Successful British Migration to Australia—what lies beneath the macro-level?

ABSTRACT

What is successful migration? At a macro-socio-political level migration by individuals may appear to be successful when it has met the objectives of governments, industries and domestic profit makers. However, delving beneath the surface can reveal contradictions and other measures of success at the individual, or micro-level. Within a broader critical historical ethnography, we interviewed 26 post-World War 2 (WW2) British migrants living in South Australia. All interviewees could be viewed as successful at the macro-level, having remained in Australia for many years and having established multi-generational Australian families. Their migration was a ‘success’ when measured against the priorities that were actively promoted by Australian governments in the post-WW2 period. At a micro-level, the migrants involved in this study reported mixed outcomes. While migration did result in self-identified aims of migration including employment, opportunities and adventure, some migrants reported high levels of distress and longing, linked to loss and dislocation from people and places in geographically distant locales. For some, these feelings extended into the present, raising questions over the ‘success’ of their migration experiences at a personal level. We argue that pro-active migration recruitment—such as that undertaken by Australian governments in the post-WW2 period—has the potential to pressure some persons into migration, creating ongoing and unresolvable tensions. Experiences of such disruptions merit further exploration to develop deeper critical understandings of migration success.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• migrants
• success
• adventure
• opportunity
• loss

Acknowledgements

Graeme Hugo was a generous colleague and friend to many people. We acknowledge his leadership in the field of migration studies. Lisel O’Dwyer would like to acknowledge the support, mentoring and friendship that Graeme offered her over many years. Vale good friend. We also thank and acknowledge the feedback from our reviewers and the editors of this special issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The understanding of power used throughout this paper is essentially Weberian (Weber 1978). Power is the ability to get what the individual (or a collective of individuals, i.e. powerbrokers) wishes.

2. Following Playford's loss of leadership in 1965, the British migration scheme continued as it had become well established. However, the archives reveal that it did not survive the curtailing of federal funding in the early 1970s, alongside changes in domestic politics (Young 2010).

3. All interviewees are identified by a name that they chose to be known by. This was usually their first name but sometimes a nickname.

4. The term ‘grey nomads’' refers to Australian retirees who travel across the country for extended periods of time by caravan, motor-home, campervan, or converted bus (Onyx and Leonard 2007; Westh 2001).