Administración

As discussed in Chapters 5, 6 and 7, South Sudanese are facing many challenges during resettlement, amongst which are the changes in their families as they make efforts to adjust and adapt to their new environment. Within a few years of resettling in Australia,

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the Sudanese were publicly criticised for not adjusting to the Australian way of life by some government officials, notably by Kevin Andrews in 2007 (Marlowe, 2010c, Marlowe, 2010a). Andrews, the then Minister of Immigration, commented that Sudanese people were failing to integrate into the fabric of Australia's society, saying they “don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope." Andrew’s comment was never substantiated by hard evidence, but it contributed to fostering fear and exclusionary practices (Marlowe, 2010b). Although some studies have been made of refugee resettlement or settlement challenges, there has been very little research done on how quickly refugees can integrate into the fabric of their new environment or society, particularly taking into account the impact of changes in parenting practices and traditional culture on top of the many other challenges

discussed throughout this thesis.

There has been little done, either academically or politically, to understand Sudanese experiences after settling in Australia, what may be the barriers to full integration and how to address them appropriately and holistically. It is imperative to assess the efficiency or effectiveness of the services available for new settlers or migrant families in the settlement and integration process. The speed at which they may fully integrate into their new environment depends on many factors. These factors include the services which are designed to boost that integration, and just how welcoming the new

environment may be for migrants in matters such as the availability of jobs or

acceptance into the workforce (Marlowe, 2010a). To obtain better service provision to achieve the desired integration outcomes, it would be preferable to examine and understand these factors rather than to measure the speed at which new settlers should integrate. There seems to be little understanding of their forced migration experiences as well as a failure to assess their dynamic needs. It is generally understood that new settlers may adjust to their new environment at a different pace, depending on their past and present experiences. How conducive or friendly is the new environment for meeting their needs? (Beiser, 2006, Gray and Elliott, 2001). This may include not only making the new settlers welcome and feel at home but also feel accepted by their host culture (Marlowe, 2010b, Lejukole, 2009). Bishop (2011) outlined three factors that influence changes in new settler families:

50 • Transnational ties to kinship; and

• Concurrence with original cultures and interactions with the local community. These influences can affect how the families perceive the environment of the host community and can place them in a unique and often conflicting situation as they have to negotiate these influences, which are at times not recognised by community service providers (Bishop, 2011).

To date most research about South Sudanese focuses on basic integration issues such as housing, employment and educational opportunities, but little attention has been

focused on parenting and youth challenges(Harte et al., 2011, Harris and Marlowe, 2011). These are appropriate and immediate needs, but as a result changes in parenting practices and how families are coping with them has been under-researched. Integrating new settlers may be more successful if parents, children and families are supported to cope with the impact of the changes in their households (Deng and Pienaar, 2011, Deng and Marlowe, 2013). Many previous studies on refugees have been on mental health or trauma as a result of forced migration and how those affected are coping in their new environment (Khawaja et al., 2008, Schweitzer et al., 2006, Marlowe, 2010c). These are significant and important areas to be looked at in the first few years of resettlement, but as time goes by the challenges to be faced evolve. This makes it imperative to ask what is changing within families. As discussed in subsequent chapters, for many South Sudanese coming from a collective society, changes in family structures, traditional parenting styles and gender role reversal or shifts in family power dynamics between the partners, and between the parents and their children, are the dynamic issues that now need to be given priority. They find these alterations confrontational, which often pushes the pre-trauma considerations to the bottom of their list of concerns and immediate needs. Indeed, addressing social issues and concerns may help to address trauma indirectly. Based on their culture, South Sudanese mostly see specialists such as doctors for physical health. To understand that mental health issues warrant the same attention as physical health needs time and education for many to understand and to see as a way of addressing some of their challenges.

Many services such as Child Protection use a Western model that excludes the perspectives of South Sudanese when designing services to meet their resettlement

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needs. Excluding their perspectives has been identified as one of the reasons why many South Sudanese do not engage well with existing service providers (Westoby, 2008, Lejukole, 2009). It is unreasonable to expect them to understand services that are strange to them. It is unlikely that such services can successfully meet the needs of South Sudanese or other ethnic groups if the services' knowledge is based on its

experiences with other refugee groups or solely on Western concepts. The services also need to apply a practical approach through consultation with the receiving community in order to assess how their needs may be met (Bishop, 2011). Adopting the ‘one size fits all’ approach, which implies that all the new settlers or refugees are the same while ignoring their uniqueness in terms of experiences, culture and needs, and thus applying the same interventions, means the service is unlikely to have a positive impact on their integration.

Most importantly, understanding and recognising the impact of these changes within family dynamics and structures and in the parenting practices of the South Sudanese may help inform service providers and policymakers as to how their needs can be best met. Documenting how South Sudanese families experience these service providers’ interventions and providing a platform for their perspectives and suggestions as to how a service’s delivery can be improved may provide a solid knowledge-base for future interventions with emerging communities. As highlighted earlier, to date there has been little research done on South Sudanese parenting experiences and the impact of changes to family structures. Most major research has been about Australian families and

parenting: the changes in new settler families are experienced differently by diverse groups and family members, since each cultural group has unique experiences and cultures (Zubrick et al., 2008, Kolar and Soriano, 2000a, Earnest, 2006). Ochocka and Janzen (2008) suggested Western-based researchers need to understand multicultural parenting styles, the role of a new host society in shaping the parenting orientation and styles of immigrants, the supports needed for the modifications immigrants must make when adjusting to their new society, and the contributions that they could make to the new country.

Generally, these challenges are not unique to South Sudanese in Australia or elsewhere; they also affect other former refugees or migrants as well as indigenous Australians. As discussed, gender role changes as a result of acculturation can lead to marital challenges

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and sometimes to domestic violence. A US study of Somali women has indicated that changes resulting from refugee women working outside the home and earning more than their male partners may lead to household problems; their menfolk experience a perceived loss of masculinity and of being breadwinners and heads of their families (Nilsson et al., 2008). As discussed in subsequent chapters, the fears of losing that status (as heads of a family) are prominent with some men who come from collectivist

cultures. Nilsson et al. (2008) found that Somali women with greater proficiency of speaking English were more likely to experience psychological and other abuse from their partners. This was seen to be because their language ability is associated with their greater engagement in the community and being more acculturated into their new environment. Therefore, men's fear of power and cultural loss lead to possible abuse or power struggles within the family (Nilsson et al., 2008).

These changes in cultures and hierarchies may lead to confusion, struggles and abuse not only within the new settler families. A Norwegian study about Vietnamese migrants revealed that members of that community were brought up in a tradition where

significant respect for the older generation and their authority was the rule, but this changed after coming into contact with different family and parenting practices

(Tingvold et al., 2012). Tingvold and colleagues stated that parents have no choice other than to negotiate with their children to reconcile the changes within the family. These challenges are also relevant to some of the contemporary challenges many Aboriginal peoples in Australia face (Price-Robertson and McDonald, 2011). For instance, Price- Robertson and McDonald stated that indigenous Australians face immense challenges resulting from compromise in their strengths and resilience due to multiple complex problems as well as historical and ongoing depression, marginalisation and racism. The authors pointed out that most of their subjects' challenges are connected to the legacy of past policies of forced removal and cultural assimilation, which contributed to

unemployment, poverty and violence exacerbated by substance abuse.

Conclusion

Along with the traumas and various degrees of cultural shock suffered by refugees, the language barrier and the different rates at which children and their parents learn and

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adapt to their new environment remain dominant factors and potential barriers to

successful settlement. Previous studies have shown that acculturation is a leading source of stress for refugee families as they struggle to adjust to their new environment,

particularly because their children learn the new language and culture at school faster than do most of their parents, who might still be holding onto their cultures of origin. This can cause tensions in families and inter-generational conflicts, and the children mostly struggle to negotiate a workable synthesis between their original and new cultures.

The research literature emphasises that experiences of resettlement can be challenging for many refugee parents and families as they are confronted by changes in families such as changing gender roles and by the impact of acculturation. These issues are compounded by a lack of social support, employment and many other challenges. The various orientations towards acculturation - integration, assimilation, separation or segregation, and marginalisation - play a vital role when considering the resettlement process. Among these orientations, integration is the preferred strategy for acculturating new immigrants because those who are involved in the process of cultural maintenance and intercultural contact strategies are likely to encounter improved possibilities for integrating into their new environment. To enhance integration, new settler families need support to improve parenting skills. This can include teaching parents through appropriate parenting programmes about the laws that govern parenting and child discipline.

These challenges are discussed further in later chapters, which cover South Sudanese traditional and transitional parenting practices, beliefs, and attitudes. The narratives from the South Sudanese who participated in this study provide opportunities for insight into how they are experiencing transitional changes in their families, and particularly about their new social, cultural and legal environments. Adding to the insights gained from this academic literature review, the next chapter presents the research design and data analysis, and explains how I have constructed meaning from their narratives about South Sudanese traditional parenting practices, their transitional experiences, the impacts of change and their coping strategies within their families.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Methodology: constructing meaning from the narratives of South Sudanese

parenting practices

Introduction

This chapter is divided into four parts. Part One covers how I have approached the research design for this study, with a focus on the theoretical rationale, methodology and method. Part Two discusses participant recruitment and data collection, looking at the initial engagement of South Sudanese participants, my status as a cultural

community insider and conducting interviews and focus group meetings. Part Three discusses data analysis and locating and working with the research data to develop themes, codes, insights and findings in order to develop the categories into concepts suitable for theory. Part Four reflects on the research rigor and trustworthiness of this study, taking into account ethics considerations, limitations arising from the participant demographics and my own position again as an insider researcher.