Negotiating the challenges of everyday life: the African immigrant experience in Queensland, Australia

Africans have become firmly part of Australian society. They account for an increasing proportion of its total population. This article draws from empirical data generated via in-depth semistructured interviews with 30 participants in South East Queensland. The findings suggest that the discursive constructions of Africans in everyday language and social relations in Australia work to construct their lived reality of being; becoming and being positioned as a racialized subject, leading to objectification, marginalization, exclusion and disadvantage. The article advocates for systemic changes that will end the problems of everyday racism at both state and national levels, and for the introduction of programs that will encourage the inclusion, belonging and full participation of visible and ethnically marked immigrants to Australia