ANU Africa Network

In April  Atem Atem will be returning to the ANU on a part-time basis to complete his PhD work on ‘Settlement Experiences of South Sudanese Families in Western Sydney’ while continuing to work at the Fairfield City Council as the Multicultural Officer

He came to Australia from Sudan in 2002 as a refugee. He completed a degree in Medical Sciences (Medical Laboratory) and worked as a Pathology laboratory technician for three years.  Atem has been working with refugee and migrant communities in various roles supporting them with settlement and adjustment to life in Australia..

His post on South Sudanese youth crime can be found at

https://acrawsa.org.au/2018/03/02/the-other-side-of-the-story/

In 2017 his article ‘Basketball, soccer, AFL:the path to Successful settlement’ was published in the Winter issue of Australian Mosaic.

In April Atem Atem will be returning to the ANU to continue his PhD work on ‘Settlement Experiences of South Sudanese Families in Sydney’

His post on South Sudanese youth crime can be found at

In April Atem Atem will be returning to the ANU to continue his PhD work on ‘Settlement Experiences of South Sudanese Families in Sydney’

His post on South Sudanese youth crime can be found at
https://acrawsa.org.au/2018/03/02/the-other-side-of-the-story/

In 2017 his article ‘Basketball, soccer, AFL:
the path to Successful settlement’ was published on the
Winter issue of Australian Mosaic.

In 2017 his article ‘Basketball, soccer, AFL:
the path to Successful settlement’ was published on the
Winter issue of Australian Mosaic.

The ANU’s Research and Innovation News (March 2018) has reported that Bonnie McConnell has ‘been funded over $250,000 by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and Medical Research Council for the project ‘Developing a Community Singing Based Intervention for Perinatal Mental Health in the Gambia’.

An abstract of Dr McConnell’s article from the July 2017 issue of Ethnomusicology reads as follows:

‘Kanyeleng fertility society musicians have become an integral part of health promotion programs in the Gambia. Health workers have embraced kanyeleng performance in the name of making their programs more participatory and therefore more effective in combating persistent health problems.’

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.61.2.0312

Dr McConnell also presented a paper at the annual African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific Conference held at University of South Australia in November, 2017. Her Abstract is from the conference website

https://afsaap.org.au/conference/adelaide-2017/

African Popular Music, Politics, and Belonging in Australia – Bonnie McConnell, School of Music, The Australian National University
Australian political and media discourse frequently presents African cultural difference as a
problem that prevents people of African descent from integrating into Australian society.
While research has drawn attention to the problem of negative representations of Africans
in Australian society (Nolan et al. 2011), the cultural strategies that African Australian
communities use to challenge these representations have not been adequately explored.
This research examines two African Australian cultural festivals as important sites of self representation and political action, challenging the negative representations of African
Australians in the media. Drawing on ethnographic research with musicians and festival
organisers in Sydney and Melbourne, I examine the way African Australian performers
negotiate and communicate notions of history in order to articulate a sense of place and
belonging. I show that popular music in particular provides a powerful site for negotiating
multi-layered identities and plural histories, challenging one-dimensional representations of
African Australian people. By focusing on popular music, this research seeks to draw
attention to “hidden histories” (Hall 1990) of African Australian communities, as well as
cultural strategies for maintaining a sense of coherence in the face of displacement and
disjuncture.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/sudanese-ambassador-speaks-against-african-gang-reporting-20180214-h0w2zg.html

The above link reports a statement by Dr Baroudi, who became Ambassador for the Republic of Sudan in 2017, when he described an exhibition that opened on Monday at the Embassy.

“Sudan is seeking all the time for the common interests on a bilateral basis,” he said.

“That means if Sudan has good relations with Russia it doesn’t mean it should have bad relations with US and in this context also Sudan is seeking to have good relations with Australia in the international arena.”

Part of changing the way Australians see the country is an exhibition of Sudanese art and artefacts at the embassy in O’Malley, which will be opened on Monday night. A ceremony celebrating the inauguration of the embassy will include a Sudanese band and Sudanese cuisine. The exhibition includes a recreation of a traditional marriage ceremony, photos of the pyramids in Sudan dating back to the Kush era and other Sudanese artefacts. The ambassador and his wife, who made some of the artworks, are encouraging members of the public to visit the exhibition during business hours.”