Racial Othering and Relational Wellbeing: African Refugee Youth in Australia

Racialised and culturally distinct refugee groups increasingly face hostilities and negative representations in countries of resettlment. The experience of African refugee youth in Australia illustrates this general trend. This paper explores how racial Othering discourse seriously undermines the gr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social sciences (Basel) 2023-11, Vol.12 (11), p.609
Main Author: Molla, Tebeje
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African refugee youth
Australia
Book publishing
Criminality
Cultural heritage
Fear & phobias
Humanitarianism
Immigration
Media violence
Politicians
Politics
Populism
Quality of life
racial Othering
refugee integration
Refugees
Refugees, African
Shame
Social aspects
Stigma
Teenagers
the capability approach
Violence
Welfare economics
wellbeing
Xenophobia
Youth
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Summary:Racialised and culturally distinct refugee groups increasingly face hostilities and negative representations in countries of resettlment. The experience of African refugee youth in Australia illustrates this general trend. This paper explores how racial Othering discourse seriously undermines the group’s wellbeing. The article concentrates in particular on two aspects of relational wellbeing, the capacity to move in public without fear or shame and the ability to feel a sense of belonging to the place where one lives in. Theoretically, the paper draws together work on wellbeing from a capability approach and relational perspective with interdisciplinary literature on racial Othering. Empirically, the paper demonstrates the pervasive culture of racial Othering through media identifications of African youth with criminality and gang violence and illustrates impacts on young people’s wellbeing through data from interviews with African refugee youth. The youth’s accounts show how it feels to be a problem and what it means not to belong.
ISSN:2076-0760
2076-0760
DOI:10.3390/socsci12110609