Genealogy

18 pages, 288 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Beyond the Demands of Integration: African Refugee Resettlement in Contemporary Multicultural Australia

by Kathleen Openshaw, Atem Atem and Melissa Phillips

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 11; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010011 - 29 Jan 2025

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This paper uses the example of negatively racialised refugees from the African continent to reiterate the racialised nature of migrant and refugee experiences in Australia. This is a context that remains deeply influenced by a violent history of British colonisation and racist migration [...] Read more.

This paper uses the example of negatively racialised refugees from the African continent to reiterate the racialised nature of migrant and refugee experiences in Australia. This is a context that remains deeply influenced by a violent history of British colonisation and racist migration laws, including the restrictive White Australia Policy (1901–1973). Drawing on the authors’ research and personal experiences of working with, and navigating, the Australian resettlement system this article examines the racialised violences inherent in expectations of ‘integration’ for (former) African refugees in a settler colonial country. This paper proffers a principle level re-imagining of refugee resettlement in Australia that challenges patriarchal white sovereignty. It proposes a meaningful consideration of resettlement practices that are community-led, localised, relational and that recognise the agency of refugees who settle in Australia. This paper disrupts dominant tropes of refugees as perpetually vulnerable and deficit, by centering the agency, needs and expectations of a good life as it is lived in community, rather than dictated by the state. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mobilities and Precarities)

10 pages, 1005 KiB

Open AccessCommentary

“Boys and Men”: The Making of Senegambian and Congolese Masculinity and Identities in Tropical Africa: A Reflection

by Martha Judith Chinouya and Sarah Lewis-Newton

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010010 - 27 Jan 2025

Viewed by 595

Abstract

Our paper focuses on two white pioneering scientists, Dr Dutton, who was English, and Dr Todd, a Canadian, employed by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) to study sleeping sickness in colonial Senegambia, West Africa. We analysed photographs and some published personal [...] Read more.

Our paper focuses on two white pioneering scientists, Dr Dutton, who was English, and Dr Todd, a Canadian, employed by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) to study sleeping sickness in colonial Senegambia, West Africa. We analysed photographs and some published personal letters to help us reflect on some of their constructions of Senegambian and Congolese male identities in tropical colonial Africa. In this paper, we connect with the history of tropical medicine, a precursor to public health. Public health was a research area that was central to Peter Aspinall’s work as he argued for shifts from simplistic hegemonic terminologies to refer to an incredibly diverse Black African population, as failure to do so impacts on service provisions. Within the context of tropical medicine, we reflect on the paternalistic terminology and use of the word ‘boy’ to refer to their unnamed male helpers who they photographed during these expeditions. We hope that by interpreting the photographs and reflecting on the literature and letters, exercises that are influenced by our positionality, we can obtain a glimpse into the past and obtain some insights that contribute to our understanding of the production of colonial masculinities, terminology, and race. As female authors employed by LSTM, we are aware that our positionalities influence the lenses through which we view and interpret the literature and the photos. Our paper contributes towards the ongoing debates on terminology, race, and whiteness in colonial tropical medicine. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seeing Ethnicity Otherwise: From History, Classification and Terminology to Identities, Health and Mixedness in the Work of Peter J. Aspinall)

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15 pages, 5523 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Valongo Wharf and Gadsden’s Wharf: A Comparative Approach to Two Sites of Memory of Atlantic Slavery (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Charleston, South Carolina)

by Sergio Gardenghi Suiama

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010009 - 24 Jan 2025

Viewed by 456

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis between Valongo Wharf in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina, as sites of memory of the Atlantic slave trade. It examines how these sites, both integrated into the UNESCO “Routes of Enslaved [...] Read more.

The article presents a comparative analysis between Valongo Wharf in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, South Carolina, as sites of memory of the Atlantic slave trade. It examines how these sites, both integrated into the UNESCO “Routes of Enslaved Peoples” project, confront the legacy of slavery and its contemporary implications. The study investigates the prevailing narratives in these spaces, the privileged and silenced memories, and the connection established between past atrocities and present racism. From a comparative historical perspective, the article discusses the social construction of these sites of memory, considering the influences of different social actors, such as Black movements, scholars, and public authorities. The analysis reveals how Valongo and Gadsden’s Wharves have become spaces of dispute for recognition and ambiguities over the memory of slavery and its legacies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Race and Memory: Perspectives from the U.S. and South Africa)

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12 pages, 196 KiB

Open AccessBrief Report

We Not Like Them: Complex Economic Intergenerational Trauma (CEIT) and Black Women’s Economic Resistance

by Tiffany N. Younger

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010008 - 22 Jan 2025

Viewed by 521

Abstract

Black women come from a lineage of survivors who have faced threats to their economic livelihoods since the emancipation of slavery. These threats are deeply rooted in the systemic expectation of free labor, which dates to the illegal enslavement of Black individuals beginning [...] Read more.

Black women come from a lineage of survivors who have faced threats to their economic livelihoods since the emancipation of slavery. These threats are deeply rooted in the systemic expectation of free labor, which dates to the illegal enslavement of Black individuals beginning in 1619. A new emerging concept of complex economic intergenerational trauma (CEIT), grounded in Black feminist theory, examines the historical and contemporary economic exploitation of Black women at the intersection of gendered anti-Black racism. CEIT highlights ancestral capital—an essential form of wealth and survival—that has enabled Black women to succeed in a society built through their marginalization. Findings from an exploratory phenomenological study of thirteen Black women’s experiences with wealth accumulation reveal that Black women have thrived beyond the confines of the U.S. economy, despite its design to exploit their labor without providing them benefits. Ancestral capital, rooted in knowledge, values, cultural resilience, and community support, has been key to their survival and success. Today, Black women continue to face significant barriers to true economic security due to ongoing gendered anti-Black racism. However, they survive and adapt. A thematic analysis from the study shows that Black women approach economic security and wealth differently than others, placing a strong emphasis on community, collective organizing, and mutual aid. These approaches stem from a lack of access to traditional avenues of wealth accumulation available to others. Despite these ongoing challenges, Black women persist, drawing on both their inherited trauma and their unique forms of capital to navigate the economic system. This paper underscores the uniqueness of Black women by uplifting their resilience and survival, offering a testament to their ability to thrive beyond traditional financial means and continue their legacy of strength. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Shifting Structural Power and Advancing Transformational Changes Among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC): Elevating the Voices of the Community)

28 pages, 290 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Becoming, Writing Home: The Journey Towards Self for Community in Under the Udala Trees and the Binti Trilogy

by Olaocha Nwadiuto Nwabara

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010007 - 20 Jan 2025

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of being and becoming as represented in the novels Under the Udala Trees and Binti (series). It draws from Igbo and Kemetan notions of self, identity, becoming, and destiny (chi na eke, khepert) to center the protagonists’ [...] Read more.

This paper focuses on the process of being and becoming as represented in the novels Under the Udala Trees and Binti (series). It draws from Igbo and Kemetan notions of self, identity, becoming, and destiny (chi na eke, khepert) to center the protagonists’ self-determination considering their oppressive environments. The protagonists, Ijeoma and Binti respectively, contend with who they are and are becoming alongside their neocolonial family and community expectations of its daughters. As a result, they are driven into isolation to determine self on their own terms. This paper argues that while they moved in solitude, this process is ultimately beneficial to their families and communities, offering decolonized methods of healing, and of moving towards one’s purpose. Drawing from pre-colonial Igbo cultures and traditions—as the authors are Igbo—the paper positions Under the Udala Trees and Binti as pieces that offer contemporary solutions to the global erasure or suppression of African and Black cultures and ways of existing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Africana Families and Kinship Formations in the Diaspora)

28 pages, 357 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Eurafrican Invisibility in Zambia’s Census as an Echo of Colonial Whiteness: The Case for a British Apology

by Juliette Bridgette Milner-Thornton

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010006 - 17 Jan 2025

Viewed by 655

Abstract

In this article, I argue that Eurafricans’ invisibility in Zambia’s national census, history, and social framework is an echo of colonial whiteness stemming from the destructive legacy of illegitimacy perpetuated by British officials in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) during the colonial era (1924–64), [...] Read more.

In this article, I argue that Eurafricans’ invisibility in Zambia’s national census, history, and social framework is an echo of colonial whiteness stemming from the destructive legacy of illegitimacy perpetuated by British officials in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) during the colonial era (1924–64), which continues to the present day. This is evidenced by the absence of Eurafricans in the Zambia national censuses. This contribution calls for the British government to apologise to the Eurafrican community for the legacy of illegitimacy and intergenerational racial trauma it bestowed on the community. Zambia’s tribal ‘ethnic’ and ‘linguistics’ census classification options prevent a comprehensive understanding of Zambia’s multi-racial history and the development of a hybrid space that embraces a ‘mixed-race’ Eurafrican (of European and African heritage) Zambian identity. Through an autoethnographic account of my Eurafrican uncle Aaron Milner, I reflect on Zambian Eurafricans’ historical racial positioning as ‘inferior interlopers’, which has contributed to their obscurity in Zambia’s national history and census. However, my reflection goes beyond Milner’s story in Zambia. It is my entryway to highlight how race and colonial whiteness interconnected and underpinned racial ideology in the wider British Empire, and to draw attention to its echoes in various contemporary sociopolitical contexts, including census terminology in Australia and Zambia and Western nations’ anti-Black immigration policies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Seeing Ethnicity Otherwise: From History, Classification and Terminology to Identities, Health and Mixedness in the Work of Peter J. Aspinall)

17 pages, 9747 KiB

Open AccessReview

The Role of Fashion and Art in First Nations Healing, Decolonisation, and Cultural Practice

by Treena Clark

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010005 - 14 Jan 2025

Viewed by 737

Abstract

This paper explores the intersection of art, fashion, and decolonisation within First Nations communities, focusing on how clothing and adornment are powerful tools for healing, cultural survival, and resistance. Through art programs, fashion workshops, and community-based projects, First Nations peoples reconnect with culture, [...] Read more.

This paper explores the intersection of art, fashion, and decolonisation within First Nations communities, focusing on how clothing and adornment are powerful tools for healing, cultural survival, and resistance. Through art programs, fashion workshops, and community-based projects, First Nations peoples reconnect with culture, land, and history, fostering identity and continuity while addressing the traumas of colonisation. This paper examines how First Nations artists and designers engage with traditional garments, such as kangaroo skin cloaks and shell necklaces, to reclaim ancestral practices and challenge colonial traumas. By reinterpreting colonial clothes and creating new forms of fashion, artists engage in truth-telling, amplify resilience, and promote reconciliation. This paper highlights the role of art and fashion as an aesthetic expression and a strategy for cultural survival and resistance. It concludes by offering recommendations for policies and programs that support First Nations fashion initiatives, fostering economic opportunities, social well-being, and intergenerational healing. Ultimately, this paper advocates for the transformative power of art and fashion as pathways to decolonisation and empowerment for First Nations communities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indigenous Well-Being: Connecting to Country and Culture)

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14 pages, 273 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Three-Generation Study of the Prevalence and Comorbidity of Posttraumatic Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Afghan Refugees

by Alveera Habib and Najia Zulfiqar

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010004 - 13 Jan 2025

Viewed by 513

Abstract

Afghan refugees are at the forefront of international attention amidst the unfolding global refugee crisis. Having borne witnesses to the horrors of war, fled their homeland, and endured the tragic loss of loved ones, they suffered a psychological trauma that reshaped their cognitive [...] Read more.

Afghan refugees are at the forefront of international attention amidst the unfolding global refugee crisis. Having borne witnesses to the horrors of war, fled their homeland, and endured the tragic loss of loved ones, they suffered a psychological trauma that reshaped their cognitive and emotional frameworks. This cross-sectional survey explores the prevalence and comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder among Afghan refugees living in Haripur, Pakistan, and the intergenerational transmission of PTSD across their three generations. Researchers collected data from 48 male participants representing three generations of 16 Afghan refugee families using the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale for DSM-5-TR. The findings revealed a significant positive correlation between posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, indicating a substantial co-occurrence of posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. About 79.20% of total participants were diagnosed with posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it was more prevalent among the first generation (87.5%) than in the second and third generations (75.0%) each—additionally, significant variability across generations in the prevalence of PTSD. The first-generation refugees experienced severe and very severe symptoms (12.5%), the second-generation experienced moderate symptoms, and the third-generation experienced mild symptoms (16.6%). These results emphasize the importance of addressing the comorbidity of both disorders in refugee communities to underscore their intergenerational adverse mental health outcomes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Genealogical Communities: Community History, Myths, Cultures)

15 pages, 3432 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Thina Curtis Amid Creative Disorders: Fanzines, Punk, Improvisation, and Critical Pedagogy

by Paula Guerra

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010003 - 13 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Thina Curtis, pedagogue and creator of fanzines in Brazil, has built a trajectory marked by resistance and the expression of a counter-hegemonic ethos that permeates all her production. From an early age, Thina became involved with punk culture, where she found in fanzines [...] Read more.

Thina Curtis, pedagogue and creator of fanzines in Brazil, has built a trajectory marked by resistance and the expression of a counter-hegemonic ethos that permeates all her production. From an early age, Thina became involved with punk culture, where she found in fanzines a means to express and amplify marginalised voices, challenging sexism, discrimination, and inequalities. Her work and performance stand out for a visceral opposition to fascism and intolerance, while seeking to build a transformative and inclusive pedagogy. Fanzines, in Thina’s practice, are a means of critical and anti-neoliberal pedagogy that not only questions the traditional educational system but also promotes participatory education. This approach places Thina and other social agents—women, youth, prisoners, and disadvantaged communities—as co-creators of knowledge, breaking with the idea of one-way teaching. Through a qualitative and biographical methodology, centred on the life trajectory of Thina Curtis, we examine fanzines as adaptable pedagogical tools that challenge curricular rigidity and encourage critical and participatory training, essential for the decolonisation of knowledge and for social transformation. Full article

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11 pages, 1723 KiB

Open AccessEssay

Healing Through Aloha ʻĀina: Reflections on Kahoʻolawe, Cultural Resilience, and the Power of Land Connection in Trauma Recovery

by Kuʻuleialohaonālani Elizabeth Salzer

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010002 - 30 Dec 2024

Viewed by 485

Abstract

Once scarred by decades of military exploitation, Kahoʻolawe has become a symbol of resilience and cultural healing for the Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian. Through Kahoʻolaweʻs ongoing restoration, the island has emerged as a cultural kīpuka (an oasis of life within a barren [...] Read more.

Once scarred by decades of military exploitation, Kahoʻolawe has become a symbol of resilience and cultural healing for the Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian. Through Kahoʻolaweʻs ongoing restoration, the island has emerged as a cultural kīpuka (an oasis of life within a barren landscape), offering pathways for Kanaka Maoli to reconnect with their ancestral roots and foster resilience in the face of historical and contemporary trauma. Grounded in personal experiences and cultural reflections, this essay explores how reconnecting with Kahoʻolawe as a place of cultural resurgence can deepen one’s understanding of the restorative power of land connection. Aloha ʻāina, a deeply held Kanaka Maoli worldview that emphasizes a sacred, reciprocal relationship with the land. By engaging in cultural protocols and land stewardship practices on Kahoʻolawe, practitioners of aloha ʻāina contribute to the healing of intergenerational trauma rooted in colonial dispossession and ecological degradation. Thus, traditional practices, such as oli (chant), mālama ʻāina (land care), and kūkākūkā (deep discussions/processing) on Kahoʻolawe facilitate a powerful process of healing that connects individuals with ancestral knowledge and cultivates resilience across generations. These practices serve as an alternative to Western trauma healing modalities by asserting a culturally specific framework that validates the inseparability of land and identity for Indigenous healing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Health and Wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples)

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17 pages, 544 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adoption Agrafa, Parts “Unwritten” About Cold War Adoptions from Greece

by Gonda A. H. Van Steen

Genealogy 2025, 9(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9010001 - 24 Dec 2024

Viewed by 422

Abstract

This preliminary empirical study delves into the “agrafa”, the “unwritten” or “uncharted” parts of a Greek adoption phenomenon and Greek–American relations that may, however, still be accessed via archival investigations, mixed research methods, and efforts to hone life writing skills. At [...] Read more.

This preliminary empirical study delves into the “agrafa”, the “unwritten” or “uncharted” parts of a Greek adoption phenomenon and Greek–American relations that may, however, still be accessed via archival investigations, mixed research methods, and efforts to hone life writing skills. At stake is the case of the post-WWII adoptions of some 4000 Greek children who were sent to the United States between the years 1950 and 1975. This study asks how the related negotiations were transacted, especially in the early years of the intercountry adoption phenomenon. It challenges the researcher today to create a life writing narrative out of scant snippets and dense allusions and to disclose the dynamics of overlooked interactions, such as the consumerist and occasionally racist attitudes of some, though certainly not all, prospective adoptive parents. Thus, this article highlights formerly dismissed interactions, not necessarily numerically representative interactions, given that the window of opportunity has passed to interview adoptive parents of Greek children who pursued these foreign adoptions in the 1950s–1960s and to quantify their actions and reactions more systematically. Many of the adoptive parents of the 1950s–1960s, however, left their impressions, demands, and frustrations in writing. Those writings have yet to be studied, and their more deliberate, explicit language must be acknowledged, even amid generally more positive depictions of postwar intercountry adoption. I show that the victorious post-WWII era saw a sense of American entitlement emerge among the prospective adoptive parents that has since been whitewashed. Waiving the banner of altruism or humanitarianism (as a couple or as a superpower, respectively), some adoptive parents embarked on adoptions from Greece from a position of cultural as well as political and economic superiority. Their expectation was that the “destitute” partner should comply, that the Greeks themselves should not “talk back” when “poor orphans” were about to be “saved” from “illegitimacy” and lack of prospects. Full article

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Genealogy, Volume 9, Issue 1 (March 2025) – 11 articles

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