Navigating the city negotiating un/employment: a decolonial exploration of Black African youth experiences of migration, work, and aspirations in deindustrialising Newcastle, Australia

The experiences of Black African youth who migrate to, live and work in Newcastle, Australia and how these experiences impact on aspirations for the future are explored in this thesis. These experiences are explored through the lens of a decolonial approach that draws on decolonial theory, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and concepts related to youth migration from the sociology of youth. By incorporating key concepts from decolonial theory like colonial difference, coloniality of power, coloniality of Being, coloniality of labour and decolonial imaginary, the decolonial approach is used to explore how race and racialisation influence migrant Black African youth mobilities, labour market experiences, and aspirations for the future in deindustrialising Newcastle. Data for this thesis is drawn from semi-structured interviews conducted in Newcastle with 20 young people (10 male and 10 female) residing in the city in 2018. Their ages ranged between 18-30 years and they migrated to Australia under different circumstances as students, or dependents of their carers who travelled to Australia as skilled migrants or as refugees. These young people migrated to Australia from African countries including The Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Liberia, Uganda and Ghana. The range in the young people’s age allows for the exploration of their experiences at different stages of being young and becoming workers, and the diversity in mobility trajectories is important for illustrating the importance of race in structuring their experiences of coming to, being and working in Newcastle. The argument I forward in this thesis is that pre-migration Black African youth draw on a notion of development associated with whiteness to position Australia as a developed place, and they have the expectation that, once in Australia, these experiences of development would be available to them. Post-migration, these young people negotiate being racialised in the labour market while looking for work and working, meaning that these experiences of ‘development’ are not available to them. Irrespective of these adverse experiences of racialisation some young people aspire to remain in Australia or move to other developed countries in the Global North and engage in meaningful work. By theorising these experiences though a decolonial approach I argue that it is important to account for the role of historical processes like colonialism, especially its contribution toward establishing differences between people based on ‘race’ to understand how race presently structures racialised youth experiences of being young, mobility and work. I close the thesis by reflecting on how the decolonial approach contributes to decolonising the sociology of youth.