This article explores how experiences of racialisation toward women who are resettled in Australia from Central African countries of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo reflect a colonial imaginary and a legacy of postcolonising dominance in Australia. Drawing on 18-months of ethnographic research, I describe how assumptions of difference, dirtiness, and savagery become attached to women resettled in Australia from Central Africa by the persons they encounter within their everyday lives. Although resettled refugees are provided with civic inclusion in the nation as permanent residents, such experiences of marginalisation in contexts of everyday life represent a form of mis-interpellation, in which their inclusion as residents does not equate to being treated with social worth. I argue that the resettlement of refugees in Australia is as much a civilising process as a process of providing resettled refugees with protection. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Refugee settlement resettlement Forced migration gendered racialisation Central African migrants whiteness Racialisation Refugees postcolonialism Everyday racism Racism

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