) Belonging as a civic process, (4) Belonging as an active process and (5) Re‐claiming belonging. In summary, Black African migrants experienced significant challenges with access to decent employment, housing, education, health services and relationships (including potential dating partners), which affected their sense of felt belonging. The literature showed that belonging for this group was a constant negotiation. It included constructing and reconstructing dual identities to accommodate their experiences of Australianness and Africanness while resisting labels that homogenised them. There was also an active process of building belonging through reclaiming places of community and dignity.

AbstractThe #BlackLivesMatter Movement has amplified the role of social media in visibilising anti‐Black violence. Drawing on the narratives and expertise of those who have experienced anti‐Black racism, this paper employs the theoretical concept of racial dignity to highlight how young African Australians participate in racial discourse on social media. The findings of this paper demonstrate that social media is a significant site where Black African youth reclaim racial dignity through: 1) reversing the white gaze; 2) recognising and calling out anti‐blackness; and 3) cultivating and engaging in communities of healing and belonging. Through these digital practices, Black African youth in Australia foster racial agency that promotes positive self‐recognition, racial resilience and racial dignity. We argue, therefore, that social media offer Black African young people in Australia spaces to engage in positive expressions of Afro‐blackness and challenge anti‐blackness in ways that are safer to them than in physical, offline settings in white contexts.

AbstractThis paper employs a critical race theory (CRT) perspective to probe the experiences of skilled African migrants parenting Black children in Australia, a predominantly White country. Two key themes emerged from this study: (1) the need to explicitly teach children about race and racism and to foster positive racial identities and (2) the complexities of navigating tensions between 'African' and 'Western' cultural values. Participants demonstrated high levels of awareness of intercultural parenting approaches and a desire to blend the best aspects of African and Australian cultural values in their own parenting practice. A significant paradox was also apparent in the tension between parental desires to inculcate pride in African ancestry and culture, while simultaneously encouraging children to 'curate' their blackness to minimize experiences of racialization. Social workers in Australia often play a critical role in the lives of migrant families as they support them to negotiate transitions in parenting contexts. Although this paper only offers a perspective on the parenting experiences of skilled African migrants and how they creatively manage the tensions and change emerging from this process, we suggest that this understanding helps to expand knowledge on the complexity of parenting in multicultural, transcultural and intercultural contexts.

AbstractInterracial relationships are situated historically within a complex racial discourse. At the height of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement in 2020, interracial relationships were tested, broken and repaired, whilst others were unable to withstand the racial destabilisation summoned by the Movement. In this article, we theorise how Blac/k bodies are organised and structured within systems of racial hierachialisation and the impact of this within relational contexts. Probing concepts of silence, fragility and allyship, which underpin the white racial frame, we provide critical argumentations of how processes of racialisation impact personal relationships where variables of blackness and whiteness are produced as sites of racial contestation. We argue that the political significance of race enters interracial relationships and theoretically transforms them into racial battlegrounds.

Abstract
After World War II, an estimated five million people were on the move in Czechoslovakia. Between 1954 and 1970, over 16,000 of them immigrated to Australia. This paper is part of a larger research project that provides an in-depth inquiry of the lived experiences of 18 post-World War II emigrants from Czechoslovakia, who are now Australian citizens. Findings reveal emigrants' significant emotional reflections about their life in Czechoslovakia and provide vivid phenomenological accounts of their views about their original country's political and economic context and life within it, as well as challenges related to leaving the country and their lived experiences as displaced persons in foreign countries and Displaced Persons camps.

Abstract After World War II, an estimated five million people were on the move in Czechoslovakia. Between 1954 and 1970, over 16,000 of them immigrated to Australia. This paper is part of a larger research project that provides an in-depth inquiry of the lived experiences of 18 post-World War II emigrants from Czechoslovakia, who are now Australian citizens. Findings reveal emigrants' significant emotional reflections about their life in Czechoslovakia and provide vivid phenomenological accounts of their views about their original country's political and economic context and life within it, as well as challenges related to leaving the country and their lived experiences as displaced persons in foreign countries and Displaced Persons camps.

This article discusses the impact and implications of 'I'm a Local…', an initiative developed in partnership between a regional university, a refugee resettlement community organisation and former refugees from African nations in a regional Australian community. The initiative sought to improve understandings about refugees, acknowledge their contributions to Australian society and support local, inclusive cultures. It included the development of public resources exploring the process of former refugees in establishing a sense of belonging and becoming 'locals'. Racialised 'Others' continue to be excluded from 'belonging' within Australian communities at a wide range of practical and symbolic levels, so it remains an ongoing challenge to broaden the experience of belonging, challenge the borders erected around 'local' identities, and work to transform Australia's post-colonial paradigm. 'I'm a Local…' provides an instructive example of how change agents from different sectors working collaboratively can dismantle prevailing discourses and affirm more inclusive and hopeful futures.