Hip Hop and Political Voice for Young South Sudanese Australians: Born to Stand Out

Hip Hop and Political Voice for Young South Sudanese Australians: Born to Stand Out explores the building of political voice of young South Sudanese Australians to resist racialising discourses, particularly through hip hop. Presented as an ethnography, Sarah J. Williams draws on empirical evidence from a youth participatory action research project facilitated by a small nonprofit organisation: Footprints. Each chapter foregrounds counter-narratives young South Sudanese Australian hip-hop artists portray in response to over a decade of media and moral panics targeting their communities, limiting their sense of freedom and resulting in a rise in youth suicide. The core message throughout suggests participants reject any goal of or focus on ’fitting in’. Instead, based on their conviction that they are ’born to stand out’, these artivists carve out space in the face of racialising discourses perpetuated primarily by Australian Whiteness.
Through the lenses of new social movements and theories and perspectives informed by critical race theory and critical Hip Hop pedagogy, this book expands race and ethnicity as a central theme by exploring how the political voice of this group of young South Sudanese Australians manifests in important new ways that conventional theories of activism and resistance may not capture. Participants embark on consciousness-raising practices to reframe and assert their multiple identities whilst establishing themselves as social agents in the world.

Sarah J. Williams is lecturer, researcher and program manager in Youth Work and Youth Studies at RMIT University.