ABSTRACT

This paper offers an exploration of how race shapes the migration trajectories and labour market experiences of Black African youth who migrated to deindustrialising Newcastle, a traditionally White working-class city. The paper draws on qualitative data gathered from interviews with 20 Black African youth (10 males and 10 females) residing in the city in 2018. Their ages ranged between 18 and 30 years and they migrated to Australia under different circumstances as students or dependents of their carers who travelled to Australia as skilled migrants or as refugees. These young people migrated to Australia from different African countries including: The Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Liberia, Uganda and Ghana. Theorising their experiences through decolonial theory and Critical Race Theory, this paper explores how these young migrants imagined Australia pre-migration in contrast with how they experienced Australia post-migration. With this, the paper forwards the argument that pre-migration Black African youth draw on modernist notions of development associated with Whiteness to position Australia as a developed place, and they have the expectation that once in Australia these experiences of development would be available to them. Post-migration, these young people negotiate being racialised on the labour market while looking for work and working, meaning that these experiences of ‘development’ are not available to them. The paper concludes by reflecting on the importance of accounting for how other processes like racialisation impact on young people’s experiences of migration and labour market engagement in deindustrialising localities like Newcastle.

摘要

本文探讨了种族如何塑造迁移到非工业化纽卡斯尔（一个传统的白人工人阶级城市）的非洲黑人青年的迁移轨迹和劳动力市场经验。该论文利用了 2018 年对居住在该市的 20 名非洲黑人青年（10 名男性和 10 名女性）的采访收集的定性数据。他们的年龄在 18 至 30 岁之间，他们在不同的情况下作为学生或家属移民到澳大利亚以技术移民或难民身份前往澳大利亚的护理人员。这些年轻人从不同的非洲国家移民到澳大利亚，包括：几内亚比绍共和国、卢旺达、津巴布韦、布隆迪、肯尼亚、尼日利亚、利比里亚、乌干达和加纳。通过非殖民主义理论和批判种族理论将他们的经历理论化，本文探讨了这些年轻移民如何想象移民前的澳大利亚，以及他们如何体验移民后的澳大利亚。有了这个，论文提出了这样的论点，即移民前的非洲黑人青年利用与白人相关的现代主义发展观念将澳大利亚定位为发达的地方，他们期望一旦在澳大利亚，这些发展经验将提供给他们. 移民后，这些年轻人在寻找工作和工作的同时在劳动力市场上谈判被种族化，这意味着他们无法获得这些“发展”经验。