Tracking the Settlement of North African Immigrants: speculations on the social and cultural impacts of a newly arrived immigrant group

Abstract

In the past five years Australia has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of North African arrivals. The majority of North African arrivals for the past 4 years have arrived as humanitarian entrants. This migration stream reflected a shift in the regional focus of the humanitarian program towards Africa. The majority of North African arrivals since 2000–01 have been from Sudan. The States of New South Wales and Victoria received the highest proportions of these arrivals. Key issues, and important research topics for social scientists, are at least threefold. First, the domestic politics and international geopolitics of this humanitarian flow need critical analysis. Second, the suitability of settlement services needs to be assessed. Specifically, the effects and merit of privatising service provision to these refugees requires rigorous scholarly assessment. Finally, more needs to be known about the cultural adaptation of this group, especially youth. Research into the experiences of racism and, relatedly, the existence and appropriateness of anti-racism initiatives is required.

Keywords:

• Refugees
• North African
• settlement issues
• Sydney
• settlement services
• racism

Acknowledgements

The authors’ observations on the settlement experiences of North Africans in Sydney were only possible because of the thoughtful comments of the service professionals who kindly agreed to be interviewed. These included Florence Olugbemiro, Clare Darling, Lindy Zachy, and Carol Reid. Also, ACL provided considerable background detail and reports, which were very useful. Once again, the authors’ appreciations go to Edgar Liu for his assistance with mapping and data provision. Thanks are due to Karen McNamara, anonymous referees and Jim Forrest for comments on earlier drafts of this article, and to Karin Maeder-Han for her document fetching and checking.

Notes

1. The Special Humanitarian Program (SHP) visa (202 class) was introduced in 1981 so that Australia could accept migrants for humanitarian reasons but who had not yet met, or were unlikely to meet, formal UNHCR parameters for being recognised as a refugee (IDCHS 2006, p. 7). The SHP also provides the government with a good deal of flexibility and selectivity in determining who enters Australia.

2. African refugees do have a unique set of health issues which are related to long-term presence in refugee camps. However, there is no evidence that these health issues have led to any public health concerns in Australia (CRC 2006, pp. 73–86). There are, however, health provision issues for the refugees, including mental health issues related to displacement and the witnessing of severe human rights violations.