Perpetual Strangerhood: Experiences of Highly Skilled African-Australian Professionals in the Workplace

Event Recording - Dr Kathomi Gatwiri presents as part of the Migration, Refugees & Statelessness Seminar Series, presented in partnership with the Melbourne Social Equity Institute.

Recent research mapping trends and the contributions of members of the African Diaspora in Australia has emphasised the ‘need to establish a new discourse for Africans in Australia which transcends the dominant refugee narrative ’ (Hiruy and Hutton).The increasing size and diversity of African communities in Australia has been met with high levels of public and media scrutiny as debates about immigration in Australia become complicated by the rising influence of nationalist discourses.

Through mediatised moral panics that locate ‘African blackness’ as dangerous and unassimilable, resulting mainstream attitudes towards Black African migrants enforce their experiences of ‘conditional belonging and perpetual strangerhood ’ in Australia. Critical perspectives assist in effectively documenting, theorising and sharing the stories and experiences of Africans in Australia with a dignified sociological nuance.

Dr Kathomi Gatwiri is a senior social work lecturer in the Faculty of Health at Southern Cross University and a practising psychotherapist. Her award-winning interdisciplinary research investigates the topics of racial trauma, belonging, blackness, and Africanness in Australia . Dr Gatwiri is a regular writer and commentator for SBS, ABC, and The Conversation. She is the  Founder and Director of  Healing Together , a service that provides accessible, culturally safe therapeutic support for people who have been impacted by racial trauma. She is also the author of African Womanhood and Incontinent Bodies (Springer).