African Australians

Last updated

African Australians
Total population
326,673 (2021 census) [1]
1.3% of Australia's population
Flag of New South Wales.svg  New South Wales 75,942 (1.02%)
Flag of Queensland.svg  Queensland 64,112 (1.32%)
Flag of Western Australia.svg  Western Australia 66,744 (2.61%)
Flag of the Northern Territory.svg  Northern Territory 2,660 (1.08%)
Flag of Victoria (Australia).svg  Victoria 90,640 (1.47%)
Flag of South Australia.svg  South Australia 17,607 (1.03%)
Flag of Tasmania.svg  Tasmania 3,434 (0.66%)
Flag of the Australian Capital Territory.svg  Australian Capital Territory 5,504 (1.37%)
Languages
Religion

African Australians are Australians descended from the any peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from various regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within Sub-Saharan African ancestral groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to 1.3%. [1] [2]

Contents

Large-scale immigration from Africa to Australia is only a recent phenomenon, with Europe and Asia traditionally being the largest sources of migration to Australia. African Australians come from diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, educational and employment backgrounds.

History

An agricultural officer from Ghana visiting Queensland under the Special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan, 1960s In the laboratory of the Queensland Agriculture and Stock Department's Animal Research Institute , 1962.jpg
An agricultural officer from Ghana visiting Queensland under the Special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan, 1960s

Large-scale immigration from Africa to Australia is only a recent phenomenon, with Europe and Asia traditionally being the largest sources of migration to Australia. [3]

Coins minted by the Tanzanian medieval kingdom of Kilwa Sultanate have been found on the Wessel Islands. They are the oldest foreign artefacts ever discovered in Australia. [4] Other people descended from African emigrants later arrived indirectly via the First Fleet and 19th century multicultural maritime industry. Notable examples are Billy Blue, John Caesar, [5] [6] and Black Jack Anderson. [7]

Migrants from Mauritius have also been arriving in Australia since before federation in 1901. They came as convicts, prospectors who sought Victoria's goldfields, or skilled sugar workers who significantly helped to develop Queensland's sugar industry. [8]

Following the 1823 Demerara Slave Rebellion in British Guiana, several hundreds of enslaved Africans who had participated in the rebellion were deported to Queensland, Australia.

The Special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan enabled students from British Commonwealth African countries, including from Ghana, to travel to Australia during the mid-1960s. More than 70 percent of those from West African countries remained in Australia following military coup d'états in their countries of birth. [9]

However, immigration from Africa to Australia generally remained limited until the 1990s, thus compared to other established European and American countries, African Australian community remains new in the country itself.[ citation needed ]

In 2005–06, permanent settler arrivals to Australia included 4,000 South Africans and 3,800 Sudanese, constituting the sixth and seventh largest sources of migrants, respectively.[ citation needed ]

Demographics

African Australians are Australians of direct Sub-Saharan African ancestry. [10] [11] [1] They are from diverse racial, cultural, linguistic, religious, educational and employment backgrounds. [12] The majority (72.6%) of African emigrants to Australia are from southern and eastern Africa. [13] The Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies all residents into cultural and ethnic groups according to geographical origin. [14]

Migration streams

People of South African ancestry whose parents were both born in Australia as a fraction of total residents Australian Census 2011 demographic map - Australia by SLA - BCP field 1196 South African Both parents born in Australia.svg
People of South African ancestry whose parents were both born in Australia as a fraction of total residents

Some of the most significant migration streams as of 2011-2012 were as follows:

Broadcasting services for African migrants

Multicultural broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) broadcasts in five African languages on radio, including Dinka of South Sudan, Swahili of Tanzania and the African Great Lakes region, Tigrinya of Eritrea and Amharic of Ethiopia. [15] Arabic broadcasting began with a 6am service by SBS in 1975, and from 2016, SBS began a year-long trial of SBS Arabic 24, a 24/7 digital radio station and website. [16] It continues today and includes an Arabic24 podcast. [17] An English language program, simply called SBS African (nicknamed the African Hour) was broadcast until 2017, when it was cut from schedule. 2ME Radio Arabic also broadcasts in Arabic throughout Australia.

Social status

As Africans only began to migrate to Australia in larger numbers much later than Africans were brought to the United States as slaves, and those who settled in parts of Europe, African Australian status is largely a new challenge for Australian authorities, and it is acknowledged that widespread racism against Africans is not uncommon in Australia. [18] [19] Research on the experience of African Australians began in the 2000s [20] and more has been conducted since the 2010s as more and more Africans, mostly from East Africa, have arrived in the country. [21]

Relationship to Indigenous Australians

The concept of how the American notion of "blackness" was adopted and adapted by Aboriginal civil rights activists has been little known or understood in the US. In 2011, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in New York mounted an exhibition of Indigenous Australian art, concerned with making connections between the current civil rights and spiritual movements of Indigenous Australians and that of black people in America and elsewhere. [22]

A 2012 study looked at attitudes towards African immigrants in Western Australia, based on a survey of 184 Australians, examining the quantitative data for use in developing strategies to combat prejudice, and the media's role in the development of negative attitudes. It compared the results of the study with those previously found in looking at attitudes towards Indigenous and Muslim Australians. [23]

Natasha Guantai, in response to Roxane Gay's initial implication that the only "black people" in Australia would be of African descent, wrote "In the dominant Australian narrative, blacks are regarded as Aboriginal. This is a narrative with little space for non-Indigenous black Australians". Guantai goes on to highlight some differences in the experience of the various groups - Indigenous Australians, immigrants from Africa, the black descendants of settlers, and black people who arrive from other white-majority countries such as the UK or the US. [24]

In 2018 Kaiya Aboagye, a PhD student of Ghanaian, Aboriginal, South Sea and Torres Strait Islander heritage, [25] underlined the African connection to Aboriginal Australians, citing "long histories of African/Indigenous relationships both inside and outside Australia", despite the many and varied origins and experiences of blackness among peoples in the Global South. [26]

Relationship with the criminal justice system

In 2021, it was reported that African Australians, predominantly of South Sudanese descent, comprised 19 percent of young people in custody in Victoria, despite making up less than 0.5 percent of the overall population. Previously, in 2013 Victoria Police settled a racial profiling complaint lodged by members of the African community by agreeing to review its procedures. A 2020 study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology found that South Sudanese-born individuals were significantly overrepresented in as perpetrators of "crimes against the person", such as robbery and assault, but that "rates for less serious crimes, such as public order and drug offences, have remained stable and relatively low for South Sudanese-born youth". [27]

Organized crime

This section is an excerpt from Organised crime in Australia § African gangs.[ edit ]

Melbourne is known for having a number of unidentified African gangs, often described as "Sudanese gangs", despite Sudanese Australians only committing around 1% of all crimes in Melbourne. [28] In 2018, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described the presence of Sudanese gangs in Melbourne as a "real concern", with then-Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claiming that Melburnians were afraid to leave their homes at night due to gang-related violence. Then-Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews rejected Turnbull's comments. [29]

The presence of African organised crime in Melbourne was a key part in the Victorian Liberal Party's campaign for the 2018 state election under then-Opposition Leader Matthew Guy. [30] [31] [32] The party promised to tackle gang-related violence in Melbourne.

Additionally, African gangs also maintain a presence in Sydney. [33]

African Australian identity

African Australian identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an African Australian and as relating to being African Australian. As a group identity, "African Australian" can denote pan-African ethnic identity, as well as a diasporic identity in relation to the perception of Africa as a homeland. [34]

Notable African Australians

This list includes only individuals who immigrated directly from Africa to Australia, plus those who had an immediate ancestor who made such a migration. Individuals of African origin who migrated from non-African countries, or those whose entire African ancestry stems from such migration, are not included.

In recent years, African Australian soccer players have been prominent in men's soccer in Australia, with 34 players making an appearance in the 2020-2021 A-League season, up on 26 the previous year. These include Kusini Yengi and his brother, Tete Yengi, from South Sudan, and their friends, brothers Mohamed and Al Hassan Toure. [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Australia policy</span> Historical racial policies in Australia

The White Australia policy was a set of racist policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origins – especially Asians and Pacific Islanders – from immigrating to Australia in order to create a "white/British" ideal focused on but not exclusively Anglo-Celtic peoples. Pre-Federation, the Australian colonies passed many anti-Chinese immigration laws mainly using Poll Taxes, with Federation in 1901 came discrimination based on the Dictation Test, which effectively gave power to immigration officials to racially discriminate without mentioning race. The policy also affected immigrants from Germany, Italy, and other European countries, especially in wartime. Governments progressively dismantled such policies between 1949 and 1973. At first these changes were due to international pressure and were token modifications designed to maintain a white Australia until the Whitlam government removed the last racial elements of Australia's immigration laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Australia</span>

The population of Australia is estimated to be 27,034,500 as of 19 February 2024. Australia is the 55th most populous country in the world and the most populous Oceanian country. Its population is concentrated mainly in urban areas, particularly on the Eastern, South Eastern and Southern seaboards, and is expected to exceed 30 million by 2029.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic origins of people in Canada</span>

According to the 2021 Canadian census, over 450 "ethnic or cultural origins" were self-reported by Canadians. The major panethnic origin groups in Canada are: European (52.5%), North American (22.9%), Asian (19.3%), North American Indigenous (6.1%), African (3.8%), Latin, Central and South American (2.5%), Caribbean (2.1%), Oceanian (0.3%), and Other (6%). Statistics Canada reports that 35.5% of the population reported multiple ethnic origins, thus the overall total is greater than 100%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Australians</span> Ethnic group in Australia

Irish Australians are an ethnic group of Australian citizens of Irish descent, which include immigrants from and descendants whose ancestry originates from the island of Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asian Australians</span> Australian of Asian ethnicity or ancestry

Asian Australians are Australians of Asian ancestry, including naturalised Australians who are immigrants from various regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants. At the 2021 census, the proportion of the population identifying as Asian amounted to approximately 17.4 percent with breakdowns of 6.5 percent from Southern and Central Asia, 6.4 percent from North-East Asia, and 4.5 percent from South-East Asia.

Sri Lankan Australians are people of Sri Lankan heritage living in Australia; this includes Sri Lankans by birth and by ancestry. Sri Lankan Australians constitute one of the largest groups of Overseas Sri Lankan communities and are the largest diasporic Sri Lankan community in Oceania. Sri Lankan Australians consist of people with Sinhalese, Tamil, Moor, Burgher, Malay and Chinese origins among others.

Sudanese Australians are people of Sudanese origin or descent living in Australia. The largest population of Sudanese Australians reside in Victoria (6,085).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australians</span> Nationals of Australia

Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Australian. Australian law does not provide for a racial or ethnic component of nationality, instead relying on citizenship as a legal status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gangs in the United States</span> US criminal groups or organizations

Approximately 1.4 million people in the United States were part of gangs as of 2011, and more than 33,000 gangs were active in the country. These include national street gangs, local street gangs, prison gangs, outlaw motorcycle clubs, and ethnic and organized crime gangs.

Taiwanese Australians are Australian citizens or permanent residents who carry full or partial ancestry from the East Asian island country of Taiwan or from preceding Taiwanese regimes.

Zimbabwean Australians are Australian citizens who are fully or partially of Zimbabwean descent or Zimbabwe-born people who reside in Australia. They include migrants to Australia of people from Zimbabwe, as well as their descendants. Today, there are over 65,000 Zimbabwean Australians, with significant growth since 2000, coinciding with the sociopolitical crisis there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racism in Australia</span> Overview of racial discrimination in Australia

Racism in Australia comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are held by various people and groups in Australia, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and actions at various times in the history of Australia against racial or ethnic groups.

Various examples of violence have been attributed to racial factors during the recorded history of Australia since white settlement, and a level of intertribal rivalry and violence among Indigenous Australians pre-dates the arrival of white settlers from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1788.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiculturalism in Australia</span> Feature of Australian society

Multiculturalism in Australia is today reflected by the multicultural composition of its people, its immigration policies, its prohibition on discrimination, equality before the law of all persons, as well as various cultural policies which promote diversity, such as the formation of the Special Broadcasting Service.

South Sudanese Australians are people of South Sudanese ancestry or birth who live in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australia–South Sudan relations</span> Bilateral relations

Official relations exist between Australia and South Sudan. While the two countries do not have official embassies in each other's nation, they share a strong and common tie.

African Australian identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an African Australian and as relating to being African Australian. As a group identity, African Australian can denote pan-African ethnic identity, as well as a diasporic identity in relation to the perception of Africa as a homeland. This has been shown to be based on both a cultural association with Africa and blood-ancestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kusini Yengi</span> Australian soccer player

Kusini Boja Yengi is an Australian professional soccer player who plays as a striker for EFL League One club Portsmouth and the Australia national team.

Asian immigration to Australia refers to immigration to Australia from part of the continent of Asia, which includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.The first major wave of Asian immigration to Australia occurred in the late 19th century, but the exclusionary White Australia policy, which was implemented to restrict non-European immigration, made it difficult for many Asian immigrants to migrate to the country. However, with the passage of the Migration Act 1958, the White Australia policy began to be phased out and Asian immigration to Australia increased significantly. Today, Asian immigrants from a wide range of countries play an important role in the cultural and economic landscape of Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Australian Bureau of Statistics : Census of Population and Housing: Cultural diversity data summary, 2021" (XLSX). Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  2. ↑ "Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), 2019 | Australian Bureau of Statistics". 18 December 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Settler arrival data: selected countries of birth by migration stream for the financial year 2011–12". Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Archived from the original on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  4. ↑ "Unravelling the mystery of Arnhem Land's ancient African coins". Australian Geographic. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  5. ↑ "The First Fleet, Botany Bay and the British penal colony". NSW Government.
  6. ↑ "A Multicultural First Fleet". University of Wollongong. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  7. ↑ Pownall, Angela (26 March 2012). "In search of pirate Black Jack". The West Australian . Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  8. ↑ "Working together to keep Australia safe" (PDF). Immi.gov.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  9. ↑ "Community Information Summary: Ghana-born" (PDF). Department of Immigration & Citizenship. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2014.
  10. ↑ "African Australians: A Report on Human Rights and Social Inclusion Issues" (PDF). Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved 23 November 2013. It is a common misconception that people from African backgrounds are one and the same. While the strong African spirit and pride certainly unifies, people from African backgrounds represent tremendous diversity in ethnicity, race, language, culture and religion. After all, the African continent comprises more than 50 countries. The impression of homogeneity is only one of many misconceptions about African Australians.
  11. ↑ "Joint Submission on the Australian Human Rights Commission Discussion Paper: African Australians: A report on human rights and social inclusion issues" (PDF). NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC). Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  12. ↑ "African resettlement in Australia: Conference report" (PDF). African Think Tank Inc. April 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2008.
  13. ↑ "Overview: African Australians – Compendium". Australian Human Rights Commission. 2010. At the time of the 2006 census...
  14. ↑ "Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), 2011". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 16 August 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
  15. ↑ "SBS unveils new Radio Schedule". sbs.com.au. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  16. ↑ Porter, Kristian (10 March 2016). "SBS launches 24/7 Arabic radio channel". Public Media Alliance. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  17. ↑ "Home page". SBS Arabic24. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  18. ↑ Mapedzahama, Virginia; Kwansah-Aidoo, Kwamena (2017). "Blackness as Burden? The Lived Experience of Black Africans in Australia". SAGE Open. SAGE Publications. 7 (3): 1–13. doi: 10.1177/2158244017720483 . ISSN   2158-2440. pdf CC-BY icon.svg Text from this source is available under a Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
  19. ↑ Gatwiri, Kathomi (3 April 2019). "Growing Up African in Australia: Racism, resilience and the right to belong". The Conversation. Retrieved 3 November 2020. Review: Growing Up African in Australia, edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Magan Magan and Ahmed Yussuf
  20. ↑ Mergia, Ayalew (October 2005). Black African immigrants in Australia: An exploratory analysis of the impacts of race and class on their lived experiences and adaptation processes (PhD). University of Melbourne . Retrieved 4 November 2020– via Minerva Access. PDF
  21. ↑ Udah, Hyacinth; Singh, Parlo; Hiruy, Kiroy; Mwanri, Lillian (21 July 2019). "African Immigrants to Australia: Barriers and Challenges to Labor Market Success". Journal of Asian and African Studies. SAGE Publications. 54 (8): 1159–1174. doi:10.1177/0021909619861788. ISSN   0021-9096. S2CID   200076025.
  22. ↑ Vartanian, Hrag (28 September 2011). "Is Australian Aboriginal Art Part of the African Diaspora?". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  23. ↑ Khan, Safiyya; Pedersen, Anne (23 February 2012). "Black African Immigrants to Australia: Prejudice and the Function of Attitudes - Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology". Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology. 4 (2): 116–129. doi: 10.1375/prp.4.2.116 . ISSN   1834-4909. PDF
  24. ↑ Guantai, Natasha (10 March 2015). "Are there Black people in Australia?". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  25. ↑ "Kaiya Aboagye". Writing NSW. 14 February 2020. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  26. ↑ Aboagye, Kaiya (2018). "Australian Blackness, the African Diaspora and Afro/Indigenous Connections in the Global South". Transition. Indiana University Press (126): 72–85. doi:10.2979/transition.126.1.11. ISSN   0041-1191. JSTOR   10.2979/transition.126.1.11. S2CID   159021142.
  27. ↑ Shepherd, Stephane (25 March 2021). "Too many young African-Australians are in jail. Some blame police, but the data tells a more complex story". ABC News. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  28. ↑ "Fact check: Do Sudanese people account for only 1 per cent of crimes committed in Victoria?". ABC News. 4 September 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  29. ↑ "Sudanese gangs a 'real concern' in Melbourne, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says - ABC News". amp.abc.net.au. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  30. ↑ "How the panic about Melbourne's so-called African gangs haunts this Victorian election | Victoria state election 2022 | The Guardian". amp.theguardian.com. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  31. ↑ "African gang panic in Melbourne: Lessons from a scare campaign one state election later". amp.theage.com.au. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  32. ↑ "Vietnamese, Sudanese gang conflict in Melbourne". amp.9news.com.au. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  33. ↑ Daily telegraph https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=DTWEB_MRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailytelegraph.com.au%2Fnews%2Fnsw%2Fnsw-police-call-out-sudanese-crime-groups-as-african-gangs-involved-in-crime-spree%2Fnews-story%2F62a11f07ac254c238014a9933843679a&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=dynamic-high-control-score&V21spcbehaviour=append . Retrieved 19 February 2024.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  34. ↑ Abay Adhana (2017). "Strategic othering through 'African Australian' as a collective identity: A view from African background young people in Melbourne". La Trobe University. Externally Africans are collectively known as 'African Australians'. This label displays a generalised image for all African descent people. The colloquial phrase can be interpreted in two ways: first as group identity that signals pan-African ethnicity; and second as Diasporic identity appealing to reconnect back to their motherland.
  35. ↑ Chalmers, Max (22 June 2021). "Football's A-League is lighting up with a new generation of African-Australian players". ABC News. Radio National. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 4 July 2021.

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