Racism and Resistance: African Australian Challenges to Spatial Management Practices in Australian Institutions

In this chapter, I draw on Ghassan Hage’s (Inter-Asia Cult Stud 1:85–96, 2000; J Int Migr Integr 3:417–437, 2002) concept of spatial management to analyse how racism and discrimination exist in Australian places and institutions. Spatial management is used by members of the dominant social and cultural group in Australian society, as a nationalist practice of exclusion to manage belonging. Throughout the chapter, I study practices of spatial management, perpetrated by different actors within different spaces, which have been targeted towards African Australian people. I highlight examples of exclusionary practices and discourses in schools, mainstream media and social media, policing strategies, policy making and within communities. These examples, including racial profiling conducted by Victoria Police, discriminatory media discourses that have criminalised young African Australian males, and policy making that has targeted people resettling in Australia from South Sudan, all involve the constructions of African Australian communities as a problematic population. Furthermore, policy makers, politicians, media commentators and people within schools draw on their privileged position in Australian society as part of the Anglo-Saxon ‘in group’, to portray African Australian people as ‘the Other’ who do not belong. Through these actions, policies and discourses, different actors in Australian society engage in forms of spatial management that seek to minimise and regulate the presence of African Australian people in Australian spaces, which are framed as ‘white spaces’. In relation to these examples, I highlight how African Australian people and communities challenge these constructs, by producing alternate narratives of their communities, resisting and subverting discriminatory stereotypes and engaging in legal action and advocacy to challenge institutional power.