Structural Racism, Identity Contestation, and Acculturative Stress Among South Sudanese Immigrants in Australia: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Majok Wutchok, PhD Scholar (Thesis Submitted) | MPH | GPH | BSc Hons

doi:10.67418/afrisci.2026.853af644

Background: What does it feel like to hold Australian citizenship and still be called a refugee? For thousands of South Sudanese Australians, that question is not rhetorical, it is a daily reality. Acculturation among communities with refugee backgrounds in Western countries involves layered experiences of identity, discrimination, media portrayal, and psychological health, yet empirical research on these processes within Australia's South Sudanese community has been slow to catch up with the lived realities on the ground. Objectives: Drawing on a 2017 community survey, this study set out to map the psychosocial terrain of acculturation among South Sudanese immigrants in Australia, specifically their encounters with racial discrimination, their relationship to Australian media narratives, their psychological stress loads, and the degree to which they felt a genuine sense of belonging in their adopted country. Methods: A structured self-report questionnaire was administered to 105 South Sudanese community members resident in Australia in November 2017, with Likert-scale items completed by 90 respondents. Data were analysed descriptively. The study is theoretically situated within Berry's (1997) bidimensional model of acculturation and Tajfel and Turner's (1979) account of social identity formation. Results: Experiences of racism and discrimination were widespread: three-quarters of respondents (75.28%) reported encountering bullying, racism, or low social judgement. Media victimisation was near-universal 93.26% felt personally targeted by Australian news coverage of their community, and 92.22% reported being labelled refugees despite holding citizenship. These figures stand in sharp and instructive contrast to findings in the social participation domain, where 75.55% felt accepted within multicultural Australian society and 83.33% reported feeling welcome in community activities. Post-migration stress was heavily prevalent, with 84.45% describing themselves as overwhelmed by competing pressures, prominently including the financial obligations of supporting family members still in South Sudan. Conclusions: South Sudanese immigrants in Australia inhabit a contradictory acculturation space simultaneously welcomed and marginalised, belonging and othered. Media stigmatisation and persistent refugee labelling emerge as the sharpest structural threats to community well-being and identity. Policy responses must address these structural mechanisms directly, rather than defaulting to individual-level settlement support alone.

Structural Racism, Identity Contestation, and Acculturative Stress Among South Sudanese Immigrants in Australia: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Abstract