Gestures of judgement and welcome in public spaces: hypervisible migrant newcomers in Darwin, Australia

Abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research to show how pigmentation intensities of skin and facial characteristics make bodies of colour recognisable in public spaces of Darwin, a small multiethnic and multiracial north Australian city. This paper shows that the visibility of newcomers, in particular, humanitarian migrants from countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, circulates negative sentiments of fear, anxiety and discomfort in public spaces when instantaneous judgements are made. These judgements of misrecognition made by residents of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds lead to simmering tensions that unfold as visceral events of vulnerability in public spaces such as bus interchanges, neighbourhood streets, shopping centres and car parks. These events that have the potential to wound and numb bodies contribute to the “urban unconscious” of Darwin as a city where public spaces are safe with heightened surveillance. This paper argues, however, that events of hypervisibility, judgement and interracial tensions can unfold quite differently in public spaces if humanitarian migrants sense gestures of welcome, particularly from Aboriginals. Such fleeting moments of welcome in Darwin have the potential to bring together bodies with different histories and geographies of racialisation, so that multiple publics emerge through everyday habits of living with difference.

Keywords:

• migrants
• Aboriginals
• Darwin
• public space
• racism
• urban unconscious

Acknowledgments

This research was possible through an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher award and an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship, Deakin University, Melbourne. I would like to thank the residents of Darwin, Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Multicultural Council of the Northern Territory and the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, for their support. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Chacko and David Kaplan, editors of this special issue. Valuable comments from the referees have helped me strengthen this paper considerably and I thank them too. Thanks to David Kelly who prepared the map.

Notes

1. I use the term “humanitarian migrant” to describe newcomers who arrive in Australia through the Special Humanitarian Programme as well as asylum seekers with humanitarian needs. Within official documents, those who arrive through the Special Humanitarian Programme are described as “humanitarian clients” or refugees (Australian Government 2013).