GPH220
Geographies of Migration
AT2 Report
Exemplar Paper
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Introduction
This report will consider the migration and settlement patterns of the Zimbabwean diaspora
in South-West Victoria, drawing on a myriad of data sources such as Victorian ABS data,
contemporary literature and the first-hand and personal experiences of a Zimbabwean
participant and her child who now reside in the municipality of Warrnambool, Victoria.
Taken together this information will provide a rich, and contextualised picture of some of the
possible motivations for moving to this region from Zimbabwe, all the while being mindful
of the complexities of migration push and pull factors, acknowledging the highly contextual
and unique nature of migration as a phenomenon.
A central feature of this report is the way in which Zimbabwean settlement in South-West
regional Victoria rejects dominant trends of metropolitan migrant settlement, whilst also
acknowledging the way in which this narrative might stand as a microcosm for what will
soon become an increasing reality in regional Victoria, as globalisation continues to reach
and infiltrate every part of the world. This paper will be divided into three overarching
sections: history of the group and policies, a look at the Zimbabwean community in
Warrnambool using data, before discussing the possible push and pull factors that influenced
the participant’s decision to migrate. To conclude, this paper will then consider the factors
that are impacting life as a Zimbabwean migrant in Warrnambool and seek to consider how
these can be addressed so the community can propel into a future that retains migrant workers
through social cohesion and sensitive support systems.
History- Background
The Republic of Zimbabwe is a land-locked, Sub-Saharan African nation (See Figure 1) with
long history of colonial rule, only attaining internationally recognised independence in 1980.
Today, Zimbabwe is characterised by a suite of civic grievances driven by what various
authors would delineate as governmental failures to meet many of the socio-economic and
public health needs of ordinary citizens (Tarisayi, 2016; Hove & Chenzi, 2020). These
conditions were articulated by this report’s participant who expressed that “there were
limited career opportunities for young people in [her] country. Unemployment was extremely
high”.
Previously, the Zimbabwean community was relatively limited in migrating to Australia in
light of discriminatory policies like the White Australia Policy preventing people of colour
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entering into the country (McDonald, 2019). Further, the validity of migrating to Australia
where the cost of living was significantly higher than that of Zimbabwe was not feasible in
the absence of humanitarian and refugee programs that are available today. Zimbabwe-born
migrant flows into Victoria began increasing in concert with significant immigration policy
changes like the abolishment of the White Australia Policy in 1973; reforms making
temporary skilled work and humanitarian visas easier to attain in the late 1990’s (Hugo, 2007
& McDonald, 2019); as well Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis between 2000 and
2015 which ‘triggered a wave of emigration of an estimated 3-4 million people’ (Serumaga-
Zake, 2017, p.2) These policy and global changes are reflected through the increasing rate of
Zimbabwean migration to Victoria illustrated in Figure 2 as well as in the participant’s
comment which underpins the way more open adoption of more open, admission policies for
certain categories of economic migrants facilitated easy mobility:
Participant: ‘the visa processing was smooth, I didn’t stress at all. [Work] did visas for me
and my husband’.
Figure 1
Political Map of Africa highlighting Zimbabwe’s geographical location
Note. From Maps of the World, Maps of all regions, countries and territories of the World,
n.d., IVMH (http://www.maps-of-the-world.net/maps-of-africa/) CC BY 3.0
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Figure 2
Year of Arrival of Zimbabwe-born and Total Overseas-born, Victoria: 2016
Note. From Zimbabwe-born Victorian Community Profiles: 2016 Census, by Victorian State
Government (https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/Zimbabwe-Community-
Profile-2016-Census.pdf). CC BY 4.0
Increasing Zimbabwean immigration to Victoria (See Figure 2) is a function of Australia’s
wider ‘post-war transformation from an overwhelmingly British-dominated population to a
multicultural society’ (Hugo, 2009, p.11). In the last decade, Zimbabwean migration and
settlement in Victoria has increased by 24 % between the 2011 and 2016, ranking 58th
among the overseas-born communities in the state (ABS, 2016).
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Warrnambool’s Zimbabwean Expatriate Community
Historically in Victoria, Zimbabwean migrants have settled in Metro Melbourne, in line with
universal migrant settlement patterns concentrated in urban centres (Hugo, 2009). Whilst this
trend does still endure, Hugo (2009, p. 63) identifies the way in which efforts by federal,
state, and local governments to encourage Sub-Saharan African migrants to settle outside of
major metropolitan regions and to areas on Australia’s southeast coasts to facilitate regional
development are changing the composition in these lineages of settlement.
Warrnambool’s data is an example of this change beginning to take effect. Warrnambool is
historically, and persistently mono-cultural, dominated by Anglo-Saxon communities where
83.7% of people in 2016 were born in Australia, followed by England and New Zealand
(ABS, 2016). Yet, Figure 3 identifies an emerging Zimbabwean expatriate community that
has grown 40% between 2011 and 2016. Whilst this Zimbabwe-born community is made up
of just 14 persons, its presence itself is significant in light of Warrnambool’s linguistic,
cultural, ethnic and faith-based homogeneity that has characterised the culture of the area
historically. Indeed ‘the City of Warrnambool is experiencing changing demographics’
(Warrnambool City Council, 2021) as the region’s services and employment opportunities
expand, more links between metro and regional areas facilitate a rural-urban interface, and
government efforts to relocate migrants to regions catalyse new expatriate niches.
Figure 3
Warrnambool Top 30 Countries of Birth by Gender, 2016, 2011 Census
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Factors and circumstances driving Zimbabwean migration to Warrnambool
In the decision-making process of moving from one place to another, migrants ‘confront a
combination of push and pull factors’ (Greiner, 2013, p. 82) through a highly individualised,
lens of the world, whilst also weighing up their personal feelings and inherent obstacles of the
process involved in moving (Makakala, 2015). Lee (1966) surmises these factors into an
analytical framework for thinking about migration centred around four main factors; those
related to the country of origin, those related to the country they intend on migrating to,
intervening obstacles and personal factors. This paper has adopted this framework to organise
evidence of the participants’ motivations for migrating to Warrnambool embedding a range
of push, pull and indifferent factors (see Figure 4). It is clear from the participant’s comments
that their decision to migrate from Zimbabwe to Warrnambool was bound up in an
expectation of better living conditions, access to employment and economic opportunities, all
features of being an economic migrant (Kanayo, Anjofui & Stiegler, 2019).
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Figure 4
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Analysis of push and pull factors
The migration story of the participant interviewed supports the contention that urbanisation
and globalisation occurring at a regional scale in Warrnambool is driving multiculturalism
and migration, as she and her child settled in Warrnambool on work visas for the Department
of Social Services. Interestingly, this is the most common industry that Zimbabwean migrants
work in in Victoria (Victorian State Government, 2016) (see Figure 5) and so as
Warrnambool continues to rapidly grow and expand its workforce and global connections to
industries, ‘with approximately 45% of [Warrnambool’s workforce] indicating their intention
to hire additional staff in the next 2 years due to forecast business growth’ (Warrnambool
City Council, 2016), a plausible contention would be that employment will be a growing
reason for migrants to move to the area.
Figure 5
Note. From Zimbabwe-born Victorian Community Profiles: 2016 Census, by Victorian State
Government (https://www.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/Zimbabwe-Community-
Profile-2016-Census.pdf). CC BY 4.0
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Compounding Warrnambool’s growing global industries are a suite of other attractive
features which the participant identified as key motivations for moving to the town over other
employment opportunities in the UK. For example, Warrnambool’s coastal location, ‘great
weather’ and ‘ways of living’ all played into the Zimbabwean participants’ choice to move to
the town. The participant also commented on the resources available from a social worker’s
perspective to support families available in the region.
In thinking about push factors that encouraged migration out of Zimbabwe and led to the
eventual Zimbabwean community in Warrnambool, it seems pertinent to first consider the
participant’s following comment:
“I started to learn that there were limited career opportunities for young people in my
country. Unemployment was extremely high. My parents decided to send me to a
neighbouring country Namibia to study Honours degree in social work. There are better
career opportunities in Namibia than my country. After Uni, I got married and returned to
Zim for a few years. I…worked for 5 years at a Government Department. My job was…not
fulfilling as there were limited services to implement social work activities. I got tired of
working in such a system and I began applying for jobs in the UK and Australia”.
This anecdote supports and corresponds with the findings of Kanayo, Anjofui & Stiegler
(2019, p. 245) who identified that where there are ‘limited job opportunities and
unemployment…especially among those with skills in developing countries’ people are more
likely to migrate to countries that can offer better employment opportunities ‘because they
have aspirations’ (Kanayo, Anjofui & Stiegler, 2019, p. 245). The subsequent way in which a
large governmental social work department placed the participant in the municipality of
Warrnambool reflects the way in which the composition of where Zimbabwean migrants
settle is shifting as our regions become more integrated and connected with our cities and
global industries.
Prevailing impacts- what are the factors that are shaping life for the Zimbabwean
community in regions like Warrnambool?
Whilst ‘international migration between Africa and Australia has a long history’ (Hugo,
2009, p. 7), it’s acceleration in recent years, particularly those on temporary work visas,
alongside the concurrent influences of a globalising economy and more efficient travel mean
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that there is a greater demand to improve the conditions of living on a temporary visa
scheme. The participant expresses their frustration in the way in which she is denied basic
social rights in stating:
Interviewer: Did you face or continue to face any barriers or discrimination because of your
migrant status?
Participant: Oh yeah, I do face discrimination! Because I’m on a work visa, I do not have
Medicare or any support from government. Afterschool care and vacation care is ripping me
off. School holidays I have to pay $80 per day for Shanna. And school term I pay around
$30 per day for afterschool care. I know if I wasn’t on a work visa, I would get support. The
other day I took Shanna to Emergency Department and had to pay $580 straight away! It’s
expensive.
And also, I can’t get stuff on credit, have to pay cash all the time, yeah it sucks.”
The participant’s frustrations here are a function of the way in which ‘ temporary migrant
workers are denied many social rights, such as public health care… [and] subsidies for their
children’s education which likely increases their living costs potentially prompting them to
work lengthy hours, in some cases in contravention of their visa conditions’ (Wright,
Clibborn, Pipe & Cini, 2016, p. 16).Compounding these policy-related impacts are also the
social and cultural difficulties of assimilating into new places, particularly those outside of
metropolitan areas like Melbourne where most of Zimbabwean people reside where support
networks and community groups circulate like the ‘Zimbabwean Victorian Association’
where Zimbabweans meet for social gatherings in Melbourne (Liamputting, 2017, p. 73). The
participant residing in Warrnambool expresses this sentiment in stating:
Participant: “There were no support systems in place for Shanna and I. I am still looking for
support. I am grateful for my workmates for moral support and Shanna’s teachers, they take
care of her… I still struggle a fair bit. I miss my own culture”.
In thinking about how communities can better respond to inevitable influxes of migrant
communities, particularly those who are relatively unaccustomed to such changes, it is
incumbent on those with influence to engender better social cohesion through local-level
support group initiation and eliminate financial barriers. Wright, Clibborn, Pipe & Cini
(2016, p. 11 ) suggest that ‘greater settlement assistance by government, especially at the
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state or local levels, [would increase] migrant retention in regional areas, for instance by
enabling … access to affordable housing, and quality schooling for children’ while the
Warrnambool City Council (2021) recognises it needs to help employers provide settlement
information for migrants and help connect migrants to local ethnic groups as well as provide
‘Links to migrant support initiatives, such as the Settlements Grants Program’.
Conclusion
This paper has situated the experience of a Zimbabwean migrant within the broader discourse
of increasing inflows of foreign workers to Australia from Sub-Saharan regions in recent
decades. Specifically, this paper has considered economic push and pull factors which have
influenced a large proportion of Zimbabwean skilled, educated workers to migrate to
Australia, made easy under a market orientated immigration scheme that prioritises skills that
are in demand domestically. In adopting a historical lens of immigration policies, this paper
has been able to help explain changing flows and settlement patterns that have manifested in
emerging diverse population groups in regional areas that have previously experienced
minimal cultural diversity. The sentiments and frustrations disclosed through interviewing the
participant have served as a powerful reminder of the need to support new migrants with a
raft of culturally appropriate, sensitive strategies to integrate and include them into the fabric
of communities, retain them, and harness the benefits of diversity like new ideas, innovation
and varied thinking. A failure to do so and remain complacent with current temporary work
visa conditions without any local or state level social support will inevitably perpetuate the
vulnerabilities to systemic barriers in our social systems felt by those such as the temporary
Zimbabwean migrants of Warrnambool.
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