New Australians as Good Australians: Constructing the Young Middle Eastern Refugee as the Good Citizen
Creators: name: Crealy, Isobel
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2022

description: This thesis investigates how young Middle Eastern refugees experience belonging in Australian society. It draws energy from a contemporary tension; on the one hand, political speech and immigration policies suggest that Middle Eastern refugees rank low among potential migrants on a 'hierarchy of desirability'; on the other hand, if refugees from this region continue to arrive (via regular or irregular pathways), they should be integrated to share the core values, attitudes and beliefs of the idealised 'community of value' as Good Citizens. The study's theoretical significance resides in the expansion of Foucault's notion of governmentality to explain how the state imagines, creates and shapes its population (and in particular, how it shapes new arrivals as members of the population or 'interpellated subjects'). Three concepts - myth-making, bordering practices and boundaring practices - are introduced as tools of governmentality. Myth-making evokes a collective imaginary through which the idealised Good Citizen is created and recreated. Bordering practices exert power to create a population, reflecting the Australian state's desire to enforce its territorial borders externally through immigration law and policy to exclude those that that it finds normatively undesirable. Complementing the established concept of bordering practices, 'boundaring practices' is introduced in this thesis to describe the action of the Australian state on those within its boundaries - utilising practices, procedures and institutions such as schools and settlement services, to create a community of 'Good Australians'. Following the development of this theoretical framework, the thesis presents and examines the actual experiences of young Middle Eastern refugees recorded through surveys and in-person interviews. This was complemented by interviews with service providers who work closely with refugee young people in the fields of education and settlement. This data serves as the basis for addressing three research questions: 1. How does myth-making about the Other and the Good Citizen reflect and/or impact on the lived experiences of young Middle Eastern refugees? 2. In what ways do bordering practices (immigration and policy and law) influence refugee young people's access to the state and belonging? 3. To what extent can boundaring practices (rooted in the desire to create and produce normative desirable members) facilitate belonging for the refugees in question? The thesis presents three principal findings. First, Middle Eastern refugee participants placed significant value on pathways to citizenship. Attainment of citizenship was viewed by many as the ultimate indicator of belonging and as the antithesis of the refugee experience. This was contrasted against those who had experienced long periods of precarity (including experiences of detention), who found it more difficult to make long-term plans or build connections in Australia. Secondly, participants emphasised the importance of English language learning and educational support for refugee young people. Those who experienced high levels of support from educators, community and peers reported high levels of connection to their society. Finally, although multiculturalism has a complex political history in Australia, participants reported that this ideology empowered them to maintain dual identities and helped them to feel accepted in the community. They found that multiculturalism allowed them to maintain cultural links to their home country and culture while simultaneously building connections to Australia. The study's significance arises from its capacity to draw on the rich narratives of refugee young people and to demonstrate how their experiences speak to a potential future for Australia. The study speaks to the role of the state in fostering belonging and interpellation among new arrivals, including Middle Eastern refugees, thereby promoting a community of Good Australians.