‘At Least You're the Right Colour’: Identity and Social Inclusion of Bosnian Refugees in Australia

Abstract

This paper explores the Australian resettlement of the largest recent refugee group, Bosnians. It is argued that Bosnians (and other ex-Yugoslavs) were Australia's preferred humanitarian immigrants during the 1990s because of their European background (based on social-cohesion and ‘resettlement-potential’ arguments) and because of the presence of ex-Yugoslav communities in Australia which were expected to support newly arrived refugees during their early resettlement (the ‘community argument’). The ‘whiteness’/‘Europeanness’ of Bosnians enabled them to remain largely ‘invisible’ in the country they perceived as ‘white Australia’ and to initially claim an ‘insider status’. For many people, however, this self-inclusion is thwarted in the second stage of resettlement when they are expected to find jobs and ‘acculturate’, as the language barrier and their non-English-speaking background become a basis of difference and potential exclusion. Their economic and social inclusion thus appears to be determined by factors beyond visibility and remains limited almost a decade after the largest wave of Bosnians arrived in Australia.