Rejecting Ahmed's 'melancholy migrant

South Sudanese Australians in higher education

Bibliographic Data

ID4879141
AuthorsD X Harris (0000-0002-1138-8229, Monash University, corresponding author), Anne Harris (0000-0002-3179-729X), Julia Marlowe (0000-0001-7940-024X, University of Auckland), Jay Marlowe, Nyadol Nyuon (The University of Melbourne)
Year2015
Volume40
Issue7
Pages1226-1238
Publication date2015-08-09
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in Higher Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0307-5079 • E-ISSN: 1470-174X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03075079.2014.881346
OpenAlexW2086389370
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited20

This paper draws on related research studies in two urban centres (Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia) with South Sudanese men and women engaged in varying degrees with higher education. The co-authors examine some gendered differences in the process and demands of resettlement, including within employment and education, and its implications for rapidly changing public versus private gender roles. We argue against essentialising discourses of the 'liberatory' nature of education in the west, versus constructions of 'cultural knowledge' as innate, burdensome, and less useful in western contexts. Drawing on Ahmed's critique of discourses of the 'melancholy migrant' which position western knowledges and gendered practices as progressive and therefore more desirable, the authors interrogate the possibility of multiple forms of knowledge and new migrants - especially South Sudanese - as enriched by their previous experiences and knowledges, rather than impoverished by them

Higher education · Political science · Sociology · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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