Belonging and Racial Dignity for Africans in Australia

This project, titled ‘Beyond Inclusion: Belonging and Racial Dignity, ' was funded by the Australian Research Council through a DECRA Fellowship. The project aimed to identify practices that foster belonging, wellbeing and safety through a dignity lens. The research employed an innovative Afrocentric methodology to generate a new understanding of racial dignity as key to belonging for Black Africans in Australia. This project included three interconnected components: a review of relevant literature, storytelling with Black African people and consultations with community sector practitioners working with African communities, and the development of an Afrocentric practice framework.

Every human being, regardless of their background, is born free and has equal, inherent, immutable and indivisible right to dignity. To be dignified is to be affirmed in one’s humanity and personhood. It is to be seen as, thought of and treated as a person. To live a life of dignity is every person’s fundamental human right.