In 2016, Melbourne experienced what was referred to in the media as the Moomba ‘riot’. This event led to a racialised political and media campaign regarding the problem of ‘African gangs’. Despite no evidence of actual gang activity, the backlash against black migrants in Melbourne was consequential with increases in reported racism and institutionalised forms of discrimination. In this study, we examine the neighbourhood context of exclusion against African Australians following the Moomba ‘riot’. Using census and crime data integrated with survey data from 2400 residents living in 150 urban neighbourhoods, we interrogate the relationship between sentiments (measured as anger) towards Africans and perceptions of neighbourhood crime and disorder. We further consider whether quality contact with Africans and neighbourhood cohesion mediates this relationship. We conclude with reflections on the significant and deleterious effects of the ‘black and criminal’ association on understandings of ‘Africanness’ in Australia.
BlairK.DunnK. M.KampA.AlamO. (2017). Challenging Racism Project 2015--16 National Survey Report.
9.
BowlingB.PhillipsC. (2002). Racism, crime and justice: Pearson Education.
10.
CannonJ. (2018). Reading between the crimes: Online media’s representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s interaction with the criminal justice system in post-apology Australia. Master’s thesis. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/2140
11.
ChughD. (2004).
Societal and managerial implications of implicit social cognition: Why milliseconds matter. Social Justice Research,
17(2), 203–222.
12.
ColemanJ. S. (1988).
Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology,
94, S95–S120.
13.
Colic-PeiskerV.TilburyF. (2008). Being black in Australia: A case study of intergroup relations. Race & Class,
49(4), 38–56.
14.
CollinsJ.ReidC. (2009).
Minority youth, crime, conflict, and belonging in Australia. Journal of International Migration and Integration/Revue de l'integration et de la migration internationale,
10(4), 377–391.
Crime Statistics Agency. (2018). Recorded criminal incidents by country of birth 2015--2018.
Crime Statistics Agency Database.
17.
CunneenC.RussellS. (2017). Social media, vigilantism and Indigenous people in Australia. In The Oxford encyclopedia of crime, media, and popular culture.
Oxford University Press. Published online Sep.
DixonT. L.MaddoxK. B. (2005).
Skin tone, crime news, and social reality judgments: Priming the stereotype of the dark and dangerous black criminal 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
35(8), 1555–1570.
EvansC. (2007, October 1) . Three in custody over bashing death. The Age, p. 3
23.
FarouqueF.CookeD. (2007, October 6) . Ganging up on Africans. The Age, p. 1
24.
Fleury-SteinerB. D.DunnK.Fleury-SteinerR. (2009).
Governing through crime as commonsense racism: Race, space, and death penalty ‘reform’ in Delaware. Punishment & Society,
11(1), 5–24.
FranziniL.CaughyM. O. B.NettlesS. M.O’CampoP. (2008).
Perceptions of disorder: Contributions of neighborhood characteristics to subjective perceptions of disorder. Journal of Environmental Psychology,
28(1), 83–93.
28.
GebrekidanB. (2018).
‘African-Australian' identity in the making: Analysing its imagery and explanatory power in view of young Africans in Australia.The Australasian Review of African Studies,
39(1), 110.
Gorman-MurrayA.WaittG. (2009).
Queer-friendly neighbourhoods: Interrogating social cohesion across sexual difference in two Australian neighbourhoods. Environment and Planning A,
41(12), 2855–2873.
31.
GreenwaldA. G.BanajiM. R. (1995).
Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review,
102(1), 4.
32.
GreenwaldA. G.KriegerL. H. (2006).
Implicit bias: Scientific foundations. California Law Review,
94(4), 945–967.
33.
HippJ. R.WickesR. (2018).
Problems, perceptions and actions: An interdependent process for generating informal social control. Social Science Research,
73, 107–125.
IbrahimA. (2004).
One is not born Black: Becoming and the phenomenon(ology) of race. Philosophical Studies in Education,
35(1), 77–87.
36.
InglisC. (2004). Educational changes and challenges in response to multiculturalism, globalization and transnationalism. In LuchtenbergS.(Ed.) Migration, education and change(pp. 186–211).
Routledge.
37.
JamesC. E. (2002). ‘Armed and dangerous!’ Racializing suspects, suspecting race. In B. Schissel & C. Brooks (Eds.) Marginality and condemnation: An introduction to critical criminology (pp. 289–307).
Fenwood Publishing.
Kwansah-AidooK.MapedzahamaV. (2015).
Media event, racial ramblings, or both? An analysis of media coverage of the Tamworth Council Sudanese Refugees Resettlement Case (2006). Sage Open,
5(4), 2158244015621600.
40.
Kwansah-AidooK.MapedzahamaV. (2018a).
There is really discrimination everywhere”: Experiences and consequences of everyday racism among the new black African diaspora in Australia. Australasian Review of African Studies,
39(1), 81–109.
41.
Kwansah-AidooK.MapedzahamaV. (2018b).
Black bodies in/out of place?: Afrocentric perspectives and/on racialised belonging in Australia.The Australasian Review of African Studies,
39(2), 95.
42.
LatkinC. A.GermanD.HuaW.CurryA. D. (2009).
Individual‐level influences on perceptions of neighborhood disorder: A multilevel analysis. Journal of Community Psychology,
37(1), 122–133.
43.
MacaulayL.DeppelerJ. (2020).
Perspectives on negative media representations of Sudanese and South Sudanese youths in Australia. Journal of Intercultural Studies,
41(2), 213–230.
44.
MajavuM. (2017). Uncommodified Blackness: The African male experience in Australia and New Zealand.
Springer.
45.
MajavuM. (2018).
The whiteness regimes of multiculturalism: The African male experience in Australia. Journal of Asian and African Studies,
53(2), 187–200.
46.
MajavuM. (2020).
The ‘African gangs’ narrative: Associating Blackness with criminality and other anti-Black racist tropes in Australia. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal,
13(1), 27–39.
47.
MarkusA. B. (2016a). Australians today: The Australia@ 2015 Scanlon foundation survey.
ACJC Monash University.
48.
MarkusA. B. (2016b). Mapping social cohesion: The Scanlon foundation surveys 2016.
ACJC Monash University.
49.
MapedzahamaV.Kwansah-AidooK. (2017).
Blackness as burden? The lived experience of black Africans in Australia. Sage Open,
7(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017720483
50.
MbembeA. (2017). Critique of black reason. Duke University Press.
51.
McMasterD. (2002).
Asylum-seekers and the insecurity of a nation. Australian Journal of International Affairs,
56(2), 279–290.
MorenoffJ. D.SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W. (2001).
Neighborhood inequality, collective efficacy, and the spatial dynamics of urban violence. Criminology,
39(3), 517–558.
NdhlovuF. (2013).
‘Too tall, too dark' to be Australian: Racial perceptions of Post-refugee Africans. Critical Race & Whiteness Studies,
9(2), 1--17.
56.
NdhlovuF. (2014). Becoming an African diaspora in Australia: Language, culture, identity. Springer.
57.
NunnC. (2010).
Spaces to speak: Challenging representations of Sudanese-Australians. Journal of Intercultural Studies,
31(2), 183–198.
58.
OidjarvH. (2018).
The tale of two communities: Residents’ perceptions of the built environment and neighborhood social capital. Sage Open,
8(2), 2158244018768386.
59.
PettigrewT. F.TroppL. R. (2006).
A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
90(5), 751.
60.
PettigrewT. F.TroppL. R.WagnerU.ChristO. (2011).
Recent advances in intergroup contact theory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations,
35(3), 271–280.
61.
PhelanJ. C.LinkB. G.DovidioJ. F. (2008).
Stigma and prejudice: One animal or two?Social Science & Medicine,
67(3), 358–367.
62.
PhillipsC.BowlingB. (2012). Ethnicities, racism, crime and criminal justice. The Oxford handbook of criminology (pp. 370–397).
Oxford University Press.
63.
PiqueroA. (1999).
The validity of incivility measures in public housing. Justice Quarterly,
16(4), 793–818.
64.
PutnamR. D. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community.
Simon and Schuster.
65.
PybusC. (2006) Black founders: The unknown story of Australia's first black settlers.
University of New South Wales Press.
66.
RivettK. (Ed.) (1975) Australia and the Non-White migrant.
Melbourne University Press.
RudmanL. A. (2004).
Social justice in our minds, homes, and society: The nature, causes, and consequences of implicit bias. Social Justice Research,
17(2), 129–142.
69.
SampsonR. J.MorenoffJ. D.Gannon-RowleyT. (2002).
Assessing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions in research. Annual Review of Sociology,
28, 443–478.
70.
SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W. (2004).
Seeing disorder: Neighborhood stigma and the social construction of “broken windows”. Social Psychology Quarterly,
67(4), 319–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250406700401
71.
SercombeH. (1995).
The face of the criminal is Aboriginal: Representations of Aboriginal young people in the West Australian newspaper. Journal of Australian Studies,
19(43), 76–94.
72.
ShepherdS. M.NewtonD.FarquharsonK. (2018).
Pathways to offending for young Sudanese Australians. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology,
51(4), 481–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865817749262
73.
ShepherdS. M.SpivakB. L. (2020).
Estimating the extent and nature of offending by Sudanese-born individuals in Victoria. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology,
53(3), 352–368. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865820929066
SteenbeekW.HippJ. R. (2011).
A longitudinal test of social disorganization theory: Feedback effects among cohesion, social control, and disorder. Criminology,
49(3), 833–871.
76.
TateS. A.PageD. (2018).
Whiteliness and institutional racism: Hiding behind (un) conscious bias. Ethics and Education,
13(1), 141–155.
77.
TaylorR. B. (2000). Breaking away from broken windows: Evidence from Baltimore neighbourhoods and the nationwide fight against crime, grime, fear and decline.
Westview Press.
UdahH. (2018).
‘Not by default accepted’: The African experience of othering and being othered in Australia. Journal of Asian and African Studies,
53(3), 384–400.
80.
WassermanR. (2018).
South African migrants in Australia: An overview. South Australian Geographical Journal,
114, 17–29.
81.
WearingM. (2012). Demonizing non-white identities in the global security state: Citizenship, social exclusion and racism in Australia. In D. Petty & C. MacFarland (Eds.) Citizenship: Practices, types and challenges (pp. 25–46).
Nova Science Publishers.
82.
WebsterC. (1997).
The construction of British ‘Asian’ criminality. International Journal of the Sociology of Law,
25(1), 65–86.
83.
WickesR.BrittC.BroidyL. (2017).
The resilience of neighborhood social processes: A case study of the 2011 Brisbane Flood. Social Science Research,
62(1), 96–119.
84.
WickesR.BroidyL.HippJ. (2018).
Responding to neighborhood problems: Is the division of community labor gendered?Crime and Delinquency,
64(9), 1215–1241.
85.
WickesR.GrossmanM.Forbes-MewettH.ArunachalamD.SmithJ.SkrbisZ.DellalH.KeelC. (2020). Understanding the context of racial and cultural exclusivism: A study of Melbourne neighbourhoods. Monash University. https://doi.org/10.26180/5e6ee4fa77a39
86.
WickesR.HippJ.SargeantE.MazerolleL. (2017).
Neighborhood social ties and shared expectations for informal social control: Do they influence informal social control actions?Journal of Quantitative Criminology,
33(1), 101–129.
87.
WickesR.HippJ. R.ZahnowR.MazerolleL. (2013).
“Seeing” minorities and perceptions of disorder: Explicating the mediating and moderating mechanisms of social cohesion. Criminology,
51(3), 519–560. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12011
YancyG. (2015).
Dear White America. New York Times,
24.
91.
ZhouS.Page-GouldE.AronA.MoyerA.HewstoneM. (2019).
The extended contact hypothesis: A meta-analysis on 20 years of research. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
23(2), 132–160.
