**1. Introduction**

As an economically prosperous nation, Australia has a long history of migration, and continues to be an attractive destination country for migrants. Technological developments and increased ease of communication and mobility have enabled a wider variety and number of people, including those from African nations, to relocate and settle in Australia. The increases in ease of movement and global migration have led to changes in sociodemographic dynamics and the makeup of societies and communities across many nations [1–3]. Through much of its history, Australia has invited migrants from across the world to resettle and build the nation [3–5], and today, nearly 30% of the resident population were

**Citation:** Mwanri, L.; Anderson, L.; Gatwiri, K. Telling Our Stories: Resilience during Resettlement for African Skilled Migrants in Australia. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2021**, *18*, 3954. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18083954

Academic Editor: Paul B. Tchounwou

Received: 2 March 2021 Accepted: 25 March 2021 Published: 9 April 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

born overseas [6]. The migration of Africans to Australia diversifies the groups of migrants who come to resettle and seek opportunities in this country. Understanding how migrants adapt and acculturate within destination countries post-migration is an emerging field of research with significant implications for policy and healthy resettlement [7,8].

Although population migration creates opportunities, it is also known to pose a variety of challenges for both the migrating and host communities [1,9], making it necessary to conduct research studies to inform policies and practices for regularly evolving situations. Prior research on migration in relation to African diasporic experiences has been associated with deficit-focussed approaches that portray African migrants as a threat and a liability [10]. International research in this field has suggested that 'migration research could benefit from using a strengths-based approach, such as resilience, in understanding the experiences of migrants' [11].

Migration to Australia among Africans has increased in recent years due, in part, to Australian Government humanitarian migration policies towards Africa [5,12], and in part due to policies designed to attract skilled migrants with experience in areas where there is a shortage of skills through its general skilled migration program. The skilled migration program recorded the highest numbers of skilled migrants to Australian during the year 2004–2005, with skilled migrants granted visa accounting for approximately 60 per cent of the entire Australian migration program in that year [13]. Despite the increasing migration to Australia of African people, particularly African skilled migrants, there is little research depicting their resilience. Resilience can be broadly 'conceptualised as the ability to overcome life challenges and transform such challenges into positive growth' [11]. Resilience is an important aspect of life and necessary for human existence and survival. Understanding more about skilled African migrants' resilience provides evidence and a significant resource to inform policies and practices that can support the health and wellbeing of these populations and their Australian host community's prosperity. As part of a larger study aimed at exploring the complexities of belonging, and the dynamics of change that skilled African migrants face after relocating to Australia [14], the current paper describes the mechanisms of coping and resilience factors demonstrated among this cohort, which are enablers to their effective and healthy resettlement.

#### *Social Resilience and Afrocentrism as Theoretical Frameworks*

As a framework, social resilience [15] is understood as the ability of community groups or communities to withstand external shocks and stressors without significant disruption of their social fabric. Social resilience comprises community dynamics and processes of positive adaptation when facing significant adversity [15,16]. There are varying perspectives on what community *is*, but in the context of this paper, 'community' is defined as a group of people who share common value systems, have major common needs, share interests and have similar or shared experiences and identities [17,18]. Community is known to provide a space within which members develop a sense of attachment while engaging in networks that function to cushion and support them to 'bounce back' from adverse experiences [17]. Characteristics of community structures and interactions have been identified as complex, but overall, members of shared communities share common traits that build resilience through ideas, experiences, skills and knowledge [18]. These characteristics have been reported to assist individuals, families and communities to overcome shocks and stresses, including changes in government policy, civil strife, or environmental hazards and resources [19]. For skilled African migrants in Australia, social communities and communities of attachment, where a sense 'feeling at home' is inculcated, can provide the foundation for a successful new life in Australia. The importance of using a strength-based approach such as social resilience in understanding the experiences of migrants has been recommended to improve the knowledge about how communities deal with adversities [19], or major life changing challenges, which migration to and resettlement in new countries constitute.

In addition to the everyday challenges of resettlement which would be anticipated for any migrant to a new socio-cultural setting, Black African migrants face additional obstacles to resettlement in an environment where race has particular salience. Within the Australian context, Black Africans are 'marked' as different from the white, Anglo-Saxon heritage majority through a combination of 'visibilities' including race, dress, and accent [20]. Black Africans in Australia are therefore 'hypervisible' and are constructed as perpetually outside the boundaries of mainstream normative conceptions of Australian identity. These factors can therefore contribute to overscrutinisation and marginalisation of members of Black African communities [20].

Resilience frameworks in migration discourses, particularly those that theorise experiences of Black migrants, need to employ strength-based and non-deficit approaches, while also acknowledging the additional challenges that resettlement in predominantly white contexts present. We also assert that there is a corresponding need for culturally affirming theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that recognise the cultural strengths of migrating communities. We contend that this need can be addressed through the utilisation of Afrocentricity to investigate Afrodiasporic experiences. Afrocentric epistemologies, applied appropriately, can offer a powerful alternative to and critique of Eurocentric perspectives and discourses on resilience [21]. Utilising paradigms that privilege African ways of knowing, being and doing to solve human and social problems is a valid form of interpreting social and psychological issues affecting Africans in order 'to create relevant approaches of personal, family, and community healing and societal change' [22]. Afrocentric-informed research offers an innovative approach to exploring challenges for Afrodiasporic communities in Australia in that it identifies and utilises the community's knowledge, resilience, and expertise to inform knowledge and design its own solutions.

*Sancofa* and *Ubuntu* are the principle Afrocentric philosophies that inform our analysis. *Sancofa* as a framework represents the embodiment of a mythological bird that flies forward but with its head turned backward, symbolising the Ghanaian Akan proverb that, *'it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten*' [14]. This Afrocentric philosophy acknowledges the importance of *returning to* and renewing African knowledge and experiences that have been marginalised and/or forgotten. Invoking it in our analysis helps to highlight how the process of *returning to self* can facilitate resilience and successful resettlement. *Ubuntu* on the other hand is centred on the premise that, *'I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am'. Ubuntu* is a philosophical framework that argues that we are *made human* through the process of humanising others [23,24], such that the willingness to *see*, *feel and enter* the depth of other people's experiences through a humane process produces interconnectedness and change. Supplementing the use of a social resilience framework, we also apply the philosophies of *Sancofa* and *Ubuntu* in framing and interpreting the responses of participants in this research, as this enables us to prioritise collectivist and group identity values that significantly advance the research aim and help ensure that conclusions emerging from the study are informed by culturally appropriate knowledge.

#### **2. Methodology**

The study methods and reporting were guided by consolidated criteria for reporting a qualitative study (COREQ) checklist [25]. This checklist comprises 32 items within three domains including: (i) Research team and reflexivity, (ii) Study design, and (iii) Data, collection analysis and findings.
