African Youth Gangs: The Marginalization of South Sudanese Young People in Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

South Sudanese youth especially young male youth face racism and discrimination in Australia. This research was conducted with South Sudanese young people, and stakeholders within the South Sudanese community in Melbourne, Australia. The study explored how South Sudanese young people respond to the narrative in the media about ‘African Gangs’ and how this impacted their personal experiences of racism. The study used an exploratory, qualitative case study approach in a real-world setting, underpinned by the psychosocial conceptual framework. The analysis documented areas of concern, including the poor mental health arising from racism and racial profiling.

Keywords:

• Refugee
• media
• police
• youth gangs
• racism
• mental health
• South Sudanese

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge our research participants who gave their time and shared their thoughts and experiences. This study is part of a larger doctoral study undertaken by the first author, who was supported under the Australian Government Research Training Program.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the first authors University Human Research Ethics Committee.

Consent for publication

All data was obtained with the consent of the participants involved in the study with ethics-approved consent forms.

Disclosure statement

The corresponding author worked as a program manager of a community organization which engaged in outreach work with some of the participants.

Authors’ contributions

The authors made contributions to the design and conception of the study. The first author undertook data collection, analysis and interpretation of the data. The first author designed and drafted the manuscript. The second author contributed to the critical revision of the content of the research, analysis, drafts of the article and gave final approval for review.

Availability of data and material

The data used for this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.