Becoming an African Diaspora in Australia : Language, Culture, Identity

To the memory of my father and hero, James Mabhuku Ndhlovu-Mhaso. Although you missed out on the opportunity to receive a modern education, you nevertheless understood the transformative power of education and the promises it holds for a better society ## This page intentionally left blank vii Contents ## List of Illustrations viii Preface ix ## Acknowledgements xii List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xiv members of the African community who participated in oral interviews and focus group discussions for their generosity with their time and information. To Tonkoh Kamara, Frank Jarfoi and Kassimiro Yanga I say thank you very much for facilitating the interviews and focus groups in Newcastle, Wagga Wagga and Coffs Harbour, respectively. To all my colleagues in the School of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Sciences at UNE I say thank you so much for providing the much needed collegial environment and academic support. Finally, to my academic mentor, Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, thank you for your continued guidance and critique of my work, which has seen me grow and develop into the senior academic I am today. Finally, to Libby Forrest and the editorial and production teams at Palgrave Macmillan I say thank you for a job well done. Becoming an African Diaspora in Australia uses new data on the identity formation process of migrant communities to rethink the vocabularies we use to look at language, culture and identity. Becoming an African Diaspora in Australia extends debates on identities, cultures and notions of race and racism into new directions as it analyses the forms of interactional identities of African migrants in Australia. It de-naturalises the commonplace assumptions and imaginations about the cultures and identities of African diaspora communities, and probes the relevance and usefulness of identity markers such as country of origin, nationality, ethnicity, ethnic/heritage language and mother tongue. Current cultural frames of identity representation have so far failed to capture the complexities of everyday lived experiences of transnational individuals and groups. Therefore by drawing on fresh concepts and recent empirical evidence, this book invites the reader to revisit and rethink the vocabularies that we use to look at identity categories such as race, culture, language, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship, and introduces a new language nesting model of diaspora identity. This book will be of great interest to all students of migration, diaspora, African and Australian studies Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction and Conceptual Issues....Pages 1-35 Language and Identity in Australian Immigration Policy....Pages 36-68 Language(s) and Nationality: Prime Markers of Diaspora Identities?....Pages 69-85 Belonging and Attitudes Towards Migrant Heritage Languages....Pages 86-100 Too Tall, Too Dark to Be Australian....Pages 101-130 Being and Becoming Australian....Pages 131-148 Language Practices in Regional Settings — The Language Nesting Model....Pages 149-178 Conclusion: Alternative Imaginings of Diasporas — Insights from Decoloniality....Pages 179-192 Back Matter....Pages 193-225