MIMESIS I

Introduction

In Chapter 5 I have discussed in detail the strategies and methods applied in collecting information from the participants in the field. The necessary data was collected by using semi-structured and focus group interviews and then extensively analysed through the analysis processes of grounded theory. I have also located my position as an insider researcher and discussed the potential implications of this and how these ethical issues were minimised in accordance with agreed research policies.

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This chapter will discuss the findings made on family dynamics and models, focusing on the Nuäär family model and changes to this model. It looks into the changes and their impact on Nuäär family dynamics and models in a broader context through the lenses of gender and modern concepts of family. These form the basis for thinking about changes in family structure and the attendant changes in gender roles, which I have touched on briefly in Chapter 2. In addition this chapter discusses the responses from the participants about the importance of family and family ties for the Nuäär during their migration and once in Australia.

The discussion also includes the findings in relation to the formation of the family across aspects such as the marriage system, the wedding ceremony, divorce and the day-to- day running and decision-making in households in Australia.

The Importance of Having Family

In Nuäär tradition, the importance of having family is linked to a traditional set of family values that differ from Western family values. For example, the research participants emphasised the importance of having a family in terms of support, a collective life and other traditional values such as community, identity and a sense of belonging. Their explanations of family differ to some extent from those of sociologists such as Hartley whose conceptualisation of the Western family views the importance of family in terms of socialisation, social control and transmission of culture (Hartley 1995). The research participants also stressed the importance of extended family members when conflict arises in playing a crucial role to mediate and unite the family.

I think family is very important because it gives you a sense of community and identity. It helps in identifying oneself as a social person in a community and society. A social person is a person who is able to live with another person who will support him socially, emotionally, spiritually and in so many other ways. So having a family is very important (MP8).

Although this view reflects a religious perspective, it clearly indicates the importance of having a family as a social unit within the society in general. Furthermore, the

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participants relate the importance of having family to the provision of support and raising children.

Well, having a family is very important; you can get the support around you if you are in need of help. You can also have your family and your kids growing up in a very safe environment and then they can get good education and a good life (MP2).

Having family is very important more than anything else because having children is very important. As a Nuäär family is very important. I think about 99 per cent from the Nuäär would agree with me that family is very important to us. Therefore my family is very important to me. Having children and the way we bring up our children make the family very important (FP13).

Among the Nuäär there is a strong cultural belief that wife and husband have to work together for the good of the family. However, many participants, especially men, expressed the importance of having a family in terms of the roles of family members and the power of men. Men feel they are the head of families and that responsibility defines the authority of manhood.

Family is important in order to keep you happy. As a man you must have a family and also have children for the future. But things have changed. Things are not working the way I expected as a Nuäär man, but I want to remain as a man responsible for my family and be responsible and act the way men act (MP7). However the data shows that family life in Australia has changed and the views of my participants is that there is a need for both a man and a woman to raise their children together. Unless something happens such as the death of a parent or divorce, most of the participants believed that both a mother and a father are needed to care for the family. Some female participants felt that having a man at home is very important in any culture, and they believe that the man is the head of family. They think that it is part of the Nuäär culture that a woman cannot be respected in the community unless she lives in a home with a man in place. ‘If you are married and have children you will be

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respected as good parents. Because when you live with your husband and your children you will be respected in the community according to Nuäär culture’ (FP10).

The Extended Family

According to Nuäär tradition, friends and extended family are considered to be part of the family and they have the same level of responsibility as a close and immediate family member. Janet Finch gave the reason why people support each other as a mixture of love and duty (Leat 1991). She has written extensively on family relationships and argues that flexibility in family life, which she calls ‘fluidity’, is very important in family relationships. From this point of view, it is possible to argue that the links between Nuäär community members are characterised by their love and duty to each other. Participants reported that many Nuäär have sponsored friends to come to Australia out of the feeling of having a duty to help even those who are not a relative.

I did not have family members here in Australia but I had three friends who came earlier. These friends jointly sponsored me to come to Australia through the United Nations (MP7).

The influence of and links with family in Australia together with help from the UNHCR was acknowledged as the way that many had entered Australia. Many members of the Nuäär came to Australia through sponsorship from relatives in their immediate or extended family or from friends who had come to Australia earlier. For some their decision to come to Australia was indeed influenced by the family links they had in Australia.

Yes, my family members who came to Australia before me were among the very few people who influenced my decision to come to Australia. Because when I was in India the United Nations' first preference was to take us either to the United States or Canada. I was going to be in USA but because of my family links to Australia I pleaded my case with the UN office in India and I expressed my interest to come to Australia and I was lucky to be accepted (MP4).

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Of course, many of these also came with government help through the United Nations refugee process or through humanitarian assistance on a humanitarian visa rather than a refugee visa.

The concept of assistance from those within this extended definition of family is very important within Nuäär tradition. Somebody who is not even a blood relative but is a community elder is regarded as a relative and is referred to as ‘uncle’. Thus many came to Australia through sponsorship by their uncles or community elders who were there before them. Having family in Australia has been a major influence and played a crucial role in the Nuäär migration. Most of the research participants agreed that the majority of Nuäär had brought family members into Australia through the principle of family re- union.

Yes, I have sponsored quite a few and they are all now here; they are all settled. Each one of them is getting on with their own business and from what I can see they are happy to be in Australia and they are developing and progressing very well as well as integrating into the Australian way of life (MP1).

However, the process of sponsoring a family member or a friend is complex and requires much time and patience. It is also costly and many migrants cannot afford it without assistance from the government, UNHCR and service providers in Australia. It places a great responsibility on the sponsors in terms of providing accommodation and assisting the new arrivals to access services, deal with a new language and interact with the new society. There are those who blame themselves for having not been successful in bringing relatives or friends to Australia through this process:

I worked as chairperson of the organisation through which I came to Australia and I proposed lots of South Sudanese people, and hundreds of hundreds of people are here because of that. But I failed to bring my own relatives to Australia, and it is very unfortunate that I wasn’t able to bring my own relatives apart from two of my sisters who came with me to Australia (MP8).

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Just as the impact of having a family is positive, by contrast the impact of having no family is a great problem within the Nuäär community. In Nuäär traditional culture they live collectively, which is largely defined by being in the community with their immediate and extended families. As the proverb from many African cultures states, ‘In Africa, it takes the whole village to raise a child’ (Gordon & Gordon 1992). The impact of having no family in Australia has posed serious challenges to families within the Nuäär community. Many participants acknowledged that the lack of family members around them is a problem.

I came to Australia alone with 3 boys and now they are grown up and do not listen to me. Back in Africa when you live alone with children who are boys without your husband and they do not listen to you when they become adolescents, the close and extended relatives come to your aid, but I came without relatives and I found it difficult. Now I am working hard to sponsor a relative from home (FP12).

The lack of family support when conflicts arise often results in separation and divorce within families. Some husbands abandon their wives, leaving them to care for their children alone. This lack of support in difficult times and in the management of children is something that those without family members around them have been dealing with:

So having family here is very important and sometimes too for a family that is very young, having the extended family around can help to mediate if things do not go well with your family. They can intervene and come and try to mediate. From there you can move on together (MP2).

The difference is that in Australian culture, family life is not collective but the responsibility of an individual, and this is something that will take some time for the Nuäär to adapt to. In the meantime the presence of kin, both close and extended family members, contributes a lot to maintain the unity and stability of Nuäär families in Australia.

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Impact of Transition on Nuäär Family Formation in Australia

Marriage Process in Australia

The family structure and model in the Nuäär tradition is hierarchical. As stated earlier, marriages can be polygamous. The traditional concept of marriage in many societies is that marriage is a union between one man and one woman (monogamy) but the Nuäär permit polygyny (Evans-Pritchard 1951b; Mair 2013). In Australia, there are two types of marriage: the sacramental model which is based on scriptures from the Bible, and the civil, contractual model which views marriage as a bilateral contract that is voluntarily formed, maintained and dissolved by two individuals (Kostenberger & Jones 2012). Recently there has been significant transformation of the traditional Nuäär form of marriage. The two most significant factors in this change are that Nuäär marriage is becoming transnational and the way that arranged marriage is perceived.

However the Nuäär traditional marriage is not yet fully transformed into the contractual model and it still allows polygyny. A Nuäär man can marry many wives, as long as he has sufficient cattle and wealth. The marriage system in the Nuäär culture has matters that are taken into consideration by both families. Once the man and the woman have reached the stage of being ready for marriage, both families meet to decide what should happen next or when the next step can be taken.

However, in making these marriage decisions freedom of choice is limited because the views of the extended family, kinships, and the interests of the parents of both sides are taken into consideration (Evans-Pritchard 1951b). This is known as an arranged marriage (Evans-Pritchard 1951a). Nuäär parents prefer to have a traditional arranged marriage rather than a marriage of choice because in the process of choosing a girl to marry to their son they can consider their own requirements. They want to choose a girl from a stable family, a girl who is respected in the community, and who they know will form a family with their son. The parents naturally want their children to marry into a family whose background is already known, and if they don’t like that family the marriage will not go ahead.

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One research participant’s remarkable story provides a good illustration of the procedures of traditional marriage in Nuäär culture. This participant, who came to Australia as a young man, went back to South Sudan to marry:

When I travelled and met my parents I expressed to them that I am coming here to get married. I told my parents I am not here to marry someone wealthy or to marry for material reasons, I am looking to love someone who I will find love from. I attended various social gathering so that I could choose one for myself - one I loved, not imposed by my parents. When I found one and approached her, she said that is okay. Then I told her to report to her parents so that they can background check me. I had that background check and then it was clear that I was okay as was my family too. We therefore started the marriage process and the dowry negotiations all began, and when that was all finished my wife was handed over to me, and we came to Australia (MP5).

Checking the appropriateness of the couple involves a criminal record check as is seen from the impressive account of the marriage process for this participant. If you come from a family that is greedy, poor or violent, there is a strong chance that the parents of the bride would reject you. If she comes from a family with a history of theft or other crime, or which is lazy and does not care about her reputation in the community there is also the opportunity to reject her. The checking is not limited to the legal background but also includes the level of socialisation in the community, the economic position, social position and ability to care for family members. These steps characterise the traditional arranged marriage in Nuäär society. Allowing the man to be in charge of his own marriage is a new departure from Nuäär tradition, where the parents have a heavy influence on their children's decisions. Many Nuäär in Australia are still conducting marriage according to Nuäär tradition. In other respects, however, there has been a significant change. The incidence of polygamous marriage has decreased in the Nuäär community, not only here in Australia, but also back in Africa. There are various reasons

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for this decrease, one of which is the expanding spread of Christianity which considers polygamy inappropriate.

The Nuäär have also incorporated modern ways of marriage: there may be a church wedding but only after the traditional processes have been completed. This is a transformation which both men and women have taken up to some extent, but it threatens the polygamous interests of men because it is not possible to wed two or more wives in church. The polygamous marriage that is still being practiced in South Sudan in the traditional way is a problem in Australia, even though some women do recognise it. Most of the Nuäär women, especially the younger ones, now want to be the only wives to their husbands and to share the family responsibilities. This is a new aspect to Nuäär culture that they have adopted from western society. However women know that men cannot be controlled and if a man decides to have another wife, the most important issue is that the position of the wives within the polygamous family should be recognised by the Nuäär husband. One of the interviewees expressed her feelings on this:

To me it is not surprising because I know our culture allows a man to have more than one wife. But I am of the young generation, I am not old fashioned; I want my husband to be my husband, I don’t want to share him with anyone else; however, if it happens, it is not a problem, but I do tell him that he can get married, but he has to know very well that I am the first wife and I would like to know that my husband has a second wife and he is not jumping over and around there. I know he has already had some few accidents over there, I am not taking it seriously because in my culture a man can have 10 children outside marriage, but whether he has kids or not I want him to be with me and with my kids (FM9). The first wife in Nuäär culture is respected and sometimes honoured as the head of family. In the absence of the husband, she would be in charge of all the other wives. Polygamy is not acceptable in western culture and this has affected the interests of the men, because it has stopped them from marrying many wives. Nuäär men are finding it