NARRATIVES OF PRIVILEGE

An Ethnographic Study of Colombian- Born Women Living in Melbourne, Australia

By Viktoria Adler

This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Centre for Urban Transitions Faculty of Health, Art & Design Swinburne University of Technology

2019 ABSTRACT

This thesis investigates the research question: how do Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper class, and are therefore privileged in Colombia, experience their privilege living as migrants in Melbourne? I do so by analysing their life story narratives. These narratives show how the women experience privilege as stemming from their belonging to the socially dominant culture, race and class in Colombia, and how their embodied privileges shape their experiences in Australia.

My study is ethnographic and involved two years of fieldwork among the Colombian- born community in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. I conducted life story interviews and I carried out participant observation at women’s workplaces, cultural events in Colombian and other Latin American communities, recreational activities, and gatherings with family and friends, as well as by spending time with each of the women on other occasions. Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish, audio- recorded, transcribed and examined using thematic analysis.

I conceptualise privilege as the product of intersecting and at times contradictory social locations such as race, ethnicity, gender and class a person occupies in a particular context, in relation to others. I argue that these women have been able to transfer key aspects of their privilege to Australia although they are not white and upper class in an Australian context. Nevertheless, their embodied privilege does not entirely protect them from disadvantages they face as ethnic migrants from a country of the Global South. Thus, their Colombian position of social privilege intersects with their Australian position of being an ethnic migrant woman. Their privilege does not disappear, but it changes.

My research contributes to the scholarship on relatively privileged migrants from the Global South as well as to the literature on intersectional approaches to privilege. I demonstrate how these women’s positionality, the way they understand their world, is structured by multiple and at times contradictory social locations and their varying meanings across different locations. I argue that the women’s positionalities in Australia are rooted in their privileged social locations in Colombia, yet nevertheless

ii shaped by their position as ethnic migrant women. The stability of the inherited upper- class privilege that these women experience continues to provide the central lens through which they narrate their lives as migrant ethnic women in Australia.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Above all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the seven Colombian women: Teresa, Natalie, Maria, Isabel, Sol, Gabriela and Martha who I can only address by their synonyms in this thesis. I am very grateful for their time and their investment in my thesis over the past years as well as their friendship. Their assistance and their brainpower have been an incredible support to this project. With some of my interlocutors I had regular discussion about my research and they helped me redirect my questions or think through my research. These were in particular Natalia, Teresa and Maria and Gabriela who occupied a sort of double informant role – they did not only tell me their life stories they are both also social scientist with a deep sociological knowledge about Colombian society.

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Sandy Gifford, Klaus Neumann and Karen Farquharson who have been teaching, guiding and supporting me throughout the journey. I am very grateful that they generously shared their knowledge and of their guidance through this. Their supervision made this an incredibly valuable process of learning for me. I am particularly indebted to Sandy Gifford who read my many numerous drafts, and provided me with valued and much needed support and feedback.

I would like to thank the staff of the former Swinburne Institute for Social Research and the current Centre for Urban Transitions, for their support and endless positive encouragement. I am very grateful my wonderful cohort for sharing this unique journey with me. I am very lucky for such smart, empathetic and funny colleagues. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mel Di Giacomo, Rochelle Lade, Jasmine Knox, Emily Graham, Jennifer Witheridge, Josee Huenneke, Sophie Mayrhuber, Fritz Teutsch and Silvia Wojczewski for proof reading chapters over the years especially Christine Horn for her help and feedback. I learned a lot!

I would like to express my gratitude for the SUPRA scholarship I received from Swinburne University of Technology which made this research project possible, and

iv would like to thank Jane Farmer and Tracy De Cotta for being such amazing, flexible and understanding bosses. Finally, I would like to thank my amazing friends and dedicate a special thanks to Jasmine, Nikki, Eamon, Lana, Micah and Sanne, Markus, Michi, Silvia, Sophie, Teresa and Julia. Because of you, I never felt alone even when I had to lock myself away for months on end. You cheered me up when I really needed it, and spending time with you (often just over the phone) was a source of much needed energy for me. Thank you!

To my whole family, especially my father Tibor and niece Joya, thank you.

This thesis has been professionally copy edited by Dr Rachel Le Rossignol according to the Australian Standards for Editing Practice. Specifically, the standards applied included D1, D3 to D5 and E1, E2 and E4. These standards relate to appropriate academic editing, including clarity of expression, spelling, punctuation and grammar, and ensuring the document meets the examining university's format, style and sequencing requirements.

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DECLARATION

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text.

To the best of my knowledge this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text.

Where work is based on joint research or publications, this thesis discloses the relative contributions of the respective workers or authors.

Digitally signed by Viktoria Viktoria Adler Date: 2019.11.13 Adler 17:40:42 +11'00' Viktoria Adler 30.05.2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ii Acknowledgment iv Declaration vi Figures x

1. Introduction ...... 11

2. Travelling Privilege ...... 22

Categories of Difference ...... 23 Gender ...... 23 Race...... 25 Whiteness ...... 26 Ethnicity ...... 27 Class ...... 31

Social Location ...... 32

Intersectional Approaches to Privilege and Migration ...... 33 Intersectionality and Privilege ...... 34 Translocational Positionality ...... 36

3. Methodological Approach...... 42

Methods of Data Collection ...... 45 Life Story Interviews ...... 45 Participant Observation ...... 50

Context of the Field Research...... 52

The Women in this Research...... 54 Introducing the Women in this Study ...... 57

Data Collection ...... 62 Life Story Interviews ...... 62 Participant Observation ...... 64

Data Analysis ...... 65

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Doing Research on Women from Latin America ...... 67 Representation and Accountability ...... 70

4. Contextualising Experiences: Background ...... 75

Colombia...... 76 A Brief History ...... 79 Social Structures in Colombia ...... 83 Class in Colombia ...... 90

Australia ...... 96 Racial Hierarchies and Class in Australia ...... 96 A Brief History of Australia’s Migration History...... 98 Latin American Migration to Australia...... 103

5. Teresa: A Story Between Privilege and Ethnic Difference ...... 107

Colombia: Memories of Insecurity and Social Bubbles ...... 110 ‘Yes, it was Quite Hard’: Medellin ...... 112 ‘Trying to Stay Out of this Bubble’. Teenage Years in Bogotá...... 117 ‘A Change of Panorama’: Leaving Colombia ...... 127

‘Yellow’: Arriving in Australia ...... 128 ‘They Were All Artists’: Art School in Melbourne ...... 131 Art and Ethnic Difference in Teresa’s Life...... 134 ‘If I Was Going to Stay I Want to Stay for What I Was’...... 139 Staying in Melbourne: Putting down Roots ...... 142

Reflections: From Bogotá to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Bogotá ...... 143

6. Gabriela: A Narrative of Stable Privilege ...... 150

‘It Was a Nice Childhood’: Growing up in Bogotá ...... 152 ‘Game of Being Safe’: Bogotá in the Early 90s ...... 156 ‘Ah, You Are a Lady’: Issues of Class ...... 161 ‘They Share My Passion for Geography’: University in Bogotá ...... 168 ‘It was Like Giving Birth to a Pineapple’: Moving to Melbourne ...... 172

‘Give Papaya’: A New Life in Melbourne ...... 175 ‘No One had Lunch Outside of Their Offices’: Settling In ...... 180 ‘Oh Colombian. Do You have Drugs with You?’: Encountering Stereotypes ...... 184 ‘I Think I Can Pass as an Italian Heritage’: Questions of Belonging ...... 189

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7. Sol: Contested Privilege ...... 196

‘I Never Lacked Anything’: Growing up in Barranquilla ...... 198 ‘Bogotá is Beautiful’: Moving to the Capital ...... 210

Australia ...... 214 ‘Oh, so Beautiful. So Different’: The Meaning of Hair ...... 217 ‘My Dream Finally Started to Become True’: Building a Life in Melbourne ...... 221 ‘Una Niña Diferente’: Encountering Difference ...... 223 ‘Now This is your Project’: Motherhood ...... 230

8. Discussion: Intersecting Privilege ...... 235

Growing up Privileged in Colombia...... 241 Racial and Ethnic Privileges in Colombia ...... 242 Class Privileges in Colombia ...... 244

Gendered Expectations in Colombia ...... 246 Gender and the Labour Market ...... 248 Motherhood and Sexuality ...... 249

Gendered Experiences in Australia ...... 250

Leaving Colombia: The Privilege of Choice ...... 253

Relatively Privileged Migrant Women...... 255 Transferring Privilege ...... 257 Privileged Positionality ...... 259 The Intersection of Privilege and Ethnic Difference ...... 261

9. Conclusion ...... 268

References ...... 275

Appendix ...... 297

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FIGURES

Fig. 1: Estrato distribution city of Bogotá 2017 91

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1. Introduction

So, my teacher from uni she was like ‘We have to do something for you’. She has a partner but they were split up at that time and he was moving out from the flat where he was living. So, the uni called the real estate and recommended us and everything [laughing] and then they gave us this flat. And I was like ‘Wow. This flat must be amazing. It is my teacher's partners flat. Wow.’ We got there and it was horrible. [laughing]. And I cried. But I couldn't cry in front of her. Well, you come from Colombia. Being basically... even though I was like ‘I can do my things’ when I moved out you are still a princess. But here it was like the walls were like the worst colour on earth. It had a green fabric carpet and it was all smelly. It had like humid walls. While we were living there it got worst. But anyways, we were living in Carlton [laughing]. [Teresa, Int. 5, 00:43]

These are Teresa’s words. We are sitting in a café on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, in Melbourne’s trendy inner north, sipping our coffees. Teresa is a petite woman. She is wearing a pair of blue jeans, a green vintage jumper and leather sandals. Teresa wears her black wavy hair out, but she has skilfully pinned up a wisp of hair. I am closely following her words as she is telling me the story of how she and her husband moved from Mont Albert, a suburb further away from the city centre, where they stayed for the first couple of months after arriving in Melbourne, to their own first apartment right next to Melbourne’s CBD. After an hour and a bit, I can see that she is getting tired. Listening to her words has made me tired too. I look at her and say, ‘Maybe we should stop here for today?’ She nods, and I turn off the voice recorder. The tone of our conversation immediately changes. We fall back into chit chat about our everyday lives, things that we need to get done before the end of the week and weekend plans. After another twenty minutes we give each other a hug and say goodbye.

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Teresa is from Colombia and I met her in 2014. She is in her early forties and after working as an artist and art manager she is now writing her PhD. She is originally from Bogotá and she identifies as white upper class in a Colombian context. In Colombia, upper-classness conflates with whiteness due to the so called sistema de castas that the Spanish installed in their colonies (see Thompson-Hernández 2016, p. 117). Whiteness does not necessarily reflect fair skin but rather the idea of a European lineage (see Streicker 1995, p. 60, see more Chapter 4) for which an idealised white European appearance, including fair skin colour, works as a signifier. She arrived over ten years ago as an international student in Melbourne and––against her initial plan–– never moved back to Colombia.

When I first met her, I was a newbie in Melbourne compared to Teresa. At the time of this interview I had lived in Melbourne for only a year and a bit. Melbourne, a city more than 15,000 km away from my hometown of Vienna, Austria. The interviews with Teresa were the beginning of the fieldwork for my PhD project. The research question that I explore in this ethnographic study is: how do Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper class, and are therefore privileged in Colombia, experience their privilege living as migrants in Melbourne and their position within society?

Colombia carries the heavy burden of one of the world’s longest civil conflicts, which officially came to a peace agreement in 2016. Nonetheless, violence and displacement continue (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Internal displacement Colombia 2018b). Besides the conflict, Colombia also struggles with historical social inequality, weak government institutions, and a weak justice system. In short, it is a country with manifold social and economic upheavals (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 18, p. 86). However, the women in this research did not leave the country because of these reasons. All women in this research self-identify as white and upper class, with the exception of one woman who identifies as middle class, and in relation to the majority of Colombians, all of the women lived privileged lives in Colombia. These South American women do not understand themselves as direct victims of the violent conflict or economic inequality. This does not mean that their lives were not influenced by insecurity. However, they came to Australia as international students

12 and their motivation to leave Colombia was to gain additional, postgraduate education, improve their English to be more competitive at a global job market; as well as experience a change of scenery and satisfy a desire for new experiences and adventure.

New developments in migration show that there is an increase in people––just like the women in this study––that migrate voluntarily and who have ‘the resources – variously of money, time, or credentials – to undertake the journeys’ (Amit 2007, p. 2). Scholarship on relatively privileged migrants is yet scarce as until recently migration studies focused primarily on the mobility of less advantaged people and groups (Olwig 2007, p. 87). However, the migration of relatively privileged migrants from the Global North (who profit from whiteness) is often framed as lifestyle migration (see Benson 2016, 2014). Relatively privileged migrants from the Global South are rarely framed as lifestyle migrants.

Latin Americans, particularly Colombians, are not a traditional migrant community in Australia. Although small-scale migration from Latin America to Australia has existed for a long time, the numbers of new migrants have only steadily begun to increase since 2001 (see more in Chapter 4). An exception to this is the wave of Latin American refugees who migrated to Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, mainly under the Special Humanitarian Program and Family Reunion Program (del Rio 2014, p. 168). The Latin American and Colombian migrants arriving since 2001 reflect the above-mentioned new development of relatively privileged migrants. Cristina Rocha and Gabriela Coronado (2014) distinguish between two groups of Latin Americans in Australia: those who arrived in the 1960s until 1980s and those who migrating after 2001. The Latin Americans who arrived in Australia in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (mainly from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay) were often unskilled working-class migrants whilst those arriving since 2001 (mostly from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia) are mainly skilled and middle class (Rocha & Coronado 2014, p. 468). This shift to a new migrant demographic in Australia is tied to the country’s economic needs. In the 1970s and 1980s Australia needed migrants to work in factories. The country’s change to a service and white-collar economy over the past few decades increased Australia’s necessity for high-skilled migrants, which they now often recruit from the Global South (Amit 2007, p. 3; Rocha & Coronado 2014, p. 471).

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In this ethnographic thesis I explore the everyday experiences of privilege of upper- and middle-class white Colombian migrant women living in Australia. They are relatively privileged women from the Global South moving to and living in the Global North. Vered Amit (2007, p. 1) points out that anthropological work on relatively privileged migrants often engages with issues that concern the movement between different locations which creates ‘tensions between different hierarchies and criteria of status and privilege as travellers move from one context to another’ (Amit 2007, p. 2). The women’s experiences of privilege are contradictory as they do not only occupy privileged social locations, either in Colombia or in Australia. They profit from class and racial privilege in Colombia for example, but not from gender privilege. Through the change of context and an asymmetry of power between Australia and Colombia within a global system of nation states, these women are no longer white and upper class in Australia. Their actual social location changes. By applying an intersectional lens to the experience of privilege I investigate how their new social locations, particularly their class, race, ethnicity and gender, as well as their positionality, influence the ways in which the women experience their privilege in Australia.

In Re-Thinking Intersectionality (2008, p. 10) Jennifer Nash concludes that intersectional literature excludes the examination of identities that are ‘either wholly or even partially privileged’, although these identities too are shaped by multiple structures of power. She argues that if approaches to intersectionality want to contribute to the theorisation of identity, privilege needs to be taken into account as ‘[…] progressive scholarship requires a nuanced conception of identity that recognizes the ways in which positions of dominance and subordination work in complex and intersecting ways to constitute subjects’ experiences of personhood’ (Nash 2008, p. 10).

Anitta Kynsilehto (2010, p. 1548) agrees that intersectionality is useful to better understand the experience of those who are (partially) privileged. In her study on highly-educated migrant Maghrebi women living in France she moves beyond simplifying explanations of discrimination and privilege and explores ways in which the multiplicity of categories of difference occupied by the women hinder and enhance their possibilities in the context of migration (Kynsilehto 2010, p. 1548). Further, in

14 her study on relatively privileged Brazilian migrants in Massachusetts who grew up undocumented, Kara Cebulko (2018, p. 227) argues that the intersection of privilege and marginalisation shapes her interlocutors’ lives in ways that were previously obscured by literature that exclusively focused on unauthorised migrants. By including privilege, she shows how this marginalised group profits from race and class privilege. This highlights how multiple social locations operate together and reposition individuals in contradictory ways (Cebulko 2018, p. 229), which allows for a more accurate and nuanced analysis of people’s lived experiences.

In this thesis I employ intersectional approaches to privilege and transnational migration. I draw on Cynthia Levine-Rasky (2011) and Linda Black and David Stone (2005) to conceptualise privilege as intersecting. This means that individuals hold multiple identities which may reinforce or contradict a person’s privileged location and positionality. Further, I borrow Floya Anthias’ (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) concept of translocational positionality. Anthias (2002b, p. 276) explains that a translocational positionality is one that is ‘structured by the interplay of different locations’. Thus, her concept is an intersectional approach to explore the ways in which individuals hold multiple identities in different (transnational) locations. Anthias’ approach accounts for the shifts and contradictions that arise at these various intersections of categories of differences and locations. My aim is to understand the lived experience of privilege of white upper- or middle-class Colombian migrant women living in Melbourne.

This thesis draws upon two years of fieldwork in which I conducted life story interviews and participant observation with seven upper- or middle-class white Colombian-born women living in Melbourne, Australia. I used life story interviews as this method allows the researcher to enter the subjective world of the teller (Frank 1995, p. 145; Plummer 2001, p. 401). Further, life story interviews offer themselves for analysis of categories of difference and their intersections as the narratives people tell about their lives enable the researcher to understand how these categories change and intersect over time and location (Connell 2010; Wilkins 2012). Additionally, I employed participant observation to understand tacit aspects of their experience of privilege (Dewalt et al. 2000, p. 260). The participant observation took place mainly

15 in the north and south of Melbourne. The women and I were hanging out together at bars, cafes, gigs, their workplaces, at home with their family and friends, birthday parties, and at Colombian and Latin American events. I gave my interlocutors their chapters to fact check the stories of their lives and to decide what they would like to be anonymised. Finally, I used a thematic analysis to analyse the data I gathered.

In this thesis I engage in-depth with the everyday experience of privilege of Teresa, Gabriela and Sol but I also draw on the data I gathered from the other four women I interviewed and hung out with. The narratives of Teresa, Gabriela and Sol explore the ways in which they are able to transfer varying aspects of the privileges they hold in Colombia to their new home country. Their privileges travel with them. For this exploration, I engage with their childhoods and lives in Colombia and then follow their narratives to Melbourne. The stories of their growing up in Colombia show how their lives were framed by privilege, and highlight that Teresa, Gabriela and Sol were socialised into a privileged positionality. Thus, their understanding of the world is influenced by privilege. Sol differs to some extent from the other women in this research as she is from a middle-class family from the Atlantic Coast. Her story contextualises their experiences and shows what a difference upper-class privilege makes.

In this thesis, I explore how these women occupy contradictory social locations as relatively privileged Colombian migrant women living in Australia. Their privilege now intersects with being ethnic migrant women. However, I further show how these intersections, instead of entirely taking their privilege away, shape and change it. I argue that this creates distinct intersecting forms of privilege. This ethnographic study explores in detail how the women navigate their lives in Melbourne successfully and are able to profit from their location as ethnic migrants while simultaneously being excluded and othered in some aspects of their lives by wider Australian society. Thus, these narratives illustrate how their Colombian privilege plays out, transforms and/or disappears, in Australia.

Finally, through the exploration of how the women navigate their everyday lives in Australia this thesis shows how the women do not leave their privileged positionality

16 behind. Their positionality is one that is translocational as it is influenced by their social locations in Colombia and Australia (Anthias 2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b). They act and speak from a place of privilege, the white upper-class privilege they hold in Colombia, while simultaneously being middle-class ethnic migrant women in Australia. It is this lens through which they understand their lives and act in Australia. As the narratives show this is one of their greatest privileges as it shields them. Because of their positionality they can shake experiences of exclusion and discrimination easily, and it enables them to act from a location of privilege, even though this privilege might not correspond with their actual position in society.

As I have mentioned above, literature on privileged migrants from the Global South is scarce and so is the scholarship on Latin Americans, particularly women, in Australia. Much of the early scholarship engages with female migrants from South and Central America who came as refugees to Australia (see Cohen 2004; Dawson & Gifford 2001) whereas Beryl Langer (1990) focuses on the divisions caused by class differences and politics within Salvadorian refugee communities in Australia. Romania Aizpurua (2008) as well as Romania Aizpurua and Adrian Fisher (2008) investigated the migration and acculturation experiences of Latin American working- and middle-class female migrants from South America to Australia. Zuleyka Zevallos (2003, 2004, 2008) particularly engages with the identity construction of second generation Latin American women in Australia. Further, in 2005 the Journal of Iberian and Latin American studies published a special section on the ‘dual issues of community and identity and their impact on Latin Americans in Australia’ (Zevallo 2005,p. 93). The contributions discuss the notion and experiences of community amongst Latin Americans in Australia (see for example Cohen 2005; López 2005; Torezani 2005).

The special issue on Latin American migrants in Australia published in Intercultural Studies edited by Rocha and Coronado (2014) engages with the Latin American demographic that arrived after 2001 and are high skilled. For example, Philippa Collin (2014) explores the impact of Information Communication Technologies on experiences of ‘being’ and ‘belonging’ of Chilean migrants in Australia. Vek Lewis’ (2014) study engages with gay-identifying men of Latin American background living

17 in Sydney. Rocha (2014) explores how young middle-class Japanese Brazilians move between Brazil, Japan and Australia use their specific migration patterns to accumulate cultural capital.

From this special issue, of particular importance for my research is Cristina Wulfhorst’s (2014) study on upper-middle class Brazilians with tertiary education. She focuses on privileged Brazilian migrants and shows how those Brazilians, while living Sydney, maintain their whiteness, cosmopolitanism and Western attitude by keeping boundaries to Brazilians of lower class-background. Important to my study is Liana Torres Casierra’s work (2017), which investigates the positioning processes, and based on that, the construction of multiple identities amongst the members of two Sydney-based Colombian communities. It presents the latest contribution to the scholarship on issues of identity for Colombian migrants in Australia. In her thesis, Torres Casierra (2017) found that the identities her participants construct in Australia are influenced by social and economic conditions in Australia but also by the common understanding of certain Colombian social practices that the community members share. She shows the ways in which these Colombians hold multiple identities which they experience as ambiguous. This is as they believe that their quality of life is better in Australia than in Colombia. However, their aim to achieve economic advantage in Australia often comes at the expense of their professional goals and careers.

My research contributes to the scholarship on relatively privileged migrants from the Global South and intersectional approaches to privilege, particularly in the context of migration. Finally, my study adds to the literature on female Latin American migrants in Australia as I am focusing on first generation, highly-educated Latin American women of privileged backgrounds. My research shows how these women experience being ethnic migrant women in Australia and how their privilege influences their opportunities in their new home country.

Through my own experience in Cuba and Nicaragua as an exchange student and as a researcher I was familiar with the rigid and hierarchical social structures which are a characteristic of many Latin American countries. Social structures are deeply influenced by Spanish colonialism, ideas of white superiority and class structures that

18 intersect with ideas of race and ethnicity due to the Spanish sistema de castas (see Thompson-Hernández 2016, p. 117). Colombian society is a divided one as it is marked by vast social and economic inequality (Hudson 2010, p. 199; LaRosa & Mejia 2013, p. 131). This divide between the affluent and the poor is highly visible. Colombia is also marked by a rigid racial hierarchy where whites and Mestizas/os are on the top of the hierarchy and Afro Colombians and Indigenous Colombians are at the bottom of the hierarchy (Telles 2014, p. 1). Thus, Colombia is a place where one’s place within these hierarchies is important because society is so stratified. The women’s lived experiences of being at the top of these hierarchies in Colombia enabled me to ask questions about how their privilege may have changed in a setting where they do not occupy the top anymore.

In this thesis I am asking ‘how do Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper class in Colombia, experience their privilege in Melbourne?’ It was not a coincidence that I chose the topic of privileged migrants. My father left his communist home country as an 18-year-old in 1956, the year of the Hungarian revolution. He arrived in Vienna as a Hungarian Jewish refugee hoping to escape the Eastern Bloc. Once he finally arrived in Western Europe he had not much more than his Flüchtlingspass (refugee passport). For many reasons it is hard to make sense of my father’s life in Budapest. Still today I only have bits and pieces of information to use so I can assemble a coherent story of who and what my family was back then. Twelve years before my father decided to leave Hungary, he and Grandmother, with the help of a Catholic Priest, survived the Holocaust. After the war was over my father and grandmother could go back into their apartment close to Budapest’s city centre. One of my father’s few memories of the apartment was of his mother’s grand piano (she was a pianist). It was the only thing left in there. Whenever this story came up in our conversations he would add with a cynical smile: ‘It was too heavy for them to carry’. Soon after returning to their apartment my father’s life went back to a seemingly normal routine. He went to school. The same year my father and his mother survived the Holocaust, my grandmother sent my father to private English lessons after school and of course piano lessons. This was part of her idea of a well-rounded education. It was a hidden blessing that the grand piano was too heavy to lift.

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In his first months in Austria Dad lived in a refugee camp and accepted every job that he was offered. He also had to repeat his final high school degree as Austria did not recognise his Hungarian qualification. Nonetheless, life got better quickly. He received his citizenship within a year. He started studying, decided that he would rather earn money straight away, and then started his own business. A few years later he married his first wife, a woman from a Viennese aristocratic family. Years later, my Dad, like many Eastern Europeans in Vienna of this generation, ended up in the Import/Export business, which he combined with owning a gas station. It was not the path that my father thought his life would take when he was younger. Nevertheless, until his last day at work he wore a suit and his Rolex at the gas station/office.

For half of my life I was too young to locate my father’s life within a bigger picture of history and political power relations. I had no concept of what it means to be Eastern European in Austria or even what it means to be a Jewish Eastern European with an accent in Vienna. My father was neither a foreigner nor a migrant nor a refugee nor a member of an ethnic or religious minority for me. To me my father was a man who, highly inappropriately, wore a suit at a gas station. Through the journey of my PhD (something that has made me a migrant myself), I realised that my father showed me early on in my life that migrants carry many things with them across borders. Amongst these are privileges. Along with many other things, it then depends on the context as to how a person is able to continue to profit from these privileges. Similar to the Colombian-born women that migrated to Australia, being born into a family that held certain privileges (before the war started) influenced how my father performs his class belonging as a migrant in Vienna. Although he came to Austria as an Eastern European Jewish refugee, he embodies certain privileges and these, up to today, influence the ways in which he experiences life in Vienna.

In this thesis, I examine the research question by outlining my theoretical framework and my methodological approach in Chapters 2 and 3. In Chapter 4 I discuss important aspects of Colombia’s social structure and history to contextualise the women’s narratives about Colombia. In the second half of Chapter 4 I examine aspects of Australia’s history of immigration and finish the chapter with information about migration from Latin America to Australia. Chapter 5 focuses on the life story of

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Teresa, an upper-class white Colombian-born woman who in Melbourne pursues an artistic career and finally, after the birth of her daughter, enrolled in a PhD program. Teresa’s story highlights that she is able to successfully transfer her privilege to Australia, and how she is able to make her ethnicity work to her advantage. Chapter 6 is based on Gabriela’s life story: another white upper-class woman from Bogotá who came to Melbourne as a PhD student to follow an academic career. Her life story is presented to show how the young woman experiences her white upper-class privilege as stable and a constant in her life. However, her narrative also shows that she experiences her privilege as relative to her surroundings, which highlights the relational character of privilege.

Chapter 7 focuses on Sol’s narrative. She is a middle-class woman from Barranquilla who self-identifies as white. She initially moved to Sydney to study a Master’s degree and moved to Melbourne after finishing her studies. In Melbourne, Sol co-founded a social enterprise and a Latin American cultural organisation while simultaneously trying to find paid and permanent work in the local social enterprise scene. Her narrative illustrates that as a Colombian-born woman of middle-class background, she experienced her migration to Australia and the process of recreating her position in society as harder than the other women as she does not profit from the same upper- class white privileges. In Chapter 8, I discuss the women’s experiences. I argue that their privilege travels with them. Further I describe the ways in which their privilege intersects as well as changes and, in some aspects, disappears through these women’s migrations.

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2. Travelling Privilege

My thesis sets out to explore the following question: how do Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper class, and are therefore privileged in Colombia, experience their privilege living as migrants in Melbourne and their position within society? In this chapter, I discuss the key scholarship that provides the framework for analysing these women’s experiences. I am drawing on intersectional scholarship within feminist anthropology and sociology to explore experiences of privilege in the context of female migrants. I discuss the following terms, all of which are central for my thesis: gender, race, whiteness, ethnicity and class. This is followed by a discussion of the concept of social location. I then engage with intersectionality and intersectional approaches to privilege and migration, in particular Anthias’ concept of translocational positionality (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b).

Much of the literature within feminist theory focuses on multiple and intersecting subordination and does not explicitly use intersectionality to explore positions of privilege. I am drawing on the notion of intersecting privilege used in the field of multicultural counselling (Black & Stone 2005). I am also drawing on the work of sociologist Cynthia Levine-Rasky (2011) as she suggests that intersectionality can be used to investigate privilege. A conceptualisation of privilege as intersecting, similar to an analysis of subordination and identities in general, is useful because as Black and Stone (2005, p. 234) argue ‘Dichotomous categorizations of privilege diminish an understanding of its intersections, intricacies, and influence’. Thus, conceptualising individuals as either privileged or subordinated does not take into consideration that people hold multiple identities, which intersect with each other. It simplifies the complex and often contradictory positions an individual occupies in relation to privilege and subordination. Conceptualising privilege as intersecting allows me to frame my interlocutors’ experiences as relatively privileged but influenced by their intersecting, relational and situational multiple identities, with their differing meanings and consequences (in relation to their privilege) across borders.

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Categories of Difference

In this thesis I use the term categories of difference to describe types of social differences that structure the social world. These form group belongings and thus they are sources of multiple identities. In this sense, social difference is one approach to understand how identities are created. Individuals make sense of themselves in relation to those they experience as Others or, as Hall’s compelling metaphor suggests, we need to go through the eye of the needle of the Other to construct who we are (Hall 1994, p. 45). By identifying what we are not, we construct who we are. Differences and their meanings are socially constructed and involve processes of self- identification and identification by others. Therefore, the identities a person holds and the identities others ascribe to a person often do not overlap (Yuval-Davis 2006). In this thesis I understand categories of difference as socially constructed, contextual, relational and as intersecting. However, they have real consequences for individuals (Anthias 2012a; Moore 1994; Wilkison 2004; Yuval-Davis 2006). I begin the discussion of the key categories of difference in this thesis with the category gender as it is a good example of how our social world is structured along (gender) differences.

Gender

Gender and gender differences are one of the main structuring principles of our society. For an understanding of gender it is important to distinguish between the biological sex of a person and their gender. Gayle Rubin’s seminal text The Traffic in Women (1975) was key in distinguishing biological sex from gender. In this article Rubin, an anthropologist, introduces a ‘sex/gender system’ arguing that this ‘is the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity’ (1975, p. 159). Gayle Rubin thereby differentiates between the biological sex and the social gender (1975) and argues that ‘Gender is a socially imposed division of the sexes’ (1975, p. 179). Thus, the meaning of gender and gender relations are not based on biological differences between sexes but constructed within a particular culture and embedded in power relations. Gender, the ways in which

23 individuals are expected to be women and men, is socially and culturally constructed (Lewin 2006, p. 13). Thus, sex is generally a term to describe the biological and physiological characteristics of female and male bodies. Gender however, refers to the cultural articulation of female and male differences, in all matters of social life. These articulations vary strongly in each culture (Pine 1996, p. 253). Joan W. Scott’s definition of gender illustrates the power dynamics involved in the process of differentiation: ‘[…] a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived difference between the sexes, and […] a primary way of signifying relationships of power’ (Scott 1988, p. 42). Thus, power is constructed along perceived differences between men and women. In this thesis I use Mahler and Pessar’s (2006) definition of gender as their work highlights that gender shapes migration. As widely agreed in the social sciences the authors understand gender as socially constructed and as a principle factor in organising social life. Further, the authors argue that gender ‘[…] is a human invention that organizes our behavior and thought, not as a set of static structures or roles but as an ongoing process’ (Mahler & Pessar 2006, p. 29). Gender is a process. People ‘do gender’ through practices and discourses (also see Butler 1990, West & Fenstermaker 1995). Most importantly for this thesis Mahler and Pessar argue that gender is transnationally operationalised in various forms. Gender, gender practices and representations differ in Colombia and in Australia because gender is constructed situationally, relationally and contextually. Further, transnational actors such as the women in this research are not only gendered but also classed and racialised (Mahler and Pessar 2006, p.37, 42).

As Mahler and Pessar (2006, p. 42) emphasize, it is not only gender that structures the social world of the Colombian migrant women because the category of gender intersects with other social structures. In this research, the four most important categories of difference that influence their lives are gender, race, ethnicity and class. This is not to say that there are not many more categories of differences such as age or ableness. However, I argue that gender, race, ethnicity and class are the key axes by which the social world is structured and central in shaping the experiences of the Colombian-born women in this research. As I will explain in more detail later in this section I understand categories of differences as intersecting. Thus, these categories shape each other in their effects. Looking at the intersections of multiple categories of

24 differences facilitates an analysis of the power differences within the category woman and enables thinking of gender in relation to racism, nationalism and colonialism (Fuchs 2001, p. 182; Mascia-Lee 2016, p. 148; Moore 1988, p. 10). This means that the women in this study have different experiences of privilege and struggle depending on their class, race and ethnicity. In the following I will discuss the categories race, ethnicity and class. As I am engaging with racial privilege I will also discuss the category whiteness.

Race

Farquharson (2007, p. 1) suggests that race is socially constructed and essentially about a person’s appearance. Further, West and Fenstermaker (1995, p. 22) argue that there is no biological base for race assignment as well as racial categories and point out that: Since racial categories and their meanings change over time and place, they are, moreover, arbitrary. In everyday life, nevertheless, people can and do sort out themselves and others on the basis of membership in racial categories. (West & Fenstermaker 1995, p. 22)

And, as Farquharson (2007, p. 1) argues, this process is often based on appearance. Omi and Winant (1986 [1994]) call this racial formation, a process in which racial meaning is constructed. I draw on their concept of racialisation to explain how people become categorised into racial categories. A particular strength of the concept is that it highlights the process in which meaning gets attached to bodies. We employ the term racialization to signify the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice and group. Racialization is an ideological process, an historically specific one (Omi & Winant 1986 [1994], p. 64).

In this thesis I define race as the outcome of a process in which a person’s appearance becomes attached to meanings such as particular characteristics as well as personal

25 and cultural traits. Similar to gender, there are differences in power embedded in racial classifications.

In this research, I understand the process that creates all racial identities, including white identities, as racialisation. Whiteness, however works differently from other racial categories, such as for example black. The meaning attached to whiteness is neutral and normative. This is where whiteness generates its power from as it is normalised. I am discussing whiteness because my interlocutors self-identify as white, which is a source of privilege for them. Additionally, I understand Australia as a society which imagines itself as a white nation (Hage 2000). This affects how the women are racially categorised in Australia. Focusing on the processes of how racial meaning is created explains why the women are differently racially categorised in Colombia and Australia.

Whiteness

I understand whiteness as a racial category that is privileged. Whiteness is a racial privilege. Whiteness often serves as the unmarked category which helps to define a norm and difference to that norm. As with other racial categories, whiteness is socially constructed and relational, moreover it is linked to the idea of white superiority (Halvorsrud 2019, p. 98). Halvorsrud (2019, p.98) explains that the construction of white subjects is realised ‘in reference to what they are not by defining others as less “worthy” subjects, variously labelling them as “non-white” or “not quite white’ enough”’. This means that (some) individuals have to constantly negotiate their whiteness (Garner 2007, p. 52; Halvorsrud 2019, p. 98). It also highlights how social difference is structured by power relations.

Whiteness, amongst many other things, is not just ‘a location of structural advantage, of race privilege’ (Frankenberg 1993, p. 1). As already mentioned above it also refers to ‘a set of cultural practices that is usually unmarked and unnamed’ (Frankenberg 1993, p. 1). This particularly accounts for societies that understand themselves as white, such as Australia. This means that one of the privileges of being white (amongst many other privileges connected to whiteness) is that white people are not racially

26 marked. They do not have a race. For example, McIntosh (1989, p. 1) argues ‘whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow “them” to be more like “us”’.

Whiteness is a racial privilege in Latin American countries even though those who pass as white in Latin America may not pass as white in Europe. Again, whiteness is relational and contextual to a person’s social surrounding (Garner 2007, p. 52). Those who are perceived as the whitest profit from racial privilege. However, the idea of whiteness is not only connected to white appearance. Mara Viveros Vigoya (2015, p. 497), an anthropologist, defines whiteness as ‘a disproportionate valuation of what is white, not just in terms of physical appearance, but also in social and cultural behaviours, is a global phenomenon, but it has distinctive expressions in different social and geopolitical contexts’. She draws on Liv Sovik (2009, p. 50), who argues that whiteness in the Latin American context is ‘an attribute of those who occupy a social place at the top of the pyramid; a social practice and the exercise of a function that reinforces and reproduces institutions’ (cited in Viveros 2015, p. 497). I find these definitions particularly useful as they highlight the relational character of whiteness that enables an understanding of whiteness in Colombia. It shows that in a Colombian context it is less about physically resembling white European appearance. It rather emphasises the performative approximation to white European appearance and cultural behaviour and explains why these women identify as white. The relational character of whiteness explains why they occupy a different position in relation to whiteness in Colombia and Australia.

Ethnicity

To define ethnicity, I am drawing on Fredik Barth’s (1969) work on ethnic groups and boundaries as it is one of the most influential analyses of ethnicity in the field of Anthropology. I understand ethnicity and culture to be interrelated but not identical. Barth argues that ethnic groups use cultural traits to define themselves. However, they only deploy a selection of cultural elements to assert their ethnic group membership.

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Further, the cultural traits used by ethnic groups can change over time, place and with context. Some cultural elements are more important to ethnic groups than others (Hummell 2014, p. 49). This means that ethnic groups share some cultural traits but more important for an understanding of ethnicity is ‘the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses’ (Barth 1969, p. 15). In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries Barth (1969, p. 10) writes that ‘[…] we give primary emphasis to the fact that ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves, and thus have the characteristic of organizing interaction between people’. Thus, ethnicity is socially constructed and continuously negotiated through a process of identification of members of a group and differentiation between groups. This is key for the understanding of ethnicity and ethnic difference in this thesis. The women in this research are ‘ethnic’ in Australia because others ascribe this label onto them. And they are Latin American and Colombian because they identify as such in Australia.

Ellie Vasta (1995) explains this for the Australian context in more general terms:

Ethnicity entails both subjective and objective characteristics. […] One is based on self-definition constructed in relation to a number of characteristics, such as being an immigrant or being of immigrant background and sharing minority languages and other cultural traditions and histories. […] On the other hand, ethnicity can be used by a majority group to draw boundaries and marginalise people of minority ethnic culture. (Vasta 1993, p. 210)

Vasta’s definition highlights how migrant groups use some of their cultural elements to draw boundaries to the majority group and vice versa. Further, she highlights how in contemporary multicultural societies ethnicity works as a tool of inclusion (in a group) and exclusion exerted by a majority or socially dominant group against minority groups.

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Being Ethnic in Australia

Ethnic is an often-used term in this thesis because the women in this research are categorised as ethnic in Australia. The category ethnic has a distinct and complex heritage in Australia. Ethnicity/ethnic/ ethnic background are categories used to describe the mix of ancestry of the population. In the late 1970s ethnic replaced the category of race in the Australian discourse. (Stratton 1999). For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses ethnicity in terms of birth place, language spoken at home, religion and ancestry (ABS 2016). However, in everyday language ethnicity or ‘being ethnic’ describes an individual who embodies characteristics that are not attributed to ‘being white’ in an Australian context such as accent, physical appearance, skin colour, facial features or hair. The dichotomy of ethnic/white to categorise people in Australia has a particular history as these categories are contested and ambiguous. Ethnic is commonly used in everyday discourses to refer to people who are not clearly white in Australia’s racial hierarchy (Farquharson 2008, p. 5). Thus, Farquharson argues that ethnic is a racialised category (see chapter 2). It is used to signify otherness from a cultural/racial norm which arguably still is Anglo- Australian (Forrest & Dunn 2006; Hage 2000). Originally, ethnic was used to describe Post-World War II European migrants who were, although European, ‘not white enough’ in the Australian context.

To understand who was white and who was ‘not white enough’ historically in Australia it is important to consider the White Australia policy implemented in 1901 and abolished in 1973. The policy was designed to ensure that only white people could migrate to Australia (see chapter 4). The policy was based on an ideology that assumed that migrants from Anglo countries would more easily assimilate into ‘white’ Australian culture. In the first few decades of the White Australia policy only Anglo- Saxons and Northern Europeans were judged as white. The reason for this was that Anglo-Australians perceived the ‘not-so-white’ Eastern and Southern Catholic and Orthodox Europeans as culturally too different (Stratton 1999, p. 165, 172). After World War II the racial ideology in Australia slowly changed. In this process the focus shifted away from the emphasised cultural differences amongst Europeans and whiteness became a signifier of cultures that, although different, shared a similar

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(Judeo)-Christian morality with the ‘Anglo-Saxon culture’ (Stratton 1999, p. 172). This shift, along with a growing demand for workers who could only be recruited from overseas, broadened the label white and allowed more Europeans to migrate to Australia. By 1949 all Europeans were included into the category white (Stratton 1999, p. 176). Most Europeans who migrated in the Post World War II period to Australia and filled the gap of labourers were from Southern Europe, Malta and Yugoslavia. An exception were the Christian Lebanese who, although not European, passed as white and could also migrate to Australia. These groups were originally called ethnics (Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 568; Stratton 2011, p. 199).

While the Southern and Eastern Europeans became included into the category white the term ethnic was used to signify and maintain difference between them and the ‘whiter’ Anglo-Saxons. The idea of cultural difference amongst Europeans and their shared (Judeo)-Christian moral tradition also formed the base for Australia’s multicultural policy as its initial purpose was to manage the cultural diversity of these European ethnic migrants (Stratton 1999, p. 165, 170f.). The ambiguity of the term continues in contemporary Australia. Ethnic is constructed in opposition to those who are ‘clearly white’ and those who are clearly ‘not white’ (also see Stratton 1999, p. 180; Forrest and Dunn 2006, p. 209)’. In everyday language ethnic is still used as a signifier for groups with European or Mediterranean background. However, the term is also used to describe migrants such as the women in this research, whose appearances and accents are not dissimilar from those of Europeans and their descendants.

The women in this research are perceived by their Australian surrounding as being not too culturally different but also not as Anglo-Australians. Depending on other markers of difference and the context they can pass as either ethnic Australians or as newly arrived migrants with European background which the women in this research all have because of their Spanish ancestry. Further, being an ethnic migrant is not only a racialised category but also a classed one as being an ethnic migrant up until the 1980 meant being working class. This was because the majority of ethnic European migrants came to Australia to do unskilled labour (Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 579 also see Lundström 2014). However, this conflation of being ethnic and working class changed

30 from the 1980 onwards, because of an increase of temporary skilled visas and because second and third generations of migrants who received formal education in Australia entered the job market. This meant that more and more migrants and their descendants entered the local job market as skilled employees. As a consequence, a multicultural middle-class is growing in Australia (Colic-Peisker 2011) and the women in this research fall into this category. Being a migrant ethnic woman also has a gendered dimension which means that migrant women experience multiple forms of discrimination based on their status as migrants, their race/ethnicity and their gender. In the public discourse ethnic migrant women are often represented as passive and following their spouses or other male family members in their migration. Finally, migrant women have been and continue to be to some extent portrayed by Australian society as less or uneducated compared to Australian born women and as victims of poverty because of their gender (see Anthias 2012a; Misztal 1991).

Class

In this thesis I understand class as a category that refers to a group of people, for example, upper-class women from Colombia, who share economic and cultural positions and as a consequence they also share similar perspectives and experiences (Boyd 2014, p. 201). Bettie (2001) points out that class is ‘not only a material location but also a performance’ (also see Bourdieu 1984). This means that class regulates access to economic and cultural resources, but class identity is also performed by individuals. As an example, Bettie (2001, p. 11) mentions ‘class specific styles, such as standard or nonstandard grammar usage, accents, mannerisms, and dress (all of which are also specific to race/ethnicity and region), are learned sets of expressive cultural practices that express class membership’. Class belonging materialises in economic ways but also in ideological, social and cultural ways.

The importance of these concepts for my thesis is that the experiences of the women are structured along the axes of gender, race, ethnicity and class and the particular ways these categories position them in relation to power. They all intersect in shaping the women’s experiences of being white, and middle or upper class in Colombia and

31 being ethnic migrant women in Australia. These women are simultaneously gendered, racialised, ethnicised and classed. However, the ways in which they are gendered, racialised, ethnicised and classed and the implications that these processes carry differ in Colombia and Australia.

Social Location

Being a woman, being upper class or being white signifies a particular social location one is occupying in society. The actual social location of a person is created by the multiplicity of categories of difference such as their gender, class, ethnicity and race. I use Yuval-Davis’ (2006) approach to social location for two reasons. First, she acknowledges that not all categories of difference are of the same importance to a person. A person may identify more strongly with their gender than with their class location. Nonetheless, Yuval-Davis (2006, p. 199) points out that ‘their concrete social location is constructed along multiple axes of difference, such as gender, class, race and ethnicity, stage in the life cycle, sexuality, ability and so on’. Second, Yuval-Davis (2006, p. 199) understands categories of difference as intersecting. They are not additive as they constitute each other. ‘Although discourses of race, gender, class etc. have their own ontological bases that cannot be reduced to each other, there is no separate concrete meaning of any social division’ (Yuval-Davis 2006, p. 199). It is the intersection of these multiple categories of differences that positions a person within social structures. For example, a white woman is differently perceived and sexualised by her social surrounding than a black woman (see Wilkins 2004, p. 106). As a consequence, of this, she also experiences her environment differently as people react in a specific way to her.

Yuval-Davis (2006, p. 199) argues that a social location indicates a certain position in relation to power within the social structure. This means that social locations are contextual as their relation to power changes depending on time and place. For example, being a white woman in Colombia has different implications for an individual’s position of power than being a white woman in Australia. Yuval-Davis’ (2006) concept helps to understand my interlocutors’ structural location in Colombia

32 and Australia and its implications for their position of power/exclusion in both countries. As the women in this research are from the Global South, their position in relation to power in the Global North changes and this impacts on certain aspects of their privilege.

The concepts I discussed so far in this chapter already emphasised the intersectional character of categories of difference. In the following I am exploring approaches to intersectionality in more detail.

Intersectional Approaches to Privilege and Migration

Intersectional approaches acknowledge and emphasise that multiple social structures and processes intersect and produce identities as well as social locations (Anthias 2012a, p. 106). Further, they highlight the particular experiences that arise through the intersection of multiple categories of difference. In this thesis I am using an intersectional lens to understand the women’s experiences of privilege as their social locations in Colombia and Australia are defined by privilege but also by subordinated categories of difference, such as their gender location as women or class location as being upper class.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s (1991) article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color is one of the most seminal texts for the formation of intersectional theory. In her article, Crenshaw raises issues on the interaction of race and gender in the case of violence against Women of Colour (1991, p. 1296) and argues that categories of difference such as race and gender, but also others, are mutually constitutive and cannot be thought of as additive (also see Yuval- Davis 2006). By this Crenshaw means that the experience of people who are affected by multiple forms of oppression is not adequately understood if it is simply framed as the experience of racism and sexism. Gender and race intersect with each other and create a specific form of racism, a gendered racism that cannot be understood by framing them as two separate phenomena a person is simultaneously experiencing.

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This means that for example, gender is always racialised and class; and class always gendered and racialised (Anthias 2012a, p. 106). For the Colombian women in this research this means that in Colombia they are upper-class, white, Mestiza women and in Australia they are ethnic, middle-class women.

Various approaches to intersectional theory have gained importance, particularly in feminist literature (Anthias 2012b, p. 3; Levine-Rasky 2011, p. 240). In the following I draw on intersectional approaches that suit the analysis of the experience of privilege and migration. I am presenting concepts by Brah and Phoenix (2004) and Levine- Rasky (2011). Then, I extend Levine-Rasky’s approach to intersectionality by drawing on Black and Stone (2005), who conceptualise privilege as intersecting. Finally, I discuss Anthias’ (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) notion of translocational positionality, which is a key concept in my thesis.

Intersectionality and Privilege

Brah and Phoenix (2004, p. 76) define intersectionality as follows:

We regard the concept of ‘intersectionality’ as signifying the complex, irreducible, varied, and variable effects which ensue when multiple axis [sic] of differentiation economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential intersect in historically specific contexts. The concept emphasizes that different dimensions of social life cannot be separated out into discrete and pure strands.

Intersectional approaches often focus on subordination (Nash 2008). The approach of Brah and Phoenix (2004) suits the purpose of my research as it does not explicitly focus on subordinated identities, which makes it relevant for the investigation of privilege (Levine-Rasky 2011, p. 243). I am conceptualising privilege as intersectional because ‘oppression co-exists with domination’ (Levine-Rasky 2011, p. 243) on an individual level. This means that only rarely do individuals occupy multiple identities that are exclusively privileged or subordinated. Postmodern identity formation is

34 characterised by an intersection of multiple categories of differences; some of them position an individual in a privileged location other in a subordinated one (Levine- Rasky 2011, p. 243). Being upper class in Colombia means that the women could profit from many privileges, having access to various resources. However, being a woman in a society influenced by machismo locates them in a contradictory way to their class privilege. Thus, their gendered subordination in society contradicts their privilege of being upper class. They are simultaneously privileged and subordinated within Colombian society, as opposed to, for example, upper-class men who have a stable position of privilege. Intersectionality enables me to understand how multiple categories of difference, some privileged, some subordinated, create intersections in these women’s lives.

Black and Stone (2005, p. 243f.) point out how the multiplicity of identities a person holds may impact on their privilege as these identities are interlocking. In this thesis, I use Black and Stone’s (2005) definition of privilege, which they call social privilege and which, in accordance with Levine-Rasky (2011) they also conceptualise as intersectional. Their definition of privilege includes

[…] any entitlement, sanction, power, immunity, and advantage or right granted or conferred by the dominant group to a person or group solely by birthright membership in prescribed identities. Social privilege is expressed through some combination of the following domains: race/ ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, SES, age, differing degrees of ableness and religious affiliation (Black & Stone 2005, p. 245).

In relation to the above definition, particularly relevant for my research are gender, race, ethnicity and class, which I use instead of socio-economic status. However, it is important to point out that the women in this research profit from being heterosexual, of young age, having a high level of ableness and because of their religious affiliation. In this thesis I combine Levine-Rasky’s (2011) and Black and Stone’s (2005) approaches to conceptualise privilege as intersectional to understand how the multiple identities a person holds shape their experiences of privilege. The women in my

35 research occupy relatively privileged social locations in Colombia. Hence, it is useful to apply an intersectional approach with a focus on privilege to understand their lived experiences. I further investigate how the women experience changes to their privilege when moving to Australia as their social location is changing through their migration.

Privilege particularly describes these women’s upper-class belonging and their proximity to whiteness in Colombia. McIntosh describes white privilege as ‘an invisible package of unearned assets’ (1989, p. 10). This package consists of ‘special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks’ (McIntosh 1989, p, 10). All the maps, visas and blank checks save a person’s energy while they navigate their worlds (Ahmed 2018). Relatively privileged migrants such as the women in this research are part of a new trend in global travel and movement, according to Amit’s findings (2007, p. 2007), as she concludes that there is a new development towards voluntary migration of people with various resources such as money or credentials. By calling these women privileged migrants it is important to keep in mind that their narratives describe experiences of disadvantage when it comes for example to international visa regimes. It takes longer and it is a more rigorous process for Colombian citizens to receive Australian visas than it is for EU-citizens, because of Colombia’s lower position within a global hierarchy of nation states (Anthias 2012b). My thesis sets out to understand how these factors influence the privilege experienced by these white, upper or middle-class Colombian-born women. The women’s position as migrants leads me to another key concept in this thesis.

Translocational Positionality

Anthias’ (2012a) concept of translocational positionality is an intersectional approach to analyse the experiences of migrant women. For Anthias (2012a) it is of particular importance how social positions and identities are created by multiple social structures and processes (Anthias 2012a, p. 106).

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[…] we need to simultaneously attend to processes of ethnicity, gender, class and so on in order to grasp the complexities of the social world and the multifaceted nature of social identities and advantage/disadvantage. What is common to the approach is that it posits that each division involves an intersection with the others.

As Joseph and Lundström (2013, p. 3) point out, it is important to consider the impact of the ‘hierarchical locations of nation states’ when analysing the multiple identities and resulting experiences of transnational migrant women. Anthias (2012a, p. 106) has developed the notion of translocational positionality which enables a perspective that pays attention to the multiple locations people are positioned in and positioning themselves in. This includes hierarchically structured transnational locations. Anthias connects this with an intersectional lens, thus a lens that accounts for the multiple, intersecting identities a person holds. A translocational positionality ‘[…] is one structured by the interplay of the different locations and their (at times) contradictory effects’ (Anthias 2002b, p. 276). According to Anthias, translocational positionality can be used to make

[…] sense of the positions and outcomes produced through intersections between a number of different social structures and processes, including transnational ones. This gives, importance to the broader social context and to temporality and is useful as an accompaniment to the notion of intersectionality. If social locations can be thought of as social spaces defined by boundaries on the one hand and hierarchies on the other hand, then we are forced to think of them in relation to each other and also in terms of some of the contradictions we live in. (Anthias 2012a, p. 107)

The concept highlights the contextual and intersectional character of categories of difference and it aims to frame the identities and social locations that migrant women occupy, transnationally. Individuals are always shaped by multiple categories of difference as well as by multiple locations and their structures such as the workplace, the family, the nation-state and so on (Anthias 2002a, p. 500; 2008, p. 6). Anthias

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(2002a) shows how young Cypriots living in Britain narrate their experience of their identities in specific ways depending on the location they are referring to such as the family, school, the estate or Great Britain. In the specific case of the women in my research the transnational dimension of the various locations they are embedded in adds even more complexity to the experience of identity and privilege. Translocational positionality is an approach to make sense of these complex processes.

The term positionality is of particular importance and goes further than the concept of social location (Yuval-Davis 2006). Anthias (2008, p. 15) argues that it

combines a reference to social position (as a set of effectivities: as outcome) and social positioning (as a set of practices, actions and meanings: as process). That is, positionality is the space at the intersection of structure (social position/social effects) and agency (social positioning/meaning and practice). (Anthias 2008, p. 15)

For Anthias social position describes the availability of resources a person can access whereas social positioning explains how an individual interacts with these positions (Levine-Rasky 2011, p. 247). In my understanding of Anthias’ terminology, social position relates to social locations (Yuval-Davis 2006) and social positioning to a person’s agency within the given structures. In this thesis I extend Anthias’ definition of positionality. Linda Alcoff (1988) understands identities such as race, class and gender as relational positions. As such, they are a source of situated knowledge. A particular position enables/excludes a person to understand a specific social location. For example, being a woman may enable a better understanding of the effects of female oppression, while being in a position of privilege may make it harder to relate to a person in a subordinated position. Alcoff (1988, p. 434) further argues that positionality is a place from which ‘values are interpreted and constructed’. In this thesis I understand positionality as the intersection of a person’s social location and their agency within a given structure and, as such, as a place from where a person speaks, acts, understands and interprets the social world (see Sánchez 2010). Looking at positionality goes beyond the impact of the concrete social locations the women are

38 occupying. I use translocational positionality to explore how these women understand and interpret their social world and their position in it, in Colombia and Australia. It allows me to understand how the women’s multiple contradictory social locations influence their perceptions and worlds.

In conclusion, ‘The concept of translocational positionality addresses issues of identity in terms of locations which are not fixed but are context, meaning and time related and which therefore involve shifts and contradictions’ (Anthias 2008, p. 5). In this thesis I am applying translocational positionality as lens to understand how the multiplicity of identities, structures and locations that intersect in a person’s positionality influence the experience of privilege. Anthias’ concept (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) focuses on the processes where intersections arise, which is especially useful for the perspective in my project. This focus helps to understand how contradictory positions are created in a migrant’s life. The concept also enables the analysis of how migrant identities are simultaneously structured by multiple categories of difference in various (transnational) places. It allows me to understand that my interlocutors are simultaneously upper-class white Colombian women and middle-class ethnic migrants, which opens up the question of how this influences the ways they experience their privilege.

Other scholars engaged with notions that acknowledge that ‘migrant identities for women are […] constituted through a range of intersecting, sometimes competing, forces and processes’ (Joseph & Lundström 2013, p. 3). I briefly discuss two of those other concepts that refuse binary understandings of identities in the context of migration. Friedman (1995) suggests the concept of relational positionality. She argues that identities are relational and do not have an essence. Identities are fluid and they shift depending on the context. Mahler and Pessar (2001), two feminist anthropologists who engage with issues of migration, developed gendered geographies of power as a framework to study gender transnationally (2001, p. 442). Similar to Friedman, they put an emphasis on the multiplicity of identities and the specific context in which identifications arise.

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To summarize, "gendered geographies of power" is a framework for analyzing people's social agency—corporal and cognitive—given their own initiative as well as their positioning within multiple hierarchies of power operative within and across many terrains. Though this framework is not only applicable to transnational contexts, we feel it is especially useful for analyzing these contexts in light of their complexities (Mahler & Pessar 2001, p. 447)

Gendered geographies of power and Friedman’s (1995) relational positionality both encompass key points also raised by Anthias. However, I am using translocational positionality (2002a, 2008, 20012a, 2012b) because of Anthias’ strong emphasis on the intersectionality of multiple spaces and categories of difference and her focus on the processes through which intersections arise. This helps to understand how privilege and subordination are created. Additionally, I find Anthias’ focus on positionality important as it takes a step beyond the structural level by referring to the processes of positioning and can be applied to the study of everyday lives and experiences. With it, it is possible to observe how migrants not only leave their ‘old’ identities at home but also how these identities inform their being in a new environment.

This chapter established the theoretical framework of this research. I outlined gender, race, whiteness, ethnicity and class as the key axes that structure these women’s experiences. I then discussed how their actual social location within a particular society is influenced by their multiple, intersecting identities, which helps me to understand the position in relation to power, thus privilege or subordination, these women occupy in Colombia and Australia. I further outlined that I built on Levine- Rasky’s (2011) and Black and Stone’s (2005) engagements with intersectionality and privilege and finally Anthias’ (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) translocational positionality to understand their intersectional privilege as migrant women. I used Anthias’ (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) concept to understand and analyse how these women’s social locations and positionalities are changing through space and time and how they are intersecting across borders. This enables an understanding of how

40 intersections arise in a migrant’s life and shows how privilege and subordination occur simultaneously in female migrants’ identities. Finally, I presented my understanding of positionality. The lens that I am applying allows me to analyse how being upper class and white in Colombia influences the women’s experiences in Australia. In the next chapter I will discuss the methodology of this thesis, introduce my interlocutors and elaborate on my relationship to them as well as my own positionality.

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3. Methodological Approach

I remember when I was a kid seeing all this …on the streets… these huge cars with people. Guys inside with a lot of necklaces and rings and loud music saying ‘Okay, look at me because I have all the money. All the possible money’. And you could tell it is because of drug trafficking and it became kind of day to day life. Seeing this kind of people. Guys with this very strange behaviour because they had a lot of gold and huge cars. I remember being there with my mum [and she was telling me]’Ah, don't look at him’. This guy must be part of a cartel. And it became kind of something normal. And that led to me growing up in a kind of a small bubble where our parents didn't allow us to go take public transportation or just being on our own. I walk around here in Melbourne and it amazes me how little kids take trams and trains and they are just five years old. They are just so free. It was completely different for me or my generation. I don't wanna talk for everyone, but I never took a bus in my life until I went to uni in Bogotá when I was living by myself. And this is because it is something that we didn't do. Because our parents didn't allow us and when we were older we just didn't do it. We didn't have this kind of freedom.

My brother was a little bit different. He was a bit older and he did whatever he wanted. But my parents were very overprotective with my generation, with us. We were, maybe also because I was a girl so they didn't want bad things to happen. So, in the end I didn't grow up with what people think, just guns and drugs and people on the street just shooting. No, no, no. I haven't seen actual big packages of cocaine anywhere. Or I haven't seen a guy with five guns. Or I haven't been in a shooting, nothing related to that. But it was as well because of that bubble that we grew up. It was small. We always go to the same places. Your

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parents say you never go to this specific area of the city. So, we never went there. [Natalie, Int. 3, 00:11]

This narrative is an excerpt from one of the seven life stories that I conducted with privileged Colombian migrant women living in Melbourne over the course of a year. As I will explain in more detail later in this chapter, the interviews most of the time took place at the women’s homes but at times, as in the case of Natalie’s interviews, we recorded them in public places such as cafés or parks as I tried to accommodate myself as much as possible to my interlocutors’ schedules.

This interview was recorded in a busy café in Melbourne’s CBD. Natalie and I scheduled our interview session at a time and place that allowed her to go to work, at a Spanish language school, straight after our meeting. We did this on a regular basis as it suited Natalie’s availabilities well because she often worked the afternoons at the Spanish language school and the evenings at her restaurant that she owns with her partner and another couple. During the process of recording her life story we established a sort of routine. We never just caught up for an interview. Often our interviews turned out to be shorter than actually planned because the time we initially allocated for a casual catch up to keep us informed about the everyday success and disappointments of the last week always turned out to be longer than anticipated. There was work and PhD life to discuss as well as love life and advice we needed from each other in all sorts of concerns. However, although often far too late, we then started our interview session.

I had known Natalie for almost a year when this interview was recorded. We had become friends during this time and I always felt a strong sense of familiarity with her. It felt like I had known her for years. To me she seems just like all my other friends. She dresses like them and she likes similar things to the people I normally spend my spare time with. It was stories like the one above that reminded me that we grew up in very different circumstances and lived very different lives. Natalie grew up in Cali during a time when several drug cartels were at war with each other. It was a time when Pablo Escobar was still alive and his negocios (businesses) were going

43 well. El Cartel de Cali (Cali Cartel), founded by the Orejuela brothers, was the biggest rival of Escobar’s Medellín cartel.

To me Natalie’s narrative is striking in two different ways. By letting her freely speak first, I learned about the circumstances she grew up in the way she remembered them. I got a sense of how this world felt to her and how she made sense of the hostile climate created by rival drug cartels she was surrounded by. Second, while telling me about the circumstances she grew up in she simultaneously deconstructed common stereotypes reproduced in pop culture and TV shows such as Narcos about how life in Colombia in this time must have been. Even against my expectation Natalie has no first-hand experience with violence or drug-related crime or gang violence. As she explained above, her life took place in a safe bubble. As I will explore more in detail in this chapter, I chose narratives, more precisely life stories, as the key method in this research because of its ability to access the subjective world of the teller (Atkinson 2002) and its compelling potential.

In this chapter I explain the methodological approach I chose and why I chose it to answer the questions that I am posing. In the following I describe my life story interviews and the specific approach of life story that I used. This is followed by a brief discussion of participant observation which I use to contextualise the life stories I recorded. I then describe the context of my fieldwork. In the second part of the chapter I introduce the seven women in this research and talk about my fieldwork and the interviews I recorded in more detail. I further discuss how I analysed the interviews and the fieldnotes. I conclude this chapter with a discussion on my positionality and issues of accountability in relation to the representation of the life stories that I collected. Discussing my own positionality is of particular importance as I too am a migrant woman of a similar age who came to Australia as an international student. However, I understand myself as a European white middle-class woman from the Global North. My physical appearance, my skin colour, my facial features, my blond hair and blue eyes make me pass as white in (almost) all contexts. This means that we, my interlocutors and I, occupy different position in relation to power both in our home countries but also in Australia.

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Methods of Data Collection

In this study I explore how Colombian women migrants who self-identify as white, and middle or upper class living in Melbourne make sense of their lives and experiences in relation to their privilege. As Black & Stone (2005) point out, those who profit from certain privileges are often not aware of them (also see Frankenberg 1993, p. 242). As Peggy McIntosh (1989, p. 1) points out in relation to white privilege ‘whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow “them” to be more like “us”’. This makes finding out about the experiences of privilege not such a straightforward process. This is because asking direct questions about racial and classed privilege would not explore the issue as many are not aware of their privilege or would find it hard to recognise how privilege influences their lives. For many it is hard to reflect and talk about privilege as it is an embodied experience and thus often normalised in a person’s life, which means that it often goes unnoticed.

The often-normalised experiences of privilege are why I decided to use life story interviews (Atkinson 2002) as my key method. Additionally, I engaged in participant observation in Melbourne’s -city suburbs over the period of two years (2015 to 2016). Both methods enable an in-depth understanding of these women’s experiences of privilege when living in Melbourne. The data I collected, in the form of interview transcripts and field notes, provided me with a rich picture of the women’s lives in Colombia and Melbourne.

Life Story Interviews

In my methodological approach I chose life story interviews to explore the lives of people born into different social structures and different social locations, because of their potential to enter the subjective world of another person (Plummer 2001, p. 401). In the following I will discuss in more detail how life story interviews were particularly suited to investigate the question of how these women experience their privilege living in Melbourne.

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Life stories have been used across many academic disciplines: for example, Anthropology, Sociology, Education Studies and Psychology. According to Atkinson (2002, p. 123) life story interviews have evolved as a method from oral history, life history and other ethnographic approaches. The sociologist Ken Plummer (2001, p. 395) writes that:

What matters to people keeps getting told in their stories of their life. Listening carefully to these stories may well be one of the cornerstones of ethnographic enquiry.

There are a great variety of approaches to life story method (Atkinson 2002). However, in my research I have identified three key characteristics of life stories as a method that need to be considered: First, they are fairly complete narratives of a person’s life. Second, they focus on how the narrator make sense of the events. Third, life stories are constructed through the relationship between the narrator and the listener.

Atkinson (2002, p. 126) defines a life story as

a fairly complete narrative of an individual’s entire experience of a life as a whole, highlighting the most important aspects. A life story gives us a vantage point from which to see how one person experiences and understands life, his or her own especially, over time. It enables us to see and identify threads and links that connect one part of a person’s life to another, that connect childhood to adulthood. (Atkinson 2002, p. 126)

In this definition he touches on two of the three key characteristics I will discuss in this section. One of these characteristics is that a ‘life story’ is seen as a specific form of narrative. It is a somewhat complete narrative about a person’s life experience with a focus on the most important aspects of this life (Atkinson 2002, p. 126). The other characteristic that Atkinson (2002, p. 126) identified is that life stories are means to comprehend how people understand their lives. I will talk about this in more detail later in this section. Coming back to the first characteristic, through the ‘threads’ that

46 connect the childhood to adulthood one can see how a person creates continuity out of the contradictory and ever-changing experiences of a life. Similar to this, Connell (2010, p. 68) points out that the telling of a whole life is a particular strength of life stories as this allows the researcher to identify patterns and changes throughout this narrative entity. Being able to identify changes also means that through life story interviews one can see how lives are influenced by social changes as well by changing circumstances and social structures, for example through a migration.

In the case of my research I collected fairly complete narratives of these women’s lives. I chose to present their lives from their childhood in Colombia to their present lives in Melbourne. I decided to include fragments of their childhoods, teenage years/high school years, their transition into university and then into adulthood. This then led to their migration and the developments of their lives in this new country. My aim was to show continuity and changes that occur over time and at different periods in their lives. Additionally, I wanted to cover many aspects of their lives in Colombia to illustrate what growing up with privilege means in Colombia. Nonetheless, while writing their stories I focused on fragments of their lives that showed their privilege, or lack of it, to highlight how the intersection of varying categories of difference arise in their lives.

The second important characteristic of life story research is that it ‘emphasizes the truth of the telling versus telling the truth’ (Frank 1995, p. 145). As argued by Atkinson (2002, p. 126) above, life stories give insight into how the narrator makes sense of their experiences. By looking at the strategies the teller uses to narrate their story one can gain insights about how the women in this research make sense of their often ambiguous and contradictory ‘experiences of their lives’ (Frank 1995, p. 145). Life stories are constructed, fabricated and reflected through the teller’s memories, beliefs, positionalities and their position within the social order. As Plummer points out (2001, p. 400) a story told is not ‘simply accessed reality’. While analysing the life stories I decided to focus on the ‘truth of the telling’ (Frank 1995, p. 145). This is an approach that Plummer calls the narrative truth (2001, p. 401), as he argues that life stories have the potential to enter the subjective world of the narrator, which enables the reader to see the world through their eyes.

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The potential of the narrative truth to enter the subjective world of the teller is one of the reasons why I chose life story interviews. In my research I focus on the women’s experiences and not on the question of if these experiences are factually true. Being interested in the perception and experience of privilege, I wanted to understand how the women in this research make sense of their everyday lives rather than aiming to understand what they are actually experiencing. This means for example that my aim was not to find out if others discriminate against them in Australia. I wanted to know if they experience particular situations as discriminatory. My research does not simply aim to understand the structural changes these women encounter when migrating. By collecting and analysing the stories of their lives my aim was to gain understanding about how these women perceive these structural changes. The focus of this study is the subjective understanding of their social world and how this understanding is influenced by their privilege and their migration.

Being focused on the subjective worlds of my interlocutors also means that by asking the women to tell me about their lives in Colombia and Australia they ‘directly or indirectly give their own interpretations and explanations of those events’ (Cortazzi 2001, p. 386). This empowers a representation that is close to the interlocutor’s own words and interpretations (Behar 1993 [2003]). Staying close to the words of those who are the subjects of this research was important to me when writing their stories. Letting them speak and being able to represent their words at length was helpful in avoiding a representation of my interlocutors as cultural others or in a way that they did not want to be represented (Abu-Lughod 1991, p. 143)

The third characteristic that I identify in my research is that life stories are constructed through the relationship between the narrator and the listener. A life story is the story of a life as the narrator remembers (constructed through memory) but it is also the version that the narrator wants the listener to know (Atkinson 2002, p. 125; Plummer 2001, p. 400). In my research I understand that the stories I collected and finally represented are also constructed through my relationships with the women and the positionality I occupy (Plummer 2001, p. 398). In this research women who identify as Colombian-born, white and upper class/middle class told me, an Austrian white,

48 middle-class woman with a European passport, their stories of privilege. I have to keep in mind that my own privilege as well as my status as migrant enabled an open rapport about the lived experiences of privilege. This may have been different if I did not profit from racial privilege or if I was from a working-class background. When telling me their stories they were also aware of the audience that potentially would read them, in this case mainly fellow Colombians and academics interested in the topic.

Connell (2010), in her study on corporate masculinities, points out that life stories allow for an examination of the intersection of class, gender and ethnicity and the analysis of social practices as they are ‘unfolding as trajectories through time’ (Connell 2010, p. 68). This is because through narrating a whole life one can see changes, disruptions and contradictions. It shows how identities are not fixed and stable but rather fluid (to some extent) and how they depend on a particular context. It allows one to see how social locations are changing and differ contextually as the life story does not only focus on one particular point in time. As outlined in Chapter 2 in this thesis I employ intersectional approaches to frame my interlocutors’ experiences. I am looking at the intersection of categories of difference, which create privilege and marginalisation/exclusion over time and in different locations.

Caroline Brettell (1982), in her study on three Portuguese migrant women living in Paris, argues that life story interviews enable an in-depth study of individual experiences which otherwise would be hard to capture in the context of urban and individual migration (Brettell 1982, p. 3). Similar to her study, my research is set in an urban environment and engages with the past and present of migrant women. Instead of knowing the women prior to their migration, as for example Dianna Hart (1995) did in her life story about Yamileth, I only got to know the women of this research in Australia. Using life story interviews was a way of getting in-depth insights about their past in Colombia and their current lives in Australia.

In sum, life stories represent fairly complete stories of a person’s life. They give insight into the subjective world of the teller and, as with all stories, they are always already an interpretation of the events. Finally, they are constructed. They are constructed by the narrator and through the relationship between the narrator and the

49 listener. The life story method was best suited to answer my research question as listening to the stories of these women allowed me to understand the role of privilege in their lives. Following my interlocutors’ life stories enabled me to see how change and continuity occurred in their lives and I gained an understanding about their perception of their experiences. My focus on categories of difference suited the method as I could see how class, race, ethnicity and gender intersected contextually and how some of these categories changed over time and space while others remained stable over the course of these women’s lives.

While life stories were the most appropriate method to use in this research, the setting in which a life story is conducted is not conducive to observation of the more embodied elements of a person’s identities (Lems 2014, p. 48). Recording life story interviews gave me little insight into my interlocutors’ immediate reaction and interaction with their surroundings and embodied elements of their privileges. This led me to participant observation, the other method I used in this research.

Participant Observation

To supplement the life story narratives I conducted two years (2015-2016) of participant observation with the seven women I interviewed for this thesis in Melbourne’s suburbs.

Dewalt et al. (2000, p. 260) argue that the tacit aspects of culture remain largely outside of our awareness. This also means that they are not easily narrated in a life story. The narratives I collected gave me great insight into how the women in this research made sense of their experiences. By analysing them, I was able to understand if a person was speaking from a position of privilege or oppression. However, as a listener I missed out on some of the more tacit aspects of their privileges and multiple identities as I could not observe the actual experiences the women were referring to. I wanted to explore these tacit aspects to better understand what it means to be a privileged Colombian migrant woman living in Melbourne.

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Musante (2015, p. 251) defines participant observation as a method ‘in which a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning both the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and culture’. By being actively engaged in the women’s lives I gained a better understanding of their point of view (Dewalt et al. 2000, p. 261). As explained earlier I was able to observe the tacit elements (Dewalt et al. 2000, p. 260) such as body language, attire, mannerism and embodied aspects of their multiple identities that I otherwise would have missed out on. As class, race and gender are embodied, it was crucial for me to be able to observe the women performing them to better understand how privilege influences their daily lives. Participant observation enhances the quality of the interpretation of the collected data (Dewalt et al. 2000, p. 264). During the time I spent with the women I learned about their lives and aspects of their culture, but I also got to know them and their personalities better, which helped in interpreting their stories.

Wilkins (2012) examines the stories black college women tell about their interracial relationships to find out how these women use stories to do identity work and how they negotiate constraints they encounter through the intersections of class, race and gender. Similar to my study, she uses women’s stories of their lives and participant observation to explore issues of intersectionality. Wilkins (2012, p. 180) argues that through participant observation she was also able to see how these women told their stories to others, which helped her to contextualise and explicate the women’s accounts. In the case of my research, the participant observation too helped me to contextualise the stories the women told me. I got to know their social surroundings, particularly their friends and families. I was able to see and understand the social composition of their friendship circles and I could observe how they talked to each other. I gained insight into how the women interacted with Colombians of similar and different class background as well as Australians and other Latin Americans. I got to observe their mannerisms, which is another expression of class membership (Betties 2000, p. 11) along with other expressions of class status. Additionally, spending time with the women within the broader Colombian community enabled me to observe how the behaviour, accent, and usage of grammar of upper-class Colombian women was different to Colombian women of middle-class background, and I was able to learn

51 the subtle class differences amongst Colombians expressed through vocabulary and accent (see Betties 2000, p. 11).

Julie Bettie’s (2000) ethnographic study on working-class white and Mexican- American high school girls in a small town in California’s central valley argues that class analysis and social theory often ignore women’s experience of class and frame them as classless. In this intersectional study she gathered her material by ‘hanging out’ with the girls (Bettie 2000, p. 8). ‘[…], in coffee shops, restaurants, the shopping mall, and the school parking lot, near the bleachers behind the school, at birthday parties, and sometimes sitting-cross legged on the floor of a girl’s bedroom, “just talkin”’ (Bettie 2000, p. 8). As participant observation was her key method, she spent many more hours observing and hanging out with her interlocutors than I did. However, as described above, the ways and places she did hang out with the girls are similar to the settings I found myself hanging out at with the women of this research. This discussion on the role of participant observation in my research leads me to the anthropological field in which my study took place that I elaborate on in the following section.

Context of the Field Research

My research was set in an urban environment and it differed from more traditional anthropological field settings, which often involve a ‘travel away, preferably to a distant locale where the ethnographer will immerse him/herself in personal face-to- face relationships with a variety of natives over an extended period of time’ (Amit 2000, p. 2). The lack of community or a place, such as a small village, a particular neighbourhood or a workplace, influenced how I conducted participant observation. One of the reasons why I chose life story interviews as my key method was because my field was not defined by the boundaries of a particular locality (Amit 2000, p. 13).

Amit (2000, p. 6) argues that the anthropological field does not exist as such. It is constructed through the research. As outlined above, I had to conceptualise my field as multi-local (Amit 2000, p. 13). The majority of the women’s lives take place in

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Melbourne’s -city suburbs. The seven Colombian-born women I interviewed lived in either the inner north or inner south suburbs of the city. Over time, two of the seven women moved further out into the north. However, they were still relatively close to the inner city. In my research I define the field as including the spaces which the seven Colombian women inhabit in Melbourne and I had access to. This includes their homes, restaurants, parks, cafes, bars, social circles and occasionally workplaces. The field further includes events such as gigs that attracted many Colombians and other Latin Americans as well as Colombian community events such as exhibitions or fiestas. It also comprises a couple of ‘Colombians in Melbourne’ Facebook groups I casually observed over the years.

I conducted life story interviews with seven women: Martha, Natalie, Maria, Teresa, Isabel, Sol and Gabriela. All seven women moved around in similar social circles and most of them knew each other or at least had heard of each other. For example, Martha and Natalie are friends and have common friends in Colombia, although they had never met each other in their home country. Teresa and Isabel are good friends too. I was particularly involved in their extended friendship circle as they were a group of artists and musicians who often put on events or organised gatherings with each other and this made them an easy-to-access social group. Although my research focused on individual migrant women from Colombia, their embeddedness in these networks allowed me insights into Latin American networks, which were predominantly Colombian. Through Maria I got in contact with a group of Latin American students as she was studying with them. Maria, for example, studied with one of Teresa’s good friends. Teresa’s husband’s band often played at Natalie’s restaurant and Teresa put children’s theatre groups on at Sol’s NGO. Maria and Gabriela attended the same conferences as they both researched Colombia. However, the networks I got to know were part of a particular subculture. The people in these networks are all well situated, highly educated, interested in the arts, and most of them live in Melbourne’s trendy inner north. The women are to varying degrees part of these networks and communities. Based on my observation during my fieldwork, their lives are not encompassed by those networks/communities and their social contacts are not limited to other Latin Americans. However, the women in this research live in similar neighbourhoods. This is better explained by their class status, interests and self-

53 identification as young, cultured inner city people, rather than by their ethnic background.

The assumption that a field site is a ‘journey away’ while the home of the anthropologist is often constructed as stationary (Amit 2000, p. 2002) also does not reflect many contemporary settings adequately. In my case, and those of many others, the home and the field site are to some extent fluid or conflated. My relationship to my field site changed with time. I moved away from home for my PhD course and the place that I moved to is also the site where I conducted my fieldwork. I travelled to my field but with time Melbourne, the city where my ethnographic fieldwork took place, also became a second home to me. When I started my fieldwork, I was still new to Melbourne and felt little connection to the place. Over time I developed a relationship to this city. I went through the same processes as the women that I interviewed. Thus, just like the women in this research I moved to Australia and became a migrant and with time I became a local in Melbourne’s inner north.

In the next section I introduce the women of this research.

The Women in this Research

I conducted life story interviews with seven Colombian-born women living in Melbourne over a period of 12 months, and participant observation over two years. Six of these women identify as upper-class Colombians and one of them as middle class in her home country. None of the women identifies as black, Afro-Colombian, Indigenous or belonging to a specific ethnic group. When asked, the women identified as Mestizas (woman of mixed descent in Latin America) or blanca (white). The women explained to me that they would not be seen as white in Australia. All of them except one spent an extended period of time in the USA or Europe, either for study or travel, and they had a clear idea of the way they might be perceived outside of Latin America.

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They all agreed, especially between the six women coming from upper-class families, that they profited from many privileges in Colombia. Some talked more explicitly about this, others avoided this topic. They used different terms to describe this experience. Some would say that they were socially white in Colombia while others would say that they were from the ‘white side of life’ in Colombia. Many would say that they grew up in a bubble while some used the world privilege or ‘many possibilities’.

One of the women, Natalie, is from Santiago de Cali (known as Cali). It is the capital of the department Valle del Cauca and the third biggest city in Colombia. One woman (see Chapter 7) is from Barranquilla. The other five women spent the majority of their lives in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. The women arrived in Australia between 2007 and 2012. All of them entered Australia as international students. Four of the seven undertook a Master’s degree, two arrived as PhD students and one studied for a Graduate Diploma. All except one still live and work in Melbourne. One woman moved back to Colombia, as she and her husband were unable to receive a new visa when theirs expired. At the time of the interviews the women were between 26 and 37 years old. All of them were in committed long-term relationships: five were married and two lived in de-facto relationships. Only one of the women was in a relationship with an Australian man. All other women were in relationships with Colombian men whom they met in Colombia. Except one, all came to Australia with their partner, although two of those women did not live in the same state as their partners for the first few years due to the university courses they wanted to attend being in separate places. When I started this research none of the women had a child, but this changed and four of the women became mothers in recent years. Although all the women entered the country on a student visa, of the six that are still living in Australia, two now also have their Australian citizenship and all others have permanent residency. For now, all of them plan to stay in Melbourne for the foreseeable future.

For this study I selected Colombian women who did not identify as Indigenous or Afro-Colombian. Further, I chose relatively young women, women who were in the process of making important decisions about their future and women who were in the process of establishing themselves in terms of family planning and careers.

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Additionally, I was looking for women who had spent most of their lives in Colombia, were socialised in Colombian society and who were recent migrants. I decided to focus on women who entered the country on a student visa and came to study for a postgraduate degree. My rationale was that if they were able to study a Master’s or PhD in Australia they would be more likely to be from a privileged family. Finally, I was looking for women who self-identified as upper class and white. Sol, as a woman who identifies as middle class, did not fit my initial selection criteria. However, in the course of this research many other women told me about Sol and recommended her as a potential interlocutor. Additionally, I decided that her position as privileged but not ‘as privileged’ as the other women in this research would provide a valuable contextualisation of class privilege and experiences of privilege.

My decision to work with Colombian women was based on multiple factors. Within my anthropological studies I focused on the anthropology of Latin America and I spent an extended amount of time in Latin America. Colombia is one of the countries in Latin America that has a pronounced and rigid class structure that is of high importance within society and which also intersects with race. Further, the country has relatively large Afro-Colombian and Indigenous populations. Growing up in a society guided by those structuring principles set an interesting background for the question I wanted to investigate because Colombians have a high awareness of their social location within these multiple hierarchies (Torres Casierra 2017). The number of Colombian migrants in Australia has been steadily increasing since 2001 (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 8) but research on this group is still scarce. Additionally, I wanted to investigate voluntary migrants who chose to move overseas from a country of the Global South to a country of the Global North.

In this thesis I will represent the stories of three of the women, Teresa, Gabriela and Sol, in detail. However, in the discussion of my research I will draw on all seven life stories that I recorded and my observations, as those crucially informed the analysis of the data and helped me in formulating my argument. Recording seven stories allowed me to establish patterns and similarities between each of the life stories. Particularly the stories of the six women who identify as upper class show commonalities across their lives in Colombia. Although their trajectories in

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Melbourne differ I was able to see how these women share a class background and that they are part of a similar demographic in both countries. Being able to draw on seven life stories allowed me to highlight commonalities that I found amongst all women and enabled me to talk about important issues which were raised by other women that I interviewed but may not be mentioned by the three women whose narratives I present in-depth in this thesis.

I next briefly present how I met each woman and introduce the four women whose life stories are not represented in this thesis. The introduction of my interlocutors is structured according to the point in time I met them in my research process.

Introducing the Women in this Study

TERESA is an artist/musician and she was the first Colombian woman I met in Melbourne (see Chapter 5). I met her through another PhD student studying at my university. She introduced me briefly at an art show that Teresa curated. After our first encounter Teresa invited me to one of her concerts where we then first exchanged numbers and I had the chance to tell her about my research project.

MARTHA was the second woman I met. It was again my colleague from university who introduced me to Martha’s best friend, another Colombian woman who was about to move back to Colombia. Before she left she put me in contact with Martha as she thought she would be a good person to talk to. Martha is originally from Bogotá. Her father was the CEO of an international cooperation, which allowed the family a privileged and comfortable life. Her mother was a stay at home mum. Like all the women in my study, Martha went to a private high school and then went on to study Marketing at a prestigious private university in Colombia. She worked for a few years for an advertising company before she decided to move overseas. Martha just had broken up with her long-term boyfriend and was a bit bored with her job. She thought Australia would be a good change and a long-needed adventure for her. Her older sister is a famous telenovela star in Colombia. Martha came to Melbourne by herself to study for a Master’s in business administration. In her time in Melbourne she met

57 her Australian husband. After Martha finished her Master’s she moved back to Bogotá, leaving her at that time Australian boyfriend and working there for almost a year. Finally, she decided to give the relationship and Melbourne a second chance. She moved back to Melbourne, got married and settled down with her Australian husband. For the last several years the couple and their cat have lived in the inner south of the city and Martha works as a marketing and brand manager.

One summer night in 2015 Teresa and one of her bands had a fiesta with concerts and food in Teresa’s spacious backyard. I went by myself, knowing only Teresa and a few others. Feeling a little lost I spotted Pablo, whom I had already met a few times, and asked if I could sit at his table. After he agreed I started chatting to the people sitting at the table. Sitting with me was a pregnant woman, ISABEL, who was Pablo’s older sister and with whom I ended up having a conversation. In the middle of a hectic party crowd Isabel just sat there self-contained, enjoying one of her last nights out before becoming a mother. A few months after giving birth Isabel and I started our interviews. Isabel is also from Bogotá. Just like Teresa and Martha, she grew up in the wealthy north of the city in a what she called a ‘bubble’. Like them, she went to a private high school and then she moved on to a private university. It was Isabel who explained her life in Bogota as ‘being from the white side of life’. Isabel comes from a big family of five children. Her father was an entrepreneur with a family business. For years, he lived between Bogotá and the US Isabel studied psychology; for years she worked as a Human Resource recruiter and then manager for an international agency in Bogotá. Soon she was leading the whole HR team. She was one of the youngest managers in the company and she loved her job. Isabel met her husband Pedro at her first workspace. Pedro wanted to move to Australia to study for a Master’s degree. With a heavy heart Isabel decided to join him and leave her beloved job and elderly father. She too enrolled in a postgraduate degree in Melbourne. Now she works as an HR Manager at one of Melbourne’s elite high schools located on the bay side of the city. Isabel, her husband and young son live in an apartment in Melbourne’s inner north. Isabel was outspoken about her experience of privilege in our interviews. Moving to Melbourne made her realise how protected and privileged her upbringing in Colombia was.

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I met NATALIE at Martha’s birthday. Natalie and I became close friends in the process of my PhD. She and her family are from Cali. She has an older brother who lives in Bogotá. Her father is an accountant/financial adviser and her mother works as interior designer. Natalie told me that her father’s family understand themselves as left-wing and sympathisers of Colombia’s FARC, or at least their initial ideologies. Many of her family members are popular artists who use their success to help marginalised groups in Colombia. Nevertheless, Natalie told me that political differences between this side of the family and her parents caused friction and conflict between relatives, which meant that Natalie grew up in a politically divided family. In Cali, Natalie attended a French high school where many of her class where taught in French. These schools are highly prestigious and they are also known to be more liberal than other private schools. After high school Natalie moved to Bogotá on her own to study economics at a private university. At university she met her long-term partner Camillo, who studied law. Natalie soon started working as an investment banker after graduating but did not enjoy the job. After recovering from a serious illness, Natalie quit her job and took the decision to move overseas to study for an MBA. Camillo decided to join her and study sound engineering. Natalie arrived in Australia on New Year’s Day, 2010. She was 28 years old. For years Natalie worked as a Spanish teacher and manager at a Spanish school. A few months before I met her, Natalie opened up a Latin American restaurant together with Camillo and two other business partners. In the process of my thesis I helped out as a waitress in Natalie’s restaurant for a couple of months. Natalie and Camillo live in an apartment in the inner South of Melbourne.

GABRIELA, whose life story is presented in detail in my thesis (Chapter 6, Gabriela), had no connections to any of the other women in this thesis, whereas all the other women either knew each other in some capacity or had friends or acquaintances in common. This may be as Gabriela migrated last of all the women to Melbourne. As I will explain in-depth in Chapter 5, I met Gabriela at a Symposium about Colombia organised by La Trobe University.

MARIA is the youngest of my interlocutors. She was 24 when she came to Australia and arrived straight after finishing her first university degree. Although she has loose

59 connections to the other women in this research project, I got Maria’s phone number through a friend’s friend. Maria and her husband Santiago both moved to Melbourne for their PhDs. The couple met at University while studying Sociology in Bogotá. Maria’s father’s family belongs to the cultural elite of Bogotá. Her grandfather was one of the most influential modernist architects in Colombia’s history. Her family runs a successful business in Colombia’s capital. Her mother’s family made their money through cattle farming and thus are financially well off, but her father’s family did not immediately approve of her mother as they are from different class backgrounds. She described her family’s lifestyle as liberal, cosmopolitan and European-oriented, with her grandmother being the head of the family. Maria describes herself as growing up with a mix of traditional upper-class values and conservatism, and her grandmother’s progressive lifestyle. Maria grew up in the wealthy north of Bogotá, in the same neighbourhood as Gabriela, and lived most of her life in white upper-class surroundings.

Through her grandparents’ social status and involvements in Bogota’s elite she has got to meet every Colombian president in power since her early childhood. Maria told me that her mother insisted that she not attend one of the elite high schools of the country. She chose a more modest private school for her daughter. This was not easy for Maria, as her co-students did not always react well to the class difference between her and them. In Melbourne, Maria and Santiago lived in a small apartment in Thornbury. Maria worked as a tutor at a university. When more money was needed Maria and Santiago worked together as cleaners at night as the hours were flexible and suited their PhD schedule. She told me that she is highly aware of her class status and the social expectations attached to it in Colombia. This also meant that working as a cleaner was a clear class transgression for her. Maria had critical insights into how Colombian racism and classism works. In Australia Maria mostly did not live a life that reflected her upper-class background in Colombia. After both finishing their PhDs the couple had to leave the country due to visa restrictions and moved back to Colombia. Both were worried about moving back as they enjoyed a life where they did not have to conform to Maria’s family’s expectations and were scared about her family’s involvement once they returned to Colombia. Soon after, they had their first baby and settled permanently in Bogotá.

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I met SOL last of all my interlocutors. I heard of Sol through a Spanish friend of mine who was helping out in Sol’s NGO. Other women in this research such as Teresa have worked together with Sol on small projects and told me that Sol would be an interesting woman to interview for my research. Her life story is the basis for Chapter 7 in this thesis.

I had to make a decision about which three life stories I would represent in this thesis. After some consideration I chose to focus on Gabriela, Teresa and Sol. I chose Teresa because of her stable white upper-class privilege in Colombia and because of her decision to pursue an artistic career in Australia and her experiences as artist in Melbourne. My decision to represent Gabriela’s life story is based on her nuanced and reflexive ways of talking about her experiences. Further, Teresa’s and Gabriela’s stories highlight similarities in their upbringing and show simultaneously how different upper-class families in Colombia can be. Additionally, Gabriela is one of the youngest women I interviewed, and she arrived last in Australia. Teresa was the first one to arrive in Australia and she is the oldest woman in my research. The number of Colombian migrants and networks available differed substantially between Teresa’s and Gabriela’s arrival. According to Teresa there were barely any Colombians in Melbourne when she and her husband arrived in the city. Gabriela, in contrast, could access one of many Colombian virtual and non-virtual networks in Melbourne even before she arrived in Australia. Thus, although their stories have many similarities, they vary through age and time of arrival. Additionally, Gabriela came with the clear intention of writing her PhD in Australia whereas Teresa moved to Australia for an adventure and only later decided to enrol in a PhD program. Gabriela, as a PhD student, tells a different story about her life as a migrant woman in Australia than Teresa, who for the most part made a life in the arts world in Australia. Additionally, Teresa is a married woman and mother and Gabriela, in her early 30s, is at a different point in her life. In her narrative Gabriela reflected a great deal on social structures in both countries whereas Teresa used these interviews to reflect on her life in a time of transition into motherhood. Finally, both women dealt differently with their privileged upbringing and negotiated their location in society in dissimilar ways.

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I chose Sol because of her middle-class background, her contested whiteness in Colombia and her hometown Barranquilla, a racially mixed city on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. Her story helps to contextualise the (white) upper-class privilege of the other women. Sol’s life puts the upbringing of the other six women in perspective as she was not socialised into the same advantageous positionality as the other women. Her expectations as well as reasons for leaving Colombia differed to some extent from those of the other women. Her narrative sheds light on difficulties she encountered that the other two women did not experience in Australia. However, as a Mestiza middle-class woman she too profits from many privileges others in Colombia do not have. In Australia, she is a crucial figure amongst Latin Americans in Melbourne and the Latin American cultural organisation and social enterprise she founded are well known in Latin American networks.

All three women are passionate story tellers and enjoyed the process of reflecting on their lives but also on some of their opinions on certain topics. All three of them have a curiosity and appreciation for research, particularly about Colombia, which made them engaged interlocutors. Once I decided to present three out of seven life stories it was my task to choose these three life stories that represented an interesting range of experiences and that gave me the opportunity to elaborate on similarities and differences between those experiences.

Data Collection

Life Story Interviews

Recording each life story took between four and eight interviews, as well as more informal hangouts over three years. All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. I started my interviews with the question: Could you tell me a little bit about the area you grew up in? Do you have any particular memories about it? I then continued asking them about the house they grew up in, their childhood, high school, university, work life, their move to Australia, studying in Australia, and transition into the Australian work force. I also asked them about their networks in Australia and their ideas for the future, if and why they miss Colombia, and what they would miss

62 about Australia. Finally, I also asked them questions about their class status, social structures in Colombia and their perception of them in Melbourne, and other questions in relation to their identity.

As an addition to my interviews I made fieldnotes which I prepared after the interviews and my hangouts with the women. The interviews differed significantly in length as I tried to fit the interviews around the schedules of the women. Some of the interviews were conducted in lunch breaks as some of the women were working full-time. Some of the interviews were conducted in the presence of newborn babies who needed a lot of attention and this every now and then meant that we had to end an interview early. Others only had time in the evening and every now and then they were too tired for a long interview and so was I. The interviews generally took between 45 minutes to two hours. I interviewed the majority of women at either their home or mine, but some were conducted in cafés. All interviews except the four interviews with Sol were conducted in English. Sol’s interviews were conducted in Spanish and translated by me into English. While writing the chapters on Sol, Gabriela and Teresa I at times had to clarify some questions that arose out of the process of reconstructing their life stories. I recorded these short interviews too.

All seven women took control over telling their stories. They decided not only about what was worth telling me but also about their privacy. They were highly aware of when the microphone was turned on and when it was turned off. Stories I had heard before in all their delicate details while we had a casual drink together turned into more censored versions when the microphone was turned on. Often the details re- appeared the second I turned the microphone off again. Approximately every third interview session turned into a casual hangout with the microphone staying off. In these sessions I found out about family secrets and gossip, intimate details of their first love stories as well as shocking and traumatising encounters with Narcos, paramilitaries and guerrillas. As my interlocutors only told me these stories when the microphone was off, I decided to not keep detailed records about those stories out of respect for their privacy and the sensitivity of the topics. I interpreted their decision to tell me these experiences aside from our official interviews as a sign that these moments of their lives were not meant to be heard by others.

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Once the women showed interest in taking part in my research project I spent from a few months up to a year casually meeting them for coffees, dinners, wines, walks in the park, visits to garage sales, going to gigs or playing basketball together to get to know them better before starting the interviews. This enabled me to first figure out if they were willing to tell me their story and to establish some trust as well as rapport with each other. Often this was a period where I already got to hear important parts of their lives prior to recording the actual interviews. I realised quickly that this ‘getting to know each other’ process (as well as the actual interview process) demanded a high level of openness and vulnerability from me. I often felt that the telling of a life story quickly turned into a reciprocal process in which I also was expected to tell my story. I had to prove myself by giving them parts of my story and showing my vulnerabilities.

The process of my field work sometimes felt like a fast-forward friend-making process as I got to know the women well in a relatively short period of time. With some of the women this process took longer, and they kept me at arm’s length for quite a while until I gained their trust. With some I developed friendships, with others, relationships of appreciation and deep respect. With some I bonded over heartbreaks, our demanding families, with others over our PhDs. At times I had discussions and friendly disagreements with my interlocutors about our differing world views. Those situations were always handled with mutual respect and curiosity. I also had to explain thoroughly the motives behind my research and my choice to work with Colombian women. The women regularly checked in and wanted to know more about the progress of my work and findings. These conversations were often helpful to me as it helped me to formulate my ideas.

Participant Observation

I conducted two years of participant observation but continued spending time with the women after the two years. During this initial two-year period, I got to meet their partners, friends, families and I had the chance to visit them in ‘their spaces’, thus their homes, but also Sol’s Sunday’s school or Teresa’s concerts and Natalie’s restaurant. I spent some time with their children and got some insight in their relationships to their

64 partners and families. I met Teresa’s mother at the Fitzroy markets on one of her visits to Australia. I spent Christmas 2015 at a BBQ along the Yarra with Martha’s mother and Natalie’s parents. I helped Teresa out when she needed a hand for her performances. I attended birthday parties, and events organised by my interlocutors and the wider Colombian and Latin American community. I met the women for coffee, drinks or dinner on a regular basis or went for a stroll to the park with them. Just like Amit (2000, p. 17) pleads, I ‘went with the flow’ and became a waitress, a babysitter and bouncer, a friend and confidante. Through the time we spent together I was also able to participate in the daily ups and downs of their lives such as pregnancies, visa applications, new jobs or moving houses. During the recording of the life story interviews I saw each of the woman approximately once a week to once every two weeks. The amount of time we spent together varied after this period as all of the women had busy lives full of work and family obligations. However, we often found time for a coffee or they invited me to join them in their leisure activities.

Before collecting any data, I received ethics approval from Swinburne University of Technology’s Ethics Committee (SUHREC Project No. 2014/243). All participants gave me written consent to participate in this study.

Data Analysis

For the analysis of the data I employed a thematic analysis. Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 79) describe thematic analysis as a ‘method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. It minimally organizes and describes your data set in (rich) detail’. The thematic analysis provides a rich, detailed as well as complex interpretation of the data and the analysis is flexible in its application (see Braun & Clarke 2006). Already during the transcription process, I could identify certain themes that would occur within and across the stories. A theme ‘captures something important about the data in relation to the research question and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set’ (Braun & Clarke 2006, p. 82).

Once I finished the transcripts, I went through my field notes and looked to see if I could find the same themes in the material I collected through my participant

65 observation. In the process of the data analysis I read all transcripts multiple times and started thinking about each of the emerging themes across each life story and the content of these themes in each narrative relate to each other. Writing was an essential part of the inductive process of analysis and interpretation. Once I identified the themes in the narratives, I started writing the life stories with a focus on the themes. My interpretation of different text fragments changed with each life story that I wrote as the analysis of each narrative was informed by the other life stories. Through using thematic analysis and taking notes, I was able to see how certain topics changed through time and space and how privilege (and the lack of it) was a continuous thread through their lives and how it was experienced in different ways in Colombia and Australia by each of the women.

In this thesis I have presented these women’s stories of their lives in the form of chronological life stories with a focus on privilege. I begin with their childhood and end with their present lives in Melbourne.

After writing each women’s story, I gave Sol, Teresa and Gabriela a draft chapter to read and correct their versions of the facts of their lives. I then corrected the facts before composing the final draft of this thesis. Additionally, I asked them to highlight all parts, names and descriptions they would like me to change or take out of their stories, to protect their confidentiality. Sol, Teresa and Gabriela had different ideas about how much they would like their chapters to be de-identified. Additionally, I had conversations with the women about my interpretations, which were helpful for me as they helped me to formulate my thoughts. However, the interpretations are solely composed by me and I take full responsibility for them.

So far, I have outlined my methodological approach, introduced the women of this research and described how I collected the data as well as how I analysed it. In the final two sections of this chapter I will discuss my positionality and certain power dynamics between me, a Western and white anthropologist, and the Latin American women I am working with and writing about.

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Doing Research on Women from Latin America

I started this research project as someone who had just migrated from Vienna, Austria to Melbourne, Australia. I entered Australia on a student visa and had a scholarship to undertake a PhD. In my research project, I interviewed women who migrated, just like me, as international students to Australia. My interlocutors and I were around the same age when we arrived in Australia, except my interlocutors had arrived prior to me. During the whole research process, it felt as if I was always a few steps behind them: yet to experience what they had already experienced. The German saying ‘Unter den Blinden ist der Einäugige König’ (In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king) described how I often felt in my first few months while talking to the Colombian women I met. Although they were migrants themselves, they had already spent more time in Australia and were more accustomed to the country, the society and its rules and to being a migrant in general, whereas I was still ‘lost in translation’. This had consequences for my research. My readings of my interlocutors’ experiences were often informed or influenced by my own experiences as a migrant in this country. This meant that I needed to be aware of my own positionality as a migrant woman from the Global North when analysing the narratives, as my positionality as a European migrant differs to my interlocutors’.

In her seminal text Writing Against Culture Abu-Lughod (1991, p. 139) points out that the discipline of anthropology is built on the constructed divide between the West and the non-West insofar as scholars from the West write about those from the non-West. With the publication of Writing Culture (Clifford 1986) the discipline started to tackle issues of the textual representation, power and European colonial legacies in ethnographic writing. The aim was to decolonise the representation of the Other, the centrepiece of most anthropological research (Behar & Gordon 1995, p. 4).

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The same publication set off a debate that challenged any remaining beliefs that ethnographies were objective and transparent representations of culture (Behar & Gordon 1995, p. 4). As Clifford (1986, p. 2) states:

[…] writing has emerged as central to what anthropologists do both in the field and thereafter. The fact that is has not until recently been portrayed or seriously discussed reflects the persistence of an ideology claiming transparency of representation and immediacy of experience.

Thus, the culture of the Other is always an intersubjective experience interpreted through the eyes of an anthropologist. In this spirit Abu-Lughod (1991, p. 143) points out that Culture is the essential tool for making other. As a professional discourse that elaborates on the meaning of culture in order to account for, explain, and understand cultural difference, anthropology also helps construct, produce, and maintain it.

In conclusion, ethnographic representation is not only always partial truths (Clifford 1986, p. 7) but also positioned truth (Abu-Lughod 1991, p. 142).

The issues raised above, particularly those of representation, were not absent in this research as I am a white Western anthropologist writing about Latin American woman, thus women who are non-Western Others. Although, as mentioned earlier, the women and I share many similarities we also have many power differences. For example, the privileges that come with my Austrian nationality and my European passport, which allow me to travel freely, ease my access to visas and position me as a desirable visitor, migrant or even citizen in many places, as my nationality indicates my ‘Westernness’ and my ‘Europeanness’: both locations of power. The privilege of growing up in a safe place, in the absence of war, violence, widespread poverty and inequality. The privilege of being born in a place not shaped by the trauma of European colonisation and, as a consequence, not enduring the struggles of a nation built out of colonialism. The privilege of growing up in a country where, as a daughter of a middle-class migrant family, despite my father coming to Austria as a refugee (from another

68 country in Europe), I still had many privileges including good education and health care, the privilege of travel and access to culture and the arts. All of this allowed me to be in this world with a certain ‘natural’ security even without being part of the privileged group of my home country. Privilege is relational. I am not part of a particularly privileged group in Austria, but I am globally. Finally, in our home countries my interlocutors and I identify as white and we are perceived as white. However, my whiteness is not the same as theirs. Being blond and blue eyed and having fair skin and a German accent, my whiteness translates to Australia. I am still white in Australia and although my accent indicates difference and foreignness, it also indicates Europeanness, which again puts me in a more privileged position than the Colombian women in this research whose whiteness does not translate straightforwardly to Australia.

In the context of the research setting, I was the one conducting research about them (Abu-Lughod 1991). I had the privilege to receive a scholarship to study in Australia. They had to trust that I would engage responsibly and respectfully with the stories of their lives, and represent them in ways by which they wished to be portrayed. Writing about Latin American women, I had to keep the critique of feminist scholars and anthropologists in mind. I listened closely to Mohanty’s (1984) critique on Western feminism. She argues that Western feminism created an ‘average Third World Woman’ who ‘leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained) and being “Third World” (read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family oriented, victimized, etc.)’ (Mohanty 1984, p. 337) while portraying themselves as the opposite of this. The women in this research are Third World Women but they do not fit into the essentialised category described by Mohanty (1984).

They are not from the margins of society. The majority of the women in this study belong to the upper classes of their home country. They self-identify as white and occupy a desired identity in Colombia. The women in this research belong to a group of relatively privileged migrants. They speak many languages, the Spanish language, the English language, the language of Western institutions, bureaucracy and systems, and the academic language. My interlocutors challenge the stereotypical ideas of a

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‘Third World Woman’ and most importantly they understand themselves as the opposite of the ‘needy’, unskilled South American migrant fleeing violence and poverty. They see themselves as young professionals, highly educated women who contribute to the Australian society and nation. Regardless of their actual positionality in Colombia, my interlocutors are from the Global South, a region that marks the margin within a global world order and a continent that still suffers under the ‘venas abiertas’ (open veins) as Galeano (1971) called the colonial legacy of the continent.

Representation and Accountability

One late summer afternoon, as I spent the morning writing at my local library, I realised that Gabriela was sitting in the same library as I was. She was sitting downstairs working on a paper while I was sitting upstairs writing on her chapter. I asked her to join me as I got hold of one of the two popular little study rooms. So, it came about that Gabriela and I were sitting together, sharing the round, white table in the middle of the small study room while I tried to make sense of her experiences in Melbourne. It was a strange moment having her sitting next to me. I was far too scared to show her the raw material that my chapter was at this time and I was even more scared of her judgment of my analysis. Gabriela’s presence made me question my authority over her life story and made me realise my accountability towards my interlocutors.

While I was writing my thesis, I inevitably had to think about how I was representing these women as I knew I would show them the draft chapters so that they could anonymise and fact check their life stories. This means I knew that they would read my text. Knowing this kept my claims modest and focused on the particular (Abu- Lughod 1991, p. 149), and forced me to try to see the world through their eyes to avoid misrepresentation. It also made me immediately accountable for how I represented the women. Conducting ethnographic research in the form of life stories and writing this thesis not only for an academic audience but also for my interlocutors made representation an important matter in my work. Engaging interlocutors in the writing- up process is often not possible. In many research projects, language barriers, location, and financial restraints do not allow for translation of the work, or academic language

70 used that is not accessible for the interlocutor hinders this process. The fact that these women and I share a language (actually more than one), a location and a certain level of education allowed me to give them their stories. This did not make this project easier for me, but it challenged me to at least try to aim for an authentic and respectful representation of my interlocutors.

Giving the chapters back to them was one of the scariest parts of this PhD project and it put me in a vulnerable position. In the course of my PhD project I was collecting their lives in the form of narratives. In the process of giving the women their stories back they corrected where I misunderstood or got the facts wrong. They pointed out what aspects of their lives I missed that are important to them and need to be included in the narrative. They filled the gaps of the narrative that I composed out of their life stories. They tweaked the stories by pointing out which aspect of their trajectory demanded more attention in the narrative. For example, at one point Teresa highlighted that she felt I did not place enough focus on a particularly important aspect of her life. After explaining to me for a few minutes why this was important to add to her life story, she got excited as she realised she had forgot to tell me a particular story and said: ‘Actually, Viktoria… you better record all of this’.

All three women reacted in different way to their chapters. Gabriela did not intervene much in the text, but we had discussions about her thoughts and reflections on her chapter. Gabriela and Teresa both mentioned how valuable it was for them to read about their lives and think about my analysis of their lives. They all gave me positive feedback, expressing that they found it very interesting to reflect upon their lives through reading my chapters.

I remember a particularly uncomfortable moment in this process. I recall Teresa, rightfully, critiquing a paragraph of mine where I fell into stereotypical and oversimplified explanations. This was a mistake made out of lacking information and misunderstandings but rather than exploring those topics more, I was drawing on existing ‘cultural’ explanations representing the idea of an essentialised ‘Third World Woman’ (Mohanty 1991). Sitting one on one with Teresa and being berated about my own oversimplification and stereotyping was incredibly uncomfortable and hard to sit

71 through. Nevertheless, I was endlessly grateful to the women for taking the time to read my text.

Sol, however, was particularly interested in my argument. I was looking forward to our catch up, with an unnerving sense of anxiety sitting at the back of my head. Sol had flagged that we needed to take some time to go through all of her comments, because she had many and she wanted me to make changes to her chapter. She also added that she thought it would be best to talk about them in person. I was not sure what to expect and thus expected the worst. I got so nervous that on my way to her house I repeated one of my ‘Melbourne beginner mistakes’, a mistake I haven’t made in years. I waited on the wrong side of the train station. In old European experience, I expected the train out of city would depart on the right of the two platforms that were facing each other. When I finally got to her house Sol immediately made me feel better as she was kind and loving whereas I expected a rather angry Sol (although I have never seen her angry) who would tell me off for completely misrepresenting her story. She calmed me down and gave me something to eat while I was playing with her daughter. After, we immediately jumped into a discussion about my thesis. Sol asked me to explain to her in detail my argument and the theory I am using. Just like my supervisors she asked me to explain to her what I meant by ‘white institutions’, ‘privilege’ etc. By the time I finished explaining the most important aspects, Sol gave me the comment ‘Ahh, I understand. Yes, I agree’. At this particular stage of my PhD the questions she asked me helped me immensely in thinking precisely about some of the terminology I was using.

Sol was not only looking after her daughter and running around and entertaining her, she simultaneously talked me through a list of comments she had made about her chapter. She noticed facts I got wrong and corrected my language where she felt that my choice of words would be misleading. A reason for her many corrections probably was that she was the only woman who talked in Spanish in our interviews. Although I am fluent in Spanish, I had difficulty noticing some of the particular meanings and nuances of some of the words she used. Another pitfall, particularly with Sol, derived from the fact that she of all the women that I interviewed in this project lived a lifestyle that was very different to mine. Thus, the meanings that are attached to events and

72 words are different for both of us. We needed to discuss, clarify and explain a lot to each other to be able to make sense of each other. It happened that Sol felt completely misrepresented when I wrote that she went out dancing regularly in Bogotá. In her mind, this could be read as her being a party girl, something she really was not and did not want to be mistaken for. Whereas the implications for me were completely different. Thus, giving the chapters back to fact check facilitated interesting dialogues between me and my interlocutors.

In this chapter I have outlined the methodological framework of my thesis and I have showed why using life story interviews and participant observations are best suited to explore my research question. Doing ethnographic research on individual migrant women in Melbourne favoured the use of life story interviews. It allowed me to gather in-depth data in an urban field setting which was mainly gathered from individual relationships rather than a steady, stable community of Colombians that I could observe and immerse myself in for an extended period of time. Through listening to their stories from their childhood into adulthood I got a good sense of the positionality they were socialised into and how this shaped their subjective understanding of their world and position in it. I could enter their subjective world and was able to gain an understanding of how they see their lives. This was of particular importance as individuals are often unaware of their own privilege. Listening to their life stories enabled me to understand how their lives are influenced by privilege. I supplemented and contextualised the interviews I conducted with two years of participant observation as this helped me to observe embodied aspects of their identities and privilege. Through the data gathered I could identify patterns and reoccurring themes, as well as changes to those themes across time and space.

The relationship between the narrator and the research, as well as the researcher’s positionality, are crucial when using life stories. In the case of this research this is particularly interesting as I am working with women from the Global South who are privileged and I am a white European women who grew up in a middle-class family. This created a situation in which the women in this research occupied more privileged social locations in their home country than I do in mine. However, as a European white migrant I occupy a more privileged position in Australia than they do. This is even

73 more important given that I am the researcher doing research about women from the Global South. By giving the women their chapters, my aim was to engage responsibly with their life stories and I tried to make myself accountable for the way I represented these Colombian women.

The next chapter is a background chapter and provides context to the women’s stories. It gives a brief summary of historical and social aspects of Colombian and Australian society that are important to this research.

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4. Contextualising Experiences: Background

You know, I wouldn't work as a waitress in a million years in Colombia. That's why it was like a big change. You feel like all your identity… As I mentioned before, unfortunately Colombia is too much about who you are or if you have money and other things. It is very discriminating. […] But then I got here, and I realised that people simply don't care. The thing is that you learn to live in a different world. It wasn't Colombian in Australia where everyone is doing the same thing [as back home] and is caring about your social [status]. Here people don't care. And even someone who works as a builder in construction could be best friends with a politician. They can just go and have a beer in the pub and it is the same pub where everyone can go. Because everyone can earn the money and work whatever they want. [Int. 3, 00:36]

This was the third interview Isabel and I recorded together. It had been years since she stopped working as a waitress. However, in this part of our interview we were talking about this period of her life in Melbourne. She told me that she was scared before she started her first hospitality job because she did not know if she would be physically able to carry plates and big pints of beer as she has never done any physical work before because, as her parents told her, ‘We did not raise you to be a waitress’.

Isabel’s experience illustrates precisely her process of making sense of the social structures she found in Australia, and her position in these structures, using her understanding of the Colombian society she grew up in. It is the process of translating this embodied knowledge of how the social world works into a new language and hence into a new structure. Isabel believes that Australia is the country of the fair go and equality. This perception and reading of Australia’s social order is informed by the hierarchical society she was born into. In this background to my thesis I engage

75 with these structures to provide a framework to understand how the women in this research made sense of the social world around them.

In this chapter I present a general overview of Colombia. This is followed by a brief history of the country. I then describe aspects of Colombia’s social structure, particularly those of race and class for a better understanding of the women’s privileges. For this I explain the sistema de castas, mestizaje and Colombia’s racial geography. Next, I describe important aspects of class in Colombia, which then leads me to the next topic, social strata in Colombia. These social strata play an important role in contemporary Colombian society. Finally, I describe aspects of the existent spatial social segregation in Bogotá to contextualise the women’s background, as the majority of them are from the wealthy north of the city.

In the second part of this chapter I contextualise their position in Australia as migrant women. To understand their experiences in Melbourne I explore the country’s racial formation and draw on the history of the White Australia policy as this still has long lasting consequences for the perception and classification of migrants and migrant communities in today’s society. Despite Australia’s current multicultural policy and growing diverse population, ideas of whiteness and belonging in Australia are still shaped by the White Australia policy (Hage 2000). Finally, I present some important information about the growing number of Latin Americans and particularly Colombian migrants in Melbourne.

Colombia

Colombia reaches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and neighbours Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. Its spectacular topography encompasses the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest and the Caribbean Coast. To some extent, each region in Colombia maintains a cultural uniqueness. Colombia’s population consists of a majority population of self-identified Mestiza/os, and several so-called minority groups: various Indigenous groups, Rom, Palenquero and other Afro-Colombians. In 2018 Colombia’s population reached 48.2 million and is constantly growing (DANE 2018).

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Colombia’s population however is characterised by a high number of people living overseas as well as Internally Displaced Persons due to Colombia’s 50 year-long conflict between the Colombian state and multiple violent groups such as left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary organisations. Latest estimates from 2012 indicate that around 4,700,000 Colombians live outside of Colombia (Migration Policy Institute 2017) and in 2017 another 6,509,000 are internally displaced (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2018a). Traditionally, many Latin Americans, including Colombians, migrated to the US. According to Marrow (2012, p. 647), restrictive US visa requirements, post-9/11 border control and more favourable visa conditions in other countries led to a shift of migration flows in the 21st century. Latin Americans now often migrate to Spain, Portugal and Italy, but also Canada, Japan and Australia (Marrow 2012, p. 647).

The women in this research grew up in a society that is marked by deep inequality. In contemporary Colombia 26.9% of the population is affected by poverty and an additional 7.4% is affected by extreme poverty (DANE 2018). Society is characterised by social and economic inequality marked by a vast discrepancy between rich and poor (Hudson 2010, p. 199; LaRosa & Mejia 2013, p. 131). In today’s Colombia violence and petty crime are deeply embedded in the daily lives of people. The problem is manifold and reaches from street crime to the consequences of armed conflicts instigated by guerrilla, paramilitaries and the military. Additionally, Colombia suffers from a lack of governance and institutions to secure social justice, as well as normalisation of crime, corruption and economic inequality (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 8, p. 88). In a country where around 34% of the population is affected by poverty, the women of this research belong to the upper classes of society. This indicates that their lived realities differ from the majority of Colombians in the country, and fortifies their privilege. Regardless of their privilege, violence, crime and instability also played an influential role in their lives growing up in Colombia. Every woman had a story to tell about her encounter with paramilitaries, guerrilla or criminal gangs and even though not explicitly, many of their decisions were shaped by the political and economic instability existent in their home country.

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As mentioned above the total number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Colombia is extremely high and has reached 6,509,000 in December 2017. Compared to 2016 the numbers are decreasing. However, in 20171 Colombia was still the country with the highest number of Internally Displaced Persons (UNHCR 2017). The decrease is partially due to the peace agreement reached between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC), who are the biggest armed group in the country. This agreement ended the 52-year-long insurgency of the armed group. Despite this latest success in Colombia’s path to peace, internal displacement continues due to violence created by gangs, various guerrilla and paramilitary groups. They continue illegal mining, drug production and other illegal activities (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2018a). Continuously, the areas with the highest number of IDPs in Colombia are marginalised regions such as the Cauca, Chocó, Nariño or Valle del Cauca. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are still disproportionally affected by displacement. Although numbers are declining the situation in Colombia still is a humanitarian crisis with two out of three IDPs living below the poverty line (GRID Region Americas 2018).

Internal displacement started during the period of La Violencia (1948–1958), when a high number of people had to flee the armed conflict. The conflict, which began in the mid-60s, was caused by ‘inequality and political exclusion, corruption and poor governance, unequal distribution of land and resources, and territorial marginalisation in rural areas’ (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2018b) and involved organised crime groups, left-wing guerrilla and right-wing paramilitary groups, and security forces who triggered the ongoing humanitarian crisis (Hudson 2010, p. 88; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2018b). Internal displacement in Colombia shows a pattern of rural to urban movement as armed groups took and still take over land in rural areas, which has caused people to flee (Schultz et al. 2014). Many of those leaving their homes settle in the big cities in slums and on the fringes of the cities (Hudson 2010, p. 88). As I have mentioned above, in 2016 a peace agreement between the conflict groups was reached. In the weeks leading up to it I remember Natalie, one of the women in this research and her partner saying to me ‘The conflict

1 The numbers on 2017 are the most recent available data.

78 is so old that we never lived in peace’. For the women in this research, being unable to travel to certain parts of the country, to use particular roads in and out of their city, and the fear of kidnapping and blackmailing, was the normality while living in Colombia.

Colombia’s tumultuous social and political situation has its roots in colonial times and the social inequity that the Spanish installed in their colonies (La Rosa & Mejía 2013). In the following I briefly engage with important moments in Colombia’s history. Looking at the country’s history is key to understand the existent social structures. Colombia’s conflict gives insight into the country’s political struggle and highlights the classed nature of it as well as the deeply embedded societal division between the elites and the poor. Thus, it sets the scene for understanding the environment in which the women in this research grew up and the social structures that influenced their social location and positionality.

A Brief History

Looking at Colombia’s colonial history helps to explain the roots of the country’s violent conflicts and today’s social and economic inequality. The territory of what today is called Colombia was colonised by the Spanish in 1525. Today’s disparities can be traced back to the Spanish conquest and its consequences, such as the dispossession of Indigenous land and the resulting unequal land tenure system. The Spanish crown, landlords, priests and other members of the leading classes dispossessed the local Indigenous population, who then were forced to work as landless servants for the Spaniards or local elites. Early death and disease decimated the numbers of Indigenous people. This led to the import of African slaves into the Spanish colonies (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 84f.). Those conditions set the basis for the contemporary distribution of land ownership and wealth in Colombia. Additionally, the Spanish implemented the sistema de castas in colonial Colombia. Each casta and their members had specific symbolic and legal obligations and rights granted by the colonial authorities. Skin colour and lineage became markers of social status and membership to a particular casta. Memberships to the dominant castas were

79 used by the elites to maintain their power (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 86; Wade 1993, p. 8). The colony was built on the labour of Indigenous people, Blacks, poor Whites2 and Mestizos. (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 86). After gaining independence from

Spain on the 21st of July 1810, the young republic empowered Criollos, the offspring of Spaniards born in the colonies, and light skinned mestizos by securing land and political rights whilst simultaneously blocking other groups from obtaining land rights and ownership (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 8; Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 86).

In 1819 the Republic of Grand Colombia was formed together with Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela, which in between 1829/30 again dissolved. In 1829 a new constitution was approved which gave birth to the Republic of New Granada (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 19), which constituted the base for the modern Colombian republic. The young republic experienced its first civil war from 1899 until 1902, the so called ‘The War of the Thousand Days’, the first of many violent conflicts between the Conservatives and Liberals and their ongoing struggle over power in the country. As a result of this war Panama became an independent state. Another chapter of violent conflicts between Conservatives and Liberals lasted from 1946 until 1960 and is known as La Violencia (La Rosa & Mejía 2013, p. 85). Dodd (2018, p. 1) describes La Violencia as ‘a violent class struggle’ that emerged through rising exploitation of peasants and workers as Colombia got more and more integrated into the global market (Dodd 2018, p. 1f.).

It was a time when the gap between the elite and poor became visible to many in the country and raised concerns over growing inequality in society. All over Latin America charismatic populist leaders cautiously challenged the old elites to improve the situation of marginalised people and tried to improve the rights of workers (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 83). Although never in power, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the leader of the Liberal party, was a Colombian charismatic populist who quickly won support amongst marginalised groups. However, during his second presidential campaign,

Gaitán got assassinated on the 9th of April 1948. This left many of the working-classes, whose hopes were tied to Gaitán, angry and desperate for political change. The riots

2 ‘Whites’ in this context describes Spaniards and Criollos.

80 following Gaitán’s death are seen as the beginning of La Violence (La Rosa & Mejía 2013, p. 84).

The National Liberation Army (ELN), a left-wing political group, became active in 1964 and within the same year the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was formed, followed by other left-wing guerrilla groups in the same decade. The FARC is the biggest guerrilla group in Colombia. Their foundation was the result of frustration over failed land reforms. The Communist Party founded in the years before La Violencia managed to mobilise frustrated peasants then built the core of the FARC (Dodd 2018, p. 7). In its early days the FARC presented themselves as Marxist- Leninist group composed mainly by peasants and forced into action by a class struggle (Dodd 2018, p. 12). In its heyday, the 1990s, the FARC had around 20,000 armed fighters. Before the peace talks were initiated, the FARC financed their operations through kidnapping, extortion and involvement in the narcotics industry. The Colombian state answered the guerrilla violence with repression, extrajudicial killings and illegal imprisonment (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 89). In November 1985, M-19 (Movimiento de 19 de Abril) another guerrilla group operating in Colombia, stormed the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. This deadly event fuelled the conflict between guerrilla groups and the Colombian government. In the early 1980s the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group, formed and added yet another group perpetuating violence in the country (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 91). By the mid-1990s they had recruited 30,000 fighters who were known for their cruel retaliation massacres against the FARC, ELN and members of the civil society.

By the late 1990s, the FARC and ELN were fighting the military, the AUC were fighting the leftist guerrillas, the military was supposedly fighting the AUC, the FARC, and the ELN, and the drug barons were fighting the government while simultaneously fighting and collaborating with the guerrilla forces. (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 91)

Although officially demobilised, the Colombian paramilitary forces kept on operating like criminal organisations fighting and killing unionists, peasants and left-wing

81 groups who would defend their lands or speak up for the rights of marginalised groups, which were an easy target for the paramilitary. ‘Union leaders, human rights activist, and those who call for just wages, better working conditions, or land reforms for the poor have faced the terror of self-sufficient, unregulated, for profit hired killers’ (LaRosa &Mejía 2013, p. 94).

In this environment of conflicts and lawlessness came a dramatic growth of narcotraficantes (drug traffickers), particularly in Bogotá, Cali and Medellín in the 1980s. Soon Colombia became the centre of the South American drug trade. The rapid rise of powerful cartels such as Pablo Escobar’s in Medellín was favoured by a weak central government (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 90). The fight against the drug trade triggered another 10-year-long spiral of violence in Colombia. The violence particularly escalated around 1990 when the cartels were able to hire young and poor men from the streets for an equivalent of as little as 100 dollars to kill whoever stood in their way (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 90). How easily available those young men were, is an indication for the wide-reaching poverty in Colombia. This poverty explains to some extent how Escobar could have such strong support amongst many in Colombian society and particularly those in poverty, as he was simply able to buy this support from the local population. Up until Escobar’s assassination in 1993, car bombings, kidnappings and murder were part of the daily lives of Colombians (LaRosa & Mejía 2013, p. 91). After his death the cartels changed their structure and started operating in smaller units protected by paramilitary and guerrilla groups. The cartels began to operate more undercover, which led to a noticeable decrease in violence across the country. Finally, in 2016, after long and difficult negotiations, the Colombian government reached a Peace agreement with the FARC.

As I have shown, the structures created by the Spanish crown created a legacy of unequal access to resources. This institutionalised inequality fuelled the conflict between Liberals and Conservatives and divides the country up until today. The frustration with the country’s elite also enabled the successful rise of guerrilla groups such as the FARC (Dodds 2018). Class in Colombia often aligns with political affiliations. Traditionally the working-class associate with the liberals and some also

82 supported the FARC in their heyday. Upper-class Colombians tend to support the Conservative party (LaRosa & Mejía 2013)

Social Structures in Colombia

The race and class hierarchies that I outline in the following section show structurally how the women, particularly those from Bogotá and from an upper-class background, occupy privileged social locations. Their upper-classness and whiteness situate them on top of a racial and class hierarchy. The hierarchies that structure their lives set the basis for understanding the narratives of their experiences of privilege. In the following I will briefly talk about la sistema de castas, which dominated social order throughout colonial times and linked high social status with whiteness. Second, I will discuss mestizaje, the dominant racial and national identity in the epoch of nation building. Although the concept of mestizaje emphasises racial mixture, it is based on ideas of population whitening. This was the aim of many Latin American nations in this time period. In some countries like Argentina or Costa Rica, governments tried to whiten their population by attracting white European migrants (see Telles 2014). Colombia, in contrast, hoped for miscegenation to achieve this (see Telles 2014). Then I discuss how these hierarchies are manifested in society by showing how different regions in Colombia are associated with race and racial attributes. To contextualise my interlocutors’ class position I briefly describe important markers of class. I end the section about Colombia by discussing the contemporary system of social strata and by giving a brief overview of social segregation in Colombia’s capital city, as the women’s lives in Colombia were influenced by this segregation.

Race in Colombia

Societies in Latin America have been described as being structured by a racial hierarchy, where Europeans are located at the top and blacks and Indigenous peoples at the bottom (Telles 2014, p. 1). I discuss two different racial hierarchies which predominated over the course of time in Colombia and which had a long-lasting influence on Colombian society. Both hierarchies were built on the ideology of white

83 superiority and privileged whiteness. Subsequent to this I show how these hierarchies are mapped onto Colombia’s geography.

Sistema de Castas

In Colombia, the concept of race still reflects the sistema de castas installed by the Spanish. This can be generally described as a social categorisation of people along a continuum of their skin colour. After gaining control over overseas territories in the New World the Spanish transported their concept of blood purity (limpieza de sangre), used in the Iberian Peninsula to exclude those with Jewish or Muslim ancestry, into their colonies and adapted it to the local context. In the New World the Spanish now used limpieza de sangre to exclude Blacks, Indigenous people and those of mixed heritage: basically all those not of Spanish descent (Vigoya 2015, p. 499). Simultaneously, the Spanish established a so-called sistema de castas (caste system) in their colonies. This was a hierarchical racial system based on one’s purity of blood: ‘[…] if you were of “pure” Spanish blood you were granted membership into the highest ranks of society, whereas if you were of African descent you occupied an almost intractable position at the nadir of the colonial racial order’ (Thompson- Hernández 2016, p. 117).

In the Spanish colonies the word casta was used to identify colonial identities that emerged due to racial mixture (Chavez 2012, p. 45). Therefore the different castes were not necessarily all different racial categories. The system was more fluid and inclusive. It integrated lineage as much as racial ideas, particularly skin colour and ‘associating black colour with impure ancestry, and whiteness with purity of blood’ (Chavez 2012, p. 45). Whiteness was an ordering factor in this system of differences (Chavez 2012, p. 52). People in-between white and black skin colour were categorised into different castes based on their lineage, appearance, status and skin colour. The different castas represented the level of ‘mixture’. For example, Mestizos were those of Spanish and Indigenous blood and Zambo were the offspring of an Indigenous and a black person. Castizos indicated a mixture of Spanish with some Indigenous blood. Castizos were seen as more Spanish then for example Mestizos. Cholos were people of Indigenous and some Spanish ancestry, most commonly a Mestizo parent. On top

84 were the Españoles (Spaniards) and Criollos, Spaniards born in the colonies (Gillis 2018).

Based on this idea, a system of social control was created. In this a person’s social status was conflated with their race. Further, people’s rights and duties were regulated by their caste belonging (Thompson-Hernández 2016, p. 117; Viveros 2015, p. 499). Already at this point class and race overlapped, especially considering upper-classness and whiteness. However, this caste system was more fluid than for example other systems of racial categorisation such as the ‘one drop rule’ in the 20th century in the US. Through successive miscegenation people could achieve upward social mobility over generations (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 86; Viveros 2015, p. 499). Further, caste belonging was contested as its categorisation not only relied on lineage and ancestry but also on appearance.

The caste system is still relevant for the contemporary social hierarchy in Colombia. It created racial difference and structured these differences hierarchically, which then became attached to a particular social status (Urrea Giraldo 2014, p. 86). Urrea Giraldo et al. (2014) write that contemporary Colombia is still influenced by a ’pyramid of colour, with light-skinned people at the top and dark-skinned at the bottom’ (2014, p. 82). Although being Mestiza/o is seen as the social/ethnic norm and the majority of Colombians would identify as Mestiza/os, whiteness up until today is perceived as a synonym of progression and modernity (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 82). Within this hierarchy the women in this research occupy the higher ranks of society.

Ariza and Viveros (1999, p. 17) describe how in Colombia people learn from a very early age how they are classified in terms of race by the wider society. This becomes an embodied experience as one starts to identify with these classifications. They explain how already different shades of skin colour, eye colour and hair structure and colour are decisive factors for racial categorisations in Colombia. ‘We are monos with our brown hair and bright eyes (a common name for a person with light skin and eye colour and carries the meaning of a high social status)’ (Ariza & Viveros 1999, p. 17)3.

3Translated from Spanish by the author.

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This highlights how whiteness and high status conflate in contemporary Colombia. However, after intensive miscegenation over hundreds of years the dichotomy of high status: white skin colour/European appearance versus low social status: darker skinned is not clear cut anymore (Wade 1993).

Mestizaje

By the beginning of the 20th century a new ideology took over in Latin America, called mestizaje. One of the most famous writers who conceptualised mestizaje is the Mexican Vasconcelos who formulated in 1925 the idea of mestizaje as the forging of a ‘cosmic race’: a harmonious fusion of its white, Indian and black components (Chavez & Zambrando 2006, p. 7). The concept quickly gained importance all over Latin America. In Colombia, in the nation-building era, the ideology of mestizaje was used to create a national identity that overcomes the old racial segregation of the caste system. Although mestizaje embraced racial mixture the concept does not abolish the privilege of whiteness (Wade 1993, p. 19).

Mestizaje ideologically acted like a double-edge sword as it promoted the idea of a mixed race but simultaneously tried to whiten darker-skinned segments of society. By doing so it fed into the idea of white superiority and domination. Parts of the conservative ruling elites of the country believed that, over generations, the European blood would ‘civilise’ the Indigenous population (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 88). This was based on the widely predominant idea that the Indigenous and black populations of the Americas were inferior and uncivilised, and needed help to be able to progress (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 88). Through this process of racial mixture, the young nation state could overcome the obstacles posed by the high numbers of Indigenous and black people on its territory, who otherwise would hold them back in their aiming for modernity and progress (Chaves & Zambrano 2006, p. 5). Hence, mestizaje was a means to whiten Colombia’s population and slowly erase those who are black or Indigenous by creating a mixed race that was not white but neither black nor Indigenous. Other parts of the country’s elite believed however, that mestizaje would lead the people of Colombia in racial degeneration (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 88).

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Colombian anthropologist Mara Viveros Vigoya (2015, p. 497) defines whitening or blanqueamiento as ‘the search to escape from what is “black” in order to ensure for oneself a better form of social existence in a context that values what is white as a synonym for progress, civilization, and beauty’ (Viveros 2015, p. 497). Thus, Colombia structurally privileges ‘what is white, or whatever approximates it’ (Viveros 2015, p. 497). Colombians believe that whitening, and as a consequence social upward mobility, can be achieved in multiple ways. One of those is miscegenation with whiter spouses/partners. Other forms include using cremes to whiten skin, straightening kinky hair, through integration in non-black social networks, moving into white neighbourhoods and so on, and finally a person’s daily performance of fitting into white networks (Garner 2007, p. 92f.; Viveros 2015, p. 498; Wade 1993, p. 295). Practices of whitening are still widely common in contemporary Colombia. Particularly for Afro-Colombians whitening is necessary to achieve middle-class status (see Viveros 2015). As already mentioned above, whiteness is therefore not only about physical appearance but also about social and cultural behaviour (Viveros 2015, p. 497).

Until the 1980s Colombia presented itself as a Mestizo nation. Within this Mestizo nation, Indigenous groups were still represented as wild and savage whereas Afro- Colombians were made invisible. The dominant ideology of mestizaje started to be challenged by Indigenous movements and finally replaced by the acknowledgement of a multicultural society in the constitution of 1991 (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 90). Although officially multicultural, Colombians still perpetuate the idea/ideal of Colombia as a Mestizo nation and being Mestiza/o as the national identity. This also means that the majority of Colombians would, regardless of their ethnicity, still identify as Mestiza/o (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014). Mestizaje foremost postulated sameness and apparent racial equality while simultaneously ignoring ethnic difference and existent racial hierarchies (see Wade 2016). This is important to understand the common perception of social inequality that Colombians have. Because of the obscuring of race difference and inequalities, class was perceived as the only cause of inequality (Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 89). Even in contemporary Colombia racial inequality is successfully denied (Valle 2017, p. 4) and class is often used to explain

87 social and economic inequality. Many Colombians for example would argue that black people are more disadvantaged because of their lower-class status, instead of arguing that because of their race they are in a lower-class position (Valle 2017, p. 11; also see Bonilla-Silva 2003 [2010]). Class is the category through which inequality is negotiated in the public discourse (see Streicker 1995).

Race in Colombia does not operate in a white vs. black dichotomy but rather on a ‘black–white continuum’ (Wade 1985, p. 233). Generally, perspectives are more fluid and differentiated. Thus, one does not need to be white to participate in white privileges. It is enough to be whiter (than the majority) to profit from those privileges as whiteness is contextual. However, whiteness is traditionally privileged, and this prevails in contemporary Colombia. Further, there is an intersection of whiteness and class. The pervasive race mixture that has occurred in Colombia since colonial times partially blurred racial distinctions among social classes. However, physical traits such as skin colour and hair texture continue to be markers of social stratifications. Elites are seen and recognise themselves as white, while darker persons are at the bottom rungs of the social latter (Streicker 1995, p. 60f.; Urrea Giraldo et al. 2014, p. 83). As Wade writes (1993, p. 20): ‘Class and race hierarchies are not coterminous, but their historical coincidence has been enough to create the basic hierarchy of the racial order’. Class and race are both always gendered, thus the social hierarchy is structured along race, class and gender. For example, ideas of femininity and female beauty are strongly connected to whiteness. This means that although lighter skin, straight hair and European features are generally desired in society, women are more subjected to those standards than men (Telles & Paschel 2014, p. 872). Aspiring to ideals of female beauty in Colombia thus also means to aspire to whiteness (Urrea Giraldo 2014, p. 99).

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Racial Geography of Colombia

In Colombia racial categories are not only ascribed to people. Colombia is a country of regions4 and racial meanings are ascribed to each region (Wade 1993, p. 53). In the

19th century, elite Colombians explored the interior of their country and

[…] mapped racial hierarchy onto an emerging national geography composed of distinct localities and regions. They elaborated a racialized discourse of regional differentiation that assigned greater morality and progress to certain regions […] that they marked as “white” (Appelbaum 2003, p. 3f.).

In this process they assigned blackness/indianness to other regions and associated those spaces with disorder, sexual impropriety and backwardness (Appelbaum 2003, p. 4). Inequality and prejudices got inscribed into the spatial order of the emerging Colombian nation state (Appelbaum 2003, p. 11). For example, Antioquia, the region that encompasses Medellín, was seen as white because they were expanding the agricultural frontiers and were perceived as hard workers. In this racial geography they represented progress (Appelbaum 2003, p. 12). Bogotá too is perceived as white and whiter than the from the Atlantic Coastal region; Costeños are perceived as blacker than people from the interior but whiter than people from the Pacific Coast. They are seen as mixed. In relation to this, people from the Pacific Coast are black (Wade 1993, p. 64). Wade’s analysis highlights the relationality of whiteness mapped onto the country’s geography: ‘Colombian nationhood is a relational totality in the sense that any region, albeit ambiguously and contestably bounded, exists in relation to others, and the meanings attached to each derive in part from relations of difference’ (Wade 1993, p. 64).

This racial geography, and its legacy, is still at work in contemporary Colombia. It creates a hierarchy where those from white places automatically receive a higher social

4 For more see Appelbaum (2003, pp. 15f.).

89 status than those from regions associated with blackness. Thus, the women in my research who are from Bogotá profit more from racial privilege than for example Sol, who is from Barranquilla, as other Colombians perceive Bogoteños as white. This attaches racial meaning to people. A person from Choco or Cauca, regions classified as black, is automatically categorised as belonging to the working classes and being poor as well as uneducated (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 134). It is not only a person’s ancestry, appearance and class that influence social status. It also depends on the region they originate from. Next, I will briefly elaborate on important class indicators in Colombia and other elements that influence a person’s social location in Colombia.

Class in Colombia

Class is one of the main sources of privilege I engage with in this thesis. First, because these women profit from upper-class privilege and second, Colombia is a highly stratified society in terms of both class and race. Overall, Colombians are overly status conscious; they base class distinctions on socio-economic strata, race/ethnicity and regional origin (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 126). Stanfield (2013, p. 19) points out that ‘Color, class and familial name markers reinforce ascriptive and hierarchical barriers, as do closed political and social systems’. In the previous section I discussed racial hierarchies and the social geography of Colombia. Before I finish the section about Colombia’s social hierarchies by elaborating on the strata system and social segregation in cities such as Bogotá, I will briefly outline the most important indicators of class belonging.

Education (particularly which high school), family background, last name, lifestyle, occupation, race and geographic residence are the most tangible class indicators in Colombia (Hudson 2010, p. 102). The following should be read as generalised indicators as class belonging is performed and often contested. Further, class belonging is usually performed in relation to others and situational. Being rural or urban upper class is not the same and will lead to different class performances. According to Stanfield (2013, p. 19), popular culture in Colombia is influenced by folklore traditions from the Colombian countryside, whereas he describes upper-class

90 culture as ‘markedly aristocratic’ (Stanfield 2013, p. 19), particularly in former colonial centers such as Bogotá or Cartagena.

According to Hanratty and Meditz (1998) the Colombian upper class consist of traditional land-owning elites and new rich. They former can look back on a distinguished lineage. They carry respected last names and own large areas of land. Additionally, particularly in the cities, wealth is another important factor of upper- class belonging. The latter group is described as middle-class Mestizos or European migrants who made it to economic and social success as entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, they are seen as a lower stratum/class within the broader category of upper class as they lack the ‘lineage, cultivation, and landowning tradition of the old elite’ (Hanratty & Meditz 1998).

Education was and still is an important asset of the upper classes. Children from upper- class families receive the best education from prestigious private schools and degrees from the best universities of the country. A person’s high school reveals much about their position in society. Traditionally, women from the upper class would receive excellent education but particularly after marriage would not pursue work outside the house. Colombia is also influenced by an informal and influential network called roscas. Members of these roscas, which are particularly powerful in rural areas, are traditionally upper class (Hanratty & Meditz 1998). According to Stanfield (2013, p. 211) elite Colombians maintained a preference for white beauty ideals first established in Colombia in the colonial period in reference to Spanish ideals of beauty. In contemporary Colombia, European appearance, aesthetics as well as cultural and social values are still associated with a high social status and position a person on the top of the social hierarchy (Jordan 2008, p. 92).

A modern middle class started developing in Colombia during the 1920s. According to Hanratty and Meditz (1998) a marker of middle-class belonging, among other things, is the type of occupation of a person. In this sense, middle-class professions are, for example, self-employed shopkeeping, clerical occupations, government employment or trade. Teachers would traditionally also be considered as middle class, as well as artists. Generally speaking, the middle classes cover a wide range of people.

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Some of those are just above working-class lifestyles and others could be described as upper-middle class Colombians. According to Hanratty and Meditz (1998) upper- middle class Colombians, particularly those whose family once were part of the upper classes often do not consider themselves as middle class and perform upper-classness by exhibiting upper-class mannerisms and behaviour. Hereby, cultured behaviour and interests are of importance as well as appearance and the active participation in the Roman Catholic church. Education again plays a role. Hanratty & Meditz (1998, p.39) write ‘Whereas membership in the elite was still determined primarily by family background and values, upper-middle-class status was largely determined by a good secondary education’.

As of 2017 the working class and poorer segments of the middle class constitute the majority of Colombian population (Riaño 2018). Here too, those categorised as working class live under different economic circumstances. Some are small farmers, merchants or blue-collar workers, whereas others live impoverished and marginalised lives. Especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are affected by poverty and marginalisation. Common occupations of working-class Colombians are unskilled jobs and domestic servants, construction workers or taxi drivers. Life in working-class families and neighbourhoods is often described as less formal not only in regard to mannerism but also because the informal sector plays a bigger role in people’s everyday life. Women of working-class or middle-class background often had and have to work to support the family, which often also enables them to more personal freedom (Hanratty & Meditz 1998).

In this thesis I analyse what it means to be an upper-class Colombian-born female and which privileges this brings for the women I interviewed. As I have shown in this section there is a gendered aspect to class. A woman’s social location is not only influenced by her class status but also her position as woman in this particular society. As I have shown the intersection of being a woman and being upper class has particular implications for education and her role within the family, and will be further explored in this thesis. In the following section I discuss how class, similarly to the racial geography of Colombia, has spatial manifestations.

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Social Strata in Colombia’s Cities

In 1994 Colombia introduced a law for socio-economic stratification in its major urban areas (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 128). Neighbourhoods in cities were assigned to an estrato between six and one. Six indicates a high socio-economic estrato and one a very disadvantaged one, while estrato three and four indicates middle-class status. The system categorises neighbourhoods based on their quality of the social environment and housing but not the income of the people living in the neighbourhood. However, people with high income live in estratos five or six (Alzate 2006, p. 8; DANE 2016; Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 141). The lower estratos receive subsidies for services such as electricity and water. However, living in these areas is often stigmatised and furthermore, the estrato system hinders upward mobility as moving to a higher estrato comes with exponentially higher living cost (Uribe-Mallarino 2008). This keeps disadvantaged people in areas with bad infrastructure and low-quality education. Further, estratos are a form of institutional and imagined socio-spatial segregation (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 129). As Bogoteños identify with the estrato they live in, it becomes part of their identity (Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 158). Hence, people do not only live in a particular estrato, the estrato they identify with also regulates their social networks as Colombians rarely cross boundaries (imagined as spatial boundaries) when socialising (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 126; Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 158). I will end the section about Colombia by illustrating some aspects of lived social segregation in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá.

Bogotá, a Segregated City

Bogotá, similar to Colombia’s other major cities, reflects the social hierarchies discussed earlier in this chapter. They are characterised by a rigid social segregation along class lines, which often intersects with race. Due to the estrato system, cities are officially divided into economically more affluent parts and economically weak parts. Exceptions to this spatial segregation occur when disadvantaged Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people but also Mestizos/as work as security guards, cleaners, drivers, maids and secretaries in wealthy parts of town. The majority of these workers are informally employed and only enter those neighbourhoods for work. In the contemporary Colombian context, race and class intersect. As a consequence, Afro-

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Colombians and Indigenous Colombians are more strongly affected by socio- economic disadvantage. Taking this spatial segregation into account is important to better understand how class and race hierarchies that the women in this study grew up in are manifested. They highlight physical and embodied spatial boundaries through which the women in this research learned their position in society.

Five women among my interlocutors are from Bogotá. One is from Santiago de Cali and one from Barranquilla. Both of the latter moved to Bogotá either to study or to work.

Fig. 1. Estrato distribution city of Bogotá, 2017 (Marcos 2018)

Bogotá is the country's most populous city, followed by Santiago de Cali. Barranquilla is the fourth biggest city and is located on the Atlantic Coast. All three cities have a similar pattern of social and geographic division. The cities are divided into an

94 imagined North and South.5 To illustrate the extend of social segregation I will use Bogotá as an example.

As I have mentioned above, Colombians attach racial meaning to geographic places. In this logic Colombia’s population classifies Bogotá as a white city. In their understanding it represents modernity and progress and is the cultural centre of the country. The numbers of Indigenous, black and Afro-Colombian people living in Bogotá are small but growing, as the majority of residents from these groups who live in the capital are Internally Displaced People.

Social segregation in Colombia’s capital is not a new phenomenon (Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 143). Since the foundation of the new republic, in 1832, the city has adopted a strategy to build the private houses and mansions in the north of the city and public housing in the south and west of Bogotá (Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 160). North of the city centre are the few small wealthy areas. The majority of the socio-economically poorest areas of the city are situated at the south end of the city, as well as the western edge (León 2016; Skinner 2004, p. 74). This overlaps with the estrato system. The majority of estrato five to six areas can be found in the north-eastern part of the city and most estrato one and two areas can be found in the south of Bogotá. Hence, estratos roughly correlate with the idea of a small but affluent north and socio- economically more disadvantaged south. Although the majority of Bogoteños do not live in the affluent parts of the city, it is important to notice that socio-economically weaker areas of the city are diverse regarding their socio-economic status, as described by LaRosa and Mejía (2013, p. 190): ‘[…] where the majority of the population lives in poverty ranging in condition from dignified to destitute’. As the city expanded outwards, the relative distance of barrios in the south, along with the lack of public transport and insufficient infrastructure, further disadvantaged the south (Gilbert 2011, p. 11). The crime statistics indicate that the most dangerous parts of the city are in the south and that these areas are heavily affected by homicides and violent assaults. The city centre too indicates a higher occurrence of homicides, whereas the affluent areas are more affected by property related crimes such as burglaries (Escobar 2012; Mejia

5In Cali’s case it is an East – West division.

95 et al. 2014) The majority of Bogotá’s inhabitants are living in socio-economically weaker areas (Urrea Giraldo & Víafara López 2016, p. 26). Mestizos/as can be found in every part of Bogotá depending on their class position, whereas being Afro- Colombian or Indigenous commonly intersects with being socially and economically disadvantaged and hence they more often live in the south (CODHES 2014, p. 35; Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 162; Urrea Giraldo & Víafara López 2016, p. 26).

I have briefly outlined the structures that influenced the lives of the women I am writing about in Colombia. However, these changed when they came to Australia. The next part of this chapter elaborates on Australia and the new social circumstances that the women are now embedded in.

Australia

In the following I first engage with Australia’s racial formations and the country’s recent history to establish the social structures that influence the lives of these Colombian migrant women in the Australian context. I particularly describe Australia’s migration history and the developments that led to the White Australia policy and from there move to Australia’s multicultural policy. I finish this chapter by outlining some important information about Latin Americans and particularly Colombians in Melbourne.

Racial Hierarchies and Class in Australia

The women’s social location in Australia is primarily shaped by their position as migrant women. Generally, being a migrant has varying implications depending on where a person is from. This is intertwined with Australia’s racial relations, which have been deeply influenced by the White Australia policy, a policy that was aimed at exclude non-Europeans from migrating to Australia, and which was legally abolished only as recently as 1973. During the period of the White Australia policy racial relations were structured by a white vs. black dichotomy. Whites where those of European decent and black was a synonym for Aboriginal Australian (Farquharson

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2007, p. 4). Who was white and who was not changed over time and as more and more traditionally non-white migrants entered the country. Up until today there are varying degrees of whiteness in Australia (Farquharson 2007, p. 4). Those of Anglo-Celtic and northern European descent are white. Others such as southern European and Middle- Eastern communities occupy contested positions of whiteness as whiteness is relational (Farquharson 2007, p. 5; Garner 2007, p. 52). Thus, it depends on the context and the person making the judgment. However, more often than white they are considered to be ‘ethnic-looking’. Being ‘Ethnic’ or ‘ethnic looking’ is another racial category in Australia and applies to many of migrant descent in Australia (Farquharson 2007, p. 5). As I will show in the chapters to follow, the women in this research experience being categorised as ethnic in Australia. In contemporary Australia the category ‘Black’ is used to describe Indigenous Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, and people of African descent. Another racial category in contemporary Australia is ‘Asian’ (Farquharson 2007, p. 5). Australia’s history, particularly the White Australia policy, is relevant to explain why the category white in Australia is narrower than in other countries (Farquharson 2007). Further, looking at the country’s history illustrates the root of the social environment to which these women migrated. Experiences of othering and stereotypes these women encounter have their source in the nation’s history, which aimed for a population that was white and of European descent.

In Australia class is a contested category that often stays in the background of academic discourses which focus primarily on socio-economic status, distribution of income or wealth. Australian class structure is commonly described as flat and open (Sheppard & Biddle 2017, p. 501). Compared to Colombia, class belonging is more fluid and class boundaries are less rigid. This means that people find it easier to experience social upward mobility compared to those in Colombia. However, Australia’s class system is to some extent non-transparent because Australian society portrays itself as egalitarian and free of class difference (Sheppard & Biddle 2017, p. 501; Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 569; Western & Baxter 2007, p. 216). Nonetheless, class plays an important role in everyday life. Because of its fluidity and its often-concealed nature the Australian class system is less straightforward and more complex than class in Colombia. Nonetheless, profession (labour market position), income, wealth, area

97 of residence, attending a private school as well as studying at a particular private university are important markers of class in both countries and have great influence on individuals’ lives as they confer privilege. However, in Australia, because class markers are less rigid people can move across classed boundaries more easily and class does not determine the social and economic outcomes of person’s life as rigidly as it does in Colombia. In this sense, class in Australia impacts on individuals but it is less deterministic of an individual’s opportunities and life chances as in Colombia. An interesting consequence of Australia’s more fluid class system is that many people belonging to the working-class earn more than those with higher education and who are employed in middle-class professions (Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 569). Class and race intersect in Australia as the majority of the upper class and the educated middle-class are still white and Anglo-Australian.

A Brief History of Australia’s Migration History

Australia’s racial formations are influenced by its colonial history (see Farquharson 2007, p. 4). When the white settlers arrived, they declared the land as terra nullius, thus ‘nobody’s land’. On this basis they claimed possession of the continent and began the genocide of its Indigenous people (Hage 2002, p. 418). Large parts of the Australian continent initially were used as a convict colony from 1788 until 1868 and thus were less subjected to voluntary population movement from Europe in the early nineteenth century (Jupp 1995, p. 212; 1998, p. 38). Nevertheless, British migrants increased in numbers by the middle of the century, particularly due to the gold rush. From the 1850s onwards, Australia became an important emigration destination for migrants from England and Scotland (Jupp 1998, p. 38f.). The majority of migrants at this time were from Anglo-Celtic backgrounds and encouraged to migrate. Migrants to Australia also arrived from other corners of Europe. Germans were the second biggest group until the gold rush era. Germans were also favoured as the British and German royal family were related and thus in a racial logic Germans were perceived as racially similar to the Anglo-Celtic population (Jupp 1998, p. 57). Scandinavians were another favoured early migrant group (Jupp 1998, p. 61). However, Europeans where not the only migrant communities in Australia prior to World War II. Some

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Lebanese, Eastern and Southern Europeans also migrated to Australia (Jupp 1998, p. 62; see also Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2007). Australians were not always comfortable with non-British culture and feared that particularly the large amount of Southern European migrants would not assimilate as easily as the English, German and Scandinavian. This led to much resentment against them and they were exposed to a high level of prejudice (Jupp 1998, p. 63). Jewish and Eastern European migrant communities too were affected by prejudice (Jupp 1998, p. 64).

The first significant number of non-European migrants, more specifically Asian migrants, came into Australia after the ending of the convict system caused a shortage of labourers. In 1847 the first group of contract labourers from China were brought to Australia (Jupp 1998, p. 69). The numbers of Chinese migrants increased quickly, and the local population of earlier migrant groups started fearing to be outnumbered by the new Chinese migrants, although the British population alone was still twice as big as the Chinese (Jupp 1998, p. 70). Soon the Chinese became victims of racial resentment, firstly due to competition in the mines and secondly, because of fears of incompatibility with European culture (Jupp 1998, p. 70). Colonial laws already in place before 1901 restricted Chinese from immigration, citizenship and particular occupations.

The White Australia policy marked another dark chapter of Australia’s history. Installed in 1901 by the newly-formed Commonwealth Parliament through the implementation of the Immigration Restriction Act, Australia restricted non-European and white immigration on their territory. The restriction act was the first of many individual policies that formed the White Australia policy, which kept Australia until the 1970s a culturally homogeneous country, with exception for Indigenous Australians. Simultaneously, racist ideologies led to an increased control of Aboriginal Australians, for example by relocating them to reserves (Jupp 1998, p. 73). White Australia was not only an attempt to prevent Chinese immigrants from having any sort of rights in Australia but was also aimed at all non-Europeans and Aboriginal Australians (Jupp 1998, p. 74). The White Australia policy was more than a restrictive immigration policy. ‘It was central to building a white British Australia from which all others would be excluded, whether recent Chinese immigrants or the original

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Aboriginal inhabitants’ (Jupp 1998, p.73). The aim of the White Australia policy was to create a homogenous Australian society. The racial hierarchy in Australia was built upon the ideology that non-Europeans (including Indigenous Australians) were inferior and would corrupt the existing population. Similarly to the concept of mestizaje in Colombia, the Aboriginal population was expected to die out and those who were mixed race were anticipated to assimilate into the dominant society and leave their culture behind (Jupp, 1995, p. 208). As a consequence, the Australian government removed over 100,000 Aboriginal children from their families to force assimilation into white Australia (Jupp 1998, p. 115).

By 1947 Australia’s population comprised only 87,000 Indigenous Australians and an even smaller number of Asian-born people. At this point in history Australia claimed to be 99% white and 96% British/Irish (Jupp 1998, p. 132). The Immigration Restriction Act remained in power up until 1958, which marked the beginning of the slow end of the White Australia policy. In the 1940s white Australia was already a discredited idea amongst more highly educated Australians. Through the war against Nazi Germany and the Nazi regime’s final collapse, ideas of genetic inferiority became discredited. Australia could no longer rely on the ideology of racial segregation and white racial superiority. Additionally, due to geographic realities, Australia also needed to restore/develop/improve their relationships with countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Quietly and slowly over the period of almost two decades the White Australia policy got dismantled (Jupp 1998, p. 117). The open abolition of the White Australia policy was in 1973, when the Whitlam government declared that future admission would occur be irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion or cultural background (Jupp 1998, p. 119). In 1975 the Australian Racial Discrimination Act was passed (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2007, p. 62). However, Australia’s history shows how being white, which for a long time and to some degree still is a synonym for being Anglo-Celtic, was a position of racial privilege. This already indicates what I will elaborate on in more detail in the following chapter: that the women’s racial privileges in Australia are contested.

Australia, with the exception of its humanitarian program, always followed an economic demand-based approach in its immigration policy (Carangio 2018, p. 58).

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In the post-World War II era, a substantial number of Europeans migrated to Australia. Those were mainly recruited to come to Australia as workers. Nonetheless, the biggest migrant group remained the British. However, in the 1971 census a substantial number of Italians, Greek and Yugoslavs were recorded, as well as small numbers of northern European migrants. The 1971 census showed still very few Asian-born people living in Australia (Fozdar 2014, p. 137; Poynting & Mason 2008, p. 231). The first large wave of Asian migrants were Vietnamese refugees as a consequence of the Vietnam War (Moran 2011 p. 2158). In this period Southern European migrants, particularly Italians, were subjected to much discrimination and prejudice as they were visibly different in Australia and from low social status as the majority were working class, rural and poorly educated (Fozdar 2014, p. 137f.). In the 1970s the economic demand changed, and Australia focused on higher-skilled migrants. In 1979 it introduced a points system to select skilled migrants. This new approached favoured younger migrants with a high skill set, qualifications, work experience and English skills (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2007, p. 63; Fozdar 2014, p. 139). In the 1980s resentments were strongest against Muslim and Arab populations as well as the Vietnamese whereas, as shown earlier, prior to this the groups most strongly affected by racist resentment were the Chinese, Jews and Aboriginal Australians (Jupp 1998, p. 147). This shows how race relations and racial discourses change over time. They are contextual and to some extent fluid. With the intake of many non-European migrant communities, those early European migrant communities once perceived as culturally too different now became white over time. Nevertheless, as discussed earlier in this chapter, even the whiteness of some groups of European descent, such as the Italian- Australians, is still contested today.

Multicultural policy was institutionalised in the late 1970s and 1980s. Multiculturalism experienced its biggest popular support in the early 1990s but lost its appeal to the Australian population in the late 1990s and 2000s. However, it is still the guiding principle of Australian immigration policy and according to Colic-Peisker and Farquharson (2011, p. 579) public support ideologically resurfaced in recent years. The 2016 census showed that 49% of Australians had either been born overseas or at least one parent had been born overseas. The United Kingdom and New Zealand are the top two birth countries of Australians born overseas, followed by China and India.

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Compared to the last census in 2011 the number of people identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander increased from 2.5% to 2.8% (ABS 2018).

Although Australian multiculturalism promotes diversity and aims to create spaces for culturally diverse communities within the Australian nation, I argue that the core of Australian multiculturalism is still based on an Anglo-core, with Anglo-centric institutions (see Dunn & Nelson 2011; Hage 2000; Stratton 1998). English, for example, is the only national language, which already highlights the privilege of Anglo-culture. Violent acts of discrimination occur mostly against members of highly racialised groups including Indigenous Australians (Dunn et al. 2004; Dunn et al. 2011; Paradies 2016). However, discrimination in the labour market is wide and commonly experienced particularly by those of a non-English speaking background (Carangio 2018; Colic-Peisker 2011; Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2008). At present, particularly Muslim communities and those of African descent are victims of racial prejudice. Up until today Australia’s Aboriginal population is heavily affected by discrimination and social and economic segregation as well as marginalisation (Forrest 2006).

For the women in this research this means that they migrated to a country that for decades was invested in creating a white Anglo nation and keeping others (people who did not qualify as white) out. Through today’s multicultural policy the country promotes immigration, particularly skilled immigration. The women in this study are skilled migrants and profited from migration policies that enable international students to come to Australia, study here and in some cases permanently settle in the country. In Australia they are categorised as ethnic. I will discuss stereotypes that they encounter as ethnic migrant women in detail later in this thesis. Important for an understanding of their changing privilege however, is that Australia and Colombia’s societies are built on a history of privileging whiteness and Europeanness. This still influences both societal structures, but as whiteness is relational and situational the women do not profit from the same racial privileges in both countries. In Australia’s racial hierarchy the women occupy a contested position in proximity to whiteness. In Australia the women in this research do not occupy the top of various social hierarchies anymore. Their place in the order of things changes as the discourses on

102 class, race, ethnicity are deeply embedded in the country’s history. To my surprise all the women in this research knew even before they arrived in Australia that they would not be able to pass as white in this context. During the White Australia policy, a Colombian would have not passed as white and this still influences their current social location.

Latin American Migration to Australia

Individual and small-scale migration from Latin America to Australia has existed for decades. The first significant wave of Latin Americans came particularly from South America and arrived from the early 1970s to the late 1980s (Iebra Aizpurúa 2008, p. 2; López 2005, p. 104). The first wave consisted of refugees and economic migrants, the majority from Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Their arrival went hand in hand with a more general migration wave of non-European migrants to Australia (López 2005, p. 105; Mejía 2016, p. 26). A second wave from the Latin American sub-continent arrived between the 1980s and the early 1990s. The majority came from Central America. Most of the second wave of Central Americans arrived under the Refugee and Special Humanitarian Programs due to civil wars and conflicts in their countries. Here, the majority of people were from El Salvador (López 2005, p. 105f.; Mejía 2016, p. 26).

According to del Rio (2014, p. 167f.) another wave of Latin American immigration started in the 1990s as Australia opened up new opportunities for international students following changes in regulations concerning skilled and business migration visas. Although Australia had gradually shifted its focus to skilled migrants from unskilled labour migration since 1979, the skilled visa streams had been extended in the 1990s (Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 640; Stratton 2011, p. 200). The most recent wave of Latin American migrants in large part are from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela (del Rio 2014, p. 168; Meíja 2016, p. 27). The women in this research are part of this wave, a wave consisting of people characterised by their young age, high skill level and high English proficiency (del Rio 2014, p. 168).

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Particularly since 2001 a significant number of Latin Americans, within which Colombians are strongly represented, are entering the country on a student visa and gaining their educational qualifications at Australian institutes (del Rio 2014, p. 167; Torres Casierra 2017, p. 8). This facilitates entrance to the local job market and raises the chances of upward social mobility. Migrants on student visas are entering the workforce as low skilled workers while studying, but after receiving their degrees they are considered to enter the job market as highly skilled professionals. These new visa regulations led to a 300% increase of permanently settled Latin Americans in Australia between 2002 and 2011. Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil are the main emigration countries (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 8).

The first two waves of Latin Americans to Australia until the early 1990s differ from the newer Latin American demographic that the women this research is based on. As mentioned above many came as refugees. They had few English language skills. Their previous degrees were not recognised in Australia, which not only led to a significant job and status downgrade, but also meant that upward social mobility was difficult. Many had family obligations, which restricted them financially. Since then many things have changed not only in regard to the migrant demographic coming from Latin America. The conditions they encounter in Australia also changed, as University and work qualifications are more and more recognised by the Australia government, which facilitates the migrants’ access into the labour market (del Rio 2014, p. 167; Jupp 2001, p. 226). Melbourne is one of the cities that has received a great number of Latin American immigrants in the last few years. The rising numbers led to an increase in Latin American nightclubs, restaurants and bars (Meíja 2016, p. 27).

Colombian Migrants in Australia

Torres Casierra (2017, p. 5) identified multiple groups of Colombian migrants according to their arrival time. These groups and their characteristics are embedded in the broader migration movements from Latin America to Australia. The first and smallest group of Colombian migrants arrived between 1960 and the 1990s in Australia. Another and bigger group arrived between 1991 and 2000 as refugees and a skilled labour force in Australia. Since 2001 and particularly since 2011 a new

104 demographic of Colombians is migrating to Australia. They come to pursue tertiary education, vocational training or short-term English language classes (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 5f.). Torres observed some differences between these groups and many of her observations that characterise the newer migrants are accurate for my cohort. They are relatively young, from a middle to upper-class background, well educated, and arrive without children. They also maintain relatively strong connections with their families in Colombia as they frequently travel to Colombia and bring family over to Australia (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 6).

As mentioned above, since 2001 an increasing number of Colombians enter Australia on student visas (del Rio 2014, p. 176; Torres Casierra 2017, p. 8). In 2017 more than 14,112 Colombian students were enrolled in Australian educational institutions (DFAT Colombia country brief 2018). However, these numbers are not an indication for how many Colombians permanently migrate to Australia as many of the international students only stay for an English certificate or a bachelor’s degree (Torres Casierra 2017, p. 19). My field research showed that a smaller number of Colombians enrol into Master’s or even PhD degrees and then often transition into permanent residency or citizenship over time.

At the 2016 census 5,193 Colombian-born people were recorded in Metropolitan Melbourne and 18,997 in all of Australia. In comparison, the 2011 Australian census showed that 11,318 Colombian-born people lived in Australia. According to the 2016 census, 2,756 Colombian-born people reside in Melbourne and 5,334 in Victoria (Victorian State Government 2016). The majority of those living in Victoria arrived after 2001. Between 2001 and 2010 1709 Colombian-born people living in Victoria arrived in Australia. Between 2011 and 2016, thus in the following 5 years, the number jumped to 2,749 Colombian-born who arrived in Australia. The majority of Colombian-born people with Australian citizenship are in the age group 26-44. A large number of Colombians are working in wholesale, retail and hospitality. The 2016 census showed that in Victoria the industry of employment with the highest number of Colombians is the category professional, scientific, technology and administration (Victorian State Government 2016). The professions most commonly occupied by

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Colombians in Australia reflect that they are highly educated and/or studying while working in hospitality and retail.

People of Latin American background live rather dispersed across metropolitan Melbourne (Mejía 2016, p. 26). The majority of the Colombian-born population living in Victoria live in the Local Government Area (LGA) of Melbourne (1,039) followed distantly by Port Phillip (357) and Moreland (324). All three are central and rather expensive areas with high housing prices as well as high costs of living. This does not correlate with the numbers for the overall overseas born population, the majority of whom are living in LGAs further away from the city centre. Those areas often have lower living costs than the areas inhabited by the Colombian-born population (Victoria State Government 2016).

In this chapter I discussed important structural implications that impact on lives of the women in this research and also their social locations and positionality in Colombia. I have highlighted the structures that enable their privileges. Colombia’s history and its racial and class hierarchies emphasise the country’s rigid and divided social structure. To illustrate this further I elaborated on the strata system and aspects of Bogotá’s social segregation, a common pattern in many Colombian cities. This set the frame to contextualise the narratives of their lives in South America. In the second part of the chapter I elaborated on factors that influence their lives in Australia in terms of their status as migrants. In Australia the women in this research are not seen as white anymore. However, they are also not part of a stigmatised or highly racialised migrant community. Current migration policies favour migrants with high levels of education who can afford to study in Australia as international students. The opportunities that opened up through international student visas have attracted a high number of Colombian and other Latin American students since 2011. Since that time the numbers of Colombian migrants in Australia are steadily increasing. The next three chapters present the life stories of three women. In these life stories I explore their lived experience of privilege and how these women experienced changes to their privilege when migrating to Australia. The first narrative is the life story of Teresa, who profited from stable upper-class and white privileges in Colombia.

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5. Teresa: A Story Between Privilege and Ethnic Difference

It was August 2017 and Teresa asked me to accompany her to the program launch of one of Melbourne’s art festivals. Teresa’s Latin American underground music performance was part of this year’s festival program and thus she got invited to the event. Teresa had barely had a night out since the birth of her daughter two years ago so we tried to make the most of our evening out. After the event we walked to the pub next door and grab a drink there. It was a mild winter night and we decided to sit outside. I had left Teresa outside for a little while to go to the bar and by the time I got back outside Teresa was in conversation with a middle-aged couple that was sitting opposite us. Listening to their conversation for a few minutes I realised that the couple was tipsy and Teresa had to listen to the man while he was telling her about their recent holiday on a Pacific Island. His patronising attitude instantly annoyed me and I tried not to engage too much in the conversation. Teresa was politer then me and kept on chatting to them. At one point the man asked Teresa where she was from. She told him that she was from Colombia. His first reaction was a comment along the lines of ‘Oh, don’t shoot me! You are not selling cocaine here, right?’ I was surprised at Teresa’s patience. She just smiled and said calmly, Yes, there were hard times in Colombia but there is much more to my country than only drugs and violence. We have beautiful landscapes and diverse cultural groups in our country. There is a vibrant community living and people working hard to recreate the country.

He would not stop laughing, shaking his head and projecting his stereotypes about Colombia. Finally, he acknowledged Teresa’s comments. Nevertheless, in his final remark he again affirmed his opinion that he would not choose Colombia for a holiday because he believed the country is too unsafe. He then interrogated Teresa about what she is doing in Australia and asked if she left the country because it was too dangerous.

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Teresa stared at the floor during this uncomfortable conversation. Without losing her temper she explained to him that she and her husband had been living in Australia for 10 years. She added that she had a little daughter and that her husband was a high school teacher and she was an artist and writing a PhD. Teresa chose her words carefully. Introducing herself as a young, aspiring artist with an academic background, as well as a wife and mother, she presented herself as a well-educated, respectable woman and as the opposite of what this man might have expected Colombian women to be. After the couple finally left, I couldn’t hold back and asked her how she could stay so calm. She just and said: ‘This happens all the time’. This sentence stuck with me while I was driving home. ‘So, this is what you have to deal with, being a Colombian in Australia,’ I thought to myself.

The first of the three life stories is about Teresa. In this chapter I explore her life as a privileged white upper-class Colombian woman. Her narrative shows how Teresa breaks out of her white upper-class surroundings without putting her privilege at risk. Her story then shows how she can successfully transfer many aspects of her privilege to Australia and she is able to make her ethnicity work in this new context. This is particularly good to observe as Teresa, through her change of context, also experiences a shift in identity. In Australia, she starts to identify as an artist and I argue that it is her ethnic difference that enables her to establish this identity in Australia. Finally, I show how Teresa makes sense of her social surroundings and her social location as an ethnic migrant woman in Australian society through the privileged positionality she was socialised into in Colombia. This way of understanding the world helps her to advance in Australia.

Teresa was the first Colombian I met in Australia. Teresa is petite. She is a good- looking woman with long wavy hair. Most of the time she wears her hair elaborately pinned up. She has freckles on her fair skin, and dark eyebrows frame her brown eyes. Her small figure and young face make her appear much younger than she actually is. She had recently turned 40 at the time I interviewed her but could easily pass as in her late 20s. Teresa and her husband are well known by many Latin Americans in

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Melbourne, especially by those interested in the arts. They both arrived in Australia 10 years ago.

In 2015, over the course of six months, Teresa and I regularly caught up once a week during the evening for our interviews. I would cycle up to their house in Preston, an area that was settled by Greek and Italian families but is now rapidly gentrifying. Teresa and her husband lived in a small townhouse with a garden. The interior was decorated with colourful artwork, most of which was Latin American, including dolls, musical instruments, and folklore fabrics, but also vintage posters and abstract paintings. Their extensive vinyl collection indicated their love for music. Teresa’s daughter Paula, who was born in early 2015, was present during most of our interviews. Over the period of my project I witnessed her grow. She often dominated our interviews, as we had to work around the toddler’s needs. Every now and then Paula wanted to be entertained, which meant that we had to stop our interviews and play with her. At other times she got hungry or tired. And sometimes Paula would make noises whenever Teresa started talking, which left me with hours of recordings of an animated toddler.

Teresa has done many things her life. In Colombia, she studied industrial design, earned money by making puppets, worked as head of a marketing department at la Universidad Iberoamericana and received a Master’s in Business Administration from the same university. Additionally, Teresa and her husband volunteered for three years in an art project with internally displaced children in Bogotá. Since coming to Australia, she studied performance art, and worked as an artist and in the role of an arts manager. At the time of our interviews she sang in two bands and lectured at a university, and in 2017 she started a PhD. With her decision to write a PhD she now follows in the footsteps of her two younger siblings, who are both academics living overseas. Teresa’s life story begins in Bogotá. In the following section I engages with Teresa’s story from her childhood until her departure to Melbourne, Australia.

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Colombia: Memories of Insecurity and Social Bubbles

Teresa grew up as the eldest child with a younger brother and sister. Her father was the CEO of the Colombian branch of an international company, which required the family to move around a lot while Teresa was a child. Later in life her father started working at the business school of Universidad Iberoamericana. Teresa’s parents met at work. However, after getting married her mother decided to be a stay-at-home mother to support her husband and raise their children

The young family spent a couple of years in Bogotá while Teresa was a toddler. When Teresa was approximately three years old, her family moved to Bucaramanga, the capital of the state of Santander. Santander is located inland and close to the Venezuelan border. She remembered Bucaramanga as a city with a warm climate, where she could play outside and run around with animals such as chickens that the family kept in their garden. When Teresa turned six the family relocated to Bogotá and lived in a gated community. Her youngest sister was not yet born. It was only her younger brother, herself and her parents living in an apartment together. Teresa remembered that a maid assisted the family during the daytime, as is usual for upper- class families in Colombia.

My house had a terrace and you could see the park that was closer to our apartment but you could go to all the parks if you wanted. The first park— the furthest—had like—each one had a playground but they were all different styles. So, the first one was like there were a lot of plants and trees. So, it was darker and it had swings but the swings had back things. So, they weren't so easy to go really fast. […] There is a big street out and then you have two little security houses and it’s all like fences. It is all fenced and closed. And no one can come in. There is security house one and there is security house two. And I was... the entrance to my apartment was through number two. And when you walk in you have to announce yourself in the door to our security guard who then calls—not if you live

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there—I would always be with my mum and they would let us in. But if any person arrives to visit they have to go through this process. They call you by local telephone and they say: ‘Do you expect guests?’ So, you give them the ‘come in’ sign. [Int. 1, 00:15]

Security in Colombia was a common concern shared by all the women I interviewed, particularly in the context of their childhoods. The gated community Teresa and her family lived in was located in the northern outer suburbs of Bogotá. The area is inhabited by mostly affluent Bogoteños who could afford paying for security precautions. Teresa remembered her daily interactions with the security guards. She remembered how once, one of the security guards got in trouble with her mother for sharing his ice cream with her. Teresa told me that the gated community was big and she had plenty of friends in the compound. She described the residents of the gated community as from a similar background to her and her family. Only one family stood out, a Japanese family living in the penthouse above Teresa’s family’s apartment block. It was the only non-Colombian family in Teresa’s memory. She explained to me that this was the first time she saw people from an Asian background, as Colombia was a relatively isolated country due to its political situation and dangerous reputation.

Teresa is the oldest of my interlocutors. She has much stronger memories about Colombia’s relentless drug war in the 1980s compared to the other women in this study. She has vague memories about the day when M19, a left-wing guerrilla group, supported by Pablo Escobar, took over the Colombian Justice Palace in Bogotá on the 6th of November 1986, a tragic and important moment in Colombia’s contemporary history (see LaRosa & Mejia 2013). Teresa and her family were living in the capital city when the attack happened.

When we lived in Bogotá my dad travelled a lot overseas. And on one of these trips, I think to Germany, that was when the M19, the guerrillas, were sponsored by Pablo Escobar to go and invade the Palace of Justice. And so, it was crazy because many war tanks were going into the Palace of Justice and it was all being streamed on TV. Basically, the Palace of Justice was on fire and there were explosions and people were running.

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We saw that on the TV. It was just something that was happening and then my dad was calling from Germany asking if we were all good. The people in Germany kept on telling him how he could be there if we were here… [Int. 1, 00:34]

‘Yes, it was Quite Hard’: Medellin

A couple of years after this incident, the family moved to Medellin due to the father’s work commitments. It was the late 1980s, the heyday of the infamous Medellin Cartel. Violence escalated on the streets of the city and various drug cartels were fighting a relentless war. It was a difficult time for Teresa, not only because of the charged and fearful political and social atmosphere surrounding her but also because of the challenges of having to move yet again to another city.

I guess, because I was older... as you get older it starts to get more difficult [laughs]. You are more aware… especially friendships and girls being nasty or all those things at school. And being rebellious and doing crazy things at school and when you discover you don't want to study so much and that reflects in your grades or something. Like, before it was very simple and lovely but in Medellin... it was like the moment when you start to encounter... the early teen years. [Int. 1, 00:27]

Between the 1980s and 1993 Medellin had the highest homicide rates in the world (Jaramillo & Gil 2014, p. 119). Instead of talking about Pablo Escobar and the ongoing drug war Teresa told me what she remembered to be the most important thing at this time in her life. She was a ten-year-old girl and she found it hard to connect with the other girls at her new school. Friendships remained difficult in Teresa’s life as her family kept moving from one city to another, to the point that Teresa said she never learned how to form long lasting friendships. Throughout her story, Teresa commented about how she was cautious with friends and friendships.

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The threat of violence makes up a key theme running through Teresa’s memories of growing up. For example, she recalls the time in Medellin when her sister was born:

My little sister was born. That was really cool. I loved to have a little baby in the house. But at the same time it was around the time when the war— the drug war, like the cartels from Cali had declared war to the Medellin cartels and it was around the time when there was a lot of bombs in Medellín and killings and shootings. So, I was exposed to a lot of violence. And we lived really really close to where that bomb that they put to Pablo Escobar's building exploded. It was like a crater. It was massive. And my sister was a baby and she was sleeping in the same bedroom so I was really worried that something would happen to her. And I saw a lot of dead people. I saw some being shot in the street. […] For example, one day we were in the bus from school to take us home and we were driving and there was a lot of traffic and then the bus drove past. There were policemen and I saw a dead body on the floor but they haven't covered him yet and he had like materia gris [grey matter], the grey thing coming out [of his head]. I was looking out the school bus window and saw that. Or once we went to pick someone up at the airport and it was about the time when I think they did try to kill someone in the airport. But they couldn’t get the person and there were two of the bodyguards and the car were totally shot. The car was fully shot and the dead bodies full of blood and splashed blood on to the windows as we were arriving to the airport. And another time, we loved to go to an ice cream shop called Mimo’s. There are many. This one was near where we lived. We would get our ice cream there and when we were walking out these motorcycles came and then there was like a like a bomb like a street bomb … a guy that asks for money a limosnero [beggar] and he was crossing the road and then the guy from the back from the motorcycle pulled out a gun and shoot him twice in the leg... And my sister was like three, I think and she started running towards it so I had to go and get her and then we escaped. And the bomb the Monaco bomb, which was very loud in our house […]. [Int. 1, 00:31]

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Teresa explained to me that she never questioned the status quo at this point in her life, as the existing social and political situation was all she knew. Teresa thought of the violence as a normal part of her life:

I never felt extremely afraid. I was afraid when my little sister started running when this man shot... but that was as afraid as I got. But they [my parents] were always very good in making us feel safe... […] So, since I was even younger there were always pieces of violence. Especially, the time when … just before we moved to Medellin a lot of news about people being killed like newspaper leaders were shot, there were bombs everywhere, massacres. It was all the time. So, in Bogotá it felt like far away from me. It would happen far away from me. Because it is so big and everything was centred in specific places that was the industrial part of the city or in the centre of the city where the government is based and it is far from where I live. But in Medellin it was closer to where we lived. Because, Pablo Escobar he had a lot of properties and the building where he lived, where his family lived was close to where we lived. And there were a lot of people with a lot of... the city was getting a lot of money. I remember there was a building close to where we lived built and each apartment had a swimming pool … each apartment [laughs]. So, it was like one building with 20 swimming pools hanging from the sides. It was yeah... like that. It was all happening around us. The drug lords and the people who were in the drug business lived where we lived. [Int. 1, 00: 37]

Teresa’s memories draw a bizarre picture of her years in Medellin. They portray a city that in some parts was characterised by the abundant wealth of a few drug lords. The high visibility of those involved in the drug business seemingly influenced the character of the city through their public display of wealth. This visibility of wealth was a class signifier, Teresa explained, and distinguishes old, established upper-class families who refrain from public display of wealth from people who came into quick

114 money through illegal activities. I also read her narrative in terms of her own class background and privilege. Teresa and her family lived in a wealthy area in Medellín. Her story also shows how she and her family were exposed to violence but nonetheless Teresa still felt sheltered and safe from the violence happening on the streets of the city. Her parents were able to make her feel safe although they lived in close proximity to drug lords who were wealthy enough to move into upper-class residential areas in the city.

Teresa told me that she and her family participated in an exchange program provided by her father’s employer. The company relocated the whole family to a small town in the USA for a year when Teresa was 11 years old. Teresa experienced the environment she found herself in in the US difficult because of the struggles that come with this particular age. However, she also remembered how much she enjoyed her time in the United States. For the first time in her life she attended a mixed gender and non- denominational public school and not a Catholic girls’ school. It was a more liberal environment than she had experienced previously in Colombia. She recalls that this time it was easy for her to find friends and become part of the community at school. The students were familiar with exchange students from Colombia and the whole exchange program was designed for families just like hers. The familiarity of her school with Colombian students also meant that her fellow students where used to students with diverse cultural backgrounds. This made a significant difference to her school experience. It eased the transition into a new cohort and made it simpler for her to make friends. Teresa remembered feeling safe in the town and enjoying the freedom that came with this safety. For the first time, she could walk around town with her friends without having to be constantly looking out for potential danger.

School was fine. School is always tense around this time. Because who is pretty. Who is not. You know... the football team and all that pressure from being an early teen. [...] The good thing was that this was a program that the company my dad worked for ran for executives. So, before we arrived there was another family living there from Colombia. So, in a way the school people were already used to having some kids coming over from different countries to study there. [Int. 2, 00:20]

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To Teresa’s regret, the family moved back to Bogotá after a year in the USA and she then experienced most of her teenage years in the Colombian capital.

Yes. It was quite hard. The shock was big. I went back to a Catholic school with uniforms. Only girls again. We moved into a house that was in a new neighbourhood that was quite outside of the city. With large houses.... big houses. There wasn't a sense of neighbours. [...] The good thing was the other family that lived there were my parents’ friends and they had a daughter my age and we would always have catch ups. So, we became really close there. [Int. 2, 00:24]

Well, it was hard because I had to start all over again. Meet girls and then there was a lot of pressure to wear [the right] brands in school. I guess this [school] was like middle- to upper-class so how do you look [mattered]. Even though we had a uniform but even the T-shirt you would put on underneath would be a United Colour of Benetton. So, if you did not have that you were not that cool and the sneakers for gym [needed to be right] and how you looked… I was 7th grade. I wasn't happy with that and I fell into that. I had to wear brands and so the relationships in school were very much about what you wore and how you looked and if the boys liked you. And the more European you would look the more beautiful you were. [Int. 2, 00:27]

In Teresa’s memory this was also the beginning of a long period of rebellion and struggle with her parents. Her family conflicts began to resolve just before Teresa moved to Australia, over a decade later. Teresa was particularly disappointed that her parents decided to send her again to a Catholic girls’ school although they knew how much she enjoyed the mixed school in the USA. Issues arose between Teresa, her school and parents. She had a hard time identifying with her peers and their values at school although they shared a very similar upbringing.

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A number of themes weave through Teresa’s stories of her childhood growing up in Bogotá and Medellín. First, Teresa’s narrative shows the privileges she enjoyed growing up such as having a maid helping at home, living in wealthy neighbourhoods and safe gated communities, attending private schools and being able to live overseas. The frequent relocations of the family also caused Teresa grief as it was hard to establish friendships and find a place for herself. Although Teresa grew up privileged and relatively safe, her narrative shows how violence impacted on her everyday life, particularly in Medellín. In Teresa’s experience her time in the US stands in stark contrast to her life in Colombia. She experienced her year in the USA as a time of freedom where she could just hang out with friends she felt comfortable with, in a less conservative environment and without being overly cautious. A second theme running through Teresa’s stories of adolescence is her growing rebellion against her parents and importantly, against the restricted world in which she had lived much of her life. However, it was this privileged although limited social world which provided the security for Teresa’s rebellion. Teresa’s upbringing created a sense of being in the world that took privilege for granted. This is a theme that will continue in the next section of this chapter.

‘Trying to Stay Out of this Bubble’. Teenage Years in Bogotá

Teresa recounted how oppressive and unworldly she perceived her parents’ conservative and Catholic worldviews to be. The fact that it was usual in Colombia to live all aspects of life within the same social group based on one’s social status felt to Teresa to be even more repressive (see Torres Casierra 2017, p. 126; Uribe-Mallarino 2008, p. 158). To escape their upper-class, white surroundings, she and her best friend began to explore the city, people and a lifestyle outside of their gated community and private school. She did not want to accept that her life was confined by her parents’ social status.

[...].... buying cloths at Op shops and wearing really hippie stuff and making jewellery and listening to Violent Femmes and painting flowers in our bedrooms. [Int. 2, 00:31]

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[…] just trying to stay out of this bubble that happened around me— thinking about brands, boyfriends and hair—we were trying to break this. Reading and making stuff and relating to people who were not part of this bubble, who lived on the streets or had other stories and not understanding why my parents wanted that bubble so much. So, everything going against that… [Int. 2, 00:43]

Teresa told me how she and her friend went on adventures to the city centre by themselves at the age of 14, then hung out with artists, travellers and free spirits whom they found more appealing than their social circle as they were more open minded. She noted that her search for an alternative lifestyle estranged her more and more from her family and peers. The two teenagers started skipping class and one time they ran away for a night. Teresa told me that their adventures came to an abrupt ending after this. The two girls were grounded and they were not allowed to communicate with each other any longer. The school suspended both for two weeks. Teresa remembered this as a period of hard times when she tried to behave at school. Nevertheless, the relationship between Teresa and her parents did not improve and Teresa felt further alienated from her family and surroundings.

Interpreting Teresa’s narrative, I suggest that the young girl took her privilege for granted. Teresa knew that unlike many others she could always come back to the wealthy north of Bogotá, to her private school and to the security of her family. Being able to rebel against her privilege without losing it was a privilege in itself. At this point of her narrative Teresa introduces a topic that will remain important throughout her life story.

Teresa explained to me that art was always part of her life. She believed she inherited this interest from her mother, who used to draw when she was a young woman. Teresa’s artistic journey had begun in her early primary school days when she attended art classes on Saturdays; back then she was awarded an International Children’s Art Prize. This helped her to develop her artistic interest and talents. Teresa explained that

118 she decided not to study fine arts after high school, as she could not understand how art could be objectively graded. Instead she decided on graphic design, a compromise between a creative and job-oriented degree. Teresa also remembered that Colombia’s economy was regressing during this time. For this reason, she abstained from choosing other creative careers such as architecture as architects in her social circle struggled to find sufficient jobs to sustain their lifestyle and Teresa wanted a stable source of income. Teresa admitted at a later point of my research that her parents’ expectations were another reason why she did not decide on a fine arts degree after finishing high school. She admitted to me that if she could have counted on their support she would have chosen a fine arts course.

She applied to Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, one of the best universities in the country. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana is a public university whereas most other elite universities are private institutions. Being accepted for admission to Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana is difficult, and the quality of teaching enjoys a good reputation, especially in the fine arts and related fields. Teresa remembered how only a small group of students from her high school applied to a public university. All the other upper-class women in my research applied to private universities either because of their own choice or their parents’ pressure. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana is known for its left political views and teaching, and Teresa explained that this did not sit well with many upper-class parents. The politically left public University also did not allow police access to its campus and Teresa explained how this made it a good place for illegal drug dealing as well as political activism. Teresa told me how she was looking for change. She wanted to experience something different, in a more diverse surrounding. She was searching for a challenge and was curious about life outside of what she refers to her bubble. She had many positive memories of her time at university.

It was great because I met a whole bunch of people from different social status as you would say from Colombia and from around Colombia. The university is a very interesting place. Very left... left wing and.... it’s got a lot of history. And I really enjoyed it. But then yeah...it was great.... So many things happened. I don’t know what to say [...] I was in contact with

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people from Colombia and not from a bubble. You know. Where I came from. I did feel sometimes that I didn’t fit in. Because of that... because of where I came from and I actually once got spat at my work. Because people I would get... because people would think that I was maybe a rich girl going into the public university which is good [laughs]. That was what I was looking for, the reality. So, a lot of.... how do you say... huelgas [strikes]... because of public university and they also have groups inside that get masked and then they interrupt when the chancellor is speaking and then they talk about Communism and Marxism. I loved it [laughs]. [Int. 2, 00:57]

[...] So we all did a lot of work without sleeping at night because this was sort of what they [our professors] made us do. We had big objects to create and make from one day to another. It was very common to not sleep a night, staying at uni making all these things. So that was cool. So, it was a bit a big family where we spent a lot of time together. [...] It was awesome. I really liked it. I was being independent at university. I loved it. We could do whatever we wanted inside this university because it doesn’t even allow police inside. Yeah, best time of my life. Well, I had a bad relationship at home because they wouldn’t agree that I stay the nights out. [Int. 2, 01:01]

Teresa clearly expressed how much she enjoyed her time at university. Again, she pointed out how much she enjoyed the freedom and the seeming lack of control within the walls of the institution. The demanding workload that students were expected to meet gave Teresa even more freedom as she had to spent long hours outside of her parents’ house. University was an escape out of her social bubble, although she was still in a privileged position to receive tertiary education in the first place. Nevertheless, being outside of her bubble also meant being different to those that surrounded her now. In her narrative Teresa conveyed that she was constantly aware of her difference and this made her feel out of place at times. Teresa described her first day at university as interesting. It was when she truly came to understand that she did

120 not necessarily fit into that demographic. Her co-students came from all parts of the city, even the whole country. This was new to Teresa. The narratives of the upper- class women in this research convey a consistent picture of their social surroundings and lives in general in their social bubble. They are normally surrounded by other white upper-class peers who live in close proximity to each other as the wealthy neighbourhoods in Bogotá are in the north of the city. More so, their peers would all attend private Catholic high schools or International schools.

As her narrative continues Teresa talks about how she was made to feel out of place. She was calm while telling me that other students spat on her work. Even when I checked with her at a later point in time about this she just smiled at me and explained that she understood why this assault happened. She said that these frictions were necessary to negotiate the underlying tension. The tension Teresa is referring to is Colombia’s deeply rooted inequality and class divide that often was the root for social conflict and violence (see Chapter 4). In interpreting Teresa’s reaction to her artwork being spat upon, it is useful to reflect again on a key theme running through her narrative, that of the security which privilege offers. She was not at risk of losing much through this act of disapproval from her fellow student. Her reaction could further be interpreted as feeling guilty for her privilege and her co-students’ reactions were a price she had to pay for profiting from her privileged location in society. She further explained to me that she did not want to be seen as a spoiled rich kid and thus she accepted her fellow students’ bad behaviour without complaining. It was the price she paid to not be perceived as an unworldly upper-class girl.

Teresa had a long-term boyfriend for three years while at University. The couple met at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.

They [my parents] didn’t like my boyfriend because he was... [pause] he was from the south and poor, you know. So, so my mum... we all wear jeans rotos [with holes] so she made a rule that nobody with jeans rotos could go to my house. Stuff like that [Int. 2, 01:03]

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Once again Teresa’s privilege and her urge to break out of her social world emerges as a key theme in her life and narrative. This time it is her mother who tried to keep her daughter within the boundaries of their stable white upper-class world. Through her concerns about Teresa’s status, future life and safety, she conveyed to her daughter that it is not appropriate for her to start a romantic relationship with someone who is less privileged than she.

Yeah, well my boyfriend Ivan, he lived in the south south... next to Ciudad Bolivar... he lived just down. I spent a lot of time there during the three years with him.

Okay. And was that strange to you?

No, I think it was something that I wanted to do. I wanted to see other things. [...] It was a totally different world. His grandmother, have you heard of a Plaza 20 de Julio? That’s where the Divino Niño is. It’s that very important place and his grandmother lived around the plaza. And it’s one of those houses where a lot of members of the family live and like... uncles and grandma... several members. And they start as a base and then build more upstairs and more upstairs. So, if you went upstairs they only had two levels and then upstairs there was the structure to keep building. And dogs and so yeah it was beautiful people and they loved to party. And when they had family events they would all sleep over which is something that in my family would never happen. So, yeah I guess I felt out of place sometimes. I mean very curious and intrigued and I was loving being part of it... but feeling like it was so different. And then I would go back to my house cause at that time I was living with my parents and it was quite a contrast. [Int. 3, 00:16]

Teresa and her boyfriend Ivan, who was not allowed into Teresa’s house, spent their time together with Ivan’s family, who lived at the other end of the city. Interpreting her words, this too was a place that she enjoyed but did not feel that she necessarily

122 belonged. Teresa described a few markers of class difference that also distinguished her family from Ivan’s family. First, she mentioned the location in the south of the city. The majority of the other women in this research rarely spent time in the south. Another class marker is the large and extended family living under one roof and the never fully finished character of the house. She further mentioned how animals lived closely together with the family in an already crowded house, and their enjoyment of parties, social events which are unstructured, at times messy and often accompanied by the drinking of alcohol, loud music and dancing to popular music. Life at Ivan’s house was different to her family’s life.

At Ivan’s place, to use her own words, Teresa at times ‘felt out of place’. I suggest that Teresa’s movement between the north and the south of the city, between her place and her family’s place, illustrates two contradictory aspects. First, it shows Teresa’s wish to break out of her ‘bubble’ and cross class boundaries. Simultaneously it illustrates her privilege as she is able to move between these social boundaries. She was welcome at Ivan’s house whereas Ivan was not welcome at her place. Teresa could travel from the north to the south and back and had the privilege to be welcomed in both places. As I got told by my interlocutors, Bogoteños from the south are often met with suspicion in the north as they look out of place. Their place in the north is often only as domestic workers in other people’s houses.

The relationship with her boyfriend eventually ended, after which Teresa met her long- term partner and now husband Juan, again at university. Juan is a musician, music teacher and art lover. At the time when they met, he was studying Fine Arts.

I guess, that was something that we felt in a way. Like that we found someone from the same world but looking for another world [laughs]. [Int. 3, pt. 2, 00:08]

Juan comes from a family with a similar background to Teresa. What bonded them together was their similarities and the fact that he too could not entirely find his place in his parents’ world. People can ‘marry up’ to achieve social upward mobility as the

123 practice of blanqueamiento shows (see Viveros 2015, p. 498; Wade 1993, p. 295). In the case of Teresa her choice of partner confirmed her own social location and stabilised it even more. With a partner like Juan, Teresa affirmed her privilege as both share a white, upper-class background and a privileged social location in Colombian society. Additionally, Teresa not only found a companion from a similar family background but also a partner who was trying to broaden his horizon and wanted to engage with a world outside of his white upper-class bubble. Further, choosing Juan as a partner not only reaffirmed location in society; it also guaranteed her a secure and stable life, in financial matters but also by aligning expectations, aspirations and ideas of life style. Teresa also knew that her family and broader social circle would accept him.

I guess my mother was glad on one hand because Ivan was... he came from a very poor family [laughs embarrassed] and she was thinking about my future. And, Juan is more from the kind of school that I went to and comes from the same world. [Int. 3, pt. 2, 00:07]

Teresa’s mother was happy about Juan’s family background but the relationship between mother and daughter did not get easier. After years of ongoing conflict Teresa moved out of her family home during her last year of university. This was an unusual decision as children in Colombia normally stay with their parents until they have professional jobs and move in with their partners. Additionally, Juan had just left Colombia to spend some time working in the US. Thus, Teresa sent a message with her choice as she was working at a restaurant and decided to live by herself. Teresa told me that the pressing conflict, especially the conflict between her and her mother, became unbearable and she believed that distance could help them. Teresa had little money and consequentially she moved into a tiny house an hour away from Bogotá. Soon after, her father asked her to move back home.

He said ‘Teresa we know you want to be independent. We understand. We want to support you. So, come back home and do it the right way’. So, I went back home, graduated from uni and then I was making these

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dolls and I was selling them. And it was going well. I had two types. One was a generic kind and the other one was a portrait of each person. [...] I did about 30 of those. The generic one just had accessories like winter hats. And, it was going well but it would not be enough to pay the rent. So, I started looking for a job in graphic design but it was a bad moment [to look for jobs]. [Int. 3, pt. 2, 00:41]

Teresa explained that her father, who at that time was teaching Project Management at the Universidad Iberoamericana, helped her. Her family’s networks helped Teresa into the workforce in a time where she had difficulties finding a job on her own. The school of Management employed Teresa initially as Graphic Designer but soon she was doing market research and within five years she was in charge of the entire marketing for the school’s courses. Eventually, Teresa move out into her own apartment in what she described as a 'hip suburb near the city centre' but located close to a rather dangerous area in the city centre. Juan was still studying but according to Teresa’s memory he spent most of his time in her apartment. She continued telling me laughingly that it was not just Juan but all members of his punk band that spent a lot of time at her place. Teresa has fond memories about this time in her life. She enjoyed being with Juan and spending a lot of time with him and their mutual friends. After Juan graduated the couple moved together into a new apartment.

She remembered that two years into her job at the university they offered to pay for her MBA and she accepted the offer. Through her Master’s in Management Teresa became interested in social responsibility, which inspired her to look for social projects that she could contribute to. She found a project called Children for Peace that was looking for academics and artists who would like to run art workshops with disadvantaged children in Bogotá’s south. Juan and Teresa both started volunteering at the organisation on weekends. For Teresa this is a crucial moment in her life and her trajectory as an artist. Juan was in charge of the art workshop with the children and Teresa ran a workshop called “Objects” that included object design. As Teresa explained to me, the objects she made with the children were inspired by their life stories. They would make lamps or puppets which they could bring home to decorate

125 their houses to create some warm atmosphere as their homes often were rather dull since these families were internally displaced. This later evolved to the creation of different performances with the kids which incorporated the objects they made as well as their life stories. Teresa explained to me that this is how she ended up in theatre. Her time with the children sets the foundation for her interest in the performance of children. Teresa and Jorge did this for over three years until they moved to Australia.

I worked a lot because I had a full-time job. I was volunteering with the kids on Saturday and I did an MBA part-time for two years. And then I worked as an independent researcher consultant for the Ministry of Culture and the City of Bogotá. And at the same time I was having my full-time job. [Int. 6, 01:03]

The volunteering work with the children was an important milestone for Teresa for two different reasons. First, the work she conceptualised for the social project laid the ground for her artistic future and her PhD project. At her time at Children for Peace, Teresa began developing plays and performances guided and directed by the children themselves. Second, Children for Peace was a place where Teresa could use her privilege and the advantages it brought to create a positive impact in the lives of children from a disadvantaged background. She believed she could transform her own opportunities into something that the children also could profit from. This could be interpreted as a way to transform guilt into a productive outlet. Thus, Teresa found a useful place where she could gain life experiences outside of her bubble, which she was looking for.

Teresa was in her late 20s. She had a stable job with many responsibilities, a relationship that was working well, and a fulfilling role at Children for Peace. This was when Teresa and Juan decided that it was time for a change. The next section of Teresa’s story engages with the transition from Colombia to Australia and leads into her new life in Melbourne.

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‘A Change of Panorama’: Leaving Colombia

Teresa described that her and Juan’s decision to move to Australia as being influenced by various reasons. Both wanted to live outside the country for a while and study abroad. Juan’s uncle ran a company that organised student exchanges between Australia and Colombia. Thus, Juan had been to Australia and his uncle was familiar with the procedures, scholarships and options that Australia had to offer. Juan’s brother too lived and studied in Australia at this point, which made the decision easier as they could also count on his support. Juan got a scholarship that allowed him to study sound engineering. Teresa remembered that through her growing interest in theatre and performance art she decided to apply for a Graduate Diploma at the most prestigious art university in Melbourne. She wanted to study performance art and she was accepted into the program. Once accepted, Teresa applied and received a Colombian scholarship for artists. An additional reason for their decision was the fact that they were able to work in Australia while studying.

Did you always want to go abroad?

I wouldn't say always but in my late, mid-twenties I thought I would like to do that. Especially because I wanted a change of panorama… I wouldn't say that we didn't have opportunities in Colombia because we were both working and Juan was playing in a band. I was more disconnected from the art scene except for the work that I did with the children. But, here I encountered a whole way of living, which you can do from making art in combination with other stuff [laughs]. And I thought that was amazing for us. [Int. 4, 00:06]

Teresa and Juan were looking for new experiences and perspectives. As her quote shows Teresa was particularly excited to get the opportunity to be more involved into the arts. Teresa told me that the original plan was to finish her Graduate Diploma, wait until Juan finished his studies, and then return to Colombia. However, when her supervisor found out that she would be in Melbourne for another year, waiting for

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Juan, she convinced Teresa to enrol for a Master’s degree. With the support of her supervisor she received two more scholarships from the University of Melbourne for her postgraduate studies. The couple never planned to permanently leave Colombia. They thought Australia would be a short halt before moving back to Colombia. Teresa knew that they had a variety of good possibilities in Colombia. Both already had interesting and challenging jobs that paid them well. In addition, they had strong networks through their families, which would have helped them in their future. Teresa and Juan did not come to Australia for a life with more economic opportunities, good jobs or higher salaries. They also did not come to improve their lifestyle. Their access to education, health care, culture, and education was excellent in Colombia. They earned enough money to live good and stable lives in affluent areas. Migrating to Australia meant that their previously stable social position was downgraded, at least temporarily. Moving to Australia presented many challenges. They had to adapt to a new form of student life in which they had to take care of themselves financially. Traditionally, in Colombia students live with their parents and receive their financial support for the time of their studies. In Melbourne, they had to study and work at the same time, which led to a very different lifestyle. However, as Teresa suggested, their decision to stay in Australia stemmed from the belief that her possibilities in the arts were better in Australia than in Colombia because she believed that there is more art funding available and a bigger appreciation of the arts within society. Moving to Australia provided Teresa the (privileged) opportunity to self-actualise and engage in her artistic career. As I show in more detail in the following sections of this chapter, I argue that Teresa’s trajectory as an artist in Australia was possible because of her privilege in Colombia. For now, in Australia her privileged Colombian social location intersects with her being an ethnic migrant woman.

‘Yellow’: Arriving in Australia

Yellow. We arrived in January and I thought “Oh my god. Everything is so yellow”. It was dry and yellow. I had to use the train a lot. I thought that it was very American because I sometimes came across teenagers coming out of school or going to school. And the way they looked and

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the way they dressed and everything. And it was just like the States. But then our friend Pedro, who is now the owner of La Alma, was here. So, he took us to the bars in the city, the laneways and Section 8 [a bar in the CBD] and all of that. And there the people were really open. They were always interested in our accent. Really, they would say ‘I never met a Colombian before’. That doesn't happen anymore [laughing]. So, people were really open and curious. They thought it was really cool to meet a Colombian… most of the time. And then I started uni. [Int. 5, 00:25]

Teresa arrived in Australia in January 2007. It was the middle of a hot and dry summer. Back then, not a lot of Colombians studied in Melbourne. Teresa remembered not knowing any Colombian or Latin American networks or communities in Victoria’s capital. This has changed drastically in the last ten years. Nevertheless, Teresa and Juan had a few contacts in Australia. Juan’s brother was living in a different state. However, Juan’s old high school friend and former band member Pedro and his partner Susanna had recently also moved from Bogotá to Melbourne.

Teresa recounted that she and Juan first lived in a house in Surrey Hills, a suburb in Melbourne’s east. The couple stayed there for a few months as their landlady let them stay there rent-free in exchange for Juan’s help around the house.

Finding work first in Surrey Hills... the closest thing was... what is the name of this place... I can't remember. But, it is the suburb next—Box hill—that's the closest. So, I went trying to find work there because it was close to home. And all of the places were Chinese. So, they wouldn't hire a Colombian. Except one, which was a pizza place. It was a pizza chain, Italian. And they had one there and they hired me. And it was two floors. Two storeyed and they had a gigantic place. And, I obviously with these arms I couldn't carry two plates. So, I had to carry one and then I had to run a lot. Up and down the stairs. And at the end of each shift I would get a pizza [laughing]. Terrible. And then we were looking for a place... [Int. 5, 00:37]

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I was living so far away. It was a bit annoying because... living there, there was not a supermarket nearby. We didn't have a car. We didn't have a bike. We didn't have anything. It was really... annoying and the trains would only go there like until... I don't remember what time. I remember one of those nights we had to stay in Flinders Street Station overnight. Next to some kids that they called Emos... we had a long conversation with them. And then we were looking for a house nearby, closer to the city. Summer—no car—working, studying... going to see inspections and then lines of millions of people and then applying and never get a call. Never getting anything. So, my teacher from uni she was like ‘We have to do something for you’. She has a partner but they were split up at that time and he was moving out from the flat where he was living. So, the uni called the real estate and recommended us and everything [laughing] and then they gave us this flat. And I was like ‘Wow. This flat must be amazing. It is my teacher's partners flat. Wow.’ We got there and it was horrible. [laughing]. And I cried. But I couldn't cry in front of her. Well, you come from Colombia. Being basically... even though I was like ‘I can do my things’ when I moved out you are still a princess. But here it was like the walls were like the worst colour on earth. It had a green fabric carpet and it was all smelly. It had like humid walls. While we were living there it got worst. But anyways, we were living in Carlton [laughing]. And we couldn't afford paying even that much [laughing]. So, we moved in with Jaime who is our friend. We had met through Juan’s brother […]. And he is a very nice guy. But yeah, we didn't have a living room. It was only two bedrooms and a kitchen. So, it was very.... So, it was hard times. [Int. 5, 00:38]

[…] And when I was moving to Carlton I quit the job. And then my friend who went to uni with me was living with the owner of Tacolicious. So, he was looking for people and that's how I met up with Tacolicious. Which was amazing. And he has been such a good friend and boss. So,

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we started working there and it was cool. It was very relaxed and cool and fun. It was hard work because Tacolicious started becoming really famous. So, we got slammed all the time but it was good and fun. Even though you had to wash [dishes] and it is never easy but you become stronger. [Int. 5, 00:39]

In telling me about her first years in Melbourne Teresa elaborated on the adjustments and changes she had to deal with. These adjustments are great insights into how Teresa’s life in Colombia was. Particularly interesting is how naturally it is to her that in Colombia she is a princess, when comparing her expectations to the realities of the housing market in Australia. Teresa and Juan had to come to terms with a lower standard of living than they were used to. Her story also showed that the couple prioritised the location of their flat, as Carlton is a central and hip neighbourhood in Melbourne and a neighbourhood, I suggest, that the couple could identify with. Finally, reflecting back on these early days shows how Teresa, with time, realised the privilege that she grew up in as she could not take it for granted anymore.

‘They Were All Artists’: Art School in Melbourne

Teresa’s experiences at her art school were formative and greatly influenced her early years in Melbourne.

And it was... I went to uni... we were like nine people and all of us were girls except one boy. And all of them were Aussie except that boy who was from South Africa but he lived here for a while and that girl who was from Germany. But she had been here for a while too. So, it was a big shock for me. First, because it was such a small group. Second, because they were all artists. And the closest I got to be in an art school was graphic design and it was a different vibe. And third, I was the only one who was changing from the context of speaking Spanish. I mean the other German girl had been speaking English for a while. I wasn't used to the accent. And the school wasn't used to international students like me. I was

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the only international student because the other two were seen as local. So, they spoke pretty with the accent and so it was yeah... huge. But I loved it at the beginning. They all looked at me like ‘Whaat’. The first thing that we had to do was called ‘duets’. So, we had to create a performance inspired by some words and text with another person. My first partner was this Aussie girl. I remember at one point she said to me ‘I don't understand what you are doing’ and I said ‘Okay, I don't understand what you are doing’. But it came out fine. [Int. 5, 00:28]

In Australia, Teresa’s art school is a prestigious institution and an important gateway into the Australian art scene. Teresa’s experience stands in stark contrast to most other international students in Australia and shows that through this institution she established social networks that supported her future career. Teresa mentioned the small number of students in her cohort and in other conversation she told me about the close relationships she had to the teaching staff. As discussed earlier in the chapter it was Teresa’s professor that helped her to find an apartment, encouraged her to enrol in a Master’s program and supported her applying for two scholarships. In contrast, the other women in this research who studied a Master's degree in Australia were affected by the marketisation of their educational institution and the impersonal contact between them and the university. Teresa enjoyed her time at university and she was able to create performances which involved the input of children. Her most controversial piece was a performance on child soldiers. In this time Teresa and Juan also established a small pop up performance art space. All of this set the base for her future career as an artist in Australia.

Interestingly, and despite her development in Colombia, Teresa felt she was different to the other students and she told me that in her perception her co-students were all artists and she was not. Teresa explained that her background in graphic design in Teresa’s opinion did not qualify her to be an artist. But, a shift of her identity is noticeable in her narrative.

Interpreting Teresa’s story I argue that the Colombian woman experienced a change

132 in her identity in the first few years living in Australia. In Melbourne she started to develop an understanding of herself as an artist, which she had denied herself in Colombia. I further argue that it was her new social location as an ethnic migrant woman and her involvement in her prestigious art school that enabled this change in her identity. As her narrative will show, it is Teresa’s ethnic difference that she uses to produce art in Australia. Regardless of her family’s upper-class background and her social, economic and cultural capital that enabled her to study at her university, her financial opportunities were limited in Australia. She was alien to the social rules and norms in her new environment. It was the first time in her adult life that she did not fit into the unmarked norm in society and thus she lost some of her privilege. Her difference was a source of friction and creativity and because of her privileged background, Teresa could turn this difference into an advantage. Thus, losing her social location as white and upper class in Australia made it possible for Teresa to position herself in a different but positive way.

Through her involvement with her art school she continued to profit from her privilege. She could create new social networks and she became an acknowledged artist through the university’s recognition. The university, her professors and co students connected Teresa well in the local art scene and she received a prestigious degree, assets that helped her to advance her career in Australia. Teresa told me that she is well aware that her experience as a migrant artist without her involvement with her university would have been much harder and less successful as art schools are major gatekeeper in the Australian art world. She was well advantaged in comparison to other migrants trying to make a career in the arts.

I think I have a good network here. Now that I think about it. I know the people that are in the highest ranks of the industry that I am interested. I know that. Thanks to my art school, my job as an arts manager and the work that I have done. [Int. 6, 00:35]

During the time between her arrival in Melbourne and the birth of her daughter Paula, Teresa dedicated herself to art. The couple started their own art space that was a

133 platform for young artists to perform and experiment with diverse forms of performing art. She told me that in this time she also started singing in her husband’s two bands, both engaged with traditional Colombian music and an additional band that played contemporary music with the specific purpose of processing their complex relationship to Colombia. Every now and then Teresa told me about one of her many art productions she developed over the years.

Teresa continued by telling me that she found a job as an arts manager at an institution that supports multicultural artist after she finished her Master’s degree. What is interesting is that, as Teresa told me, she made the position up for herself. It was a job that did not exist before Teresa started working there. She could convince the CEO of this prestigious art institution that she would be a valuable addition to their team. Even though Teresa now was an arts manager she continued her artistic career for a while. She got invited to participate on various contemporary art performances and had the chance to travel with her work to Europe. However, as the job got more demanding Teresa had less time for her own art practice. Finally, with the newfound financial security of a full-time job, the couple decided to rent a house by themselves further out, at the fringes of Melbourne’s inner north.

Art and Ethnic Difference in Teresa’s Life

Teresa reminisced on how her networks changed over time in Melbourne. Teresa expressed how lucky she and Juan were because one of Juan’s old school friends and his wife also lived in Melbourne. Since the day they arrived they have been a source of constant support for Teresa and Juan. Since becoming a mother Teresa had spent much time with two other Latin American couples that had children. They met these couples early on in Melbourne. In the same conversation Teresa confessed that she feels isolated from her friends because having a toddler limits her mobility.

One afternoon, Teresa and I were sitting in her living room. Gentle music was playing in the background. She started reflecting on her friendships in Australia.

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So that's how friendships evolved mostly... when you needed some support. But, I think in terms of friendship at that time it was more through art. And, I didn't have a lot of friends. It was just work and our projects and it all happened there. So, you would meet people through that and I guess a lot of the friends I still have come from this time. And then started working as art manager. Susanna, have you met Susanna? Chilean. She is like my best friend here. […] So, she is my closest friend. But, I feel like to be honest I come from a culture. It is not a culture but we do a lot of stuff in couples. Like it’s not very common for us to go like ‘Ah, I am gonna go with my friends’ or Juan to say ‘I am gonna go with my male friends’. I know it is very common here. Some couples are like that. But we usually hang out together. I don't know if it is crazy. It might be unhealthy. I think in that way some of the friends that… I sacrificed some time that I could spend developing more closer friendships with girls here. [Int. 6, 00:53]

These are interesting observations Teresa made. To her it is foreign how the Australian couples she got to know over the years live their relationships. Juan and Teresa are used to making friends together rather than having separate friendship circles. Also, based on my observations, the couple spent much time together working on their art projects as they established similar interests and hobbies. Teresa kept on telling me that in her first years in Melbourne her social circle was mainly artists she studied or worked with. While talking about her networks and friendships we touched on a different aspect of friendships and social networks in Australia.

So actually your whole Colombian friends came in much later?

Yeah at the beginning, we didn't have that network. And I really miss those times because I feel like through music and this project about Latin music... they are cool but that's what happened you end up too immersed in the community [Latin American community]. It is beautiful but I really

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miss hanging out with the other people too. So, that's something that needs to happen. [Int. 6, 00:56]

The issue Teresa raised did not only affect her friendship circle. Teresa told me being part of two bands that base their music on Colombian culture drove her further into the Latin American community and changed her social circle. In her experience this also affected how she was perceived as an artist. She recounted that by engaging with Colombian culture in her art, she found herself categorised as ethnic and her art was similarly pushed into an ‘ethnic or multicultural corner’. In her time as multicultural arts manager she observed how this happened quite regularly to artists with migrant backgrounds.

For me, the background of multicultural policies are very much about: these are the multicultural [artist] and this is us [Anglo-Australians]. […] And the government is interested to show that they support multiculturalism… a little bit [laughing]. They struggle but that is the idea. There are political ideas behind it. It works for some people but for contemporary art it might go the other way. I felt sometimes that then they were like ‘Okay, we need to program something multicultural’. And then they would look at you. And if they don’t have to program anything multicultural, diverse then they don’t necessarily would be looking at these artists. […]. I feel like it is not [seen as] the top. It is more community or more like doing art for the sake of representing the culture. [Int. 7, 00:07]

Teresa felt that particularly her music became an exhibit of her Colombian culture not seen as art. She conceded one possible reason for this was that they were playing music inspired by traditional Colombian music.

If we would decide to do a band that was inspired by human feelings or cats and pink dresses maybe we wouldn’t get that. But we are the leaders

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of two bands, one is definitely the tribute to the culture of Colombia…. [Int. 7, 00:07]

Nonetheless, Teresa makes an important point. Even though part of her work is based on traditional Colombian music, this music is still an expression of art and not only a manifestation of a cultural trait.

She continued explaining me that it was a conscious decision to engage with their Colombian background and culture in her art:

People here have ideas about where you come from. They [their ideas] basically come from the media or the movies. Not from anything else. So, when I got here and I would say that I am from Colombia they would usually make a joke about Narcos or cocaine or anything like that. So, when we were thinking about our band as a project in a way we were tired of that sort of, I guess lack of information or ignorance. But there are two ways to go about it. Or maybe more… So, one is to get upset about it and say no and don’t touch the situation with your art work or you use that as a door to change the perception. [Int. 7, 00:03]

Thus, her decision to focus her art on Colombia and her ethnic difference is motivated by her personal motivation to break these stereotypes about her home country and stereotypes about herself as Latin Americans are often not portrayed as cultured, well- educated and upper class.

Teresa explained that she had a very different experience in regard to how her artistic practice was perceived while at university. She was producing contemporary art that was not based on Colombian culture and she was part of an established institution embedded in Anglo-Australian networks and art traditions. Her art was not primarily seen as an expression of her ethnicity.

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I think the name of my university is quite renown. If you just come here without that support… like I guess my university has all the network and all the recognition. So, you immediately land into the crème de la crème. And they were open to the creative input I brought with me and it worked. [Int. 7, 00:05]

In an earlier interview Teresa told me that her culturally different background and experiences created interesting encounters and tensions between her and the other students. Her art received the same platform as the creative output of Australians, got exhibited in the same gallery, theatres and institutions even though Teresa participated in performances that broached the issue of her being a migrant woman. These were the advantages of being part of this prestigious institution which, at this point in time, was mainly attended by people who pass as white in Australia (thus the German girl and the white South African man). The whiteness of her institutionyou could say rubbed off and whitened Teresa (see Hage 2000). Her white upper-class privilege enabled her, in the context of her school, whiteness within the Australian art world. In Australia the class location she was socialised into still worked in her advantage.

Reflecting on her time as arts manager, Teresa explained that it changed her position within the art world. From being an artist she switched her role to an arts manager. This was not what Teresa wanted for her career, as she was not actively producing art herself. She revealed that she was frustrated about the fact that she did not engage in her art practice anymore but helped others to advance their careers. After five years she quit her job. She explained that she needed some time to focus on her own art again, even if that meant losing a stable income and job. In the following year, Teresa focused on her own projects and became pregnant. In the time I spent with Teresa during her pregnancy I noticed that she reflected upon her relationship with her mother intensively. Since Teresa got married their relationship improved; she mentioned that over the last 10 years her family became her most important source of emotional support and the only people she truly trusts. Preparing herself to become a mother she could relate more to her own mother’s behaviour during Teresa’s teenage years. She understood that her mother wanted her to have as many opportunities as possible. In

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Teresa’s view, becoming a mother herself meant that she finally fulfilled her parents’ expectations.

‘If I Was Going to Stay I Want to Stay for What I Was’

Juan and Teresa, like the majority of my interlocutors, were on student visas before they received their permanent residency and consequentially their citizenship.

When we got here we were students and that was the plan. We were not planning on staying initially. But then as I was saying, Juan kept studying so he did a course in Music and then he went and did the Master’s in Education. So, I did my masters as well in theatre and that went well. And then I started performing. I told you that. And then we started to feel like we wanted to stay here. Or give it a try. [Int. 6, 00:54]

Teresa disclosed that they were thinking of applying for a skilled migration visa until a friend told them Teresa should apply for a distinguished talent visa—a visa reserved for artists, academics and athletes. Teresa had done a few art shows as well as performances in Australia and overseas. Her boss, a known person in the art world, happily agreed to nominate Teresa for the distinguished talent visa. After a long and painful visa application process, Teresa was in Sydney rehearsing for a show, when she received a phone call from Juan. She remembered the moment when Juan told her that their visa application got rejected and they were expected to leave the country within 28 days. All Teresa retained from the following days was an immense shock. With the help of their work colleagues and Teresa’s boss they decided to appeal the decision. She explained that a lawyer told them that they made a couple of mistakes in their initial application that most likely led to the rejection of the visa.

The language that I use in performing arts it's not a language that a bureaucrat would understand. Second, the letter of nomination was mostly focused on my management skills and not so much on my artistic skills. [Int. 6, 00:06]

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Teresa told me that they received a lot of support from their family, friends and the wider community. Teresa’s standing in the Australian art scene was so good that she even received a supporting letter from Bill Henson, the famous Australian photographer, for her distinguished talent visa. Teresa had vivid memories about the appeals process:

That meant that we had to wait until the tribunal. So, it leaves immigration and it goes to another entity. That is the tribunal review. […] And you can keep living your life and your visa stays as it is. So, I could work. And then you can provide further evidence while they are looking at your case. Now, that we had a lawyer he was like ‘Yeah, this is not good. Because, no one is going to understand what you said’. Plus, the person that looked at it was also terrible. That person did not know anything about arts. And had spelling mistakes. So, I got a lot of support. All my networks here and back home and in the US and places I performed before. So, everybody provided letters of recommendation. And I just had to complement all the information that I had submitted. The years went by. So, we had to wait three years. Well, what could we do? It was terrible because we did not know what would happen. And we kept doing what we were doing. What else could we do? Like leave and say ‘No, thank you’. We thought about it but every time we thought about it we end up concluding ‘No, let's wait’. And then the time came and I had an appointment. I had to go to a... it is like a little courtroom. And you have to bring in witnesses and a lawyer and you can have four guests. And then they ask you questions and then after that they make a decision.

Straight away?

No, normally it takes a month. So, she asked me questions. She was really interested in the work that I did. And I have a recording somewhere. Then my boss spoke and then Peter spoke. And they spoke really well. And

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then by the end of the session she said ‘In my 50 years of my job I never made a decision on the spot but I can say that I support your visa and I apologise for the wait you had to go through. You are definitely a distinguished talent’. And I was like ‘Thank you’. And yeaah... that was pretty cool. When we left, the lawyer said ‘In all my life no one ever made a decision on the spot’.

So, you are still happy you did it that way around and not on the …?

Yeah. I thought that if I was going to stay I want to stay for what I was. And It's not because I am gonna work out how I am gonna stay… you know... if they really wanted us to stay it was because of who we are. And we had it clear that if not than it wasn't our place. So, we were happy to go back. [Int. 6, 00:13]

Teresa’s emphasis on the immediate outcome of the tribunal highlights its importance to her. The tribunal’s instantaneous decision compensates the initial rejection and asserts Teresa’s identity as an artist and the value that she, as a migrant, contributes to Australian society. In one of our conversations Teresa told me that the hardest part was the rejection. She confessed that as far as she could remember this was the first time in her life she felt inadequate and unwanted. Teresa expressed that she always got what she wanted and the disappointment was even harder as the rejection meant that Australia did not accept her as an artist. She admitted this was the first time she could feel that she did not have the same security and network in Australia as in Colombia. Finally, Teresa’s reasoning about under which circumstances they would like to stay in Australia once again highlights the privileged location the Colombian couple occupies. Teresa wanted Australia to ‘want’ and welcome her as the artist she is. This shows that the couple has the privilege to move back knowing that they would have a comfortable life in Colombia. I have witnessed many other migrants trying any possible way to secure visas. They often do not even have the opportunity to work in their professions. They either have to reskill or work in jobs for which they are overqualified. However, they prefer doing whatever is needed to be able to stay in

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Australia. Teresa and Juan have the privilege to follow their dreams and/or to move back to Colombia and fall into the safety net of their class background.

Staying in Melbourne: Putting down Roots

Looking back on her last nine years in Melbourne, Teresa reflected on how she spent time in different areas of the city. When Teresa and Juan first arrived, they hung around the central city and went to bars just as other young and hip Melbournians did. Later on, she spent most of her time in Collingwood, Fitzroy and Carlton, inner urban neighbourhoods, where she was living. Juan and Teresa moved in the same areas as their Australian peers, that is, young, childless professionals or artists involved in the local music and art scene who like to go out partying and socialising with their friends. Like their Australian friends, they did not yet earn enough money for a comfortable life without financial stress, especially while both were studying. Their financial situation improved when they both finished their studies and transitioned into their work lives. Still, when the couple decided to stop living in a share house they had to move to Coburg, a suburb further away from the city centre, as the rent there was more affordable. Teresa remembered that moving to this suburb was a change. She described it as ethnically different and diverse in comparison to Carlton and then added ‘But we liked it cause Juan and I, we like different things’ (Field notes). Her comment about the different ethnic composition of their new neighbourhood signalled that Teresa and Juan had to leave their bubble, an area that they identified with. This shows how they did lose some of their privileges in Australia. Although they now were a two-income household they could not, like their parents, live in their preferred neighbourhood. The couple had to move to an area that they could afford further out of the city, in a neighbourhood they found less hip and appealing.

Teresa recalled that they had to move once again. This time they moved even further out, as they needed a bigger house and they could not afford the rising prices of the rental market. Shortly after they moved houses, their daughter Paula was born and that changed everything in Teresa’s life. Her artistic practice changed as she had to push it in the background again. Her social life changed too, as well as her interactions with

142 the city. She could no longer go and meet some friends in an inner city bar. And more than anything, her relationship to Juan changed. For almost 20 years Juan and Teresa were together in their attempts to break away from their families and find their own lifestyles, their artistic journey. Now they became parents. They bought a house in a suburb even further out from the city than the area where they rented their last house. A year after the birth of Paula, Teresa started her PhD in which she explored issues on children and leadership. To her, this was a continuation of her artistic work with children. Throughout all these years Teresa never stopped working on smaller art projects that explored how children perform and express themselves. Teresa explained that the arts are an unstable source of income and she told me that, now as a mother, she was hoping for more job security after completing a PhD.

Reflections: From Bogotá to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Bogotá

Her life in Colombia as well as her life in Australia was and is shaped by the privileged positionality Teresa was socialised into. She is able to move in and out of privileged locations without ever losing her actual privilege. In the following section Teresa reflected on some aspect of her life between Colombia and Australia.

Teresa told me that she thinks of her family as an upper-class family. She never identified with the term Mestiza, she only identified as Colombian. But, she acknowledged that even within Colombia she was different to the majority of other Colombians because of her upper-class background. She received the best education, health care and had access to well-paying jobs, which set her apart from many others.

Now I am Colombian-Australian as well. Within Colombia I don't consider myself different in terms of like a group. Well, that said with a lot of opportunities. I am in a group that has a lot of options. And not everybody has.... [Int. 6, 00:30]

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Teresa explained that people often identify her as Latin American in Australia but she also is mistaken for a European, especially Italian or French. She then added that she considered herself as brown in Australia. Her self-identification as brown can be seen as an emphasis of her difference and her experience in Australia. Many Australians are darker than Teresa and it is questionable whether Anglo-Australians would perceive her to be brown. Her self-description as brown can be read as a strategy to highlight her difference to Anglo-Australians. She is able to play out her ethnic difference and the ethnicity that is connected to this difference as in her perception it does not put her at risk of losing her privileged social location because of the solid privilege she can fall back on to.

Well, even though people here complain about the support for artists and it is not amazing.... there are opportunities. Here is a bit of value in the creative input that a person can have as an artist. It is not easy anywhere in the world but I think in a way here are audiences. Here is curiosity if you are coming from another place... for your expression. It puts them into another context where you can talk about things that people here wouldn't understand or not that they wouldn't understand but they have never experienced. So, there is so much that you can explore under that umbrella as an artist. Because you weren't... you didn't grow up here. So, in the beginning there is that. It is like, it's hard because it's like... no one understands what you are talking about [laughing]. But then after that it becomes interesting. When you start this creative dialogue with locals. And then eventually, once years go by in a way.... I don't know what's gonna happen. But maybe... then you become a local and then that curiosity disappears in a way. Or you got catalogued as multicultural artist or ethnic based. I don't know. I am still discovering it. We will see what happens. [Int. 4, 00:09]

Ethnic difference often goes hand in hand with not being the desired norm within a society and thus, it normally brings some disadvantage. However, Teresa’s quote illustrates how for the Colombian woman her art is intertwined with her being ‘ethnic’.

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Being from a different country with a different cultural background is a source of creativity for her as she feels that the lack of mutual experience opens up the possibility for explorations. Again, it is Teresa’s particular positionality that enables her to see the world through privilege while being an ethnic migrant woman. Teresa was able to transfer this privileged positionality as well as her education, her credentials as well as her scholarship, from Colombia to Australia, which allowed her to be admitted to her prestigious art school, which as discussed earlier whitened her. As a consequence, she could profit from important networks and participant in an art world from which she otherwise would have been excluded.

Teresa’s words give the impression of a Melbourne that is open minded and interested in (some) foreigners. It is worth noting that her university attracts a certain demographic that tends to be creative, young, open minded, politically left-wing and educated. This may account for Teresa’s highly positive experience in regard to her difference. Finally, although Teresa is talking about her art production, she indirectly describes her experiences of settling in to Melbourne. Teresa told me that in thinking back over her last 10 years in Melbourne, she cannot remember a single incidence of discrimination.

Well, no... Let me try to remember if I did. Not to my face. No. Like on the opposite. Like I felt a lot of curiosity and openness from people. But maybe, there was a time when I was applying to other jobs. Because I was tired and I thought it was really strange that I never got a call for an interview or anything. And I thought my applications were really good... [laughing] and I don't know. I don't know if it was discrimination or not. [Int. 6, 00:46]

This does not mean that discrimination did not happen to her. It only shows that she did not perceive it as such. Teresa’s solid position of privilege, her privileged positionality through which she reads the world enables her to toss away insults. As she demonstrated through the example of her job search, she does not dwell too long on whether it was discrimination or not as it does not affect her life or her identity too

145 much. Teresa can quickly move on from that topic, particularly because these experiences do not present real hindrances in Teresa’s trajectory.

Teresa, Paula and Juan are now dual citizens of Australia and Colombia. Although they do not have a definitive plan to stay in Australia, they plan to spend the coming years in Melbourne. I asked Teresa what she would miss if she returned to Colombia.

Wow. I would miss the.... like... the how safe and chilled it is and few people... it is just so chilled... and kind... nice... and lovely. I think it is very relaxed. I think we get into this thing of being stressed. But really here in Australia none... like... I can never go back in as hard as in Colombia. Because it was all about the job. You know. That was the... and it was... the best-educated people. That's how they thought, imagine! For me now, it's about the quality of the time that you spend in your life. So, how do you perceive the qualities because you are doing what you love or because you are making money or because you're just having a lot of conversations with people that you think alike or think totally contrary to. I don't know. But I think it is more about the quality of the time. I discovered that here in Australia and I am not sure if it's because of Australia but yes when I started working as art manager my boss turned off the computer at 5pm and said ‘It is time to go home'. In Colombia... and I am not sure if this is in all of Australia but it's my experience. In Colombia... the boss would always leave at eight or nine or something and you always felt bad if you left at the time you had to go... it is bad seen. You have to stay and you are responsible and you are a good worker. Where is your quality time for your family? For you... to see daylight? […] And here you trust people more. In Colombia people are always 'Do you try to screw me over?' all the time. I don't like it. And the people. The fact that there is so much culture and different people... from different places. [Int. 6, 00:59]

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Teresa is not the only woman in this research who named security and lifestyle as their two main reasons to stay in Australia. All women in this research agreed that working hours in Colombia are much longer than in Australia and the pressure of a neoliberal working culture is much higher. In their experience, a healthy work life balance did not exist in Colombia. A good employee had to demonstrate long working hours and full dedication to the job.

Especially after being in Australia it becomes more... you can see how living safely… it is nowhere totally safe... yeah... Bogotá. It is just like a monster but a beautiful monster. Yeah, it is dangerous. I don't know how it is for me... I have been off Bogotá for nearly 10 years now. I don't know anymore. […] When I left probably it was my city. So, and I moved in so many different settings. So, I knew the south and the centre. I tried... people have tried to mug me. We got robbed. You are basically sort of surviving and you know how to survive, hopefully. [Int. 3, 00:21]

This was the first time Teresa mentioned these experiences which, I suggest, illustrates the normality of getting robbed and needing to be overly careful while walking in certain areas. Over the years, security became Teresa’s other main reason why she enjoys living in Australia. Similar to the other women I spoke to, it was only once she lived a relatively safe surrounding that she understood the implications that constant danger had on her everyday life. Living in Australia, Teresa realised the impact and immediacy the constant worrying and alertness had on her life and now prefers to live in an environment that requires her to be less cautious in her everyday life.

For the coming years Teresa wanted to focus on her PhD and her theatrical work with children as well as her two bands.

In every sense, as a mother as a woman as a daughter—in the next few years I see myself creating and researching something that I really feel passionate about and putting things out there. Another baby would be

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good too [laughing] […] and trying to keep expectation low. Just keep it simple. [Int. 6, 01:09]

Nevertheless, staying in Australia comes at a high cost for Teresa. There are many things she misses about her home.

The warmth of the family. […]. And the people. My history. The places that I grew up in. The friends that I grew up with. Driving past the school that I went to. All my stories are there. I really miss being able to see it or feel it or smell it. [Int. 6, 01:05]

This chapter told the life story of Teresa. Our interviews took place over a crucial time in Teresa’s life: it marked her 10-year anniversary in Melbourne, she had a newborn baby, she received her Australian citizenship and she was about to start a PhD. In our interviews she reflected upon her past to grasp the immense changes that happened in her life.

Her narrative about Colombia is based on her white upper-class upbringing and Teresa’s attempts to break out of her white upper-class social bubble and create a life on her own terms. The bubble, as Teresa experienced it, represents a part of Colombian society that in Teresa’s perception is detached from the everyday struggles of most Colombians. The bubble is a place of privilege and relative safety within a country that is marked by political, social and economic instability, as well as the constant and ongoing violence. Teresa’s narrative discusses her various attempts to find her place while also portraying her trajectory into adulthood. Particularly important for Teresa is her volunteering work with displaced children as it built the base for her current art practice and it gave her the opportunity to engage with groups of people that she felt were absent in the upper-class white bubble she grew up in. Her effortless movement between social groups, and classed boundaries highlights the stable privilege that she was socialised into as Teresa had the privilege to never be excluded.

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Moving to Australia has led to a shift in Teresa’s identity. This shows how identities are context specific. I argue that for Teresa, it is her ethnic difference that allowed her to step into the role of an artist. She feels that the friction that arises through a clash of culture is an interesting base for her art. The misunderstandings, the lack of mutual experiences and even stereotypes inspire Teresa to be creative. I argue that her ethnic difference gives her a story to tell she felt she did not have in Colombia. Her status as a privileged migrant enabled her to form a voice and tell an interesting story. This also shows how Teresa can make her privilege work as ethnic migrant. In Australia, I argue it is her stable privilege that enables her trajectory as self-actualised migrant woman. As I have shown she was able to transfer many of her privileges to Australia, which opened her the doors to prestigious institutions that had a whitening effect on her. Her story shows how, depending on the location (e.g. her art school vs. the multicultural art scene) Teresa is either part of a white mainstream art world or seen as ethnic multicultural artist (see Anthias 2002a).

Teresa embodies her privilege in Colombia and in Australia. Her privilege works as a shield of protection, which allows her to rebel against her parents, her social circle, the social norms that are expected from her and a life in an upper-class bubble. Her privilege makes it safe to step out of this bubble because she knows that she is able to come back. In Australia, Teresa’s privilege enables her to turn her ethnic difference into an advantage. In Australia she still perceives the world through a positionality of privilege. This privileged positionality enables her to brush away insults, stereotypes and discrimination as these do not have much power over her.

Finally, although Teresa physically stepped out of her white upper-class Colombian bubble, the bubble of class privilege still surrounds her in Australia. It softens and eases her life continuously. More so, it is her privilege of being able to go home in case Australia does not work out that makes her life easier. Thus, her white upper- class bubble is Teresa’s safety net that she could bring with her to Australia. The next chapter tells the story of Gabriela who, similar to Teresa, profits from a stable white upper-class privilege in Colombia.

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6. Gabriela: A Narrative of Stable Privilege

When Gabriela closes her eyes and thinks about her childhood home, she smells the eucalyptus that surrounded her neighbourhood in Colombia. She remembers how she and her two older siblings used to throw eucalyptus seed pods at each other. She also remembers picking cherries from the trees in their neighbourhood. Gabriela grew up in Bella Suiza, a wealthy suburb in the north of Bogotá overlooking the Cerro Orientales, a chain of mountains on the eastern fringe of Bogotá. Her neighbourhood is categorised as an estrato five to six (see Chapter 4.). Gabriela remembers her neighbourhood, Bella Suiza ‘Beautiful Switzerland’, as full of small brick houses with white window frames and black roofs when she was growing up. Gabriela smiles ‘…houses in the Switzerland style. Very funny’. Her house was white with a wooden gate. She says that she thinks this is how houses in Switzerland still look. Gabriela tells me that her house was located next to a paddock, which made it easy for burglars to climb over the fence and gain access to the property. Then, in the 1990s, as the city became more and more dangerous, her parents decided to relocate to an apartment building that had an armed door attendant. Gabriele was about 11 years old when the family moved to this safer flat.

Gabriela’s narrative shows how she, just like Teresa, grew up in a stable white upper- class family in Bogotá’s wealthy north. Her story shows that her life took place socially and spatially within a white upper-class bubble. The narrative reveals much about her perception of her life as being born into a privileged family and social world. In her narrative Gabriela is touching on upper-class codes and mannerisms as well as classed aspects of the violence surrounding her. Her story then traces her trajectory as it is influenced by her upper-class status. I will show how in Australia she continues a similar path to the one she followed in Colombia. As a PhD student at a prestigious university in Melbourne, she chooses a pathway in which she can easily transfer many of her privileges to Australia. Although her social location and positionality changes

150 through her migration, she moves from one privileged bubble to another one, particularly in relation to her professional life. In her narrative about her life in Melbourne she touches on her experiences of difference, particularly in relation to her accent, finding one’s space in the landscape of a new city and issues of stereotypes she encounters. Gabriela’s narrative illustrates concisely how her perception of all these above-mentioned issues influences and intersects with the privileged location as a white upper-class Colombian woman which she occupies in her home country. Finally, her story highlights how privilege is relational, as throughout her story she presents her privilege as uncontested. It is only in relation to her Colombian, white upper-class partner who also is an academic that she engages in a discourse that contests aspects of her privilege.

It was pouring with rain the day Gabriela and I had our first interview in a café in Carlton, close to her apartment. I had met her for the first time at a symposium about Colombia organised by La Trobe University in Melbourne in mid-2015. She looked very professional in the black suit she was wearing that day and I assumed she was a more senior researcher than myself. I remember her colleague Valeria, also a Colombian PhD student, approaching me and talking to me about some figures I had just mentioned in my presentation. After she finished, Gabriela looked at me and said ‘I am a Colombian white upper-class woman. And I would be happy to participate if you still need interviewees’. I could not believe my luck and happily accepted her business card. It turned out that Gabriela, 29 years old at that time, was a PhD student in Geography at one of Melbourne’s best universities. Prior to her studies in Australia Gabriela received a B.A. and M.A. degree in Geography from the prestigious Universidad Iberoamericana in Bogotá. In her Master’s thesis she wrote about the experiences of disadvantaged fishing communities in Colombia. She left her hometown Bogotá over four and a half years ago and came to Melbourne on a scholarship provided by the Colombian Government.

At the time of our interviews Gabriela lived in an apartment near the city. It was a small flat in a big student-housing block. None of the furniture was hers, apart from one chair. When I visited, I looked around and saw a couple of maps of fish stock in Australia and Colombia along with lots of pictures of her friends and her partner. Her

151 books were a mixture of Colombian novels and history books, contemporary Australian literature and some academic literature on Geography. Gabriela managed to turn this pre-furnished place into a very tidy and cosy home. Every now and then she cooked me dinner accompanied by home-made ‘ice tea’. One night she explained to me ‘as you for sure know, we drink juice with our dinner. But juice here is so expensive but I wanted something different than just water with my dinner’ (Field notes 2015).

In the following section Gabriela’s narrative will engage with her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood in Bogotá. The fragments of her life story engage with Gabriela’s experience of growing up as white and upper class in Bogotá and how this influenced her movements and life in general.

‘It Was a Nice Childhood’: Growing up in Bogotá

I grew up in a house. So, I think ehhhhh I had the pleasure of enjoying living in a house, not in an apartment. Ah, it was lovely. Just going out playing, riding your bike…. I remember my parents worked a lot. […] Usually companies think you have to work whenever they want you to. So, usually my parents were working but yeah I had a lot of fun. I also have my two siblings, my sister and my brother always playing with friends from the block. Silly things, climbing trees. I think we were... yeah.... it was a nice childhood. Later when we moved to an apartment, things changed a bit because you are not able to go outside a lot. And now moving more to a closed place […] I think it was this transition from being like feeling that you can move a lot, where you are just running and whatever. And then in the building you can see kids playing in the parking lots and that was really sad. I am very lucky my childhood was not like that. I was playing in the grass. Yeah, in general it was nice. My brother and my sister and I always… we had always fight. [both laughing] very funny relationship. And my brother is always like the protective brother and he is a lot of fun. Always making jokes. So, we were always

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together…. she is two years and a half older then me and he is two and a half older then her. So we are five years apart from each other. I think this is good because we are not competing. […] But with my brother it was very nice I think. He was a great part of my childhood. Always very adventurous going on the bike... trying to make you feel like very grown... like a big girl... It was a lot of fun. I think... I also had... because my mum has eight siblings. So, I have tons of cousins. We were always with them... with my cousins and we had two dogs. [Int. 2, 44:39]

Gabriela described her family as a ‘grounded and conscious upper-class family’. By saying this she aims to distance her and her family from a cliché that is common in Colombia and which portrays upper-class families as selfish (see Streicker 1995). She grew up in a liberal and open-minded family which also explains why Gabriela’s mother pursued her own career. Her parents separated when Gabriela was a young girl. Her mother was a general practitioner but a year before Gabriela came to Australia her mother moved to India, where she lived for almost three years in an Ashram. After her mother returned to Colombia she moved to the countryside and she is currently working as a yoga teacher. Her father works for the state-owned Oil Company, which made him a target for kidnapping by different guerrilla groups in the 1990s. Her older brother moved to New York as an adult and works there in the corporate world. Her sister studied in Italy for a few years. She returned to Bogotá and works there as an illustrator for children’s books.

Gabriela’s mother comes from an educated upper-class Bogotá family, growing up in a household guided by a strong female personality. Throughout Gabriela’s story the strong presence and influence of her mother’s family, especially the women, is evident.

Ah, my grandma from my mum's side… She is a director of a school. She is a very strong woman. Like I think my mum grew up in a very... like in a matriarchal kind of life cause my grandpa was more like a companion for my grandma. And she has always worked. She still works. She will

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be 88 the first of November and she still works. And hmm, she is just a lovely woman. I think she is very brave and she studied three careers and she is really like a very impressive woman for her time and even today. She, I think she was one of the first women who went to uni. So very smart and also works a lot and yeah, and she had nine children. So it was such a huge family. My grandpa he is a bit different I think... he studied... at the end he just... he studied arts but then he ended up in this brewery for a long time. He drank a lot. And it was always like a big issue. I think in that moment it was he worked in a brewery so it yeah. I think that's why my grandma was always in charge... you know the lady in charge. So, he passed away three years ago. And had been just staying with his pension for around 10 years. I think, he was... he stopped drinking when he was older. I don't know why or how. But he did. Because he really loved arts he was wonderful. I had a very close relationship with him. He always gave me like an art class and we discuss Indigenous art. He loved that. And we went to the museums in Bogotá. And he took me to the centre of the city. You know, he was very much into culture. And he had the time and usually when I was very young I cooked for him. My mum was always like for the afternoon teas had some cookies and we sat down and just painted. He was a very lovely guy. After he was I guess... he became just a wonderful guy. [Int. 5, 08:22]

Gabriela’s father’s family is from Popayan, the capital of the state of Cauca. Popayan itself is located in south western Colombia and surrounded by mountains. The department of Cauca borders Ecuador and the Colombian Pacific Coast. According to what Gabriela knows about her family history, her grandmother was an Indigenous woman and her grandfather a Spaniard. Both of her father’s parents died before he turned one year old. Consequently, her father lived with his grandmother for a few years and then with his wealthy uncle. Gabriela looks up in the sky and tries to recall the name of the company her father’s uncle worked for ‘…his uncle was the director of... ehm… like an oil company… a huge one in Colombia’ (Int. 5, 00:18). Gabriela

154 remembers him as a cold man who financially supported her father’s needs but never with emotional support.

I mean I knew his mum was an Indigenous woman. But he, I think at the end he didn't really know much about it because he ended up growing up with his father's family. They were not very connected to his mother's side of the family. This is a part of his story that he is not really in touch with and has been very away from it. So, I don't know. I think he deals with it… with his identity very.... I don't know if he embraces it because he grew up and was... never lived in an Indigenous way or with Indigenous ideas. And sometimes when he talks about it, it is something just like an anecdote rather than a part. I think recently I have asked him more about that because of my research and because I think it is very interesting and I came to the realisation that he has no strong connection to it. I think it is also because in Colombia people are very racist. So, he grew up also, like usually in families when you have a part of your family that is Indigenous or is black, people are always trying to hide it. Not hide it because you cannot hide your face. But they are trying to… they are embracing more their Spaniard lineage or European side. And this is a part that is a bit shameful. So, usually because of this shame this is something that people are not happily talking about. So, I think for him it was really hard even when he tried to talk sometimes with his Grandma and about it, it was a topic that was very complex. They were not very happy to go into… to face this reality that is also part of an identity that is not well seen [Int. 5, 04:10]

While reflecting back on her father’s family, Gabriela told me how, although her father might not have had a strong connection with his Indigenous heritage, it still played a substantial role in his life. Importantly, she explained how his Indigenous descent had negative meanings and thus he decided to push it into the background. Indigenous ancestry is and was associated with shame within his family and within his broader social context and this is because of the negative attitudes to Indigenous culture held

155 by many in Colombia. Gabriela explained that this is one reason why her father does not have a strong connection to the Indigenous side of his family or to his identity. It needs to be noted that not all Colombian families try to hide their Indigenous or Afro- Colombian background. Those families who profit from racial privilege have an interest obscuring those parts of their family background that could destabilise their whiteness/status. Similarly, Gabriela’s family had a certain interest in hiding those parts of their family history to stabilise their unmarked and desired identity

As we continued to talk, I asked Gabriela how she would self-identify in terms of her own ethnicity and race. In response, Gabriela explained to me that she does not think of herself in terms of ethnicity or race. Having an identity free of a racialised or ethnic marker within a national context is a privilege of those who occupy unmarked and normalised identities (Frankenberg 1991). Gabriela knows that she is white in the context of Colombia. If she would need to choose an ethnic identity, she explained to me, she would identify as Mestiza. The reason for her to identify this way is her knowledge about her family’s mixed background. In her family there is the belief that her mother’s family is from Spanish descent and, as discussed in the paragraph above, her grandmother from the other side of the family was an Indigenous woman. Gabriela further explained to me that she grew up in a time where she learned that every Colombian is a Mestizo to some extent. Colombia is a nation of Mestizas/os and mestizaje. It is what she learned in school although, as she explained to me, it does not have any relevance for her in her everyday life (see Chapter 4).

I then asked Gabriela to continue telling me about the places she lived when she was growing up.

‘Game of Being Safe’: Bogotá in the Early 90s

So, I think we moved... I moved around mostly in the north of the city. That is where I lived and where my family lived nearby and like... yeah most of my friends lived very near. Because I grew up in this complex of houses I had my neighbour friends just hanging out in streets. I think I told you I think in the first interview, everything there is about safety. So,

156 it was about having like a place where we can play still we were secured from... from I don't know... someone stealing us. This type of situation of security. So, I think I was always moving constantly through that insecurity like coping with Bogota's insecurity. You know... is... is not safe to walk alone in the street to some places or to move alone. So, you are always like in this game of being safe. When I was younger my parents drove me to my friends’ houses or when I got from school I got in my bus. Like in the school bus to my friends’ houses. And then they picked me up. And you know... like I never [mumbles] a bus or anything like that. So, I think we were a bit isolated from the city. You are living in the house of people and then if you are going to... I don't know to the mall to have an ice cream. It is like something that has to be safe, ‘be careful’. You know is this… I don't think it is because we grew up… my generation, we grew up in Bogotá, in a city that was very... in a moment where there was a lot of terrorism going on. Terrible bombs. So, I think growing up like that was scary for my parents. I didn't feel like that because I was young. And you don't really realise it. But there were always many rules. How to do… what to do… where to go... like you know… this idea... you always have to call... And in that moment we didn't have mobiles so it was... like dealing with the security thing was not easy. And then growing a bit older... you kept taking risk. […] Yeah... Pablo Escobar.... So, he put a bomb in a mall in central St. Andres, which was also in the north of the city. And then when I got a bit older he put a bomb in a club. That was very close to my house. And like it was just scary like people died in this bombing. And usually they were directed to the, I think, to places where politicians went and you know usually that was in the north of city. So, you are always in this place, in this battlefield where anything can happen in any moment. So, you have to be prepared to deal with that. So, is like... yeah what happens if there is a bomb? What happens if I think is also the fact… you don't know when and how. So, there is a lot of pressure, but you don't know when or what something happens to you. I grew up like that but when I was younger we took a lot of field trips with my family in the car what was very lovely. But then

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because of security, I think, we got stopped once by the Guerrilla in a place four hours from Bogotá and then my parents decided not to continue with our field trips on the weekends [Int. 5, 16:38] […] I was in the car with my siblings. I remember we were driving in a place called ‘El cigar’. And hmm then like we saw a like a stop from the army and my parents, I remember ‘Ahhh’ because sometimes you can recognise the Guerrilla because they wear the boots... like the same boots of the military. So, they wear the plastic boots like… they are wearing these boots, so you can tell they are Guerrilla. And because my father worked in the oil company they were super scared. Like nothing really happened. They asked for papers and I remember they were very very afraid. After that we just came back to Bogotá. I think this was too much because in that moment they were kidnapping people. Even inside Bogotá. It was common also to being kidnapped or killed in the cars. So, this was happening. So, you were living your life but also this constant fear. [Int. 5, 18:10] […] Like one of my... a very good friend of mine... her father got kidnapped, and also a friend, a group of friends of mine. One of the guys got kidnapped from his schools. This was something that was happening, you know, all the time. […] I remember thinking what like... if it happens what can I do... I remember just thinking maybe I can just... I don't know.... cook for them. Thinking these things. And maybe I am in a place where is jungle and maybe I can see many animals. I was being a kid about it. I knew I have to be careful but because you are also a kid you don't really feel the threat as much. I guess it was more later that you start to see how bad it was. In that moment, I guess it was also the fact that there were a lot of

Narcos6 in the city. So you could see them. So when I was growing up, if I went to parties, if you went to party in places like a club and sometimes you know, this people arrived full of their bodyguards and you know this women... usually you can... sad to see that you can recognise the women that go out with them. Usually are very like model with huge tits and butt.

6 Short for narcotraficantes translated as ‘drug dealers’

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I don't know why they have this obsession. So, you could really tell because they are usually very loud you know. [Int. 5, 30:46]

In this quote Gabriela makes references to acts of violence coming from guerrilla groups and paramilitaries as well as Pablo Escobar and his drug cartel. The boundaries and cooperation between these different actors were at times blurry and fluid. From the 1990s until the early 2000s drug related crimes such as assassinations and kidnappings dominated urban life in Bogotá, affecting the poorer segments of society and people from the upper classes and elites (LaRosa & Mejia 2013, p. 91). There is hardly any protection against terrorist attacks, but Gabriela’s parents’ security measures provided some protection against kidnapping. Many of those in the upper class had to abandon their fincas7, holiday and weekend houses when it became too dangerous to move around in the countryside surrounding Bogotá. Gabriela explained how the guerrillas as well as the paramilitaries built roadblocks to gain control over an area and often blackmailed families to pay them regular protection money in exchange for their families’ lives and land. As an employee of a national oil company and thus a government servant, Gabriela’s father had to be even more careful not to become a target for the guerrillas, for whom state employees were preferred victims.

Although the above-mentioned terror attacks and kidnappings were directed towards the wealthy and affluent, the majority of the victims of Colombia’s violence were the country’s marginalised and impoverished population (Schultz et al. 2014). The residents of poor working-class neighbourhoods were those who were exposed on a daily basis to gang violence, racketeering, drug trades and the aftermath of rivalling drug cartels and a government unable to cope with the growing power of the drug bosses. Only the affluent north had the financial resources to erect walls, build security systems, and lock themselves away from the outside world to create a sense of safety around them. They could hide in private cars and behind bodyguards whereas less affluent parts of society could not afford those security provisions (Palacio & Stoller 2006, p. 239). Safety and stronger protection measures were the main reasons for Gabriela’s family to move into an apartment complex with a doorman. Gabriela grew

7 Translated ‘estates’.

159 up in the safe upper-class part of the city where security guards were in charge of protecting the tenants and homeowners, who built fences and walls around their homes and shield themselves away from the outside world.

Gabriela’s narrative gives an insight into the manifold feelings she experienced as a child growing up in this risk-filled environment. She remembered her parents worries and describes how she considered their measures to keep her and her siblings safe as annoying and overbearing. Security and its maintenance was a major issue at that time in her life and she remembered her childhood as being allowed to travel from one safe island to another, all the while surrounded by a dangerous city. These safe islands were located in the wealthy part of Bogotá, and Gabriela explained that working-class areas were perceived to be even more dangerous than other parts of the city. This kept her close to her parents’ house and prevented her from exploring the city. Bogotá is socio- economically segregated (see Chapter 4), which also meant Gabriela did not have much contact with people from a different background to hers. Although she was frustrated by her parents’ fears, she was fearful herself and well aware of the uncertainty she was living with. Even as a young child Gabriela said she knew she was surrounded by a constant potential danger that was almost impossible to predict or avoid. Her memories of always having to be aware of a potential kidnapping led to having to find ways to cope and develop strategies in case she became a victim.

Her narrative shows how Gabriela discursively creates difference based on class and between her and the Narcos that she had to share her space with. Her remarks highlight how omnipresent the Narcos were in her immediate surrounding at this point in time. According to Gabriela’s portrayal the Narcos felt safe enough to not worry about attracting undue attention, as they were highly visible through their behaviour and demeanour. Gabriela’s description of the female company she often saw the Narcos with suggests that she perceived them as vulgar. She further insinuates that they were ‘out of place’. She explained how although Narcos might be rich and have the money to frequent expensive restaurants and clubs normally only accessible to Bogota’s upper class, they lack all other qualities of being upper class. I argue that Gabriela discursively creates distance between her and the Narcos who invade her space.

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‘Ah, You Are a Lady’: Issues of Class

Like most children from upper-class families in Colombia’s urban areas, Gabriela attended a private Catholic school. It was an all girls’ school in the north of the city, close to her house, and she attended the same school from primary to the end of high school although she moved houses many times as a child.

Ah school, school I think was an amazing moment. I went to a Catholic school called Santa Maria. It was a very... they say because we have a green Uniform... the lettuces... like lechugas. It is a very... like I was very happy. I think the school was... strict. […] Until I was ten it was run by nuns. […] And then it was run by someone who was not a religious woman. So, I think it was not very funny that I had to go to mass every week and wear the uniform and your hair and not using like anything in your hands [jewellery]. It was very funny because of course we were always trying to find ways to mess with them. I think for me it was an amazing moment. Most of my best friends in my life are still from school. We have a big group of friends. We are very close. Most of them—I met them when we were young. My best friend I met her in Kindergarten. And then the group grew and then nowadays we are around 12 that are still very close. It was a very… nice stage of my life. The school was also a pain in the arse. The typical—strict—and I was also a bit undisciplined. I always did well in my subjects but I was always to go and fail in my discipline. They grade discipline. My mum always had to go [laughing]. It was just like typical the Catholic school trying to put rules and make you be a nun, but you don't want to. I was very happy at school. [Int. 2, 00:58]

Gabriela explained school as her first introduction to social life outside her family. She described how she developed a close circle of friends during her time at school where most of her friends were from a similar class background. Her school memories are pleasant memories, ones of close friendships and of rebelling against the school’s

161 authority. She remembered that her mother particularly chose a Catholic school, as they are known for their strong values and altruism. Gabriela told me that she was grateful for the school’s strong community engagement, which she felt enriched her school experience.

Being from an upper-class Colombian family, Gabriela said she grew up with a certain cultural etiquette and taste, different to la cultura popular ‘working-class culture’ in Colombia. She explained how the upper classes in Colombia historically emphasised their ties to Europe and embodied a belief in European superiority over Indigenous and local ideas, traditions and cultures. She described high culture, appropriate education, and etiquette, to be Eurocentric.

Some are very subtle that you start to realise about them when you travel. Like, for us we are still very yeah... our culture is still very respectful to others. So, everything, in my house I would always have to say to my mum Señora. Like this. You know. I did not notice it was weird until I came outside ‘Why are you saying to your mum Señora? [laughing] It is like she is your boss’ I don't know. But for us it is so usually certain codes and how to have dinner, how to use a fork, like there is... codes of everything... how you deal with the services as well. If someone is serving, these people, like usually they have to put the plate in this way and the cutlery has to be like... I don't know... everything has a code and how it has to look. To get up from the table you have to say ‘Ah, permiso’ and all this. There is a ton. There are many many many codes. But you know, when I am with my friends I don't do that but if I am in my grandma's house I do it. Very like ‘Okay, tatata’ or if I am invited to a friend's family I try [laughing]. I don't know. It is very strange. I think there are many codes. And I think because of these codes it is very easy to see ‘Ah this person is very educated’. [Int. 2, 00:21]

I am thinking that is very strange, but it is... it is like that... like there is one thing for this instance. In my house I had someone that came to us…

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my nanny you could say. But I know her since I was very young and she worked with us until very recently and she is like my second mum. For me she is, Ximena, a part of the family. And I remember we had dinner. She prepared the table and then she went and had her dinner in the kitchen. And I thought that was the way it was. But then I remember when my mum... because my mum went to live in India... I was in charge of the house because my parents are divorced. I remember like thinking ‘this is so crazy’ [laughing both]. Like, I love her. I love her company. Why is Ximena having dinner at the table in the kitchen? This is so wrong’. So, I remember, I told her like ‘Ximena, it would be a pleasure if you could sit with us and have lunch, because we love you’. And she said ‘Why?’ So even for her it was… and then we started doing it and it was very lovely, but I think she still thought that I was weird because I was letting her sit. [Int 2, 23:21] And I was thinking all the time ‘How weird is my mum that even if she is very open and hippie she still has those things’. And for me it was just crazy, we are having dinner... like... that is the person that cooked and is lovely and yes maybe she has another manners then this codes but…. I think in Colombia we are full of those things. You see that people also... people who are serving you have uniforms and is also very distant. So, you can really see that there is this class thing that is very heavy and very strong. [Int. 2, 00:24]

Gabriela explained how employing a maid to help raise the children and serve the household is common with families in Colombia who can afford it. Also common is the strict segregation between those working for the family and the family itself. It reflects the deeply rooted beliefs in social and spatial segregation between the poor and affluent (LaRosa & Mejia 2013, p. 131). These beliefs are so deeply rooted in society that, as Gabriela explained, even her mother, who she considered to be a liberal and open-minded woman, enforced this division in their household. Women who work as domestic workers are often Afro-Colombian and Indigenous women from the countryside. Many of them fled violence in rural areas or left their hometowns for economic reasons. Most of them ended up in Colombia’s big cities and started working

163 as domestic workers (see Londoño 2015; Wade 2010, p. 44). They often work in the houses of Mestizo families, which also reflects a more general racial hierarchy in Colombia and shows how economic disadvantage in Colombia often intersects with race and ethnicity.

Our conversation about Gabriela’s school turned into a reflection about indicators of social class in Colombia. Gabriela once again commented on the rigid markers of social class that exist in her home country (see Chapter 4). As a South American woman, she is acutely aware of these markers that exist in Colombian society, a society which is structured along class and racial difference. Thus, understanding and being able to navigate these markers is important for Gabriela’s own social status.

I think it is also what school you went to… is also very important and where do you live. So, people are like ‘Ah what school you went to?’ And just by the school they can tell how much your family has, more or less. Because there are different... you have like very expensive school. Some are expensive. You have the scale and you can just tell by the school more or less and also the University. So, I went Las Universidad Iberoamericana, that is private. And usually when you go to work in the field or so and I say that I graduated from that Uni, everyone is like... ugh [both laughing] You know. So, it becomes very… like I think we... you also get bullied because of that and the other way around. It is not just in the field. They are always like ‘Ahh, you are a lady’ you know and you have to prove yourself that you are not a lady. That you are not... whatever. And at the end it is funny and they tell you ‘Ah, but you are different. You are an honorifica [honorary member]’. But is something you have to deal with a lot. Also, I think I felt that here in Australia. Because here... Colombians... everyone says ‘Ay Colombians’. They think we are all the same. And they say ‘Ah do you know that guy? Come meet him’. And all of the sudden we are talking ‘So what Uni do you went to?’ And then he asks you where do you live. So sometimes they are putting you in that like I think because my family was always accommodating. They never thought about that. So, it is something I

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never asked my friends and they never asked me. So, it was something I didn't think about but then later in uni and growing up I realised that is how people put people in place. And here, I remember when I started that Valeria because Valeria is from La Autónoma that is a national university. And when I came Peter [Gabriela’s supervisor] told her that I was coming and that I was from Universidad Iberoamericana. She saw me… as [made a noise that indicates that Valeria was not very impressed by her and thought she is a snob]. I had to prove myself to her like ‘Yeah I am from Iberoamericana but I am not a nasty person from Iberoamericana’. You know, it is very strange [laughs]. And you have is not only one way... the high class you could say bullying but also the other way there is a lot of resentment. So, they let you know that they don't like you. Yeah, I don't know. Just silly things. [Int. 2, 00:34]

This is not the first time where Gabriela is an insightful commentator about Colombian society, but she avoids labelling herself or her family. This is interesting, as when Gabriela initially approached me, she identified herself as ‘a white upper-class Colombian’. Similarly, she disclosed that her school was not an elite school such as the international high schools, which often were attended by the children of expatriates. Nevertheless, her school was a prestigious all girls high school, which enabled her to continue her education later on at one of the best universities in the country.

While telling me about her life, class emerges as a key theme in her story. Gabriela’s narrative illustrates her everyday lived experience of belonging to the upper class in Bogotá and shows how her life was influenced by her status. In the above quote she highlights how she experiences tension between herself and others who are more disadvantaged than herself. ‘Working in the field’ refers to her university field research experience. For her research she worked with Afro-Colombian communities in Colombia and she described how she experienced suspicion because of her class status. She explained how she felt perceived as the ‘powerful other’ who believes she is superior due to her wealth and upbringing. She explained having to earn the

165 communities’ respect and prove that she is not an aloof, ‘rich kid’, intolerant of issues of social inequality and the issues the less privileged in Colombia are facing. In some areas, Colombia’s upper class is perceived as self-interested and unwilling to help those in need out (Streicker 1995, p. 55). Stereotypes of upper-class Latin Americans are often based on notions such as ‘being a lady’, implying that a person is not tough, has no street credibility or life experience and is detached from the every-day struggle of the ‘common’ people. In Gabriela’s perception in proving to the Afro-Colombian community that she does not fulfil the stereotype of an upper-class white woman from Bogotá that they first assumed, she became an ‘honorific’ in the eyes of the community. They accepted her as a positive exception to the rule. To better understand the weight of the stereotypes that are attached to Gabriela’s person it is important to remember Colombia’s racialised geography and the tensions caused by social and economic inequality between different areas of the country. In this racialised geography Bogotá symbolises whiteness, progress and productivity (see Chapter 4). Additionally, as I have shown earlier in this thesis (see Chapter 4) the historical relationship between those who were seen as white (Spaniards) and Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities was based on violent exploitation and dispossession.

However, as Gabriela points out, the stereotypes exist both ways. Negative stereotypes about the upper class are held by the working class and vice versa. As other interlocutors have mentioned many upper-class Colombians believe that their country is meritocratic and blame the poor for being ‘lazy and unwilling to work’. Gabriela later admitted that at times she omits telling Colombian acquaintances which part of the city she grew up in, because of previous bad experiences she has had disclosing this information. Tension was created between Gabriela and others when people associated negative stereotypes with her neighbourhood and believed that every resident lives in the lap of luxury. Gabriela’s narrative describes the ways in which class differences, stereotypes and underlying resentment often polarise Colombians in their everyday interactions with each other. This is a source of constant tension. Reflecting on her words, Gabriela navigates her class status skilfully by either conforming to class mannerisms, codes and expectations or downplaying her class status to avoid tension. She is highly aware of when to hide her upper-class identity, when she needs to prove that she has not lived a sheltered life or has been spoiled and

166 when to conform to the rules of the upper class to affirm and profit from her class status.

Issues of Class Amongst Colombians in Melbourne

In Australia her privilege is evident to other Colombian migrants. However, although Valerie too graduated from one of the best universities in the country, Gabriela profits more from the education she received in Colombia than Valeria does. One example is that Valeria had to enrol in English classes before being able to start her PhD program. In comparison Gabriela’s English was proficient, allowing her to avoid additional English classes due to her high school education and the time she spent abroad in England. This indicates that although Gabriela experiences negative stereotypes, she still profits from her privilege as an upper-class Colombian and thus from being in a powerful position. Stereotypes or discrimination against those in power are never that powerful and harmful compared to discrimination against disadvantaged groups. These encounters affected Gabriela and put her in situations that were uncomfortable and difficult to manoeuvre. Gabriela explained how these resentments hurt regardless of somebody’s class status. However, those resentments have no real implications for Gabriela’s life as she is structurally in a more powerful position.

In Gabriela’s perception, class distinctions do not disappear amongst Colombians living in Melbourne. Class positions continue to be an important marker of identity. Gabriela often experienced that people expected her to be friends with other Colombians purely because they are Colombians, an expectation that ignores other markers of identification and differences. Gabriela particularly points out she experienced class differences as continuous and divisive in the diaspora. Valerie’s initial dislike of Gabriela shows how class differences can overlay nationality or other similarities. Political, religious, regional as well as gender identities often fracture so called ethnic communities as these identifications can be more important than one’s nationality. Langer (1990, p. 5) for example observed, in the case of Salvadorian refugees in Melbourne, that they, once in Australia, ‘exchange history for ethnicity, stepping out of the historical drama of the war in El Salvador and being cast as a member of an “ethnic group”. In this process differences based on class, politics,

167 religion are being ignored and unity is presumed based on language, food, music’ (Langer 1990, p. 5). This ethnic lens (Glick Schiller et al. 2006) is not only problematic because it frames migrants in terms of ethnicity and ignores other important aspects of identification (Fox & Jones 2013; Glick-Schiller et al. 2006). It also does not allow for a full understanding of migrants’ experiences, as in Gabriela’s case her gender and class position are crucial to her positionality, even in Australia. Her relationship to Valerie shows that their commonalities, being a PhD student from Colombia in Melbourne, created some sort of bond but their differences, particularly in the beginning, where more salient than their similarities.

‘They Share My Passion for Geography’: University in Bogotá

Gabriela continued telling me that after she graduated from high school, her father suggested she should live in England for a few months to improve her English. She followed her father’s advice and spent eight months in Brighton attending English classes. She remembered enjoying her time outside of Colombia and gaining some independence from her family. Returning to Colombia, Gabriela started her bachelor’s degree in geography at La Universidad Iberoamericana. Gabriela informed me that already at a young age she knew she wanted to study geography, a decision her close family members always respected and supported. Her extended family, on the other hand, were unhappy about her prospective profession. They wished for a career in a more prestigious field of studies such as architecture or medicine.

Entering university was a big change in Gabriela’s life, especially as she stepped outside her social circle and was thrown into a new social surrounding, separate from her long-term school friends. In the following section Gabriela elaborates on her sense of safety as a young woman just entering university. She is not only talking about insecurity in this section, she also describes more general changes that occurred during this time of her life.

I think it was more when I went to uni because it was more... I had to go to the centre of the city to like a new place. A part of the city I didn't

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know. New people had different lives. They share my passion for geography. So, it was quite different. And I guess it helped me also to feel safer because it [my sense of insecurity] was also very constructed by society. Because of course it was unsafe but not everything was unsafe. But it was this paranoia. That everything could happen at any moment. And then when I went to uni it was just like relaxed. You know, of course there is fear in many things but not everything is about that. So, I think it was very liberating and I hang out with different people, different ideas and also different places of the city that I have never been before. Before it was more like a safe place or just like trendy places in Bogotá I guess for who could afford going to these places. So, they are closed places. But in this moment, these were places that where different. There was no bouncer in the door. It was this type of thing. It was just I think a more relaxed environment. I also learned that of course you can get robbed you know... it was worth just living... doing whatever you want to do. So yeah, I think, it changed growing up. I think also you stop caring. It becomes a natural thing in your background. Like living with this situation of security. Even though you don't know how you react you rather just go out. [Int. 5, 00:23]

La Universidad Iberoamericana, the university at which she decided to study, is one of the most reputable and prestigious institutions in the country. Although it is a private university where students have to pay high student fees, Gabriela felt that her social surrounding became more diverse in regards to people’s socio-economic background compared to her peers in school. However, her fellow students were most likely not from working-class families, as it would be difficult to afford the student fees at a university such as La Universidad Iberoamericana. Similarly, class status defines important aspects of her life such as the university she chooses. For Gabriela it was a step outside of the ‘white space’ that confined her life up until then. Gabriela and other interlocutors in my research referred to this as ‘the bubble’, the spaces that confined their encapsulated upper-class upbringing, from which Afro-Colombians and Indigenous Colombians were mostly excluded. In other conversations we had,

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Gabriela explained to me more in detail that her new friends from university did not follow the upper-class conventions as much as her friends from school. In contrast to her school friends, her university friends engaged more in an alternative lifestyle without expensive nightclubs and strict dress codes and she was relieved to be able to go out in sneakers instead of high heels. She appreciated their open-minded ideas and their shared interest in geography. Although she highly valued her old friends from high school she also told me that she was a little relieved to make new friends outside of her social circle. As she told me, friends from school were a tight community with a long history and Gabriela felt she had to conform to her friends’ expectations and upper-class conventions within her bubble. At times Gabriela experienced this as a form of social control and because of this, enjoyed an environment and friends that were new to her.

Her university, like most others in Bogotá, is located outside the upper-class, residential areas of the city. Iberoamericana, which is how people in Colombia refer to the University, is in close proximity to the city centre, an area that is considered to be chaotic and at times dangerous by residents of the north of Bogotá; it is an area best to be avoided. Simultaneously, it is the historical centre of the city and the place where many of Bogotá’s cultural institutions are located (see Chapter 4). Although Gabriela has been to the city centre to visit museums and to engage in other cultural activities she still presents it as a strange place that she was unfamiliar with. This exemplifies the racialised and classed social geography that exists in Bogotá and Colombia in general. It highlights how this social geography structures the life of Colombians. Because of Gabriela’s class status the city centre is a no-go zone for Gabriela. It was not appropriate for her to occupy this space, as she would transgress class boundaries (see Streicker 1995).

Nevertheless, spending time at university and thus in the city centre made her realise that the environment was more relaxed than she thought, and she started feeling safer. Entering this new space enabled Gabriela to understand that her ideas of danger and security as well as ‘the game of safety’ were partially socially constructed. As with many of my interlocutors, Gabriela grew up believing that a space like the city centre must be more dangerous as the inhabitants of this area are poorer. Spending time at

170 her university and in the surrounding areas gave her a more realistic outlook on the potential dangers. This helped her to deconstruct stereotypes around class and safety, which affected her experience of her time on campus, allowing her to feel relaxed and safe.

Being a young adult, it was also the time when she had to be responsible for herself and make decisions about how to deal with potential risks in an unsafe city such as Bogotá. Gabriela told me that she was influenced by the encounters she had experienced at university and she decided not to let her life be dominated by the idea that she can create safety by encapsulating herself from the possible dangers surrounding her. Simultaneously, living with and navigating violence and unsafety became normal to her and were part of her everyday life. She decided not to give these issues too much space in her life. She remembers that this included a great deal of precaution compared to the security measures people would take in their everyday lives in a city like Melbourne, but Gabriela more and more tried to challenge her ideas of safe spaces and security as she did not want to continue living in a secure island surrounded by walls and security guards.

While studying geography, Gabriela met her long-term partner Manuel. Manuel is from a similar family background to Gabriela. My interlocutors told me that Manuel attended a prestigious private British international school in Bogotá. This meant that he grew up in an international setting, as most of his friends were children of expats, mainly diplomats or CEOs of international corporations who were sent to Colombia for a few years.

I met him in my third semester. Also, in geography, on a field trip to Las Sierra in Santa Marta. It was, hmm, we were bird watching with a class. It was very nice. I think... it was really funny. In geography there was like a semester of guys that were all Metals [listening to metal music] and they always sat on a rock. There is a big rock. And we called them Los de la Piedra [Stone boys]. And of course, the girls loved them. And [laughing] and we were always laughing at the fact that they all had long hair and it was very... funny. And then I became very close friends with

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them and Manuel was... because he did an exchange in France. So, I didn't know him and he came back from France. That's when we went to a field trip. That's where I met him. He was friends with all my friends. It was really nice. And yes. We met there and, yeah, we have been together since then. So is already 8 year... soon will be 9 years. [laughing] such a long time. [Int. 3, 00:19]

‘It was Like Giving Birth to a Pineapple’: Moving to Melbourne

Gabriela continues her story by briefly mentioning that they both graduated from university and Gabriela expanded her Bachelor project into a Master’s thesis. She then started working for a Not for Profit Organisation to develop a conservation management plan for an island in the Caribbean part of Colombia. She remembered how the couple decided together to go abroad for their PhDs as both were enthusiastic about their chosen academic discipline and thought it would be better to write their doctorate in an English-speaking country. The couple applied for scholarships from the Colombian government and both received one. Manuel left Colombia six months prior to Gabriela as she was still working for the Not for Profit Organisation. Manuel chose a doctorate program in Sydney while Gabriela chose one of the most prestigious universities in the country, located in Melbourne.

I decided to come here because I really admired the work of my supervisor. I said ‘No, maybe it would be easy I guess...’ I don't know why I felt that but yeah. In that moment it seemed... I guess I wanted to be independent. I was always raised not to be depending on anyone. […] No, I think I want to do my thing in Melbourne. That's why. I don't know. I think I was just silly. At the end is easier. But in that moment everything seems so serious [laughing]. [Int. 3, 00:35]

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Gabriela’s decision not to follow her partner and rather pursue a doctorate independently does not necessarily fit into Colombia’s prevalent machismo and gender norms where the unity of a couple often has more importance than individual goals. Often women, as in many parts of the world, are those who set their own ambitions aside to maintain the unity of the couple. Using Gabriela’s words, her matriarchal family structure finds expression in her life decisions. Being apart from her long-term partner for almost four years, in a foreign country, came with an emotional cost and Gabriela was well aware that her decision would make her life harder. It was a very powerful decision as she subverted Colombian gender roles by not following her partner and by maintaining her independence.

Gabriela remembered the visa process as long, complicated and nerve-racking but luckily she could cover all visa costs through her scholarship and with financial help from her family. Nevertheless, Gabriela described the time waiting for the scholarship offer and successful visa application with a Colombian saying ‘It was like giving birth to a pineapple’.

In this moment everyone was leaving. Most of my friends already left or were leaving as well like living experiences abroad. So, it was also natural. I have a friend that is in England. My other friend was in Argentina in that moment. I also want to go ‘Bye’ [laughing]. And in geography everyone was going. So, it was.... Even in a moment... at a party and we were just laughing because everyone was leaving... [both laughing] Yeah people are just leaving and most will come back after school or their Master’s. I think it was a moment of moving. It was all right. So it didn't feel like such a strong... ‘Oh, why are you leaving’. No. It was not like that.

And for your parents? How did they deal with this decision?

My mum had already left to India. And my father, I think he was happy. He was also a bit stressed that it was far and he couldn't rescue me if

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something happens ‘If you have something out in your tree... it is so far... two days away’ [laughing]. ‘You don't need to rescue me’. I think that was hard for him but the rest... I think... my sister and my brother... because my sister lived in Italy and she came back and my brother was living in New York. I think it was kind of expected to go away. Like ‘Ah now it is Gabriela’s moment to go. Bye’. They knew all the tips... I have a plastic bag full of the things she [my sister] took to Italy. You know all the things. I was so spoiled. They set everything up for me. I think it was also because in that moment it was... yeah since I have done my Master’s I have been working and earning money but still I was living with them but in this moment it was all on me and on my scholarship so I was getting out... independent. So, my father was always like ‘Do you have enough money? Show me your house. Where you are you living it is not very warm. Do you have enough clothes? Here is my card’. You know these things. But I think it was all right. It was not so hard. [Int. 3, 00:49]

Gabriela presents leaving Colombia as a natural progression in her trajectory. The story she tells and the fact that both her siblings spent a few years overseas, suggest that her family expected her to leave the country as part of her education and for her personal growth. As all three children got partially educated outside of Colombia it can be assumed that Gabriela’s family believed that going overseas was a necessary step in their children’s path. The decision to leave was made easier as most of her close school friends were also about to leave or had already left the country. Gabriela’s experience and path are representative of her privilege and upper-class status. Generally, only the upper classes in Colombia can afford to send their children overseas and pay the student fees for Master’s or PhD courses. Receiving the education requires being accepted into an overseas university, which is costly too. In a country with a two-class education system, where most people only have limited access to schooling, the aspiration of higher education is a privilege of the upper classes. The aim to receive a Master’s or PhD degree in a European or Anglo-Saxon University system is only accessible for a very small segment of Colombian society and it added to her sense of being cultivated.

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Gabriela’s life in Colombia was framed by her class and racial privilege, which she profited from as a white upper-class woman in a Colombian context. Her narrative illustrates how her life is influenced by her class status and it shows how she came to embody her social location and positionality. Spaces she inhabits, the school and university she attended, her friendship circle and her mannerism, these are all topics she touches on in her story and which are somehow related and influenced by her upper-class status. Her discourses on spatiality, spaces she used to avoid when she was younger as they seem to be too dangerous and spaces she had to share with Narcos, too tell the story of her privilege. In Bogotá she lived in the wealthy north of the city and barely ever did she cross the boundaries to the south, the part of town where less affluent people live. She commuted from one safe bubble to another safe bubble within a dangerous city. Most of these bubbles are located in the north of the city. As I have shown, moving overseas for education seemed to be a common trajectory within her family and nothing out of the ordinary. Her story also shows how she, as a grown up, started to negotiate her position in society by choosing new friends and depending on the context perform/not perform her upper-classness to her advantage. The next section of Gabriela’s life story engages with her experience of settling into her new home in Melbourne. She further reflects on her experiences as a migrant woman in Melbourne.

‘Give Papaya’: A New Life in Melbourne

Gabriela was in her late 20s when she moved to Melbourne. She arrived as an international PhD student with a scholarship sponsored by the Colombian government. When Gabriela arrived in Australia, Manuel, who already lived in Sydney, welcomed her and stayed two months with her in Melbourne. Of all the women I interviewed, Gabriela was the one who had arrived most recently. By the time she migrated, she could tap into an existing network of other Colombian students in Melbourne to help her navigate her new environment and so, looking back, Gabriela remembered her transition into her new life as relatively smooth. She quickly made new friends, Colombians, Australians and other international students. After staying in student

175 accommodation for nearly two months Gabriela found a private rental and she remembered how it felt to finally having a place that she could call home in Australia.

I found a granny flat in Coburg North. It was such a nice house. Like I loved it. Hmm, so it was built over a garage. It looked like a dolls house [laughs] and the space was open and had heaps of light. It is just nice. The couple living next to me were also very lovely and open. And yeah when I got there I couldn't understand half of what they are saying to me. I was just like ‘yeah yeah yeah’ and then I was laughing and they were laughing at me. And then we were all laughing. And at the end it was nice to be able to understand each other. […] And I think they still took good care of me and they gave me food and I had dinner with them. They always came and said ‘We have extras. We went to collect some lemons. Have lemons’ and this stuff. So, it was still independent but still a family very next to me. But at the same time, I started to feel like ‘Maybe I want to... this extra independence thing’. Because of course they saw who came into my house. They knew everything I was doing. […] So, it was when I moved then something more independent. Also, it was a bit far. It was 20 minutes from the city by train. Which is not really far if you think about it but the train goes every 20 minutes and then you get... I am a mess with my timing as well. And I always confused the time. I always got there and I had to wait 15 mins. So usually it took me like 45 minutes. I hate this, this process of the train and everything. And I think also like this neighbourhood was also very familiar. So, there was not a lot going on there. I always had to go out. […] But I think I started to feel a bit… I want to enjoy where all these things are around me. And, also the train line. I was taking the Upfield line. And at the Upfield line Coburg North is like two stations after Coburg. And Coburg, it was full of weird people sometimes. It was all right. I felt like quite funny and they didn't do anything to you. But still I saw many weird guys doing crazy stuff. Getting high on the train. And you know like in this moment I think, when I got there I felt very safe. But then in the train is when I started to discover like maybe taking this train at 11.30pm or 1am is also very, hmm

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I am taking a risk. So, I think in that moment I started to realise this is not very safe. I was coming back at 1.30am like on the last train. I had some drinks and stuff and then you are not very drunk but tipsy or something. And then because it was like a long line at the end sometimes I was alone in the car. I don't know how you call that. ‘What is if I am here with a crazy guy. I am on my own’. Maybe I started to be conscious that it was dangerous. You see during winter they start to get more on the train. I started to feel I am being irresponsible. I am not doing the right stuff. And maybe nothing can happen but also what we say in Spanish ‘giving Papaya'. You know I am putting myself very easily in a horrible situation. So, I started to stay with friends in the city at night when we went out to parties. And I remember talking with Manuel ‘Just pay a taxi. Like if you don't feel safe. It is never worth it’. In Colombia you get robbed and here you can get killed. I don't know people here... crazy people are crazy... just crazy people. They don't just take your wallet. They are just crazy. So, don't put yourself in a situation where you are in that spot and how much is a taxi. So, in the end I decided to take taxis and in the end I was paying the same amount as if I would be living in the city. So, it was...[laughing] it was just learning, I think. And yeah, but when I went to do my groceries in Coburg in the Coles, you see people, just crazy people. People talking... a lot of alcoholism. I don't know people just drugged inside the Coles. But before I didn't see it but then I started to realise. This is really not such a nice Coles. Then some friends told me because in Coburg there are a lot of houses from the government… they are giving to people with subsidies like I think is unemployment housing. So, you find this situation. I mean mostly nothing really ever happened to me but I know there are drugs. [Int. 3, 01:01]

Gabriela told me that these were the reasons why she moved to an apartment in Carlton after coming back from field research in Colombia as her feeling of unsafety outweighed her positive experience in Coburg North.

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In the first few months of discovering a city it is hard to make sense of the new place. A general sense of disorientation prevails while one is moving through unknown paths. Streets and neighbourhoods are empty of meaning and memories. Gaining an understanding of a place and locating it within the geography of an everyday life takes time. In Bogotá, Gabriela gained all this knowledge from her early childhood through her parents, her peers and her own experience. In her hometown it was important to know which parts of the city she needed to avoid, as some neighbourhoods were too dangerous for her to visit. Gabriela described how after being in Melbourne for a few months she started feeling unsafe. She referred to the risk of getting murdered and the high presence of drug dependent people in her immediate surrounding. Her fear of murder and drug related crime in Australia is interesting as presumably homicide rates in Colombia are many times higher than in Australia. Similarly, although drug dependency is a pressing issue in some Australian communities, the impact of drugs and especially the drug trade on the overall society is far less fatal in Australia than in Colombia. However, Melbourne was unfamiliar to her at this point in time which made risk harder to assess and this can evoke fear. The issue became so pressing for Gabriela that she decided to move to Carlton.

Coburg North, where she first moved to, is a relatively safe suburb. The Local Government Area (LGA) that Coburg North is part of shows a far lower drug crime rate as well as any other crime rates than the LGA in which Carlton is situated (Crime Statistics Agency 2017). Gabriela’s feeling of being unsafe is triggered by the visual appearance of the suburb and the higher visibility of social issues. Coburg North is a neighbourhood approximately 25 minutes away from the city centre by train. It is a suburban area. The majority of the buildings are one-family houses, apartments or social housing. There is little infrastructure in the suburb and it is hard to get around without a car. As Gabriela mentions, cafés, nice bars and shops are scarce and high- density traffic on big streets impacts on the flair of the suburb.

In comparison, in Carlton her apartment was only a few minutes away from her university and various cafés and bars. Carlton borders Melbourne’s CBD and is in close proximity to the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Melbourne’s CBD is known for high numbers of international

178 students, other internationals, white-collar workers and those working in the numerous galleries, cafés, restaurants, bars and shops in this area. Similarly, Carlton is filled with academics, local and international students, cineastes waiting for the beginning of their film at the famous Cinema Nova, people with a sweet tooth eating cake at the Italian pastry and coffee shop Brunetti, book lovers strolling through Readings, an internationally awarded book shop, and other Melbournians who can afford eating and drinking in the rather pricey bars and restaurants. Property prices in Carlton are high. Additionally, Carlton is a place where a hip and aspiring inner city demographic spends time, which gives the suburb a vibrant touch. Simultaneously, many commission flats are located in the suburb and they are home to some of the most disadvantaged people in Melbourne, with a high percentage of drug dependency and trade. Nevertheless, these issues are not highly visible as there are many pleasant aspects that dominate the street life of the suburb.

For my Colombian interlocutors none of the suburbs in Melbourne seemed dangerous when they first arrived in Melbourne. The areas they were taught to avoid in Bogotá look run down, lack infrastructure and homelessness is highly visible. In the opinion of the women of this research Melbourne’s more insecure or socioeconomically lower neighbourhoods look nothing like that. How danger and poverty look in both countries differs fundamentally. Settling in, Gabriela slowly developed a feeling for local expectations and standards of safety. Over time she gained local knowledge— which suburbs are seen as liveable, prestigious, trendy, vibrant and interesting—and she also started to understand how those differ in their appearance and infrastructure from those suburbs where the more disadvantaged population is residing.

After being in Melbourne for a few months, she got a better understanding of the social geography of Melbourne. Through the experiences she had over time in Coburg North it became clearer to Gabriela that she was out of place in this environment. The area she settled in Melbourne did not match her social status in Colombia and it also did not match her interests or needs. I suggest that her initial impression of safety collapsed with time as her perception of space intersects with class and safety in Bogotá. The growing awareness of her class difference and her unfamiliarity with certain codes and behaviours now fortified the foreignness of a new country and

179 culture. In Coburg North she was not only a foreigner; she was also from a different class background as the neighbourhood was neither prestigious nor hip. Additionally, as a young woman without family she did not feel like fitting in. Gabriela is not the only one with this experience. All women in my research chose suburbs that Melbournians commonly would describe as hip or are associated with a young emerging demographic. Middle-class Brazilians living in Sydney, similar to the women in this research, prefer suburbs that are trendy and where many white Australians reside, as they identify more with those areas then suburbs where migrants traditionally settled (Wulfhorst 2014, p. 478). Similarly, I argue that Gabriela can identify more with the demographic she is surrounded by in Carlton (not necessarily the people who live in Carlton) than those surrounding her in Coburg North.

‘No One had Lunch Outside of Their Offices’: Settling In

Gabriela likes Melbourne and she enjoys living here. Nonetheless, in our interviews she told me that she experienced a cultural shock when she arrived in Australia. The way of life in both countries is different and it took this Colombian woman a while to get used to some Australian habits. For example, she remembered how hard it was for her to be punctual. In the beginning she also struggled with the laid-back attitude in Australia as she told me that bureaucracy in Colombia is more rigid. Although in our interviews she emphasised that she did not encounter any big difficulties while relocating to Melbourne, she hints at her first weeks at university being one of the of the toughest challenges in the process of settling into Melbourne. Her story exemplifies how ethnic difference is often played out in marginal acts that nevertheless have a big impact on a person’s experience.

They [other PhD students] were not very open. No one had lunch outside of their offices. It was very strange. But I guess one day... I was telling my sister that this was happening. And she said: ‘Gabriela usually in those places where there are many international students there must be other people that just feel the same as you and just having their lunch at their desks because no one wants to have lunch outside. So just start doing

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it and people will follow’. And I thought ‘Yeah maybe I’ll try that’. And it became like an international group of people that had lunch outside. But it was not easy in the beginning. Because it really was a contrast, I think is a bit of a cultural difference in how... if you go to Colombia everyone welcomes you. ‘Where have you been? Have you been to this part of the city? Don't do this! Do that! This is where you can find your Computer’. Like you know... everyone will take care of each other. But people here are more independent. And I guess in that particular case because I don't want to generalise all PhD student. In that particular case my supervisors’ students were very old. They were very old... you know over 38. So, this people were… had been working for a long time on their PhDs, doing like very long field works and just wanted to graduate and to finish. I think it is not that they were not very nice with us. They were focusing on finishing and you are in this moment where you want to talk and to discuss how to do things. And they already have gone through this five years ago and they just want to finish and get out of Uni. [Int. 4, 00:12]

Repeatedly Gabriela mentioned that Australians are more individualistic in their way of life than Colombians. Gabriela has a tight network of supportive friends who she shares many interests with. Throughout my field research Gabriela had a busy social schedule where she spent time with her friends; many of them were Australian. However, as she told me in the above quote her experiences at university were disappointing. Even after submitting her thesis, she still recalled how foreign the culture at the institute was to her. She remembered how offended she felt when her Australian co-students preferred to eat by themselves at their tables instead of sharing a meal with her. Particularly in the beginning, their behaviour seemed even more threatening as Gabriela was new to the city and did not know if their behaviour was representative for most Melbournians or not. She was used to the familial culture at Colombian universities and expected a similar work environment. Moving overseas to undertake a PhD became a disappointment when she realised that her PhD experience would take place in a rather isolating environment. Reflecting back on this

181 time Gabriela laughs and says ‘Thankfully I met a lot of Aussies outside of academia so I got to see how sociable and lovely they normally are’.

Our third interview led Gabriela to reflect upon Australian society and similarities between both countries.

And because we don't have a lot of… recently there are a lot of foreign people coming in. So, it's opening to the multicultural stuff. But before it was always just Colombians. While here in Australia it is more mixed, more multicultural. People going out to have dinner at Asian restaurant and stuff like that but in Colombia this is not very common. So, I think people are more... those who are not open and are more... just are still going out... living in this multicultural city that has all the possibilities in the markets, in the festivals you know this stuff. While in Colombia I think we are very Colombian [laughs]. You know. You will find more local more.... [pause] I think like there is a lot of diversity but in every place you will find similar stuff. If I go from town to town it will be different but inside this everything will be very similar. And is very hard to find diversity in restaurants and so on in towns. While here it is not like that. Even in places that I have been in Queensland there is diversity of food. You know, even though just Australians... white Australians they are still hanging out in this place—multicultural. […] Hmm but we are also very similar like that also a bit racist and we don't recognise the diversity in our own country. I think in Colombia people are always putting down their Indigenous heritage. Here I think is the same with Aboriginal people or Asians or Indians. Even like Manuel’s supervisor, he is Australian. But he is from… his family is Chinese. And he told us that once a year he gets comments from someone saying ‘Fucking Chinese’. And he is Australian. You get to see we both live in this tension. I can relate to many issues here when I see them on TV or you know and when I see them in Colombia sadly it is the same. [Int. 3, 01:06]

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Comparing her experience in both countries, Gabriela does not touch on the topic of political stability, violence or any other related issues still occurring in contemporary Colombia. The political situation and lack of safety have a big influence on people’s everyday lives in Colombia and many of my other interlocutors pointed out how much they enjoy the relatively high standards of safety, working political system and the absence of deeply rooted corruption in Australia. Gabriela avoids talking about these big societal issues her country is facing although she is a politically interested person with a strong political opinion.

In Gabriela’s opinion the diversity of food in Melbourne’s streets, especially pan Asian cuisine, is striking. This variety in cuisine is regularly used to prove how multicultural Australia is in public discourse. Certainly, exotic food and folkloric tradition is a superficial understanding of multiculturalism and often induces stereotypes rather than discourages them (see Kalantzis & Cope 1981, cited in Poynting & Mason 2008, p. 235). Nonetheless, for Gabriela the diversity of different cuisines available in Australia is a consequence of the diverse communities living in the country. For her, the multicultural demographic of the country is new and fascinating. The existence of a diversity of food, even in remote non-urban environments in Australia, is a strong contrast to Colombia’s culinary landscape and Gabriela sees this as a sign that Australia was not isolated for the last few decades. Migration to Australia has left its trace. Gabriela reads the fact that even white Australians eat a diverse range of cuisines as a sign that Australia is multicultural in some respects. Due to its recent violent history, Colombia barely experienced any migration or even travellers and this is also visible in Colombia’s homogenous cuisine.

Many times Gabriela told me how shocked she was about Australia’s racism. Repeatedly she pointed out she could observe acts of racism towards others, those who looked different and had accents. She told me that she could see parallels between these attitudes and those of Colombia towards its Indigenous and Afro-Colombian population. In earlier moments of our interview Gabriela spoke clearly about the deep- rooted racism within Colombian society. Of all my interlocutors she was one of the most outspoken about those issues and their daily consequences for the victims. Gabriela made a strong point about how the majority of her experiences were pleasant,

183 positive and welcoming. However, in the following I will present some of Gabriela’s story where she was faced by stereotypes. By doing so I illustrate how, even though Gabriela maintains much of her privileged position in Australia, she experiences otherness and how the young Colombian woman navigates those moments. Being a highly educated PhD student at an elite university and receiving financial support from the Colombian government nonetheless intersects with her status as a migrant woman from a nation of the Global South that is known for its violence and drug trade.

‘Oh Colombian. Do You have Drugs with You?’: Encountering Stereotypes

While Gabriela’s described her everyday life in Melbourne as being easy and exciting for most of the time she remembered a few incidents that made her feel deeply uncomfortable. For example, she told me that she was visiting a dumpling festival near Federation Square in Melbourne’s CBD together with some friends a few years ago, when it suddenly started raining. The group decided to go to a bar and have a drink to shelter from the rain. Before they were allowed to enter, they had to show their ID’s to the bouncer.

So, he saw our ID's and told us ‘Oh Colombian. Do you have drugs with you?’ Usually like is something that Colombians dealt a lot with. People are always ‘Ah Colombians. Do you have coke?’ And these jokes are just like [makes an annoyed noise]. This is really not a very nice thing to do. But anyways, you are used to it so you don't really care. Like in the end it is something, if people do that ‘Okay’ […]. Anyways. The guy told us that and then he told us… he wanted to know if we were going to do illegal [things] and we said no. It was raining [laughing] and we had to go inside because we didn't want to get wet. And in the end we went inside. And we were just sitting there and after an hour he came back again and he told us ‘Ah are you talking anything illegal...bla bla bla’. I remember I was also with a Colombian friend and two Italian friends. And I told them ‘I think I want to leave. I am not very comfortable’. And they said ‘No no no. This guy is an asshole. Let's go’. So, we stood up

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and he shouted ‘Be careful the Colombians are coming. Take your things’. And I felt so furious. I was so mad. But I knew the guy was huge. He was a very big Aussie guy and I felt like afraid to confront him because he was like a bouncer. You don't know if he has tools to hurt you or whatever. And I don't want to put myself in this situation because you are just having a beer. And I knew that he was not a very rational guy. Where you could just say ‘Hey, please stop it. It is not very nice’. So, I left and I was so pissed. […] I felt humiliated. We really just having a beer. It is so horrible to be treated like that. [Int. 4, 00:24]

Gabriela was devastated that somebody had made her feel uncomfortable and out of place because of her nationality. Being associated with Narcos was particularly insulting as Gabriela tries to distance herself from Narcos and the stereotypes attached to it. Gabriela and her partner decided to complain and write an email to the venue where the incident took place. In response, Gabriela received an answer from the manager of the venue who apologised and guaranteed that he would follow the incident up. He assured Gabriela that his employee would attend a workshop on discrimination and he would follow the procedures recommended by the Australian Equal Opportunity Act. Gabriela did not want an apology in person so she and the manager agreed on a written one. Gabriela told me with a smile that she strategically signed her email as a PhD student from her prestigious university

In this moment I think because in Melbourne being a student from my uni is also like very... like people believe that you are very smart or whatever I don't know. And also because you are a PhD student is […] really I don't create disorder... [laughs]. [Int. 3, 00:23]

Gabriela’s comment highlights her awareness of social position and that she knows that her position has a value which she can use for her advantage in Australia. She is well aware that her status as PhD student from one of the most prestigious universities in the country puts her in a more powerful position and will work in her favour. A claim from an international PhD student presumably has a stronger effect than a claim

185 from a migrant worker. Even though Gabriela is a migrant and the bouncer is Australian his working-class status gives Gabriela greater authority and the respectability attached to her status as PhD student from her prestigious university additionally helped her to substantiate that she was not a troublemaker or somebody who transgressed social rules.

The existing anti-discrimination frameworks and institutions, which execute and implement these rules if necessary in Australia, are important to Gabriela, and to her sense of security and belonging. She believes in the power of these laws and frameworks and hence trusts the Australian state, legal system and society to protect her from racism and discrimination. This is what also makes her feel welcome in Australia.

I argue that reporting the incident can be read as a result of Gabriela’s class status as she knows that she occupies a position of power in which her complaint will be taken seriously. Her being in the world, her upbringing and her education taught her, rightfully, that she should not be treated this way. In this instance the strategy worked. The effectiveness of complaining or reporting injustice and discrimination often depends upon a person’s social position as not everybody gets heard to the same extent. Being heard is a privilege. Her education enabled her to lodge a formal complaint, write an effective email and navigate anti-discrimination laws and frameworks. Additionally, she and her partner have an embodied knowledge of how to talk when trying to be heard and taken seriously, as well as the self-esteem to stand up for themselves.

‘I Think if I Don't Talk I Can Easily Pass as an Australian’

Australian legal frameworks can provide her legal support and protection but they do not stop prejudices. Throughout her time in Melbourne, Gabriela experienced a whole range of different stereotypes regarding her nationality or her ethnicity that always intersect with her being a migrant woman. In Gabriela’s experience Australians often imagine a migrant from Colombia to be poor, desperate for a better life and badly educated, as they think of Colombia as a ‘Third World Country’. Overseas, Gabriela,

186 a white upper-class woman who received Western education all her life, is exposed to the idea that Colombia is a non-Western country (see Wulfhorst 2014 ).

Her cultivated behaviour, her demeanour, as well as her high level of education often surprise her counterparts. Gabriela does not match people’s expectations of a Colombian migrant. As a Colombian, she not only faces stereotypes about being from an inferior ‘Third World Country’ but also about being from a nation that is known for its violent history, cocaine, drug lords, insecurity, homicides, active guerrillas and brutal paramilitaries. As a Latin American woman Gabriela encounters over- sexualisation by male Australians in which she feels portrayed as ‘[…] dumb and sexual and just dance and laugh and silly’. [Int. 4, 00:35]

Because we have accent, so they ask. So, they come to us and ‘Hey, bla bla bla’ and they are talking about something and then because of your accent ‘Ah where are you from?’ So, it is more because they realise that we are not from here and then some are like ‘Ah Colombia, I travelled there’. Most I think, in Melbourne a lot of people have been in South America. Usually I feel the comments are more positive than negative. In other places I have been in England they are very or more like ‘Oh Colombian’ [derogative noise] [laughs]. And here is more ‘Ahhhh, I have been there. I went to bla bla’. They even have been to places I have never been. But some others I guess... they don’t see the Colombian in my face and then they go and ask me and when they realise it, it is like, uh, is not what I want’. [Int. 4, 00:49]

In Gabriela’s opinion it is not her face or any other aspect of her appearance that discloses that she is a migrant. Her vulnerable spot, her marker of difference, is her accent, as it reveals that she is not a native English speaker and contests her place in Australian society. This has wider reaching implications for her and her behaviour in public. Back when Gabriela was still living in Coburg, a situation on the train made her realise her vulnerability as a migrant.

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And once there was this crazy guy shouting stuff to an Asian girl.... And he was saying ‘Fucking Asian. Get out of this country’. And I was just thinking ‘Oh my god. I could be next in the line’. Because if you don't speak maybe they think you are an Australian. So, I tried not to. But it is terrible because sometimes at night when there were crazy people on the train I didn't pick up my phone or anything. If someone was calling me I was texting. Because, I don’t want them to hear my accent. You know, you could be spotted like that. [Int. 3, 01:01]

Gabriela is a migrant in Australia, but in her opinion her appearance, her fair skin and her natural straight brown hair do not distinctly mark her as a migrant, as long as she does not speak. But, when she speaks her accent intersects with her appearance. Once her accent is noticeable her prior inconspicuous appearance also turns into a marker of difference and makes her identifiable as a Southern European or Latin American migrant. By not talking, Gabriela can hide her accent, which in her perception is a marker of her otherness. She is doing this strategically in situations that make her feel uncomfortable or where she fears she could be targeted by aggression or discrimination. The experience of having an accent or being different in other ways in relation to those who are defined as ‘normal’ or ‘standard majority self’ is conceptualised as visible difference by Colic-Peisker & Tilbury (2007, p. 60), which means that a person visibly carries markers of difference in relation to their culture, religion, ethnicity or race. In the Australian context this includes

[…] ‘accent’ when they speak English; by skin colour and bodily and facial features; by dress and attire, often connotative of religious denomination; or by a combination of these ‘visibilities’, together with various degrees of cultural difference. (Colic-Peisker & Tilbury 2007, p. 61)

However, it is important to keep in mind that not all visible differences have the same implications. A European accent in Australia, also a visible difference, has different consequences for the person than for example black skin colour or wearing a hijab.

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Visible differences have different consequences and create different degrees of difference, otherness, discrimination and racism. Visible difference does not necessarily take away a person’s whiteness, as in the case of Western European migrants in Australia. Some, such as accent and attire, are more easily muted than others, as they can be changed or hidden. In Gabriela’s perception, accent makes her different and qualifies her to be a potential victim of racist slurs. It is interesting to note that in her perception, her skin colour, which she understands as olive skin in an Australian context, does not mark her as other or different. She knows that because of her appearance, attire and being in the world, she is less affected by racism and discrimination than some other migrants or racialised Australians. Racialised Australians, particularly of Middle Eastern and South Asian backgrounds, as well as migrants from these regions, experience racism at higher rates than others in Australia (Dunn & Nelson 2011, p. 595).

‘I Think I Can Pass as an Italian Heritage’: Questions of Belonging

I think if I don't talk I can easily pass as an Australian. Like usually and sometimes people talk to me ‘Ah you are not Australian’. Because in Melbourne there is a lot of Italian heritage and women are like brown hair... like I could say I could fit in with this type. I don't know... whatever that means. I think I can pass as an Italian heritage like of course not the blonde Aussie. But I think with Manuel he has like black hair but he is very white. I think it is more his accent, because he has a very good accent. So, he could easily pass […] as an Australian. When you talk to him it is very funny. Usually people like ‘Are you Colombian? Really?’ He has no Latin accent. Sometimes his friends tell me ‘We know his Latin accent when he is with you. Like you bring that with you’. [Int. 4, 00:51]

In her observation Gabriela revealed as much about herself as she does about Australian society, which she has come to know over the last four years. Gabriela believed that she was able to pass as an Australian. This might not be surprising as

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Australia is a country with multicultural policies and many Australian citizens are from diverse backgrounds. Gabriela points to something different. After living in Australia for a few years and getting to know the inherent social rules and dynamics she knows that citizenship is not what gives her the legitimation of ‘being Australian’. Passing as Australian is based on the judgment of her social surrounding and the believe that she is culturally similar to the imagined white, Anglo-Australian norm (Hage 2000; Stratton 1999). Again, her statement illustrates the importance Gabriela attaches to her accent, which reveals that she is not a native English speaker. In all other regards such as her appearance, attire and demeanour she believes she is able to pass as Australian.

Although being a migrant from Colombia, Gabriela knows that the Australian community does not perceive her as a ‘Third World Woman’ (Mohanty 1984). Her demeanour and her physical appearance do not match with the representation of a poor, uneducated, non-western woman in need of protection, nor does her economic situation or experience of male dominance (see Harter 1997). To make sense of her contested position, which situates her between passing/belonging and being different/the other she concludes that she could pass as Italian-Australian, but not as white Anglo-Australian. Although slowly changing, ‘being white’, Christian and ‘Anglo’ Australian is still perceived as the core of ‘being Australian’ (Forrest 2006, p. 208; see also Colic-Peisker 2005; Hage 2000). By saying that she is able to pass as Italian-Australian Gabriela acknowledges Australia’s history and its impact on who passes as white and can profit from this racial identity. Because of Australia’s White Australia policy, the category of white is narrower than in other countries (Farquharson 2007). At the time of the policy, Italians would not pass as white. However, nowadays Italians are accepted and perceived as an old established migrant community and also as one of the white migrant groups in Australia. This means that Gabriela thinks she could pass as Australian but not as what is perceived to be the true Anglo-Australian. Interestingly, this group is often described as having a particular Australian accent, which identifies them as Italian-Australian.

The reoccurring theme of accent also plays a role in her perception of Manuel’s position within Australian society. She emphasises that it is his accent that makes him

190 blend in easily into Australian society. This assumption of hers is questionable. An English accent does not create Australianness as the two accents are different. English accents stand out in Australia. Nevertheless, an English accent is still much more advantageous than a Latin American accent as it feeds into Manuel’s whiteness. ‘In Anglophone but multi-ethnic Australia, every minority language has its approximate status rank’ (Colic-Peisker 2002, p. 152). Colic-Peisker continues to elaborate that ‘[…] some foreign accents, such as American or French, may be prestigious, connecting the speaker with places of “popular desire”, while some others may associate the speaker with places commonly perceived as “backward” and “uncivilized”’ (Colic-Peisker 2002, p. 152).

In her study on Bosnian refugees in Australia, Colic-Peisker (2005, p. 619) points out that people who speak English with a foreign accent are more easily perceived as others than migrants who are native English speakers. Claiming belonging is harder as a non-native English speaker in Australia (Colic-Peisker 2005, p. 619). Accents are thus used to differentiate between those who are ‘Australian’ (read Anglo-Australians) and those who are ‘others’ even though they might be native English speakers (see Colic-Peisker 2002). This means that Manuel’s accent may put him in a more privileged position than Gabriela within Australian society. Compared to Gabriela’s Latin American/Spanish accent his British English is less a marker of difference. His accent may be perceived as culturally closer to Australian society, more familiar then hers. Her accent is more likely to evoke negative stereotypes than a British accent.

Nevertheless, in Gabriela’s understanding, her Spanish or Latin accent is a disadvantage, especially when she is comparing herself to Manuel. By comparing her experiences to those of her partner she indirectly portrays her accent as a hindrance in the process of passing as Australian. Manuel has a ‘good’ accent—thus an English accent—whereas she does not think of her accent as being ‘good’. Her accent reinforces her status as a migrant (from the Global South) and Gabriela even believes that her accent is not only her visible difference but also Manuel’s, because her presence amplifies his accent and uncovers his cultural background. Indirectly Gabriela portrays him as whiter and more Australian than herself. She has to lose her voice in order not to attract attention to the fact that she is a migrant. It is interesting

191 that in Gabriela’s opinion, Manuel can speak and still pass as Australian as he speaks with a British accent. I argue that Gabriela’s comment rather reflects that she believes that Manuel occupies a social location that is more powerful and advantageous than hers.

In Gabriela’s perception, Manuel and she occupy different social positions in Australia. Nonetheless, it gives insight into how Gabriela makes sense of her position as migrant in Australia.

All his friends are Aussie guys and Aussie girls. He has moved in Sydney just with Aussie people. He doesn't know any Colombians. He doesn't want to. He has not really met any. And he is ‘There are no Colombians in Sydney’. I am like ‘There are many’. […] Because he is always hanging out with Aussie guys and Aussie girls. And he is... yeah... even if he speaks no one will recognise he is a Latino. Like he really passes as an Australian. When I am there everything is really Australian while when he is here everything is more Latin. Because I am more like. I never realised I was this you could say Latin. When I came here I realised that I really enjoy that and it is more of my thing. And I feel connected to our ways of doing things. I am always like looking for that. Even with the Australian people. But his friends are not like that. […] I guess he never embraced his Latin side as much as I did. I think… his best friends in his school where always expats. So, he has always been with British and like... always been very comfortable with foreign people and he is not the best Latin dancer. He hates... he says ‘I hate soccer’. He is really a bit— you could say—different. But there are many Colombians like him. But here no one pushes him to be that Latin he is not. But in Colombia people push him. He has to dance. He has… everyone is watching the soccer match. It is just like crazy if you are not doing it. You have to get drunk. I think here he is free to not be that. [Int. 4, 00:55]

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Here Gabriela elaborates on other aspects of Manuel’s lifestyle that enabled him to accumulate Australianness (see Hage 2000, p. 52). As Gabriela pointed out, in her opinion Manuel’s lifestyle is not typically Latin American, neither in Australia nor in Colombia. Manuel’s networks, especially his Australian friends, facilitate his passing as Australian. His friends’ Australianness rubs off on Manuel and he is able to skilfully blend in with his surroundings. Being a man and studying science at an elite university in Sydney also enabled him to accumulate Australianness as the ideal of Australian national identity is connected to masculinity (Anderson 2009, p. 197; Morris 2006; Vasta 1993, p. 212). His aversion to activities such as soccer and dancing, activities that are important in Colombian social groups, seemingly make it easier for Manuel to blend in as he does not want to hold on to those activities. The reverse applies for Gabriela. Moving to Australia she realised how much she enjoys and identifies with everyday Latin American culture. Gabriela actively seeks out Latin American cultural activities, food, music and friends who are from Latin America or interested in Latin American culture to affirm her sense of belonging. Hage (2000, p. 52) writes that a migrant can accumulate ‘Australianness’ through adopting looks and accents but also ‘demeanour, taste, nationally valued social and cultural preferences and behaviour, etc....’ (Hage 2000, p. 52). Through their lifestyle choices Manuel and Gabriela accumulated different degrees of Australianness/being able to pass as Australian. By comparing her and Manuel’s strategies, Gabriela highlights that passing as Australian comes with a high cost; she would lose parts of her cultural identity by assimilating more to Australian culture. Additionally, Gabriela’s tendency to portray herself in a slightly lower social position than Manuel could also reflect embodied gender relations which she expresses in this way.

In this chapter I have shown how Gabriela’s life in Colombia was framed by her privileges as white and upper class. The strength of her story lies in the detail with which she speaks about the everydayness of growing up as an upper-class woman in Bogotá. Gabriela’s life story, her family background, the area where she grew up, the school and university she went to, the area she spent time in and her overseas stay are representative for the life stories of all the upper-class women who grew up in Bogotá in this research.

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Gabriela draws the picture of a liberal, highly educated family that she grew up in and portrays her mother and grandmother as strong female figures in her life. Her thoughts on her father’s handling of his Indigenous background give insights about today’s discourses on race in Colombia and shows how her family tries to hide aspects that could contest their whiteness. The narrative about Gabriela’s maid Ximena exemplifies how Gabriela’s family embodies the class structures she grew up in. Despite her liberal beliefs it took her a long time to question practices of (class and race) stratification/segregation in her own home. Similar to Teresa, Gabriela experiences stereotypes and resentments for being upper class while living in Colombia but also amongst Colombians living in Melbourne. I argue that Gabriela occupies a position of power where those resentments and stereotypes cannot touch her privilege. Hence, being faced by these stereotypes does not contest her privilege.

Gabriela’s narrative shows that she is able to transfer many of her privileges to Australia. She writes her PhD at one of the most prestigious universities in the country and receives a scholarship from the Colombian government that covers her tuition fees as well as living costs for four years. Although being a migrant woman from the Global South, the trajectory of her professional life smoothly continues on in Australia. Gabriela’s narrates her life as a continuous path from her high school to her PhD. Here the story about her first flat in Melbourne stands out from the rest of her narrative. I argue that the story she is telling about Coburg North is a story about being out of place. Being new to a place and not understanding the social geography of Melbourne she finds herself somewhere she does not want to be once she develops a feeling for the city and which groups occupy certain places. Once she understood that she was living in a neighbourhood that she could not identify with as it was neither upper class/prestigious or young and trendy she moved to a place that fits her sense of belonging.

As stated above, in Australia, Gabriela still occupies a relatively stable privileged identity and positionality. Nonetheless, she experiences that she is no longer part of the unmarked and white segment of society. She does not belong to the socially and culturally dominant group of the country anymore. This contests her stable privilege

194 to some extent. However, Gabriela’s story shows how she can use many of her privileges, particularly her class status, to counteract for example stereotypes.

Finally, her chapter illustrates how Gabriela experiences privilege relationally. Throughout her story she presents her privilege as stable and uncontested. However, comparing herself to her partner Manuel, particularly comparing her accent (a Spanish/Latin American accent) to his (which she perceives to be British) creates a situation in which she contests her own privilege. By comparing herself to him she makes the point that his accent is ‘better’ than hers. Further, she suggests that he acquired a white Australian upper-class friendship circle and adopted an Australian lifestyle whereas she portrays her social circle and lifestyle as more Latin American. I argue that in relation to Manuel she experiences her privilege as less stable in Australia. As she points out, one aspect of this is that she identifies stronger as Latin American in Australia than her partner does. In Australia, her ethnicity contests her privilege in relation to Manuel, who adopted an Australian lifestyle and who she perceives to be whiter than she is, as he speaks with a non-Latin American accent. Her perception could also be influenced by Manuel’s inherent gendered privilege.

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7. Sol: Contested Privilege

The final narrative, the story of Sol, provides a slightly different perspective into the ways in which the women in this thesis experience privilege and aspects of their identities in Colombia and after migrating to Australia. Sol’s story highlights a different perspective in so far as Sol is from a middle-class family from Barranquilla, a city on the Atlantic Coast of Colombia, and her whiteness is less stable than the white social locations the other women in this research occupy. This provides a different backdrop to her migrant experience where Sol does not carry the same degree of privilege with her compared to the other white upper-class women represented in this thesis. The fact that she feels she carries with her less privilege shapes the ways in which she experiences and interprets her opportunities as well as the challenges and hindrances she encounters on her way.

Her narrative shows how Sol negotiates her more contested social location in Barranquilla, Bogotá and finally in Australia, which highlights the contextual and relational character of categories of difference. Her story also explores how, for Sol, the ethnic difference she experiences is a source of identity but also a cause of discrimination. Sol experiences her ethnic identity as something positive and a marker of her Latin American identity within Australian society. However, when looking for a job this difference turns into a disadvantage. This highlights the crucial impact of location (in this case the labour market in Australia) on a person’s identities. Her story explains how Sol makes sense of these different locations. Her narrative shows how she finds places within multicultural Australia where she can succeed as ethnic migrant woman. Finally, her narrative explores a new chapter of her life, motherhood. Her story highlights how Sol once again experienced major changes to her lifestyle as migrant mother with the support of her husband, but without her extended family.

It has been a while since the last time I saw Sol. I wondered if she had changed since our last catch up, after all she is a mother now. I am slowly making my way from the

196 train station to Sol’s new rental house in Reservoir, a part of the city I have never been to before. On my walk I see many hijab-wearing women driving four-wheel drives to and from the nearby community centre that also borders the local high school, primary school and kinder garden. These pictures evoke a friendly, multicultural, suburban neighbourhood. After a 15-minute walk I finally arrive at Sol’s new home. It is big, with a front-garden. Later that afternoon Sol explained to me that she and her husband initially wanted to rent a house in Coburg or West Brunswick, as those areas are close to where the majority of their lives are happening but the rent was cheaper in Reservoir. Setting the priority on a big house, the young family had to move further out but still not too far away from Brunswick and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Of all the women in my research, I met Sol last. I had heard a lot about her but our paths never crossed. It was no surprise that I never got to see Sol as she was working several jobs, ran a faith group at church and was involved in multiple other projects. After a few months of trying and re-scheduling one catch up after the other we finally met up.

Sol holds a BA in Mechanical Engineering from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo, a private university in Barranquilla and also one of the top five universities in Colombia. She also holds a Master’s in Project Evaluation from Universidad Iberoamericana, the most prestigious university in Colombia, and an MA in International Development from the University of Sydney. In 2010 she moved to Sydney to study. After finishing university she and her husband, who she had known since high school, got married and together moved to Melbourne where they have lived since, for over 5 years. During this time Sol became the co-founder of a Social Enterprise and a Latin American cultural organisation in Australia, and in doing so has developed a name for herself as a community leader. Both the social enterprise and the cultural organisation aimed to positively promote a diverse Latin American culture in Australia. Sol was also engaged with a Latin American Catholic Church community in the inner north of Melbourne, where she ran a spiritual faith group for young Latin American migrants. She is a spiritual woman but she did not talk much about this; she was the opposite of preachy and not judgmental of atheists like me who chose very different lifestyles. Sol also worked as a Spanish teacher. During most of the time of our interviews Sol had a

197 short term contract working for another social enterprise organisation. In 2016 she and her husband received Australian citizenship and in 2017, and shortly after we finished the first round of interviews and her contract finished, they had their first child. ‘I Never Lacked Anything’: Growing up in Barranquilla

Sol grew up in Barranquilla, a city on the Atlantic Coast of Colombia. Barranquilla is located at the mouth of the Magdalena River and is a historically important port in the region (Stanfield 2013, p. 15). The Atlantic Coast, also called La Costa, is characterised by a highly racially mixed population (Wade 1993, p. 85). Within Colombia’s racialised geography (Appelbaum 2003; Valle 2017; Wade 1993) the Atlantic Coast is associated with blackness and a mixed population (Valle 2017, p. 10; Wade 1985, p. 238). As opposed to Bogotá, black culture still has a great impact on the Atlantic Coast (Wade 1993, p. 92). Its enduring importance is linked to the region historically being at the centre of black resistance in New Granada, which constituted a counterbalance to the dominant tendency of blanqueamiento in colonial times (Wade 1993, p. 92).

Sol’s narrative starts with her childhood in Barranquilla and a description of her hometown that reveals much about Sol’s social location within Colombia.

It was the early days of summer in 2015 when Sol and I finally recorded our first interview. I was meeting her on a late summer evening at her home on the western fringes of Melbourne’s inner north. The couple rented a little house with two bedrooms and a living room. It was the first of four houses attached to each other. There was no outside area besides a tiny porch at the front door. Her house sat on the top of a long, stretched-out hill in the middle of a residential area. Her suburb was a neighbourhood that slowly became part of the expanding inner north of Melbourne. It is an area where young, professional couples are trying to buy houses because of its proximity to the city centre. The majority of the population is Australian born and those who are not belong to traditional migrant communities such as Italian, Greek and English but also Indian-Australians (Moreland City Council 2017). A busy and noisy street intersects

198 with the little street Sol was lives on. It was our first catch up in a while and I was nervous interviewing her. I remember standing in front of her door and hearing her friendly greetings through the closed door. She then opened the door, looked at me and gave me a welcoming hug. I immediately felt more relaxed seeing her warm smile and I felt a little less embarrassed that I only brought some chocolate as a present. Sol and I were standing on her porch, from where we could see quiet streets, beautiful little houses, trees and roses growing in people’s front yards. I realised that Sol looked younger than her age. Sol’s attire often had a very classic touch, which made her look more mature.

Sol has curly dark brown hair and fair olive skin with many freckles. Although, Sol lived in Bogotá for a few years, she has a Caribbean accent when speaking Spanish. She uses her hands a lot while talking. Her intonation can at times be dramatic and very engaged; the tone of her voice often changes and the melody of her words sound like singing. During our conversations Sol often added authority to her words and directed her message at me by starting a sentence with ‘Viktoria…’. All of this made it easy to follow Sol’s stories.

Sol’s house is small and the living room, centred on a TV and two comfortable rocking chairs, lacks natural light. Stepping into her house took me to the Caribbean Coast of Latin America. However, soon after my first visit, Sol hung a collection of pictures and photos brought from a trip to Colombia back to Melbourne. Some of them were pictures from their wedding in Colombia, some were old pictures of Sol as a young girl, other photos taken at the famous Carnival in Barranquilla. Rocking back and forth in our rocking chairs I start asking Sol about her childhood. Sol begins by recollecting the place she grew up:

In my childhood… I grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood. My family is… my parents are from a middle class. […] I grew up in a

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middle-class family and we never lacked anything. I never lacked

anything. [Int. 1, 00:02]8

Sol comes from a family of teachers. Her father was a professor who taught Chemistry at one of the public universities in the city and her mother was a teacher at a local high school. Sol’s grandparents were also teachers. Her father’s family was from a small fishing village and Sol described her father’s family as at times struggling financially. The financial situation was not much different on her mother’s side of the family. She remembered her mother telling her that her family too was rather poor and her mother’s parents at times struggled earning enough money to cover the family’s food when her mother was still a child. Through their move to the biggest city in the region and their university education Sol’s parents experienced some significant upward social mobility. Starting a family on their own, Sol’s parents were able to provide a financially stable home to their children in which all children of the family received only the best education.

All my life in Colombia, in Barranquilla we lived, as I told you, in a neighbourhood in the south. It was not a neighbourhood in the north. Nevertheless, I grew up in an environment that was not… not like in the south. And I went to a good high school. I attended the best university. So yeah, I grew up in a good environment with pleasant people. We are not rich because my father is not rich. We lived well. We never lacked anything. We never lacked any food. Our house is a comfortable house. I grew up comfortable but without luxury. [Int. 2, 38:47]

Sol described how she grew up in a loving and caring home with her parents and a younger brother. She told me that her younger brother was born when she was five years old and from then on her mother stayed at home looking after the two children. Her extended family played a big role throughout her life in Colombia but especially

8 The interviews with Sol were conducted in Spanish. The transcripts were translated by the author.

200 so in her childhood. Most of her teenage years she spent with her cousin who was living with her grandparents. Sol remembered how at the age of nine, her family relocated to another suburb, so they could be closer to their relatives. The house the family bought was bigger than their old one but it was still in the south of the city. Her neighbourhood was an estrato three barrio (see Chapter 4). The south of Barranquilla is not an entirely white space. It is a mixed middle-class to working-class area, where white neighbourhoods live alongside black or mixed neighbourhoods. Some neighbourhoods house families financially better off, while in other neighbourhoods poverty dominates. I continued asking about her hometown. This led Sol to talk more generally about the Coast’s perception in wider Colombia.

At the coast are a lot of blacks [negros]. And because of this when a person says that he is from the coast people [from other parts of Colombia] think that all Costeños have like bad or curly hair [pelo malo] and really dark skin. It is a stereotype that people from the interior [of the country] or from other cities have, that people from the Coast are dark skinned people [gente morena] and with this type of traits. But this is not true because there are a lot of white [blanco] people at the Coast. There are people with light hair and generally the white people [los blancos] and the people with the straight hair [cabello lizo] and these pretty facial features; these are people from the upper classes. […] The working class low low in the low neighbourhoods tend to have more negritos… they tend to have this difference…. [Int. 1, 00:43]

First, the language Sol is using to describe racialised difference reflects societal ideas about race and beauty in Colombia. Sol, as with many other Colombians, embodied this racialised logic in which beauty equals whiteness and represents what is desirable (Stanfield 2013). Second, Sol’s account demonstrates Colombia’s racialised geography (Appelbaum 2003; Wade 1993). It also shows that she is well aware that the Atlantic Coast, a space in Colombia’s racialised geography that is imagined as non-white and racially mixed, is seen as inferior to white departamentos/cities (see Chapter 4). Given this, Sol knows how and where it locates her within this geography

201 and the wider Colombian society. Her reflections on place, race and class show the manifold aspects that shape her concrete social location in multiple locations, her barrio, the city of Barranquilla and Colombia. These multiple signifiers of her social location are also reflected in her discourse on class. First, she speaks about financial assets as a marker of her middle-class status. She then changes her discourse on class to one that conflates with race and place. Her spatial location, as well as her race, again position her as middle class.

In Sol’s early memories, she describes Barranquilla as a safe city. She did not have any particular memories from her childhood or adolescence about acts of violence or a general environment of insecurity. In her memory neither Escobar, the drug cartels nor the paramilitaries and FARC were present in Barranquilla during her childhood and adolescence. In her understanding, Barranquilla was much safer at this point in time than Bogotá or Cali. Nevertheless, when I asked her if she was able to walk around by herself in her neighbourhood as a child and teenager Sol clarified that while playing outside they were under constant surveillance by a family member. All children of the family were only allowed to play in the same block as their houses. However, she felt safe. Sol disclosed that the first and only time she visited a suburb she perceived to be very poor and dangerous was through a school volunteer program organised in year 11. She continued telling me that the city had changed a lot in the last few years, becoming far more dangerous than it ever had been in her childhood.

There are far more burglaries. They increased a lot. Social problems got bigger. The Barranquilla I am visiting now is not the Barranquilla from my childhood. 30 years ago. It was a quiet and safe city. […] This applies even more so to the south […] Because there is a lot of social division. Because in Barranquilla there is the upper class, that’s the people who have money, not quite as upper class, after that there is upper middle class, middle, middle working, working, working working. Depending on the neighbourhoods you have more or less insecurity. We are living in a middle-class neighbourhood but it is in the south of the city. And, the [very] south of the city is working class… it is a working-class area. [Int. 1, 00:11]

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In the above section, Sol elaborates in a nuanced description on intersecting factors that determine her social location in Barranquilla and also in broader Colombian society. She then continues explaining to me the social structures of her city.

Rich people are not living in this area. It could be that rich people live there but the area is not known to be a rich area. Because there are upper- class neighbourhoods [in other parts of the city] and the people identify them as rich neighbourhoods. […] Yes, in Barranquilla… if you go to Barranquilla people automatically think that the neighbourhoods in the south are working-class neighbourhoods. But, the neighbourhoods in the south have a variation of classes. There are nice neighbourhoods. But, there are also neighbourhoods in the south that are really dangerous and hideous. My family… we are living in the south of the city. But, within this south of the city we are living in a good neighbourhood. In a middle- class neighbourhood. In the south south south of Barranquilla there are neighbourhoods where one can only enter with police. [Int. 1, 00:12]

And the centre?

Okay. The city centre... It is seen as part of the south. […] It is where the market is. […] The city centre is the place where working-class people go to buy clothes. And that is the centre of the city. If we go further up from the centre we will find commercial centres where people with money go to buy their clothes. For example, in my house… my mother and father we would never go into the city centre to buy clothes. We would always go to the expensive commercial centre […] in the north.

And the north? The cultural life? Is it in the centre?

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All over the city. If you go to the centre you will encounter ‘common people’ [la clase popular]. You will encounter people selling you juice on the street and fried arepas. They going to sell you chorizo… working- class people and the dialect… the dialect is a working-class dialect. And you will hear a lot of music… it is beautiful… I really like it. You will see a lot of people that do not pay a lot of attention to how they look like… if they are badly dressed, because it is a working-class area. If you would go to the north of the city, to a shopping centre in the north… the girls are normally very worried if the shoes do not go with the shirt they are wearing. [...] But if I go to the city centre I put on my most ugly pair of shoes and my ugliest pair of jeans so that I don’t get mugged because the risk that I get robbed is much bigger in the city centre than in the fancy shopping centres. […] For Christmas my mum and dad took us to a place to buy cloth and presents… to a place called Vivero. It was in the north. For special days they would always take us there. My grandmother was working in the centre and there were certain things that my parents would only buy in the city. There was an ice-cream store that I loved and a bakery with the best empanada and we would always go to these places in the city centre to eat ice cream. [Int. 1, 00:17]

I continue asking Sol if there is a lot of racism in her hometown in her opinion:

Yes, yes, more than anything it is racism in regards to social stratification… this racism was always there. There was always a strong difference between those living in the north and those living in the south. Always. I remember when I was at high school; my school was in the north. […]. It wasn’t a school for rich people but for normal people… or let’s say middle class. But, I remember somebody asking me: ‘Where do you live?’ And I said that I was living in Santa Cruz. ‘Ohh, you are living in the south’. I remember that. And when I studied at university the same thing happened. The university was in the north north of the city. And in

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that university a lot of people with money studied. […] Poor people don’t study at this university. [Int. 1, 00:51]

As Sol explained to me, people were surprised that she lived in the south of the city as they expected her to reside in the north of Barranquilla. In her description of her hometown she mentions a north/south divide, similar to the divide in Bogotá. The north symbolises the wealthy, white upper-class neighbourhoods whereas the south represents middle- and working-class mixed-race neighbourhoods and insecurity. In Sol’s perception, the city centre of Barranquilla belongs to the south of the city and thus she would classify it as rather working class but not exclusively. Sol names a few markers of difference, which she attaches to working-class culture. These are a certain liveliness of the neighbourhood, the presence of street vendors, and loud music, which she associates with certain working-class areas. Further, as shown above, in her perception there is distinct dialect to be found in working-class areas as well as a more casual way of dressing.

Sol’s description also highlights her nuanced class perception and awareness. She is not the only woman in this research who divides society into many different social classes. The multiplicity of class categories exemplifies the importance of class and class belonging for Sol. She particularly names six different class positions. This number coincides with the six social strata in Colombia’s estrato system. The estrato system links space to social strata (see Chapter 4). This intersection is also visible in Sol’s narrative. Spaces are racialised and classed in Colombia (see Chapter 4). Her words highlight this and show how her class identity is intertwined with the suburb and the estrato she grew up in, but also with other spaces such as the suburb of her high school. In her story Sol distances herself from the working-class connotation the south of the city carries. Nevertheless, I argue her class status is contested because she did not grow up in the south of the city. It is important to keep the intersection of space, race and class in mind when interpreting Sol’s description of Barranquilla and the places in which she and her family spent time. Sol establishes her and her family’s middle-class belonging through details such as mentioning that there are middle-class areas in the south or by pointing out that her family did their shopping in the north of

205 the city, thus they could afford the more expensive goods available in this area. As I have shown, whiteness conflates with upper-classness. How does Sol’s middle- classness affect her whiteness and what does that say about her social location? Her social location as white Colombian is the topic of this coming section.

In our first interview, Sol and I talked about her identity. I was wondering if she identifies as Mestiza or as Blanca or if those categories are irrelevant to her. Sol looked at me and answered:

I have never thought about my identity in these terms. At school when they talk about mestizaje you understand this as the influence of the Indigenous, a mixture… that’s what I remember about this term from school. So, I learned in school that there are white people, black people, el mestizo.… So, I was growing up thinking ‘Ah, I am white. I come from a white family. I am not from a family of Mestizos’. But now I am a grown up and I am much more aware of things obviously my family have some sort of mixture. And the family of my father… there are black people [on his side of the family]… and dark skinned people. My mother and the majority of my mother’s family, they are all white. But, the family of my dad… no. The family of my dad they are dark dark. Look at my hair! My hair is curly. That is my dad’s family’s hair. Everyone in my mother’s family has straight hair. [Int. 1, 00:54]

It was our second interview when Sol picked up on my question again. Sol and I were sitting in her living room and I could hear the sounds of a TV coming from the bedroom where her husband spent his time while we conversed. Sol was wearing her long, brown, curly hair out. It was the first time I saw her wearing her curly hair not tied back. As always she had a smile on her lips and seemed cheerful, although she had worked all day long. Before we started our recording, Sol offered me tostadas con queso crema, a typical Latin American snack, which I gratefully accepted and ate. As soon as Sol sat down in her comfy rocking chair she politely interrupted me. She would

206 like to add something to our last interview. More precisely, she had some more thoughts about one of the questions I asked her.

You asked me a while ago ‘Sol do you understand yourself as Mestiza?’ And my answer was… What I told you stuck with me. Maybe I didn’t know. I started doubting my own answer: No, I am white. […] This was a question that awoke such an interest inside of me that I never had before… I never asked myself this question. But my hair… a white person doesn’t have such hair. Look [showing me her curly hair]. And it is true. I automatically answered in regards to my skin colour… like only thinking of this aspect. […] So, we are definitely Mestizos. But we still don’t know what the root of this mestizaje is. [Int. 2, 00:03]

Her initial identification in our first interview surprised me as all other women in this research identified ethnically as Mestizas when asked the same question. Sol continued telling me that my question was thought provoking and encouraged her to ask her parents about their family history to find out more about her racial and ethnic identity. Her immediate interest in her family history implies that in Sol’s understanding, being blanca is determined by one’s ancestry. This contradicts earlier fragments of our interviews in which Sol drew a clear connection between whiteness and upper-classness. Sol’s discourse shows that whiteness in Colombia is many things and not one straightforward category. In Sol’s understanding whiteness sometimes is a racial category connected to appearance and ancestry and sometimes it is a social location, a privileged position connected to European superiority. Nevertheless, she cannot position herself clearly in this question. I suggest that this reflects the contested nature of the category whiteness as I have shown in Chapter 2.

Sol then told me that she knows little about her family’s background. Her mother remembered one of her grandfather’s anecdotes:

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My mother told me: Your grandfather used to say that his father and his

grandfather are from the Spanish race9. And my father told me: ‘Your grandfather said that the Riveras… the surname Riveras is a Spanish name’. So, they were Spaniards that ended up in a village. But they just repeat what their parents are telling them. I don’t know if this is true. [Int. 1, 00:27]

Her grandfather’s story is only one example that illustrates how contemporary Colombians hold up their Spanish ancestry. Lineage was important in the colonial caste system (see Chapter 4) and the proof of Spanish ancestry enabled participation in the society’s elite caste. In contemporary Colombia, Spanish ancestry is an indication of whiteness and upper-classness.

Sol explained that my question started a process of reflection for her. She started questioning ‘being white’. Looking back, she wondered why she never questioned her whiteness before, considering her appearance and family history. Sol began reconsidering her formerly assumed white identity. Her comments uncover how her hair was an important impetus for her to question her white identity. Appearance, particularly skin colour but also hair structure and colour, as well as facial features, are more important than actual ancestry in Latin America’s race relations (Telles & Paschel 2014; Urrea Giraldo 2014). That is, in Colombia’s racial hierarchy curly hair carries a racialised meaning. It is connected to blackness (Urrea Giraldo 2014, p. 83). Sol creates an image of herself in which her appearance is ambivalent. In Sol’s perception, her skin colour indicates her whiteness but her hair does not fit into the ideas of this racial category.

As discussed earlier (see Chapter 2), who is ‘white’ and who is not ‘white’ is often contested and is both contextual and situational. Demographic realities vary from departamento (administrative unit) to departamento in Colombia. In the country’s racial geography, Bogotá is seen as a white city (Viveros 2015, p. 504, p. 510; see also

9 The interviews were conducted in Spanish. The word raza translates to race and carries a less loaded meaning than it does, for example, in English. Thus, raza is more commonly used in every day conversations.

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Chapter 4) with a majority of mestizo population (DANE 2005). The percentage of Afro-Colombians in Colombia’s capital Bogotá is low compared to Barranquilla (Afroamérica XXI 2011, p. 16; DANE 2005). Due to these demographic realities, race relations and the discourses used to negotiate racial positions differ in Barranquilla and Bogotá, from where most of my interlocutors originate. As Phoenix (1998, p. 110) highlights ‘“Whiteness” and “blackness” are lived out in relation to each other’. Whiteness is relational. Its meaning is created through the process of differentiation (Levine-Rasky 2013, p. 194). While trying to understand Sol’s change of perception over the course of our interviews, it is important to keep in mind that I asked her this question in Australia and not in Colombia. Sol has a particular embodied understanding of race shaped by her upbringing in Barranquilla, a mixed-raced city with a white elite. This, combined with her social location in the Caribbean city, may explain why she initially identified as white. However, her social location changed through her mobility as she is differently located in relation to whiteness in all three locations. Yet whiteness equals power in Barranquilla, Bogotá and Melbourne. In Barranquilla she was relatively whiter than in Bogotá and Melbourne. As Phoenix (1998, p. 110) points out, whiteness is not just historically and socially constructed but also geographically situated. In Bogotá, a white city in the country’s racial geography, her identity as white is more contested. Finally, in Australia, a white nation (see Hage 2000), not only her skin colour but also her accent and her cultural background contest ideas of whiteness.

Sol’s narrative illustrates the complex discourses through which her social locations are constituted. On many levels she understands herself as white while simultaneously drawing boundaries between her and what she described as white upper-class Colombians with European features living in the affluent north of the city. The contradictory and ambivalent ways in which Sol narrates her social locations reflect the relational and contextual character of whiteness. Depending on the context, Sol experiences and understands her whiteness in relation to either her economic position, her class background, her education or her geographic location. As I have shown Teresa and Gabriela’s narratives are less ambivalent as their white upper-class identities are relatively stable within Colombia. However, in Australia Sol gains a new perspective on her own whiteness.

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‘Bogotá is Beautiful’: Moving to the Capital

Sol went to a private high school which was located in an estrato three neighbourhood in the north of Barranquilla. Sol told me that after finishing school she continued her education and transitioned into university. Unfortunately, Sol did not manage to get into her desired course, civil engineering. Not able to study her first choice, she decided to take up mechanical engineering. She quickly let me know that she never fully enjoyed Mechanical Engineering but she also did not want to quit her course. University was hard. In her high school Sol was used to being at the top of the class but this changed at university. Competition was harder than at her school and she was scared of failing, as only the best students would go to her university. Sol also remembered that she found the long days she spent at the university, far away from her parents’ house, hard. She described herself as a disciplined and studious person throughout her time at university. After finishing her studies in Barranquilla, Sol worked for a while in her hometown as a mechanical engineer. She continued to tell me that she never liked working in this field but it was easy to find a job as a mechanical engineer. In our last interview Sol told me, in her usual cheerful manner, that she cried at her graduation. She jokingly added that she did not cry out of happiness but because she was so sad that she had to work as a mechanical engineer from now on.

After a year, she had enough of her job. At the age of 24 she decided to enrol in a postgraduate program in Project Evaluation with a focus on social projects to change her professional career, and left her parents’ home to move to the capital city.

I graduated and worked a year in Barranquilla. And after this year… I was saving money because I wanted to do a postgraduate [degree]. But I wanted to make my post grad in something social. And I found this course at la Universidad Iberoamericana that caught my attention. And as life sometimes is, I got the opportunity presented to apply for a scholarship for exactly this course. And I got the scholarship. [Int. 3, 00:43]

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Her decision to move to Bogotá was driven by her wish for personal and professional growth. Bogotá was the only city in Colombia that offered possibilities in the social enterprise sector, the area Sol wanted to work in. Additionally, Sol wanted to experience independence and learn how to live life on her own. Sol told me how she loved Bogotá. After finishing her postgraduate degree Sol started working in the capital. She stayed in Bogotá for six years. It was a time of independence and introduction into adulthood. Her boyfriend Alejandro luckily already lived in Bogotá.

Bogotá is beautiful. It is a city of many faces, food, and different neighbourhoods. It is the capital and I lived the experience. I worked. I had great friends. I had my boyfriend. Alejandro and I, we went out a lot. I initially moved to Bogotá because he was there. So, we were both in Bogotá. We did not live together but we were both there. My life in Bogotá was very different to my life in Barranquilla. [After finishing university] I already had a postgraduate [degree]. I was working and had my own money. I lived by myself. I had a good life.

Did you earn well?

No, no, my salary wasn’t very high. It was average. Not bad but also not very good but I was able to have a good life. We went to restaurants a lot. My boyfriend had a very good job. My life in Bogotá was very good. I really liked it. [Int. 4, 00:25]

My work life was different. I only had one job… only one job. I worked and after work I went home. I studied a bit of English and French after work because I always wanted to learn different languages. But that was it. If I wanted to watch TV after work, I just did that. But here [Melbourne]… it is different here. Here I have one, two, three… here I do a lot of things. It is my decision and I do it with all my passion because I am enjoying it. But sometimes I feel I have to do a lot of things to be able to live here. […] If I want to achieve what I got in mind I need to do

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a lot of things. If I want to advance my social enterprise… but that is not enough for me to survive. So, I need a part-time job… and [in the beginning] I couldn’t find a part-time job. That’s why I started teaching Spanish. And I really enjoy teaching Spanish. So, there are a lot of things. And for my heart… I want to be part of a spiritual faith group. I tell you it is a positive stress. But the stress over there… with only one job… that was a negative stress because I did not like the job. It was something I really did not want to do. Here, I like the things that I am doing. [Int. 4, 00:27]

Sol remembered that she shared a flat with a friend of hers for a few years and then she moved in with her younger brother. She continued working as a mechanical engineer, which she still did not enjoy, as it was hard to find a job in the social sector even after she finished her degree in project evaluation. After working as an engineer in the private sector for a few years she found an enjoyable job working for the government monitoring the national electricity company in different areas of the country. Sol disclosed that finding a job was not always easy in Colombia.

Yes, yes… it wasn’t easy… Oh wait. Let me think. When I... my first work in Barranquilla… I got straight after graduation and then I left for Bogotá. I did the post grad and then I was looking for a job in the field of like social enterprises and I had no experience. [Int. 4, 00:29]

She continued telling me that she then decided to work as a mechanical engineer as it was easy for her to find a job in this field because of her work experience, existing networks and contacts. After thinking about it for a moment Sol concluded that she got almost all her jobs in Colombia through her networks.

My last work... that was two years and I loved it. I worked as an engineer. But my work involved working with people. It had a social aspect... this work. In my last six months my boss left, and I got a new boss and we could not get along. And she did not extend my contract and when she

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did not extent it, it was the time for me to leave the country and finally study my Master’s. [Int. 4, 00:30]

I left Colombia for two reasons. Since I was a young girl I wanted to learn English. I always had the dream to learn English and study in a different country. Since I was little I was saying that I wanted to leave the country to study. I wanted to study English and I wanted to do a postgraduate overseas. I didn’t know what postgraduate course I wanted to study but I knew I wanted to do it. Time passed by and my wish to work in an area where I could help fighting poverty as well as the emptiness I felt inside of me because I did not work in this area, got bigger and bigger. [Int. 3, 00:59]

Sol also told me that she wanted to work in the social enterprise sector but in her opinion, this would have not been possible due to a lack of funding in Colombia. After Sol made the decision to move to Australia her long-term partner, Alejandro, also decided to gain work experience overseas and moved for two years to Georgia for a job.

Why Australia? Because it is a country that allows you to study and work. Because university in Australia is cheaper than in London or in Canada. And in the States it is very complicated to study English and work at the same time. It was a country that offered the easiest option to work and study. Only because of this. I never dreamed of a specific country outside of Colombia. I just wanted to leave to be able receive good education. Nothing else. But I never thought, I want to leave this country, run away to find a better future. Never. [Int. 3, 01:03]

I wanted to learn English. I wanted to study my Master’s but I never thought about staying in Australia. That was not my goal. I did not come to Australia to find a permanent residency to stay here. I came to Australia

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to educate myself and get some work experience and to find work in the social sector. I wanted international experience as I wanted to work at the World Bank or UN. That was my dream. For that I needed English and the Master’s. That's why I came… with my dream of helping those in need. But everything changed once we got here and now we have got the citizenship. [Int. 3, 00:32]

Australia

Sol applied for her studies while still living in Bogotá. Her excitement was big when she found out that she was admitted to the course she selected. Without much knowledge or expectations about Australia Sol arrived on her own, with limited English, in 2010 on an international student visa. She had to attend a six-month English course as a requirement for her university admission. Sol remembered her first two years in Sydney as hard. She had to work multiple jobs to support herself and study at the same time. Her limited language skills were a major hindrance in her job hunt. Unlike many of the other women I interviewed, moving to Australia and studying here was a substantial burden on Sol and her family. She explained to me that she used all her savings to pay for her English course and part of her Master’s degree. Alejandro, who at that time lived overseas, and her father supported her financially as well as emotionally. She continued telling me

The sacrifices that Colombians make to be able to come and live in this country are enormous. Because the courses here are very expensive and almost everyone comes with a small loan and their savings and then they have to work a lot while they are here. I worked a lot. In my first year in Sydney I worked very hard. I worked tremendously. [Int. 3, 00:50]

She immediately needed to find a way to support herself but this turned out to be harder than she expected. Sol remembered when she was in Colombia she already

214 knew, in the worst case, she might have to work as a cleaner in Australia. Reluctantly Sol gave it a try but the reality of the job was even harder for her than she had expected.

When I started working I was aware of the fact that I will be working as cleaner because everybody works as cleaner. [....] That night I felt... it was one of the most difficult nights in my life. I participated in a training to be a cleaner. And my first training was terrible. I had to clean so many toilets with the most terrible smell. I was just thinking: What is this?! I need a better job. I am an engineer. It was like a shock. It was like the first shock to which I said: No. I will not do this here. You will not do this Sol. No. After the three days I said to myself: No, I will find myself a job as waitress. [Int. 2, 00:42]

Sol admitted that she cried that night, alone in her bed. She told me that she thought about the people cleaning the offices she worked at in Colombia and suddenly she started appreciating them and their job. It was a moment where Sol recognised the privilege she had in Colombia. Sol’s strong reaction to her student job as a cleaner is understandable considering she worked as an engineer for several years. Additionally, many of the women in this study told me that in Colombia working as a cleaner and even hospitality are working-class occupations and thus, unacceptable for them. This could be interpreted as an expression of Colombia’s hierarchical social structure. Some of the women told me that it was hard when they first started working in jobs, particularly sales and hospitality, that did not match their class status in Colombia.

None of my other interlocutors expected to be cleaning in Australia. This sets them apart from the majority of Colombian students who come to study English or a Bachelor’s degree in Melbourne. I heard many stories of Colombians coming to Australia and working as cleaners. This was regardless of whether I was scrolling through Facebook groups made for Colombians in Melbourne, or talking to Colombians I met through my interlocutors and at events I attended. Many new, arriving Colombians enter this job as there are already established Colombian networks and connections that make the entry into the cleaning business particularly

215 easy for them. In my experience they are often from middle-class families and are in Australia to study English. The class difference between those Colombians and my interlocutors has an impact on their job expectations but also the job possibilities they have in Australia10.

Sol remembered how lucky she felt when she got a job at a restaurant as a waitress. She had no experience in hospitality as this was not a job for a woman of her class status in Colombia and her perception was that her English was not yet sufficient. Sol remembered that a woman agreed to give her a few unpaid trials over the period of a month. She continued telling me that a waiter from a different restaurant promised to teach her the basic hospitality skills she needed to work as a waitress and Sol succeeded. After working a few weekends without receiving any salary at the restaurant, the owner of the venue finally agreed to hire Sol. She was grateful, as this was her entry into the Australian labour market. Her English drastically improved after starting her first job in Australia because she was working mostly with locals. Sol remembered how one thing led to another. With the experience that she gathered at the restaurant, she was able to find other jobs that were better paying. From then on, she worked in restaurants and hotels. As her English improved, she started giving Spanish classes. Looking back Sol remembered how hard her first two years in Sydney were, as she had to learn English, work long hours, study and all while not having a solid network of work connections, friends or family. Things got easier for her when she and her partner Alejandro married in mid-2012 and he came to live with her in Sydney. In 2013, the couple finally moved to Melbourne because Sol was given an internship in Victoria’s capital city.

10 One other woman in this research worked as cleaner on occasion because it was the most time-flexible job she could find. Her decision to clean had nothing to do with her class status. Contrary to Sol, her family was wealthy and part of Bogotá’s cultural elite. While working as a cleaner she also worked as a tutor at university. For her, working as a cleaner had no implications for her class status. Moreover, because of her elite class status but her political left-wing views she tried to engage in activities that did not necessarily reflect her class status.

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‘Oh, so Beautiful. So Different’: The Meaning of Hair

In our interview Sol started to reflect upon changes that had occurred in her life since she moved to Australia. She concluded that she could identify four major changes. She explained to me that one of these changes was related to the way she experienced her identity. Sol further explained to me that her social life also shifted with her change of location. In her perception her spirituality became stronger and deeper while being on her own in a different country and finally she mentioned that her style and appearance changed. I will explore this last change by examining the ways in which Sol narrates her shifting social location through the meaning of her hair.

Since I was 15 or 16 years old, I started straightening my hair and I put products in my hair to straighten it. Because I don’t like [curly] hair like this. I don’t like it. […] Okay, for example. When I was living in my hometown… let’s start with the gradual changes. […] I was little and then I grew older and turned into a young lady, a bit more grown up… I wanted to be pretty just as everybody else. So, I wanted my hair to be straightened. I went to the hairdresser every week. I am talking about the time when I was between 16 to 30 years old. That’s how old I was when I came to Australia. I am talking about 14 years where my lifestyle was like this. […] My hair was only wet on the beach. Nowhere else. When I was at home, my hair was always straight. This is an example of a change in my physical appearance. [Int. 2, 06:29]

Sol explained that many women and men have curly hair in Barranquilla and many women straighten their curly hair. Other women in this research also gave me the impression that hair straightening is ‘just what people do’ in Colombia. Hair straightening is part of the standard procedure at a hairdresser in Barranquilla, Cali and Bogotá. Sol straightened her hair or paid somebody to straighten it for her for most of her life. Only after moving to Australia did her weekly routine slowly change. Sol told me that she had to change her lifestyle drastically while studying at the University of Queensland to cut back on costs. Student life was tough for her, as she was working

217 full-time for a few years prior. The financial pressure forced her to stop her weekly visits to the hairdresser and she had to get used to wearing her hair curly. Sol remembered that this was a gradual change. Whenever she visited Colombia, she could not resist and would join her friends at the hairdresser but with time she even stopped doing this on a regular basis. I asked Sol why people in Colombia do not appreciate curly hair

I don’t know. I don’t think they don’t value it. I just think we pay more attention to things we don’t have. Things like our appearance and status. I want people to think of me as well dressed. I have to look beautiful. […] Here people don’t really care. Here you can wear the same thing five times, with holes and dirty and nobody cares. But over there they pay attention to all of those things. Everybody is very critical. I don’t see this in Australia. [Int. 2, 00:15]

I looked at her and asked if she is happy to wear her hair naturally and Sol started laughing and shook her head. She still did not like it even though she received many compliments for her hair.

Everybody here keeps on telling me ‘So beautiful your hair. So divine’. But I don’t like it. […] But, I started to appreciate it. It had an influence that everybody here is telling me: ‘Oh so beautiful. So different’. So, I figured that it is part of my identity. It is part of where I am from… saying that… in a way it identifies me as a person from Latin America. So, people identify me as Latin American and I started feeling proud that this is part of me. [Int. 2, 00:12]

Sol connects the pressure of straightening her hair ultimately to the importance of status in Colombia. As her quote shows, for Sol, having straight hair is a matter of beauty which conflates with race, more precisely with whiteness and class. Viveros (2015) for example describes how black Colombian women straighten their hair as this is expected from them by their workplaces. Wearing their hair curly would

218 transgress the codes of a ‘fine’ black woman (Viveros 2015, p. 506). It is a good example that highlights how race and class intersect and finally are performed through appearance. A respectable black woman needs to perform aspects of white appearance to be able to be accepted at a white-collar job. Particularly, as in Colombia and many other Latin American countries, curly hair is a signifier of blackness.

Since the arrival of African slaves in the Americas, Europeans forcefully shaved the Africans’ heads as a symbolic removal of African culture. African hair was seen as unattractive while European features became the accepted beauty norm (Johnson & Bankhead 2013, p. 87f.; Viveros 2015). After two centuries of enslavement, whitening in the form of skin lightening and hair straightening became a practice, which promised social upward mobility for black slaves11. Up until today European physical attributes continue to be the normalised beauty standard while African physical features are often represented as the opposite: e.g. kinky vs. straight, dark vs. light, good vs. bad in Colombia and other parts of the world. To have ‘good hair’ means to have hair that is closer to the texture of hair of people from European descent (Johnson & Bankhead 2013, p. 90) ‘Beauty has been socially and politically constructed to emulate those in power, White people’ (Johnson & Bankhead 2013, p. 90).

Stanfield (2013, p.1) highlights how beauty standards in the Americas reinforce ideas of development, modernity and what he calls ‘white pigmentocracy inherited from European colonialism’. For Sol, as for many other Colombians (Viveros 2015, p. 506), straight hair is a symbol of beauty. It is also a symbol of race (white) and class (upper- classness). This becomes visible when she calls her curly hair pelo malo (see Int. 2, 43:00), which translated means ‘bad hair’. Ideas of beauty in Colombia are intimately connected to ideas of whiteness and European appearance (Stanfield 2013). Sol’s terminology reflects this notion and places characteristics of white bodies at the top and features connected to blackness at the bottom of a beauty hierarchy (Jordan 2009, p. 92). In Colombia’s racial hierarchy Sol’s curly hair carries racialised and classed meaning. It is a signifier of difference and a deviation from desired Colombian beauty standards and the ideas of a ‘respectable’ woman conforming to societal norms. Sol

11 For a more detailed history see Johnson and Bankhead (2013).

219 never mentions race or blackness as a reason for hair straightening. The covert nature of racism, a racism that is often expressed through class and the intersection of class and race, explains Sol’s understanding of this social practice (Viveros 2015, p. 500). Nevertheless, Sol’s hair straightening can be interpreted as a performance of whitening, and thus, a set of physical and social approaches to achieve whiteness and social upward mobility (see Chapter 4). By straightening her hair Sol conforms to beauty and class standards in Colombia.

The story of Sol’s gradual change shows how, with her social location, racialised and gendered practices are shifting through her migration. In Australia, the colour and texture of hair are not key signifiers of class anymore. After living in the country for a few years, she understands the local social logic and order and she adopts her practices to her surroundings. In Australia, Sol’s hair does not carry the same racialised and classed meaning that it does in Colombia. For Sol, her hair becomes a symbol of her Latin American identity, an identity she is proud of, and becomes part of the broader Australian multicultural discourse of diversity. Through the encounters Sol has had, she is able to positively identify with the label ‘being Latin America in Australia’. Nonetheless, as her narrative shows, her hair is perceived as ‘exotic’ and feeds into the stereotype many Australians have of Latin Americans as exotic (Cohen 2005, p. 113; Rocha & Coronado 2014, p. 471; Wulfhorst 2014, p. 482). I argue that in Australia, for Sol, her hair is a positive marker of her Latin American identity while simultaneously for her social surroundings it is a marker of her being an ethnic migrant.

While analysing Sol’s shifting practice of hair straightening it is important to keep Sol’s perception of class in Australia in mind. In her opinion, as she explained to me in another section of our interview, she did not observe discrimination based on class in Australia. People, regardless of their class status, interact with each other and treat each other with respect. She highlighted that this would be very different in Colombia. She then continued that Australians in general are very honest and authentic. They do not care about expensive clothing brands or shoes. Sol expressed that she was very impressed by the down to earth attitude she has observed with many Australians. Sol’s impression of the fluidity of Australia’s class system makes it easier to let go of her

220 former style and appearance, which were a means of performing class, femininity and beauty.

During my final visit to Sol’s house she showed me pictures of her daughter’s baptism in Colombia. At one point she pointed to a photo of herself and laughed saying; ‘Look, I straightened my hair again’ and give me a cheeky and knowing look. She was well aware that she conformed to the standards of beauty and class for her daughter’s baptism, an event that was very important to her.

Sol’s story shows how the meaning of her hair changes with context. In Colombia, curly hair is a signifier of blackness. Race and class are intertwined in Colombia. Thus, I argue having straightened hair stabilises her location as white and middle class in Colombia. In Australia her hair carries no class implications. Further, even with straight hair she would not have passed as white. However, not straightening her hair has certain advantages in her new context. Sol can embody an ethnic identity within the multicultural setting in Australia, which brings her some rewards as a Latin American, female migrant. Through her migration, her hair, a source of discomfort and a part of her body that she continuously modified in Colombia, turned into a symbol of her new ethnic identity in Australia. In Colombia her curly hair was a negative signifier of blackness. In Australia her curly hair is a positive signifier of ethnic identity and difference. Sol makes her hair work in both social locations: in Colombia, by taming it and in Australia, by letting it be natural.

‘My Dream Finally Started to Become True’: Building a Life in Melbourne

After the newly wedded couple moved to Melbourne, Alejandro started studying for his Master’s degree. Sol explained to me that they were able to apply for residency due to Alejandro’s degree once he finished, and then one thing led to the other. They became permanent residents and Alejandro found a well-paying job. Over the years Sol did not find a stable part- or full-time position in the Social Enterprise sector in which she wanted to work but she was able to find some short-term work and internships so she could gain some work experience in Australia. Although finding

221 work was hard, Sol successfully managed to slowly build up her cultural organisation and her social enterprise.

With time, Sol also established some stable and close friendships in Australia. She told me that she met many of them through her various workplaces. Her friends are a mix of Australians and other migrants with a Mediterranean and Latin American background. Sol has many acquaintances, but she is well aware that the people she calls close friends are only a handful and she is very grateful for them. The life the couple has built over the years made the idea of leaving Australia harder and harder, especially as Sol came closer to her dream of working in the social sector.

I finally got my feet into the social sector… my dream. My dream finally started to become true. I got a bit of experience in the Not for Profit sector. I got my own social enterprise and I had the spiritual faith group. It was like… finally I started achieving things that were important to me. I never dreamed that I could be a social entrepreneur one day… or that I would lead the spiritual faith group. [Int. 4, 34:32]

She continued explaining to me that another reason to stay was her belief that it was easier to set up a social enterprise in Australia than in Colombia. In her opinion the main reason for this is the greater support Australia offers, especially in regard to the financial means available. While talking about her job possibilities in Australia I wondered if Sol is planning to move back to Colombia. Sol told me they do not plan on moving back anytime soon, although sometimes she would like to live in Colombia. She then admitted that she wished she could live in both places at the same time. That is why she tried to set up her social enterprise in a way that enabled her to spend a few months every year in Colombia. In 2016 the couple received their Australian citizenship.

Finding a job was never easy for Sol in Melbourne. The next section will reflect upon her experience with the Australian labour market as a visibly different person.

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‘Una Niña Diferente’: Encountering Difference

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, since being in Australia Sol has experienced a major shift in her identity.

I am thinking of a strong change… it’s a change in my identity. Living in Australia awoke my identity as Latin American. Something I have not experienced in Colombia. Why? Because in Colombia everything evolves around Colombians. People with the same culture. People with the same habits. But here… I am spinning around people from Australia, people with a different nationality. This makes me feel my identity strongly. [Int. 2, 00:13]

In this quote, Sol also describes her experience of being different in relation to her surroundings. She speaks about the situatedness and relational character of her ‘new’ ethnic identity. In Australia she is Latin American. It becomes part of what she identifies with. In Latin America everyone is Latin American, and she focused on other identity locations such as being from the Coast of Colombia or being white. Because of its normality her Latin American identity became almost invisible. In Colombia, she did not experience being culturally different to her surroundings. Although her curly hair is a marker of non-whiteness, Sol still embodied the social Mestiza norm. She was not perceived as part of an ethnic group or migrant community. Being an ethnic migrant in Australia, she is suddenly constantly reminded of her difference and the simple fact of not being from ‘here’. In a later conversation of ours Sol elaborated more on the experience of difference on a daily basis.

Totally. Up until today, I feel different. I feel like una niña diferente12 in this country. Simply because I speak English with my accent. This is marking me tremendously. My Latin American accent, my Caribbean accent. Speaking English [with this accent]. I even don’t know how to explain this to you. Sometimes it fills me with frustration. Because

12 Spanish for: a child that is different/a person that does not fit in.

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sometimes I just feel, they don’t understand me and I can see it on their faces that they can’t understand me. And in this process of looking for a job…. That they don’t give me an opportunity with my CV. It is a really good CV where I show that I have a lot of experience. So why don’t they give me a chance? I cannot comprehend that the reason for it is that I am not a native, because my English is not perfect, because my written English is not perfect. It could be that I misread this but this is what I feel. It is what I live. On a general level, Australia is not a racist country and they don’t look at you in a suspicious way. This is correct. But they are. I can feel that there is discrimination. I am living it and I am feeling it. This is why I am telling you I feel like una niña diferente. […] While I was doing a course for social enterprises … We were six people… with me in total seven. They were native speaker and I was the only one who was different. And I felt like una niña diferente. It is a wonderful group and a great environment. But this still makes me feel different. And I try to put it aside and look at it from a positive angle: I have this scholarship… you are here… and of course you are different because you are a Latina in the middle of this group. And because I am a Latina I carry a cultural dream. A Latin American identity… of course I am different. And it was positive. But on times […] I am comparing myself with these natives. But I am not a native. I need to make an effort to speak well so that they can understand me better. It is a battle. It is a battle. Every day the same… I am asking myself why am I not in my country? Speaking my language. Without needing to force myself to talk English. Why aren’t they giving me a job opportunity? I am capable to do what every other person in this position could do. It is frustrating. So frustrating. [Int. 2, 00:25]

There is a negative side to being Latin American in Australia for Sol. For the Colombian woman, her visible difference (see Colic-Peisker 2008), her accent, occupies a key role in experiencing the negative sides of difference in Australia (while her hair works as a positive marker of her ethnic difference, in her perception). Straight

224 away Sol names her accent as something that marks her. Similar to Gabriela, Sol highlights her specific type of accent as a problem. It is her Latin American accent, and in particular her accent from the Caribbean coast, a non-white space, that troubles her. Sol then moves over to her English skills and explains the fact that she is not a native-English speaker complicates her access to the Australian labour market. Listening to her story, Sol feels discrimination in the Australian labour market, triggered through her accent/English skills. Her words give an insight into the high emotional cost that comes with her ethnic difference. In Sol’s story language works as a constant reminder of her difference. At this point in her life, her non-native English accent made her feel that she lacked opportunities that native speakers would have. Sol seemingly struggles to make sense of her experience, as she does not feel discriminated against in other aspects of her everyday life.

Do you think that Australians value [your] cultural difference?

Yes, I think in some aspects they do and in others not. In which one do they… for example, I believe that the Australians value our Latin culture, they value the music, they value the food, they value the way we talk, our humanity. They like and enjoy these things and they think it is great. And if they see me with this bag [showing me her colourful, crochet bag] and if they see me with a Sombrero or if they see my hair, my style or my personality… they value all of these things 100%.... I feel that way. But let’s talk about the professional part. However, in a professional area, I don’t know if they are valuing us. [Int. 2, 01:06]

Sol feels appreciated and welcomed in Australia on many levels and she is grateful for the opportunities she has encountered in this country. The story about her hair, as well as the appreciation of folkloristic elements of ‘being Latin American’, are proof to Sol that Australia is not ‘a racist country’ and that she does not live in a general climate of discrimination. But she feels discrimination within the labour market and she feels that her not being from Australia hinders her from succeeding.

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Sol got emotional in this part of the interview. She became upset a couple of other times while talking about her difficulties in finding an adequate job in Australia. Sol struggled for a couple of years to find a job within her field and once she got an opportunity, it was always only a short-term contract. Her words reflected her desperation, as she believed herself to be well prepared for the local job market.

Viktoria, sometimes, sometimes it really frustrates me. Sometimes I feel a frustration. But my CV… I have seven years… seven years of work experience. I am showing that I established two organisations and I have some good letters of recommendation, that I have a Master’s in management, that I attended good universities, that I finished two additional skill enhancement programs in Australia and I showed that I have leadership qualities. I proved that I have skills. Why don’t they give me an opportunity? [Int. 2, 01:08]

Finding a job proves to be hard for many segments of society. Nevertheless, studies show that migrants have a clear disadvantage in the Australian job market, even more so if their native language is not English (Colic-Peisker 2011, p. 638; Syed & Murray 2009, p. 416). At times, Sol explained how she felt hopeless about how to find her way into the job market. She recounted that people kept on telling her she needed more local work experience and she remembered her frustration as she did not understand how she could gain more work experience if nobody would employ her.

After Sol and I recorded the majority of our interviews, Sol found a job at a local social enterprise. She was working for them up until her maternity leave, a part of her life that I will discuss later in this section. Together we reflected upon the time she was looking desperately for a job. This time she was affirmative in naming her experience.

In my experience when I couldn’t find a job… that was when I most felt that issue of discrimination more than in any other part of my life. Because I was competing with Australian they master the language perfectly and they have work experience in Australia. While I have four years of experience in the sector of social enterprises, but I am competing with people with much more

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work experience because they don’t count my work in Colombia. It was very complex and I felt marked… marked by my difference. I felt that I had experience, that I was prepared, that I had a lot of capacities. Why don’t they give me a chance? [Int. 4, 00:15]

Sol’s narrative illustrates how deep her feelings of being marked by her ethnic difference affected her life negatively. Sol believed that her work experience in Colombia was not of use in an Australian context because it was seen as not applicable. Sol felt that she had no chance whenever she had to compete with Anglo-Australian and native English speakers. She is well aware that her accent, her lack of work experience and her last name worked to her disadvantage when looking for a job. In her experience, her social location as ethnic migrant woman is a hindrance to accessing the local job market.

In all our conversations about Sol’s experiences in Melbourne she made a clear distinction between the social aspects of her life and her experiences in the Australian labour market. She evidently expressed feeling appreciation for her cultural background in social aspects of her life. Her appearance and attire find admiration in society. Additionally, her organisation and her social enterprise, both of which involve Latin Americans and promote Latin American culture, have had success. But whenever Sol had to compete with Australians for jobs she did not feel any of this appreciation anymore. Her ethnic difference then turned into a disadvantage and she felt she did not receive the same opportunity as Australians who are not marked as ethnic migrants.

In our fourth interview Sol told me in more detail about another job experience she had. She applied for an administrative role in an organisation and did not get the position as they chose someone with more experience for the job. A week later Sol got a call from the recruiter of the same organisation offering her a six month contract in a project on migrant women from the Asia Pacific region. It was a job that met her work experience and sounded interesting, so she was happy to accept the offer. Sol had the chance to make important contacts within the industry through this job and it finally helped her to find her way into the local job market.

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However, Sol’s story illustrates how, even when she finally found a job, she felt that she was negatively defined by her ethnic difference in the Australian labour market. She is an ethnic migrant woman and although applying for a different job, she ended up being hired into a position that engages with migrant woman. I argue that her being an ethnic migrant enabled her selection for this job. Sol was hired because she is an ethnic migrant woman, to work with other ethnic migrant women. Simultaneously, she attributes her experience of being unable to find a job that fits her skill set to her being an ethnic migrant, which makes it difficult for her to compete with Australians in the labour market. This shows how her ethnic difference plays out in different ways depend on the location. Most of the time it is a disadvantage in the Australian labour market, but it also shows that Sol can make her ethnicity work for herself in particular contexts.

Sol has visible differences such as her accent, her folk accessories and her dark, curly hair, all of which make her identifiable as an ‘exotic’ Latin American woman. Those differences, she believed, put her in a disadvantaged position in the labour market while to her personally they became a source of positive identification with her Latin American cultural background. Sol herself talks about her visible difference in two ways. First, her dark curly hair carries a positive connotation within Australian society as exotic, while on the other hand, her accent carries a negative connotation as being a migrant woman unsuccessfully trying to find work.

To understand Sol’s experience, I will draw on Ahmed (2000, p. 106), who argues that Australian multiculturalism needs ‘difference’ to be multicultural, but critically observes that not every ‘difference’ is accepted within the nation.

Those cultural forms that are ‘more acceptable’ are precisely those that may look different, but are in fact the same underneath. As a result, this multicultural nation accepts those differences that do not threaten the ‘we’ of an Australian being: the differences that cannot be reduced to mere appearance become the unassimilable. (Ahmed 2000, p. 106)

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I argue that Sol experiences that her ‘appearance of difference’ is accepted and appreciated in Australia. However, her experience of difference and her cultural background, as well as the expertise and positionality that she gathered over the course of her transnational life, are only accepted and appreciated in certain limited locations.

Within multicultural Australia she can occupy being part of an ethnic community, by emphasising behaviour and qualities which Australians perceive to be part of an exotic (unthreatening) Latin American culture. Sol’s work and social life are based within a Latin American community in Melbourne. Besides, her social enterprises generate money through offering Latin American music, dance, arts and craft, food and language in the form of community-based events, and her cultural organisation supports Latin American artists. Her ethnicity works to her advantage in these ‘ethnic’ locations. Outside of these she encounters hindrances. Her experiences finding a job illustrate this. Additionally, I would like to come back to Sol’s class background. I argue that her class background is another reason why Sol had more difficulties in Australia finding a job than Teresa or Gabriela. She does not have the same upper- class privileges and embodied ways of expressing her social status of the other two women. Her way of approaching the world is not influenced by the same privilege Teresa and Gabriela had. Sol had to work hard to find a job in Colombia and so she does in Australia.

Finally, I had the opportunity to catch up with Sol after she had her baby. During this interview, she wanted to tell me about her life since her baby was born. Before I discuss her experiences as mother, I am finishing this section with a brief story that was important to Sol to be told.

The last time we caught up Sol reflected about her accent and the negative associations it carried for her. She told me that with time this has changed. With every year that she was living in Australia her accent became less of a burden to her. A few weeks prior to our meeting she was asked to speak publicly at an event about her life in Australia as a migrant woman and entrepreneur. It was then when Sol realised that she was not embarrassed about her accent anymore. On the contrary, she started to

229 embrace her Latin American accent. Just like her hair, it became a positive marker of her being a migrant woman and a symbol of her succeeding in her life in Australia.

‘Now This is your Project’: Motherhood

Sol told me that she and her husband wanted a child but Sol would have preferred to have waited another year. However, she unexpectedly fell pregnant and refers to her pregnancy as a wonder from god.

My doctor was on vacation but a replacement looked after me. Very good. The service was very good because it was private. The private service is excellent in Australia. I felt like a queen in Australia. And the importance they put on the woman here… Her name is Susanna Marquez Riveras. And in the hospital, they wrote Susanna Riveras, my last name. In the hospital they never used the name of the father. The nurse was only concerned with me… they never asked my husband. It was all about the mother… only the mother… very impressive. [Int. 4, 00:49]

Sol told me that giving birth was a spiritual experience for her. Her mother, her mother-in-law and her husband were with her through the whole process. Sol recalled that Alejandro was reading from the bible and she prayed for hours. Sol remembered saying to her friend days before the birth:

I am really scared. And I don't want to feel scared. I know that it will not be dangerous but I am scared because I am 37 years old and maybe something goes wrong. I was scared. And she told me: ‘Sol, you will offer every bit of pain that you have for somebody. Offer this pain for all the women who can't have children. For women who are in danger of dying. Offer your pain.’ And I did that. I offered all my pain. This terrible pain. [Int. 4, 00:52]

It was so beautiful that the midwife had to cry and at the end she said to me ‘I was never involved in a birth like yours. Your mother, your mother-

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in-law and your husband […] What teamwork of the whole family.’ You don’t see this here because it is only between husband and wife. All my Australian friends told me that they did not want their mothers in the room. For me having my mother there was the best.… [Int. 4, 54:44]

This is one of the few sections in our interviews were Sol expresses the importance of her spirituality and her family and the strength she draws from both of these sources. Simultaneously, she portrays an important difference for her between Australian families and her family. She emphasises how close she is to her family, so close that she wants them to be around in one of the most intimate and vulnerable moments in her life. She highlights how her family work together, an approach that, in her perception, differs to what she witnessed in Australian families.

The positive surprise she experienced in relation to the treatment she received at the hospital indicates that she initially did not expect that level of appreciation and focus. Sol was the centre of attention and she felt visible. The example Sol gives illustrates this perfectly. She was called by her name and so was her daughter. This may be based on her former experiences in Colombia and local expressions of deeply embedded patriarchal structure in Colombia’s society. By saying this, her treatment may have been different, closer to her expectation, in an Australian public hospital, as choosing a private hospital to give is pricy.

My mother told me ‘This is the priority of your life now. No more social project. Now this is your project’. And so it was. [Int. 4, 00:47]

Difficult, difficult, difficult because it just changed my life. The baby is born. Everything is great. We went home. We stayed four days in the hospital because in the private one you can stay. [....] I had a lot of help from my mother and mother-in-law the first three months but then they were gone and I was alone with everything. And on top of this a woman that was used to being in public. Outside of the house doing a lot of

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things... had to stay at home with only one thing... just doing one single thing that absorbs all of my attention. Imagine, what happened in my head… my mind... the changes in my mind. I lost my identity. I felt I lost my identity. By now I recuperated it a bit. Just now I feel like I got it back or could built it up again. It is like you can't do anything else because they [babies] depend soley on their mother. [Int. 4, 00:59]

I am still working on this… to accept my new role as mother… as a woman who is a mother. And that my role as mother in this moment, in these years is… I had to stop many things. I had in my head that when Susanna is like three, four months old I will go back to my social enterprise and I will give Spanish classes again. Impossible. After my mother and mother-in-law left I was already so tired at 4pm… When Alejandro came home I gave him Susanna but I still had to cook dinner. Alejandro works until 6pm so I am alone with her. I feel very alone. These are the moments were I really miss my family. A family makes many things easier. The grandparents, uncles and aunts. I got a cousin and she is like a sister to me. I miss them a lot. [Int. 4, 01:03]

This is something that I want. I don't want to give up on my professional life. Because I miss it. And, also I started feeling like I lost this year. In the sense of Sol who was doing all these things... the Spanish classes, and the social enterprise that doesn't exist... because I can't do this. And these things gave me a lot. But since a month and a half I feel like my energy is coming back. Now I really understand when mothers are saying the children change your life. [Int. 4, 01:05]

Sol’s words illustrate the deep cutting changes she has experienced since being a mother. Although she felt incredibly supported by her extended family as well as her husband Alejandro, she expressed feelings of overwhelming demands and loneliness. Her narrative shows how her mother reproved her to, just like herself, focus on her child and let go of all her work-related projects. She reminded her in an almost drastic

232 manner that her sole purpose as mother is the well-being of her daughter. It did not even need her mother’s words as Sol soon experienced her own physical limits. Her exhaustion kept her from following her initial plan to quickly get out of the house and pick up a few hours of work. Her story shows how Sol, a woman who understand herself as a doer, someone who spends most of her time in the public sphere, suddenly felt pushed back into the private domain. She felt left alone without the support of her family and importantly other females of her family who she could share this sphere with for the time being. A year passed in which she was swept away by her new responsibilities, unable to follow through with her initial plan to continue working almost immediately after the birth. She describes insightfully how this deeply affected her identity, which was so strongly based on her work.

Sol’s entire narrative reflects her strong identification as a diligent, persistent and achieving ‘working woman’. She did not give up; not when she could not get into the course she wanted, when she had to work as mechanical engineer nor when she had a hard time getting her first job in Australia, and finally she did not give up finding her way into the social enterprise sector. But once again she is not giving up. After a year she accepted the fundamental change a child brought to her life and she is finally able to readjust to her new reality and to make realistic plans about entering the work force again.

In conclusion, Sol’s story differs significantly from those of the other women in this research because of her upbringing in Barranquilla and her social location within Colombia. She is from a middle-class family and self identifies as white. However, her story shows how her whiteness, even within Colombia is contested. Sol comes from the south of Barranquilla, an area rather associated with middle and working- class families. She grew up in a mixed neighbourhood and not, like my other interlocutors, in white upper-class barrios. Another important class difference is that Sol’s grandparents were not affluent. Her parents are the first generation that made it to a comfortable and stable income. Finally, Sol is from the Caribbean Coast, an area that is already classified as not white in Colombia’s racial geography. Nevertheless, Sol attended the best universities of the country and quickly moved to Bogotá where she lived a good life until she decided to move to Australia. The transition to Australia

233 was harder for her than the other women in this research as she was under financial pressure, she was one of many international students, had no help finding a job and could not profit from embodied upper-class privileges and a privileged positionality which could help her to navigate the world.

Her story shows the various ways in which she narrates her identities in relation to different locations. This illustrates how race, whiteness and ethnicity are contextual and situational. Through her multiple moves, both within Colombia and then to Australia, the ways in which she experiences her changing identities become visible. Experiencing these changes and having some distance to Colombia’s rigid class and race hierarchy allows Sol to challenge previously unquestioned assumptions about her own racial and ethnic identity. When living in Colombia, Sol needs to identify as white in order to secure and maintain a particular middle-class location and to profit from the privileges attached to whiteness (or proximity to whiteness). In Australia however, Sol identifies as Latin American and thus ethnic. Within Australian society Sol finds a place where she can make life work as an ethnic migrant through her social enterprise and her other organisation, both of which are centred on Latin American culture. For most of the time, Sol finds herself in a secure and positively connotated social location as ethnic migrant in Australia.

However, Sol’s story simultaneously highlights how she feels confined by her difference in relation to her opportunities to participate in the Australian labour market. Her narrative illustrate how she experiences her job opportunities responding (both positively and negatively) to her identity and status as a Latin American migrant. There are two ways of looking at this in relation to multicultural Australia. On the one hand, similar to Teresa, she makes her difference work for her as she earns money through her social enterprise which offers events based on traditional Colombian fiestas. Similarly, she got hired to lead a project on migrant women. Both show that she can capitalise on her cultural background and her experience as a migrant woman. On the other hand, Sol applied for many jobs in her area unsuccessfully. Instead, she was offered a job working specifically with women like herself—migrant women. Her story shows the ways in which she experiences being unable to compete with Anglo- Australians due to her ethnic difference and thus is marked as ethnic. So far in Sol’s

234 experiences, job opportunities only exist for her at a job market where she did not compete with Anglo-Australians.

8. Discussion: Intersecting Privilege

In this chapter, I discuss the main findings of my thesis. Although I have not explored the narratives of the other four women in the same depth as Sol, Gabriela and Teresa, I will draw on my field notes and interviews with them in this chapter to highlight important themes and common experiences shared by all. I begin this chapter by discussing my main findings and I then examine some of the outcomes of my research in more detail.

In this thesis I explored how Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper-class, and are therefore privileged in Colombia, experience privilege while living as migrants in Melbourne, Australia. I also interrogate their position within society, both in their country of origin as well as their home in Australia. My research provides insights into their nuanced experiences of privilege. The narratives I have compiled suggest that privilege is relative, relational and intersecting. Thus, the women are relatively privileged migrants (see Amit 2007; Benson 2016, 2014). Their privilege is neither fixed nor free floating. It is shifting from one location to another and it is relative to the women’s surroundings and the specific location they are in. By location I mean geographic locations, such as Colombia, Australia, and inner city Melbourne, but also social spheres of life such as the family, an ethnicised labour market, the arts world or, for example, spheres of Australian society that are dominated by Anglo-Australians.

Through their stories, I have shown how these women, although relatively privileged, do not occupy exclusively privileged positions. By relatively privileged I mean that they do not belong to the international financial elite but they are privileged compared to many others in Colombia and also in Australia. These women occupy intersecting and contradictory social locations and positionalities not only in Australia but also in Colombia. Consequently, the women’s experiences of privilege are complex as their privilege of being upper class and white in Colombian society intersects with their

235 social location as migrant women from the Global South in Australia. The experience of migration changes and shapes their privilege. My research shows that everyday experiences of transnationally-shaped positionalities play out in the lives of migrant women in contradictory ways.

My research builds on existing scholarship on intersectional approaches to female migration. Drawing on Anthia’s concept of translocational positionality (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) my research constitutes an empirical study of women’s positionalities that are ‘structured by the interplay of different locations’ (Anthias 2002b, p. 276). Anthias (2002a) investigates how young second and third generation Greek-Cypriots in London experience race and ethnicity. She uses the concept of translocational positionality to show that location and positionality is key to understanding claims of belonging. My study builds on and extends her work by investigating the changes to the women’s social location and positionality in order to highlight aspects of their positionality that remained stable throughout their migration and how this influenced their experiences of privilege in Melbourne.

The privileges that these women were born into are the advantages, entitlements and power that come with being part of an upper-class, white, (non-racialised), socially dominant cultural group. This gives them access to many resources and puts them in an advantageous position in relation to power. They are able to make decisions over their own lives that others in Colombian society do not have. These women do not experience institutional or structural exclusion based on their race, ethnicity or class. As the stories showed, their decision-making was only limited by their parents. They had the possibility to attend the best schools and universities in the country. They had access to passports and visas to travel overseas and even to live there. They lived in the best and safest neighbourhoods in their cities. They spent the majority of their time with people from their same class and race background, thus with people that they could identify with and with whom they had a shared outlook on life (although Teresa rebelled against this). This means that they did not often experience feeling out of place or alienated within their own society.

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Manoeuvring school and university was easier for them than for others as their parents are highly educated and could support them. Compared to many other Colombians they lived in relative safety. Their families owned weekend houses, fincas, and memberships to prestigious golf clubs, and employed maids to help with household work. The women grew up in financial safety, knowing that they would receive all necessary medical care, not needing to rely on a poorly financed public health system. Their social location offered them many opportunities, as for example to study overseas. The majority of the women did not need to borrow money to study in Australia. They profited and still profit from their upper-class networks to find prestigious jobs. They are versed in the arts and their taste is perceived as distinguished. Finally, I argue that these women feel they have power over their own lives.

Based on my analysis of the women’s narratives and my field notes, I argue that the women in this research transferred many aspects of their privileges to Australia, although they do not hold the same social location as white and upper class anymore. However, their privilege travels with them. They do not only bring their education, familiarity with a cosmopolitan lifestyle, financial security and upper-class taste and culture with them, which they are able to materialise into more education, networks, friendships and jobs in Australia. They also bring the self confidence that they are able to achieve and much of the security of growing up in stable privilege with them to Australia. Their way of being in this world is influenced by the access to all these resources and the financial security they grew up in. They do not fear to be excluded or discriminated against and they have resources to navigate obstacles that are in their way. I will elaborate more on the argument that they were able to transfer many privileges to Australia later in this section

It is difficult to describe how these women embody their privilege. I will try to do so by drawing on three examples that I have written down in my field notes. Martha, for example, has exquisite taste when it comes to restaurants. She navigates these high- class spaces with an impressive easiness. The way she reads the wine list and knows about the different types of wine are expressions of an embodied privilege. It seems to come naturally to her. I have seen her complaining about a glass of wine in a polite

237 but assertive way that shows how comfortable she is in manoeuvring these surroundings. Another example is Natalie’s self-confidence opening up her own restaurant and being in charge of the entrepreneurial side of the business as an ethnic migrant woman. It is a specific way she talks and engages with vendors or employees that shows her sophistication and embodied knowledge of how to assert her position as an employer and business owner, which she learned from her parents. Finally Maria, growing up in a family of artists and intellectuals, showed a natural-seeming familiarity with music, literature, performing arts and academia. Maria easily found her way around in academic circles and stood out as a particularly knowledgeable and opinionated young woman who was not shy of sharing her knowledge and opinions. Already at the age of 25 she tutored Australian undergraduate students in Sociology subjects.

The seven women I interviewed in this research carry their privilege in varying degrees to Australia. The stories show that the extent to which they can make use of their privilege in Australia is relative to their class status in Colombia. Thus, those women from an upper-class background profit to a greater degree from their privilege in Australia than Sol, who is from a middle-class background. Nonetheless, she too profits from her privilege and feels that she has found a place where she belongs in Australia and achieved self-actualisation, in terms of her private life and also professionally. However, as the stories show, it took her longer than the other women to establish herself professionally.

I argue that they are relatively privileged migrants in Australia. Nevertheless, they are faced with certain limitations and exclusion because of their social location as ethnic migrants from a country of the Global South. Thus, the privilege of my interlocutors intersects with positions of subordination and exclusion. Their privilege also intersects with subordinated position when in Colombia. However, the ways in which their privilege intersects with these positions differs fundamentally in Australia and Colombia. In Colombia, I argue, it is their gender position that contradicts their otherwise privileged social location and positionality. In Australia, it is their ethnicity that limits their class privileges. Intersectionality argues that categories of difference are mutually constitutive (Crenshaw 1991, p. 1296). Examining privilege through an

238 intersectional lens I argue that these contradictory social locations create specific forms of privilege.

Another key finding is that the positionality through which my interlocutors understand the world and make sense of their lives as migrants in Australia is deeply rooted in their privileged social location and the positionality they were socialised into in Colombia. These women’s positionality ‘is structured through the interplay of different locations such as Colombia, Australia or their workplace and their at times contradictory effects’ (Anthias 2002b, p. 276) and is not only to be explained through their social location in Australia. Additionally, the women’s narratives reveal that their white, upper-class privilege strongly influences how they navigate their lives in Australia. As I will argue, the women speak and act from a position of privilege even in Australia. By positionality I mean the position from which the women create knowledge about the world and the way they make sense of their lives. Thus, they make sense of their world as upper-class, white Colombian women living in Australia who are now experiencing themselves as being categorised as ethnic in Australia.

Moving to and staying in Australia is a lifestyle choice for these women (see Benson 2014). For example, in Australia these women pursue jobs that they enjoy whereas in Colombia they chose professions that were expected of them because of their upper- class background and did not necessarily find joy in their professional lives. In general, the women enjoyed greater freedom from their families’ expectations, Catholic conservatism and societal upper-class norms in Australia. All these things impeded their freedom to make choices on their own in their home country. This also means that in Australia they were more easily able to self-actualise in terms of their professional life and had greater self-determination in terms of their private lives. Additionally, Australia offered them more political as well as economic stability and more security.

As already mentioned above, the main argument in this thesis is that the women carried many of their privileges with them to Australia. Some examples are their easy access to many types of resources, their educational background, their parents’ financial security that ultimately is their safety net, being able to visit their families

239 regularly, living in nice neighbourhoods or being comfortable in academic surroundings as well as upper-class circles. However, their social location changed as they are not white and upper class in an Australian context. This meant that they also lost the direct effects of their privileged social locations such as passing as upper class, their own and their parents’ networks as well as belonging to the culturally dominant group in a country. In Australia, they are middle-class ethnic migrants but they do not understand themselves as highly racialised or discriminated against. Thus, in comparison to other ethnic migrant communities they are ‘white enough’. Besides their education, the knowledge that they can make a good life for themselves in Colombia as well as Australia and that they continue to have their families’ support, the upper-class white positionality that they were socialised into and that they take with them, are some of their main privileges. It is their taken for granted certainty of who they are in the world that they carry with them to Australia. Additionally, they know that they can go back to Colombia and this works as a safety net for these women. This also means that the white upper-class bubble that encompassed their lives in Colombia has not yet burst. After arriving in Australia much of their lives changed and they do not belong to an upper-class segment of society and do not profit from those privileges anymore. Nonetheless, I argue their lives in Australia are still shaped by the security of their stable privilege in Colombia. The white, upper-class Colombian women embody these privileges even in Australia. They speak and act from a position of privilege. This creates interesting experiences of contradictory social location and positionalities which are best understood through Anthia’s (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) concept of translocational positionality. Examples are their loss of class status but increase of possibilities to self-actualise in their careers.

In the following section I elaborate in more detail on important aspects of my arguments. First, I discuss the women’s experience of privilege in Colombia, particularly in relation to race, ethnicity and class. I then engage in-depth with their gender location. I examine how their privileged class location as upper class and white intersects with their gender and how this creates specific forms of privilege and exclusion. This then leads me to Australia as I discuss changes that the women experience to their gender position as a result of their migration. Following this, I discuss the reasons why the women left Colombia. In the next section, Relatively

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Privileged Migrant Women, I discuss the women’s migration in relation to their privilege, particularly the aspects of their privilege that they transferred to Australia and their privileged positionality. I finish this discussion chapter by discussing the women’s experiences of ‘being ethnic’ in Australia and how this intersects with other categories of differences in their lives.

Growing up Privileged in Colombia

Whiteness and masculinity reinforce each other as prevailing privileges (Lundström 2014, p. 161). So, how do whiteness and femininity work together in relation to privilege? In the following section I focus on privilege and gender in the experiences of the women in this research. I discuss the privileges my interlocutors profit from in Colombia and how their position as women in Colombia intersects with their otherwise privileged social location as white and upper class. I argue that the women’s privilege affords them much ease in navigating social and economic resources and opportunities but their privilege also offers up challenges especially in regard to their gender location in an upper-class white world in Colombia.

Harter (1997, p. 371) points out that the scholarly literature most often frames women from Latin America as victims. Often, they are represented as victims of violence, poverty, the patriarchy and so on. Similarly, Mohanty (1984, p. 337) argues that ‘Third World Women’ are represented as poor, ignorant, uneducated and domestic. The women in this research do not fit into these stereotypical images of Latin American women or ‘Third World Women’ (Mohanty 1991). My interlocutors occupy white (Mestiza) middle- and upper-class social locations and positionalities in Colombia, which enable them to profit from many privileges. These women attended prestigious secondary schools, studied at the best universities, received scholarships and secured good jobs through their parents’ social networks. The women with an upper-class background grew up in gated communities, had household maids, and spent their weekends at their fincas outside of the city. They had overseas holidays with their parents and some of the women lived outside the country for some time.

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Before talking about these women’s privilege it is important to point out that their experiences vary, particularly for Sol who is the only woman in this study who identifies as middle-class. She grew up in a family with stable income and attended a well-respected school in a middle-class suburb of Barranquilla. However, she had never lived overseas before and she also did not profit from the same economic and social resources available to those of my interlocutors with an upper-class background.

In the following section, I discuss different aspects of the women’s privilege in Colombia. Defining what these privileges were will allow me to examine which of these privileges my interlocutors were able to transfer to Australia and how they transferred them. While discussing these different aspects of privilege I am contrasting Sol’s position and experiences with those of the other women. I argue that privilege is relational, thus individuals experience their privilege in relation to a counterpart or their surrounding (see Garner 2007, p. 52). Contrasting the experiences of upper-class and middle-class Colombian women helps to understand the nuances of privilege.

Racial and Ethnic Privileges in Colombia

As I have shown in Chapter 7, Sol’s whiteness is contested in Colombia because of her class status, her ancestry and her appearance, as well as the region she grew up in. Compared to the other women in this research she is thus less privileged. Given her social location and positionality she still profits from privilege in Colombia. However, Sol’s narrative suggests that she did not experience racialisation in Colombia, although she carries racially ambiguous markers such as her curly hair and facial structure, which are somewhat different from white European features. Sol does not understand herself as part of a particular ethnic group and, according to her stories, neither do people in Colombia. The reason for this may be that many Colombians see themselves as ‘being mixed’ and identify with Colombia’s former national identity as a Mestizo nation (see Chapter 4). However, Sol’s story about her hair shows that whiteness is highly valued even though many people understand themselves as mixed- race (see Stanfield 2013). Sol is from the Atlantic Coast, whereas the majority of the other women are from Bogotá. Within the racial geography of Colombia, Barranquilla

242 is an area that is seen as racially mixed and as less white than the capital city of country, for example. A signifier of her belonging to the Caribbean Coast of Colombia is her costeño accent, which is easy to identify for other Colombians. Given that Colombia has a high number of people living in poverty (around 35% are affected by poverty; see DANE 2018), being middle-class is a privileged position. Sol’s narrative shows how she felt that she grew up in family that did not lack anything that she would have considered to be essential. However, in relation to the other women in this research she lacked the privileges of upper classness and, to some extent, whiteness, as those two categories are conflated in Colombia. These are the most important factors which set Sol’s positionality in Colombia apart from that of the other women in this research and thus influence her social location but also how she makes sense of her experiences in Colombia and Australia.

Whiteness in Colombia conflates with upper-classness (Wade 1993, also see Chapter 4). This means that whiteness is a category that is not only based on skin colour or appearance but also on social behaviour and context (Viveros 2015). Teresa, Gabriela, Martha, Natalia, Isabel and Maria identify as upper class. As a consequence, they also understand themselves as (socially) white in a Colombian context. This notion originates in the Spanish caste system in which Spaniards, thus white Europeans, formed the dominant class in colonial times, where the term blanco [white] was used to refer to people of Spanish descent (Streicker 1995, p. 60). In the 20th century the word became a term for people of the upper classes as those mostly where light skinned and of Spanish descent. However, some members of the upper classes were dark skinned through racial mixture and those too were called blanco and this is how the term blanco evolved into a term for the upper classes. Thus, the women in this research profit from class and race privilege in Colombia.

Despite identifying as socially white, all except Sol ethnically identify as being mestiza. These two contradictory identifications are related to different locations they are referring to. I argue that within Colombia’s social structure these women identify as white but outside of Colombia and Latin America they know that they ‘have an ethnicity’ (as opposed to white Europeans for example) (see Vasta 1993). In this context, their cultural background is being mestiza. Within Colombia being

243 mestiza/mestizo works to some extent in a similar way to whiteness as it is seen as the norm (see Olarte Sierra & Díaz Del Castro 2014). Although officially no longer accurate, in the common perception of the majority of Colombians being mestizo/mestiza is still the national identity (see Chapter 4). This excludes Indigenous and Afro-Colombian from the national identity (for further discussion see Wade 2005). I suggest that in this common discourse, being mestiza/mestizo conflates ethnicity with nationality. Mestiza/o is an ethnic category. However, as a result of Colombia’s postcolonial nation building processes, in which the young nation was looking for an identity that could overcome the racial hierarchy the Spanish implemented in their colonies (see Chapter 4), the term connects ethnicity with national identity. This reflects its status as the normalised and national identity and socially dominant culture in Colombia. Similar to whiteness in countries with a dominant white population, being mestiza/o is unmarked in Colombia (see Frankenberg 1993; see Chapter 2). My interlocutors thus profit from whiteness and from being mestizas as this is the culturally dominant group in Colombia. Based on their stories they never experienced discrimination, exclusion or disadvantage based on their race or ethnicity in Colombia. As shown earlier in this thesis they lose these privileges when moving to Australia.

Class Privileges in Colombia

As I have pointed out in Chapter 4, education is highly important in middle-class and upper-class families in Colombia (Hanratty & Meditz 1998). A person’s high school is a particularly important class indicator, followed by the neighborhood a person lives in and then their university education. According to my interlocutors, the most prestigious schools are international schools with American, British or French curricula such as the school Gabriela’s partner Emmanuel attended. Natalie, another of my interlocutors, attended a French high school. In terms of status these are followed by the Colombian elite Catholic high schools that Teresa, Gabriela, Isabel, and Maria attended. Sol went to an Anglican private school serving middle-class families. All women in this research went to universities that were either considered the best universities in the country, or to highly ranked private universities. These

244 universities were not easily accessible for middle-class families due to their high fees. Sol was only able to attend the best university in her area because her father was able to afford the high student fees.

In an earlier chapter I have described how my interlocutors, particularly Teresa and Gabriela, grew up in what they described as ‘social bubbles’ in the wealthy north of Bogotá. Martha, Maria, Natalia and Isabel grew up in the same area and went to similar schools. The composition of their and their parents’ friendship circles were homogenous in terms of class and race and ethnicity, and according to my interviews their parents’ leisure time activities, such as weekly visits to the country club, too were similar. There was almost nobody with an Afro-Colombian, or Indigenous background in these circles. All women in this research except Sol grew up in an estrato five or six (see Chapter 4). To set this into perspective in 2017 approximately 5% of the inhabitants of Bogotá lived in an estrato five or six area, 8% in an estrato four, 36% in an estrato three—which represents the middle-classes—and 51% in estratos one to two (Riaño 2018; see also Torres Casierra 2017). Education and their embodied upper- classness are two of the privileges these women were able to transfer to Australia.

Here I want to draw attention to the difference between Sol and the other women’s performance of class. Sol highlights in her story that her family inhabited upper-class spaces, for example when shopping for clothes. Her daily hair straightening is a means to escape blackness and perform whiteness. It is also a performance of fitting in and conforming to certain classed expectations and beauty standards. From a young age Sol wore jewellery and put effort into creating a feminine and mature look. I suggest that different performances are rooted in their different social locations. For Sol, it would have had negative consequences to wear the kinds of clothes and behave the same way Teresa did as a young woman, as she could not have fallen back onto her privilege. Teresa and Gabriela knew that they would not lose their privilege even when they wore sneakers and jeans full of holes. Additionally, they do not need clothes to tell people their status. They have habitual modes of letting those surrounding them know, as for example their accents from Bogotá, their mannerism, familiarity with certain situations, places and type of people, their taste in not only clothing but also music, art and food, and their choice of words. For example, Sol speaks loudly at

245 times. She changes her tone and uses it to add emotions and dramatic effects to her stories. Teresa, in comparison, never raises her voice. Another example is Natalie who perfected the art of speaking almost without emotions, and Martha, who is composed no matter what the situation. Class and Violence in Colombia

Finally, another aspect of these women’s upper-class status is a particular type of violence they were threatened by during their childhood and adolescence. As I have mentioned earlier, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities suffered the most under Colombia’s civil conflict and the violence perpetuated through drug cartels, military, paramilitary and guerrilla groups as well as street gangs. Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities were disproportionally affected by internal displacement (UNHCR 2017). However, all the upper-class women who participated in this research also experienced personally or had a close friend who had dangerous encounters with Colombia’s violence. These ranged from blackmailing to kidnapping, or as Teresa and Gabriela’s stories showed, the constant threat of bombs, as those were particularly targeted at the rich of the country. The most famous incident was the kidnapping of Diana Turbay, a journalist and the daughter of former Colombian president Julio César Turbay Ayala, which shocked the elites of the country (AP 1991). Nonetheless, they were not exposed to the same everyday violence as disadvantaged Colombians. However, as I have shown, the women grew up in the safety of their upper-class neighbourhoods, gated communities, tight and closed social circles, and protected by their parents, who drove them through the city to protect them.

Gendered Expectations in Colombia

Women in Colombia, as anywhere in the world, identify with various social classes and ethnicities, live in different regions, belong to different racial identities and experience multiple forms of oppression. While each Colombian woman is an individual with her own personal lived experience, they are subject to the norms and expectations that are particular to the society in which they live (Harter 1997, p. 371).

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The scholarship on Colombia’s gender relations often describes Colombian society as machismo (see Harter 1997). This suggests that existent gender norms reinforce male superiority over women, reinforcing ideas of dominance, aggressiveness in male to male relationships and sexual aggression in male to female relationships (Dawson & Gifford 2001, p. 405; Flake & Forste 2006, p. 20). In conservative Colombian families the man has to protect the family and provide for their material welfare and represent the family in the public sphere (Dawson & Gifford 2001, p. 405). Machismo is seen as a result of the historical experience of disempowerment and exploitation during Spanish colonisation (Flake & Forste 2006, p. 20). Female gender roles mirror male ones in so far as women are expected to endure suffering, to be submissive and to take care of the family and dedicate themselves to their roles as mothers and wives. The mother represents love, mildness and care (Dawson & Gifford 2001, p. 406; Flake & Forste 2006, p. 20). Additionally, the strong influence of the Catholic church promotes a prudish and conservative attitude towards sex which particularly stigmatises female sexuality (Dawson & Gifford 2001, p. 406).

How does gender influence these women’s privileged social location in Colombia? In a recent study on intimate partner violence in displaced communities in Colombia and another study on a working-class community in Cartagena, the participating women stated that, in their experiences, gender roles expected of them included taking care of the household and partner, faithfulness, cheerfulness and finally not spending too much time outside of the house as this would be a transgression (Hynes et al. 2016, p. 22; Streicker 1995, p. 57, p. 62). Gendered norms in every society affect individuals differently. Family norms and values in Latin America have changed in the last 40 to 50 years towards a more equal and liberal understanding of gender relations and female sexuality (Dawson & Gifford 2001, p. 406). Not every Colombian woman experiences these norms, but there are general tendencies in Colombian society which suggest an image of masculinity as machismo. Different women are affected in different ways according to their situation and circumstances (Harter 1997, p. 376).

Many issues raised above such as the women’s duty to take care of the household and children or expectations to stay at home were not raised in any of the interviews I conducted. Based on my observations their partners shared the household load with

247 them and all women were working since they left university, which can be read as a result of their age, upper-class status and progressive gender ideologies.

Gender and the Labour Market

Hanratty and Meditz (1998) mention that women from working-class families are often forced to work outside the house to support the family’s income. This can be seen as an advantage as they are economically taking up an important role within their family. However, they traditionally work in poorly paid jobs such as the service sector, retail or the informal sector, which limits their income on top of the existent gender pay gap in Colombia (Harter 1997, p. 376). In comparison, women from upper-class families, such as my interlocutors, entered the work force later as there was no economic need for them to support the family. However, once they entered the labour market they occupied much higher positions than those women of working-class background. Harter (1997, p. 377) points out that in Colombia a proportionally high number of women are employed in well-paid positions. She argues that one of the reasons for this is that access to good jobs is often regulated through social networks, which opens the door more easily for children from upper-class families. Well educated middle to upper-class women cater to Colombia’s growing need for skilled employees (Harter 1997, p. 378). In her article about the role of women in the Latin American labour force in times of industrialisation and capitalism, Safa (1977, p. 127) particularly highlights the classed aspect of the female labour force. Similarly to Harter (1997), she points out that in the stage of urbanisation and intensified industrialisation in Latin American countries particularly upper-class women with tertiary education entered the labour force into white collar jobs. This was true for the women in my research, who all had well-paid, high status employment. According to their narratives, both Teresa and Gabriela found their well-paying and prestigious job through personal networks.

Although being a woman indicates a less powerful social location and often means economic dependency in the case of upper-class women in Colombia, their gendered location intersects with their class location and puts them in a privileged position,

248 particularly compared to working- or middle-class women, in the labour market. Thus, in relation to other women they are privileged in terms of their access to the labour market.

Motherhood and Sexuality

The women in my study commented on the machismo culture in Colombia and talked about overprotective fathers and grandparents who would have liked them to follow more traditional female pathways such as early motherhood and a more home-oriented lifestyle. Due to the prevalence of machismo in society and the strong influence of Catholicism, motherhood is perceived as a women’s destiny in Colombia (Harter 1997, p. 386). As Molyneux (2002, p. 178) writes, ‘motherhood [acts] as a powerful referent in the construction of identity’. Sol’s mother reminded her that now that she is a mother her place is in her house and admonished her to drop all her other projects and focus her energy on motherhood (see Chapter 7). In my interpretation, the women are encouraged to engage in a conservative lifestyle. I suggest this could be particular to upper-class families as it may reflect certain upper-class family values, and they can afford living without a second wage.

I argue that Sol experiences her motherhood in ambiguous ways in Australia. Sol felt ambivalent about her motherhood. On the one hand, she lacked the closeness and support of the family which she, as I have shown in Chapter 7, experienced during her childbirth. In her narrative she emphasised this as a particular trait of her background and family and something that, in her opinion, is lacking in broader Australian society. Motherhood in Australia seemed particularly isolating to Sol and to some extend overwhelming as she lacked her extended family network which would be supporting her in her role as mother. As Aizpurua (2008, p. 151) found in her thesis on the acculturation of Latin American women in Australia, women can feel overwhelmed in their roles as mothers if they lack the support of their family. On the other hand, Sol demonstrates in her story how determined she is to find a job as soon as possible and go back to work, a choice which might be harder to make if she were living in Colombia. Being a mother in Australia gives her more freedom to make choices about

249 her career but simultaneously also isolates her more and adds up to extra costs for expensive child care in Australia. This shows the complex and nuanced ways in which their gender places my interlocutors in subordinated positions. These processes are not straightforward. However, this demonstrates how gender has different effects on women depending on the context.

The stories the women tell show that, although having autonomy when living in Colombia, their lives were still influenced by patriarchal and Catholic gender norms and expectations. By moving to Australia, they gained more freedom as they perceive societal norms in Australia as less limiting for women. Additionally, the distance to their families granted them more freedom in regards to their chosen way of life, particularly their family lives. In our interviews, several of my interlocutors stated that in Australia they have more autonomy from their family and Colombia’s rigid class structure. I have shown how their class and race privilege in Colombia intersects with their position as women in society. Their stories have shown that their upper-class position and their gender create specific forms of inequality but simultaneously also specific forms of gender privilege compared to working-class Colombian women.

Gendered Experiences in Australia

I begin the discussion of the women’s experiences in Australia by engaging with changes to their gender location. According to the women’s stories my interlocutors were involved in the labour force in both their home country and in Australia. However, particularly immediately after their migration to Australia the women experienced a drop in perceived social status. This is common for migrants (Joseph 2013, p. 30). In the case of the women, they came to Australia as students and worked part-time in retail or hospitality, which are low-status occupations. This was except for those of my interlocutors who were writing their PhDs.

This period of reduced social status did not last long. Joseph (2013, p. 30) points out that particularly high skilled migrants do well in a new labour market after an adjustment period. Similarly, the stories told by the Colombian women during my

250 research suggest that, with time, they found adequate jobs that they enjoyed. I argue that the majority of the women found jobs in Australia which they enjoyed more than the old (and often more prestigious) professions they worked at in Colombia. For the majority of my interlocutors their jobs in Australia constituted a progressive self- actualisation. Maria and Gabriela came for their PhDs. Teresa transitioned into an artistic career and then into a PhD. Natalie wanted to leave her job in the investment world behind and started a business in Australia. Thus, her trajectory is similar to Sol’s. Martha continued the career that she started in Colombia. Isabel, who at a young age already was the HR manager of a transnational company in Colombia, is the only one of the women who does not perceive the labour market opportunities that opened up for her in Australia as a positive development. Although she never had difficulties finding a job she never got offered a position similar to the one she held in Colombia in terms of seniority and salary. This is particularly hard for her as she told me many times how much she loved her job. However, being the mother of a young child she came to terms with her secure and time-flexible full-time job that pays well, even though it is far below her qualifications. This means that for the majority of women migration was an improvement in terms of their occupation. They could choose careers that they care about whereas in Colombia some of them followed societal as well as family expectations and made decision based on prestige and income.

When the experiences of the Colombian women are compared to women in a study conducted by Lundström and Winddance (2011) the relational and contextual character of social locations, in this particular case of gender, become evident. Lundström and Winddance (2011) investigated the experiences of white middle- to upper-middle-class Swedish migrant women living in the US. The majority of the Swedish women in their study are mothers. Through their migration, the gendered privileges they had in Sweden changed. Lundström and Winddance (2011, p. 82) argue that

By losing the Social Democrat family and child-oriented general welfare support of paid parental leave, affordable child care, sick leave and separate taxation, Swedish women are pushed into the role of primary

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care-takers and into a migrant position characterized by racialized privileges and gendered vulnerabilities.

White middle- to upper-middle-class Swedish mothers become economically more vulnerable by migrating to the US because the social structures, thus the family and child-oriented welfare support that put them in a privileged position (compared to US American women) fall away. Simultaneously, through their migration they increase their racial and class privilege as they occupy the top of a hierarchy of whiteness (Lundström & Winddance 2011, p. 81).

There are two relevant outcomes to discuss. First, as Lundström and Winddance (2011, p. 68) point out, these women lose privileges (in relation to other women) that were a product of egalitarian gender ideologies in Sweden. The existent structures in the US pushed them into the roles of full-time carers, which means that they became economically dependent on their partners. This is an example of how social locations are contextual, intersecting and situated. They are contextual because they depend on existing social structures and norms. They are intersecting because, in this case, the act of migration and the female gender role both contribute to their changed social location and circumstances, which is different from the experience of their male partners or, for that matter, any male migrant. They are situated because different environments result in different outcomes (see Brah 1996). Privilege is not fixed but can be lost and gained in various different ways. I argue that the Colombian women in my study did not lose gender privileges by moving to Australia. They rather gained more liberties through moving away from Colombia. There are various ways in which migration affects gender locations. The outcomes of migration on women’s privileges vary depending on their social location and the social structures within which they are located.

Second, the relational character that leads to varying outcomes of whiteness in different geographic locations is of importance (see Anthias 2002a). Within Sweden the women in Lundström and Winddance’s (2011) study are in a less privileged class and race location than the women in my study within Colombia. However, through

252 migrating to the US the European, white Swedish women increase those privileges whereas the women in my research lose them in Australia because they do not pass as white in this context. As Garner (2007, p. 52) points out, whiteness is relational and there are hierarchies (of whiteness) amongst white people. These hierarchies enable the Swedish women to profit even more from their whiteness in the US and make the Colombian non-Western women lose their white privilege. Their status within the hierarchy of whiteness is influenced by the racial formations in the US and Australia. Farquharson (2007, p. 5) for example points out that, due to different racial formations, the category white is narrower in Australia than it is in the US.

As I have shown, the women experience Australian gender structures as less limiting and conservative, which opens up new opportunities for self-actualisation for them. However, as I will discuss in more detail in the following sections, they lose other privileges they had in Colombia such as white privileges and privileges attached to a social location as upper class (although they are able to transfer many of their class privileges). The experiences, loss and/or increase of privilege in these women’s migration experiences are nuanced. They are contradictory, depending on the social and geographical locations the women are embedded in and speaking from. This highlights the importance of a translocational lens (Anthias 2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b). The women’s stories show how local and global social structures position individuals in contradictory ways which influence their everyday experiences as they are simultaneously located within multiple structures.

Leaving Colombia: The Privilege of Choice

Before discussing my interlocutor’s experiences in Australia, I would like to first reflect on the women’s reasons for leaving their home country as I argue this is also intertwined with their class location and privilege. In the theoretical outline of her monograph White Migrations, Lundström (2014, p. 1) points towards a dichotomy when it comes to the representation of people in motion. White people ‘out of place’ are not framed as migrants. She continues that

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The non-privileged migrant is also the one who has often been subjectified as ‘the migrant’ in (Western) literature, research or the media […]. There ‘the migrant’ tends to be imagined as the embodiment of suffering caused by economic and political exposure. (Lundström 2014, p. 1)

Travel, in contrast, as Amit (2007, p. 6) points out, historically has been an expression of cultivated taste, particularly for the upper classes. Over the last two decades moving overseas has gained importance as ‘“international experience” within a globalizing economy’ (Amit 2007, p. 6). Particularly in the case of Teresa and Gabriela, moving overseas was almost an expected next step in their personal and professional development. An indication of this is the fact that all their siblings, older and younger, studied or lived overseas for a while or still live in other countries. The travel care package that Gabriela got passed down, ready packed and good to go, is an appropriate metaphor for her families’ expectation. It is interesting that all of Teresa’s and Gabriela’s siblings moved to either Europe or the U.S for the purpose of education and not to another South American country. Their migration to ‘the West’ can be read as reaffirmation of their upper-class status and further increases their competitiveness on a global job market. As Rocha and Coronado (2014, p. 471) point out, Australia’s historical relationship with England and the English language is an additional draw card for Latin American migrants, as both can be used to accumulate cultural capital. Other reasons for leaving, as the stories show, were a wish for adventure and new experiences, their partners, their job situations, personal aspirations and educational reasons as well as the wish for more freedom from societal norms in Colombia.

Finally, I was surprised to find during the research that none of the women mentioned the insecurity, the civil war, the political corruption, the drug trade or the unstable economy as reasons to leave the country. Wulfhorst (2014, p. 477) in her study on high skilled, middle- to upper-middle-class Brazilian migrants living in Sydney found that their reasons to leave Brazil were based on ‘corruption, the increase in violence and the search for a better quality of life’. Given the similarities to the women in this research the different motivations to migrate are noticeable. However, based on the

254 women’s stories in my study, I argue that they lived lives relatively sheltered from these instabilities and insecurities in their last decade living in Colombia. It seems that the more acute danger they experienced as children and teenagers was a matter of the past, a time when Pablo Escobar was still alive. This may be a particular upper-class privilege, and seems to be less the case for street crime and petty crimes. The Brazilians in Wulfhorst’s (2014) study have a privileged class location too, but they do not identify as upper class as my interlocutors do. For example, Teresa explicitly acknowledged that she had many opportunities in Colombia. In support of Wulfhorst’s (2014) study, Sol, the only woman identifying as middle class, did not believe that Colombia would provide enough opportunities for her social enterprise. To sum this up, their reasons to leave the country reflect their upper-class privilege in Colombia. Similarly, leaving the country is also part of their upper-class culture.

Relatively Privileged Migrant Women

One of the main findings of this thesis is that the women were able to transfer aspects of their privilege from Colombia to Australia. However, as I have shown, they also lost some privileges in the process of ‘reposition[ing] themselves within new systems post-migration’ (Joseph 2012, p. 28). This creates at times contradictory social locations and positionalities as these are produced at the intersection of different transnational locations (Anthias 2002b). In this section, I discuss the migration of my interlocutors in relation to their privilege. Then, I outline aspects of the women’s privilege that they were able to transfer to Australia as well as aspects that they lost, and finally their privileged positionality.

The women in this research never planned on staying permanently in Australia. It was a decision they made over time. I argue that this again is a result of the upper-class location that most of them occupy in Colombia. As for example Wulfhorst (2014, p. 477) points out, many of the middle to upper-middle Brazilians in her study choose courses at Australian universities that fit into the Australian Skilled Migration scheme, hoping to gain Permanent Residency. In contrast, Teresa, Gabriela and Sol chose their university courses in Australia based on their personal interest and to advance their careers. Their decisions to stay in large part had to do with the less stressful lifestyle

255 they have in Australia. Benson and O’Reilly (2009, p. 621) define lifestyle migration as the migration of ‘relatively affluent individuals, moving either part-time or full- time, permanently or temporarily, to places which, for various reasons, signify for the migrants something loosely defined as quality of life’. According to this definition the women in my study can be seen as lifestyle migrants. However, as opposed to the movement of people from the Global North the migration of people from the Global South is rarely framed as lifestyle migration.

In our interviews all the women told me that they dread the idea of the long exhausting working hours, the constant traffic jams and family obligations which left them with little spare time in Colombia. Torresan (2007, p. 106), in her research on middle-class Brazilian migrants living in Portugal, found that according to her participants their quality of life improved because they had more independence from their families back home. This is of relevance, as I have already mentioned earlier in this chapter, given that the women experienced Colombia’s societal structure and their family’s expectations as well as obligations as overwhelming and restricting. Nonetheless, all women repeatedly mentioned how much they miss their families. However, the liberties they enjoy in Melbourne are a reason for them to stay. As I have shown in the narratives, the women initially did not mention insecurity, political as well as economic, as reasons to leave the country. Nonetheless, being in Australia made them realise that their lives in Colombia were dominated by insecurity and instability. All in all, they find everyday life in Australia easier than in Colombia.

Before discussing in which ways the women transferred their privileges to Australia and their translocational positionality I would like to conclude this section by pointing out that one of the distinguishing (class) privileges of the Colombian women is that they can move back to Colombia with the knowledge that they will have relatively good lives. This is a privilege many other Latin American migrants in Australia, who came because of political and economic instabilities, do not have (Mejia 2016, p. 26). As Benson has pointed out (2014, p. 57), having the choice to decide where to live and which lifestyle to have is a privilege.

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Transferring Privilege

The Colombian women in this research gain more gender and personal freedom by moving to Australia and, as I have explored in this thesis, they lose some of their privileges through their migration. I argue this is because they are not from nation states ‘that occupy a significant position of power in the global hierarchy, as a result of strong economies and/or political power’ (Benson 2014, p. 49) and because of their contested whiteness. Nonetheless, they are able to transfer many of their privileges from Colombia to Australia, which I discuss in this section.

Although the women lost their white privilege in Australia, I argue they are relatively privileged migrants in comparison to other Latin American migrants and many other non-European migrants. Besides their upper-class background, another factor for this is that the women are not heavily racialised in Australia compared to, for example, Indigenous Australians or Muslim background migrants (Moreton-Robinson 2009; Sohrabi & Farquharson 2015, p. 634). This means that although they lost their privileges as whites they still profit from being whiter than others in Australian multicultural society. The stories of Teresa and Gabriela show how the privileges they enjoyed, particularly in relation to their upper-class status, enabled them to have an easy starting position as migrants in Australia. Particularly advantageous for their migration are their elite education, prestigious jobs and the credentials that come with them, their cosmopolitan lifestyle, familiarity with Western institutions such as universities, and their substantial English skills which they acquired in their extended overseas stays.

Important for an understanding of privilege is that, as my research shows, these initial privileges create more advantages. For example, the factors mentioned above helped Teresa and Gabriela to get accepted to elite institutions in Melbourne and to receive prestigious scholarships for their studies. Because of her scholarship Gabriela did not need to work other than to gain work experience. Teresa had to work additionally. Nonetheless, through her co-students she found a job in hospitality which was in a hip restaurant with other young people in a trendy suburb in Melbourne. In Colombia it would have been frowned upon if Teresa had worked in hospitality as only people

257 from a lower-class background would do that. In Melbourne many students, not only those from working-class background, work in hospitality and as her job was in a hip suburb her new job fed into her status as an artist in Melbourne’s trendy inner north. She gained cultural capital, which she needed to be able to make a name in Melbourne’s art scene. Additionally, through her upper-class education Teresa knew how to navigate the art world. However, these women not only profit from upper-class or racial privilege. It is the embodiment of their privilege that affects their lives positively.

As I have shown in the previous chapters, transferring privileges was easier for those women of upper-class background than for Sol. Gabriela and Teresa occupy secure and comfortable social locations in Australia. Although it took her longer, Sol too found work in an area she wanted to. They all live in middle-class suburbs relatively close to the city centre and earn enough money to be comfortable. However, the women’s stories show how being upper class helped Gabriela and Teresa to transition relatively easily without lasting difficulties or setbacks. They were able to quickly self-actualise professionally as well as in other aspects in their lives. This was much harder for Sol due to the course she was enrolled in, the lack of scholarship or financial means, her lack of English proficiency and her professional trajectory in Colombia. I argue that it is not only those tangible aspects of privilege that put Sol in a more disadvantaged position. Teresa and Gabriela’s privilege also stems from the positionality they were socialised into. The lens through which they see the world is one of class and race privilege. In Ahmed’s (2018) words, this means that ‘less effort is required to pass through when a world has been assembled around you’.

Before I move on to the next section where I discuss the women’s positionality in detail I would like to point out that these women did not carry all their privileges with them across borders, as some of their social locations changed and put them in a less powerful and privileged position. In Australia, they are middle-class, migrant women. For a period of time, these women went back to university and could only work part- time, which influenced their financial situation. They do not live in the most expensive areas anymore but rather in middle-class neighbourhoods. Generally, they had to get used to a lower standard of living in some respects, as Teresa’s disappointment about

258 her teacher’s partner’s apartment showed. They lost their and their parents’ valuable social networks, which normally would work in their favour when, for example, looking for jobs. Another disadvantage that they encountered was their visa status.

Except for Teresa, none of the women mentioned major visa issues, but one of my interlocutors had to leave the country when her visa expired and she was not able to get a new one. Through the time that I spent with the women I experienced the stress that the continuous visa applications meant to them, not only financially. It also made it hard and nearly impossible to plan or make financial investments. For years these women lived a life of uncertainty about their future. Also, as Teresa pointed out, having her visa rejected was the first time in her life she felt unwanted. For the first time she felt as if she would not belong. I have seen the emotional reactions of the women when applying for a visa. Documenting one’s life and making a case to stay evokes a sense of not belonging. This often meant that they had the feeling that they need to prove their value to the nation. However, receiving a distinguished talent visa based on her art created a strong sense of belonging for Teresa.

Privileged Positionality

I argue that even though the world is not assembled around the Colombian women in Australia, growing up with the above-mentioned privilege makes life easier in Melbourne for my interlocutors. Teresa and Gabriela are used to being in this position. It is embodied, and they move through the world with, and see the world through, privilege. This means even though the women may have experienced similar setbacks in, for example, their job hunt, their interpretation is different. Teresa only mentioned in passing that she wondered if her last name may have made it harder for her to find a job when she was sending out her Curriculum Vitae. It did not take up too much of her time dwelling upon this question. She quickly moved on and told me that she created her own job within an important art institution in Australia. This positionality is one of their most valuable privileges.

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On the contrary, Sol told me how potential discrimination impacted on her. She felt she was not given a chance in Australia. Her feeling of being discriminated against for not being a native English speaker while looking for a job affected her deeply and she was not able to just brush it off. This was in contrast to the experiences of other women. Teresa’s embodied privilege shields her from perceiving possible discrimination, to some extent, in Australia. Discrimination is about power. Key to this is that Teresa does not feel like she is in a disadvantaged position in regard to finding a job. This means that it does not affect her, as discrimination and exclusion have little influence on her life in her perception. This potential disadvantage has no power over her. Teresa’s positionality illustrates what I argue is translocational positionality (Anthias 2002a, 2002b, 2008, 2012). Although she is a migrant woman from the Global South in Australia, she still perceives the world partially through her privileged white upper-class positionality in Colombia. Thus, her positionality is a product of the intersection of many transnational locations.

These women occupy a positionality that is influenced not only by the actual social locations they are occupying in Australia, but also by the social location they were socialised into in Colombia. For example, as migrant woman in Australia, even knowing of the possible disadvantages of a non-Anglo last name at the local labour market, Teresa speaks and acts from a position of privilege when speaking of her experiences in the job market. This suggests that some identity categories influence a person’s translocational positionality to a greater extent than others. Being upper class impacts on these women more than being an ethnic migrant, an identity category that is relatively new to them. This may change over time but at the point of my research their upper-class background influenced their positionality more than other factors.

Benson (2014), using a Bourdieusian framework, comes to a similar conclusion in relation to the relative privilege of Britons living in rural France. She writes

[…] class is difficult to shake off; embodied by the individual, it continues to influence practices and actions in life following migration. In this respect, it becomes clear that, at least for these relatively affluent and privileged migrants, migration does not rupture habitus, but rather

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reinforces and reaffirms the classed dimensions of this. (Benson 2014, p. 57)

As the women in my research are from the Global South migrating to the Global North, their circumstances are different. Migration does not reinforce upper-class dimensions for these Colombian women living in Melbourne, but it also does not rupture them.

However, Gabriela’s encounter with the bouncer, as I have shown in her chapter, illustrates that she speaks from a positionality of privilege. Additionally, it gives an example relevant to an important question: ‘What aspects of transnational migration are visible in the power-geometry of everyday life of migrant women?’ (Joseph & Lundström 2013, p. 3). It also touches on the question of how privilege changes, which I will discuss in detail in the following section. For now, I argue that Gabriela experienced stereotypes for being from the Global South. However, her advantage is her upper-class background and education. She knows how to navigate legal systems and procedures and has the self-esteem to write a letter in English and file a complaint. Out of her privileged positionality she trusted the systems installed by the Australian government to legally protect her. I argue that this is a result of her positionality in Colombia. She is used to being heard and has learnt to count on the support of a government as well as its institutions. This is a privilege in itself that, for example, racially marked or migrant groups do not have to the same extent. They are in a more precarious position when needing support. Here disadvantage (being an ethnic migrant from Colombia) and privilege intersect in Gabriela’s everyday experience and, as her story shows, she is able to act from a position of power. The experiences that the women have as ‘ethnics’ are the topics of the following section.

The Intersection of Privilege and Ethnic Difference

In the final section of this chapter, I discuss my interlocutors’ experiences of their ethnicity in Australia and the intersections that ‘being ethnic’ in Australia create in their lives. Non-black Latin Americans experience relatively little racism in Australia (Rocha & Coronda 2014, p. 471). Marrow (2012, p. 656) came to a similar conclusion

261 about the perception of Latin Americans in Ireland. Many Latin Americans in her study felt in an advantaged position compared to other migrant groups or gypsies and refugees due to positive or at least neutral stereotypes about Latin Americans in Ireland. Moreso, according to her interlocutors’ experiences, Latin Americans in Ireland perceived weaker racialisation than for example in the USA, Spain and Portugal, which are countries with a high number of Latin American migrants. In the Australian context Rocha and Coronda (2014, p. 471) argue that the geographical distance and lack of historical and colonial ties, as well as the relatively small number of migrants and their middle-class background, could be reasons for the relative position perceptions of Latin Americans. Additionally, Cohen (2005, p. 113) writes that Latin Americans in Australia are ‘the stereotype of the exotic, erotic and sensual Latino ethnicity and cultural identity’ (also see Rocha & Coronado 2014, p. 471; Wulfhorst 2014, p. 482). As I have shown, my interlocutors are still confronted with stereotypes and discriminations, but they all explained to me that those were the exception to the rule and I have also shown that the women pointed out that they do not feel strongly discriminated against.

As already discussed earlier, most of the women in this research are racially or ethnically unmarked white Mestizas in Colombia. Being a fair-skinned Mestiza in Colombia comes with racial privilege (Frankenberg 1993, p. 1). For example, the women lived a life free from racial discrimination in Colombia. Additionally, they belong to Colombia’s socially dominant culture and this culture still disproportionally values what is white (Viveros 2015, p. 497). Lundström calls the position the women occupy in Colombian society a ‘normative and structurally invisible position’ and thus a privilege (2014, p. 6). She points out that privileged migrants may lose this position in their new host country (2014, p. 6). I argue that this is the case for the women in this research. In Australia these women become ethnic migrants as they are not of white European or Anglo-Saxon background. In my thesis I showed how the women experience their ethnic difference to others in Australia. Additionally, their own cultural upbringing becomes visible to Sol, Teresa and Gabriela as well as the other women I interviewed. Their narratives show how the women do not necessarily perceive this difference as a disadvantaged social location although it is a source of otherness in Australia. They are proud of their cultural background and speak joyfully

262 of their ethnic difference. This suggests identities are not fixed but contextual. All women highlight that they became more aware of their ‘Colombianness’ in Australia as their cultural background was normalised in Colombia whereas in Australia it signifies difference and is visible.

Nonetheless, as part of an ethnic migrant minority within Australia, the women have experienced different types of stereotypes and misrepresentations, which are all connected to Colombia’s status as a nation of the Global South. As I have shown in their stories, the women at times experienced how people in Australia perceive Colombia not as part of the Western world. I argue that the women in this study perceive themselves as part of the West as their lives take place in a globalised world. Their schooling was based on Western curriculums. They travelled and lived in Europe and the US. They are well versed in European high culture and American pop culture, and consume global goods. This representation of Colombia as being non- Western often conflates with images of Colombia as a dangerous country and drug state. Further, the women encounter gendered stereotypes such as ‘Latina’. As Merskin (2007) shows, the stereotype of the ‘hot Latina’ is particularly perpetuated in US mass media and pop culture through the specific portrayal of Latin American migrant women. The stereotypes range from romantic, sensual, and sexually dangerous to self-sacrificing, dependent, naïve, and pampered (Merskin 2007, p. 136).

As I have shown, Teresa and Gabriela in particular find it easy to brush such stereotypes off. As already mentioned above, they speak from a position of privilege. They quickly move on and it does not affect them. I argue that the privileged white, upper-class positionality they were socialised into shields them from negative consequences of being ‘ethnic’ in Australia. They understand themselves as being in a powerful position and so these projections do not affect them too much. The women do not understand themselves as victims and even if they have negative experiences they have the resources to strike back and regain some power over the situation.

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Contradictory Social Locations

The label ‘ethnic’ is particularly important to understand the experiences of otherness my Colombian-born interlocutors encounter in Australia. Ethnicity, or prefix labels such as Italian-Australian, are used in Australian society to indicate that a person is not from an Anglo-Australian background (see Hage 2002). I argue that those who are not from an Anglo-Australian (and northern European) background carry otherness and difference to varying degrees (depending on their religion, background skin colour, and ethnicity). The women in this research are perceived as ‘ethnic’ in Australia. This has structural implications for the women as they are not any longer part of the socially dominant culture. Levine-Rasky writes

Ethnicity is differentiated from the norm and is thus a focal point of exclusion regardless of race. ‘Foreign’, ‘immigrant’,‘minority’, and ‘ethnic’ and categories like ‘Arab’, ‘Jewish’, ‘Spanish’, ‘mixed’,‘Native’, ‘Asian’, all signal an essentialized difference regardless of social class. (Levine-Rasky 2011, p. 248)

This means that, within a particular society, those who are marked by being labelled as ‘ethnic’ are not perceived as the cultural norm by those who are in power. As I am looking at privilege through an intersectional lens I argue that ethnicity influences the class privileges these women hold. Levine-Rasky (2011, p. 48) argues that ethnicity contradicts the privilege of being middle class or upper class. I have shown the everyday experiences that this intersection of these contradictory social locations can create. As I have shown, migrating to Australia did not take these women’s class privileges away from them. However, migration changed the women’s privileges and their advantageous effects. It created limitations to certain privileges and led situationally to exclusion. Nevertheless, as the stories suggest, depending on the location their ethnicity works as an advantage, as for example within Australia’s ethnicised labour market. The women, although labelled as ethnic and excluded from some resources, can use their ethnicity to their benefit in Australia. These women make the most out of their ethnicity and their (other) privileges enable them to do so.

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Teresa’s story is a good example of this. I argue that within the realms of her prestigious art school in Australia it is her ethnic difference which she uses to create art. In her narrative she states that she was the only one who was not an artist in her class. Thus, she felt like she did not belong. However, she also said that in her art she is exploring differences and working with the friction of cultural encounters. Teresa’s ethnicity enables a perspective that she finds worthwhile to express. It gives her a story to tell. This could be interpreted as demonstrating that Teresa makes her ethnic difference work for her within her university and the networks that are attached to it. Her ethnic difference helped her to develop a sense of belonging (within the realm of her art school) as an artist and it gives her a place within the arts world (as she manages multicultural artists). Thus, it is her upper-class privilege that enabled her to navigate these surroundings and her ethnic difference that made them work for her. In this specific location her ethnicity is of advantage to her whereas for example Gabriela’s ethnic difference was a disadvantage in the setting of an inner-city Melbourne bar.

Anthias (2002a, p. 502) also points out that by focusing on location one recognises the importance of context. I have shown how Teresa was able to make her upper classness and her ethnic difference work within her university. Nonetheless, Teresa’s story also showed that ‘being ethnic’ still constituted a hurdle and a limitation in the art world (outside of her university) to her as she told me she felt that her art was often seen as a representation of her culture and not as a creative and artistic expression. This meant that her art was not exposed to the same audience as the art of non-ethnic artists. This shows how ethnicity changes an otherwise relatively privileged social location and, in this case, excluded her from a wider audience.

Teresa’s experiences are not unique in this perspective. For example, Çağlar (2016) shows that Vienna, a city that understands itself as open-minded and diverse, with half of its population having a migrant background, shows a lack of migrants in its traditional cultural institutions (Çağlar 2016, p. 955). Çağlar (2016) argues that, similar to Teresa’s experiences in Melbourne, art produced by migrants is marginalised ‘both as artistic work and as contemporary cultural productions’. Their artwork only receives recognition and funding when it is framed as some sort of intercultural dialogue (Çağlar 2016, p. 956). She concludes that the art made by

265 migrants serves an ‘integration function rather than artistic concerns and qualities’ (Çağlar 2016, p. 956). Thus, migrants are encouraged to act out their ethnic difference to serve a particular purpose in society and for the city. This resonates with Teresa’s experiences that the socially dominant part of Australians society only looks at/for multicultural artists to ‘imagine itself as heterogeneous (to claim their differences as “our difference”)’ (Ahmed 2001, p. 96), thus to prove its multicultural character.

The stories of Teresa and Sol show that their ethnicity is an opportunity but at the same time a means of exclusion. Sol’s words illustrate how ethnic difference works like a double-edged sword for her. Sol feel that her particular disadvantage in Australia was her non-English speaking background and she attributes this understanding to her felt discrimination in finding a job. When finally finding a job, it is one which relates to her migrant background. She is employed for multicultural matters just like the artists in the organisation Teresa worked for and just like Teresa herself, an ethnic migrant who managed multicultural artists. However, the narratives of the women draw a picture that it is relatively easy for them to find a job in an ‘ethnic’ job employment enclave. It is harder to succeed, with exceptions such as those of Gabriela, when competing with Anglo-Australians. This illustrates the interplay and intersection of privilege and exclusion through a contradictory social location.

Finally, as I have shown, Sol feels appreciated and welcomed in Australia. She also feels that people are interested in her ethnic difference, which she makes the most out of. They enjoy listening to her speaking Spanish and dancing the Cumbia. As I have shown in Chapter 7, in Sol’s experiences Australians perceive her as an exotic other. This feeds into common stereotypes about Latin Americans in Australia (Cohen 2005, p. 113; Rocha & Coronado 2014, p. 471; Wulfhorst 2014, p. 482). I argue that Sol uses the stereotype about Latin Americans being exotic and full of joie de vivre for her social enterprise. She uses people’s appreciation for Latin American dance, food and music to generate profit through the performance of traditional Latin American fiestas. Wulfhorst (2014), in her study on upper-middle class Brazilians in Sydney, argues that the label ‘Latin’ is a way of promoting Brazilian dance as ‘desirable, exotic and fashionable’ (Wulfhorst 2014, p. 486). Sol’s use of her ethnic difference, her Latin ethnicity, can be read ‘as a strategic use of identity within the multicultural market’

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(Wulfhorst 2014, p. 487). This means that the positive connotations of some of the stereotypes about Latin Americans (more so than Colombians) as exotic and joyful, which are often connected to Latin American dance and music, are something that is desirable for Australians. Thus, she is able to sell these marketable elements of Latin American cultural traditions. I argue that this gives Sol a sense of belonging and pride, as she found a place for herself in multicultural Australia where she can be Colombian and a place where she can build a social enterprise based on her ethnic background. She too can make her ethnic difference work for her.

In conclusion, as Anthias points out (20e02a, p. 500), it is problematic to speak of ‘a migrant identity’ as this framing would fix the migrating person in a particular time and space. The women’s translocational positionality combines contradictory social locations such as being a migrant woman from Colombia, as well as being white and upper class, and highlights how these women are ‘located within dynamic processes, practices, structures and discourses (linked to both privilege and oppression, national borders and transnational links)’ (Joseph & Lundström 2013, p. 3). In my thesis I have shown how these structures and discourses unfold in the women’s everyday experiences in contradictory ways. Their positionality is a transnational one as it is shaped by their social location as migrants in Australia but simultaneously and, with a greater impact, their positionality is also shaped by their privileged location as members of the white upper class in Colombia. This privileged positionality helped them to navigate their lives in Australia in a successful way.

The experiences of my interlocutors illustrate how intersecting social locations of privilege and subordinations influence their experiences in Colombia and Australia. Further, in this chapter I discussed in-depth that the women were able to transfer not all but many aspects of their privilege to Australia and how they could materialise these privileges to access more education and important networks. I have shown that the women were able to make their privilege work for them in Australia even as ‘ethnic’ migrant women. However, being ethnic in Australia they also experience limitations to their privilege and, at times, exclusion. The following chapter is the final one of this thesis and concludes this research.

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9. Conclusion

When I recall images of my childhood, such as the one of my father working in his office on the second level of his gas station, wearing a suit and his Rolex watch, I am also reminded of the confusion with which I met some of my parents’ behaviour. I for example remember my parents explaining to me that they did not want to spend the evening having dinner with my friend’s parents. I recall being baffled by their resistance to do so. I could not understand what they meant when they said to me: ‘You know Viktoria, they are just very different to us. We don’t know what to talk about with them’. I did not understand what ‘They are just very different to us’ meant. They lived in the same district that we did. Their apartment had a similar size to our home and, just like my dad, they owned a business. More importantly, to me, they were pretty similar to us. Just like us, they did not speak German at home. Whereas in our house we spoke Hungarian, they used Polish as their main language at home, but the different language was only a minor detail to me. What counted to me was that they too spoke another language than German at home, that their food was similar to ours and just like me, my friend had to spend their summer holidays with their relatives in their parent’s home country.

Years later I realised that my parents were insinuating to me that there was a class difference between my friend’s family and our family. My parents thought of them as working class and of themselves as middle class whereas I thought of them as the nice other migrant family who did not make me feel awkward for speaking Hungarian at home. Here it was, a confusing intersection of ethnicity and class my parents and I clumsily tried to navigate. Too much time has passed for me to remember what they might have based their judgment on. However, our parents never spent an evening together and soon after I lost contact with my friend too.

With time, I realised that my father’s class identity is rooted in the stories about his parents’ lives before the war. A time when his father imported herbs from Italy to Hungary and they owned a little weekend house on the slope of a hill that overlooked Budapest. Even I remember these stories, although I never met my grandmother nor

268 my grandfather. Stories about my grandmother who graduated high school before the first World War, at a time when not many girls finished a secondary school. I have heard vague stories about my grandmother’s family being the owners of a factory in countryside Hungary and them being the ones installing electricity in the whole village. ‘They brought electricity to that town!’ as my dad used to tell me. Of course, things tremendously changed through the rise of fascism across Europe in the 1930s, the ensuing war and the communist regime established thereafter. Their lives were now overshadowed by the trauma of prosecution, the death of my grandfather and surviving genocide. All of their wealth was taken, and under the communist regime my grandmother had to work hard in her own small factory to sustain the lives of her family. However, even under these changed circumstances my father was raised in the spirit of ‘the old days’ and he carried this spirit with him to Austria. Even now he carries himself this way. Similar to the women in this research my father carried his privilege with him and he made it work, particularly his privileged positionality, regardless of him being a Hungarian Jewish refugee in post-war Vienna. This brings me back to the beginning of my thesis and the question I set out to answer in this research: how do Colombian-born women who identify as white, and middle or upper- class in Colombia, experience their privilege living as migrants in Melbourne?

In this thesis I explored the nuanced experiences of privilege of middle to upper-class white Colombian women living in Australia. I investigated how their privilege influenced their experiences as migrant women from the Global South living in the Global North. Further, I analysed how their experiences of privilege changed as their social location and their positionality shifted through their migration. For this I recorded, over the period of two years, the life stories of seven middle or upper class white Colombian-born women living in Melbourne. I complemented these stories with fieldnotes from my participant observations, which I conducted over the same period of time. The narratives in this thesis highlight that privilege is relative, relational and intersecting. The stories illustrate that the women were able to transfer many of their privileges to Australia. In Melbourne these privileges intersect with their social location as middle-class ethnic migrant women. Further, their narratives highlight the importance of what I call a privileged positionality, a way of understanding the world

269 from a privileged location, which constitutes a particular advantage in the lives of those women who are from a white upper-class background.

Much of this thesis represents a relatively new approach as it applied these concepts to an under-investigated group, i.e., female relatively privileged migrants from the Colombia. For this attempt it was necessary to describe both the socio-cultural context in the country they grew up in, as well as in the receiving country of Australia, to contextualise the life stories of these privileged women. For this, I discussed the rigid and stable class and race hierarchy in Colombia which is deeply embedded in the country’s social structure. I contextualised this hierarchy as a product of Colombia’s colonial past. The Spanish Crown, who colonised the territory of today’s Colombia, installed the so-called sistema de castas in the 17th century, a social hierarchy based on the ideas of purity of blood, of race, of appearance and of class/status. The social divisions and stratifications that were established through these colonial developments can be seen as the base for Colombia’s historical and contemporary social inequality. The vast inequality between the poor and the rich was also one of the main factors of Colombia’s 52 year long civil conflict. I then discussed forms of contemporary social division in Colombia to show how class and race influenced the women’s everyday lives in their home country.

I continued by engaging with the Australian context. I situated the women of this research in Australia’s social structure and elaborated on their status as ethnic migrants within Australia’s race relations. Important to understanding the women’s social location as migrant women is Australia’s history of the White Australia policy, a policy which restricted all non-European and non-white immigration. As a result, the category white is particularly narrow compared to other white settler colonies (Farquharson 2007) and the women in this research feel excluded from this category. However, the women are not as heavily racialised in Australia as other groups such as Ethiopians or Muslim communities. The migrant population from Latin America to Australia has increased since 2001 (del Rio 2014; Torres Casierra 2017, p. 98). Furthermore, the demographic of Latin American migrants to Australia post-2001 differs notably to earlier (and smaller) waves of Latin American migrants consisting mainly of unskilled and working-class migrants or refugees. The women in my

270 research on the other hand arrived with the latest wave, during which many skilled and middle (to upper-class) people are entering the country on international student visas. Colombians along with Mexicans and Brazilians are the largest Latin American groups entering Australia since 2001 (Rocha & Coronado 2014). Thus my research contributes to the scholarship on this latest and yet under-researched wave of Latin American migrants, particularly Colombians, in Australia. Because of their differences to former migrant waves of Latin Americans, particularly in the ways they enter the country, their class background and level of skills, my research fills a gap by exploring how these women experience everyday life as relatively privileged migrant women in Australia. My research shows how these women are able to make a life in Australia and which challenges they experience.

In this thesis I presented the life stories of Teresa, Gabriela and Sol. For each of the women I established the ways in which they are privileged when living in Colombia. Teresa and Gabriela are two upper-class white Colombian women who grew up in white upper-class bubbles in Bogotá. Finally, in Melbourne, by following different trajectories, both completed their PhDs. This differs to the story of Sol as she does not profit from the same upper-class privileges and stable whiteness. All three women’s narratives on Australia show that they carried their privilege in varying degrees and various ways to Australia. I have established that the extent to which they can make use of their privilege in Australia is relational and produced by their class location in Colombia.

In the discussion of Teresa’s, Gabriela’s and Sol’s experiences of privilege I also drew on the stories of the other white upper-class Colombian women with whom I conducted life stories for this research: Martha, Isabel, Natalie, and Maria. The insights that I gained through listening to their life stories and the participant observations are crucial for the conceptualisation of this thesis and for the analysis of the data I collected. As established in Chapter 2, I used intersectional approaches to understand the complex and multilayered experiences of privilege these women have. I drew on Anthia’s (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) concept of translocational positionality and I used the work of Levine-Rasky (2011) as well as Black and Stone (2005) to conceptualise privilege as intersecting.

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The narratives show that their privilege travels with them to Australia in many ways although they are not white and upper class in this new context. Comparing the stories of the three women highlights that the women from a white and upper-class background profit more from their privileges than Sol, who is from a middle-class family. Their privilege enables them to study at prestigious universities and aspire to academic and artistic careers. They received scholarships to pay for their education and they were able to build important professional networks through their universities. Further, they do not have financial pressure as they know that they can move back and still be able to earn enough money for a good life. This means that they have the privilege to pursue their personal careers instead of finding a job that pays the bills. Thus, their privilege eases the women’s lives even after their migration and positions them as relatively privileged migrants in Australia. This does not mean that Sol did not profit from privilege when in Australia. However, in comparison, the transition to her life in Australia was harder for her than for the other women in this research. Nonetheless, for all women in this research, one of their most significant privileges was and still is that they can move back to Colombia knowing that they would have good lives in their home country. Their stories also show how in Australia the women have the privilege to relatively live their lives according to their own expectations and wishes. The narratives of Teresa, Gabriela and Sol show how they self-actualise themselves more in Australia than in Colombia, particularly in terms of their careers.

A key finding of this thesis is that the upper-class women in this research especially profit from their privileged positionality. Using Anthias’ (2002a, 2008, 2012a, 2012b) concept of translocational positionality I have shown that the women’s positionality (Alcoff 1988, p. 434; Anthias 2008, p. 15; Sánchez 2010) is influenced by the multiple social locations these women occupy in various (transnational) locations. In particular, their positionality is rooted in their privileged social location as white and upper class in Colombia and the privileged positionality they were socialised into. This influences the ways in which they experience and make sense of their lives in Australia. I established that the women speak and act from a positionality of privilege, even in Australia. This is particularly relevant when these women encounter obstacles or exclusion as they are easily able to brush off these negative experiences. Their privileged positionality shields them from experiencing or recognising disadvantage

272 and exclusion to some extent. Similarly, their positionality enables them to recreate their position in society to some extent as they take this position for granted. They have the confidence to apply for certain high-profile jobs and PhD programs. They have the self-confidence to inhabit upper-class spaces without feeling out of place. Thus, although their social locations changed, they still interpreted their lives as ethnic migrants from a positionality of privilege. Their white upper-class bubble travels with them to Australia.

In this study I have shown how the women’s location as upper class in a country with a machismo culture situates them in subordinate ways and creates specific and intersecting forms of gender subordination and class privilege. For the women in this study this meant that they experienced a strong involvement of their families when making decision about their lives, particularly in relation to men and education. Similarly, in Australia the social location as white, and middle or upper class they occupied in Colombia intersects transnationally with their social location as middle- class ethnic migrant women. This changes their privilege. It creates limitations to certain privileges and, in particular locations, it leads situationally to exclusion. In this sense, my research shows in great detail how the women can make their ethnic difference work in Australia and how they simultaneously experience exclusion based on ‘being ethnic’. Thus, my research contributes to the scarce intersectional scholarship that focuses (or even includes) privilege in its analysis (see Levine-Rasky 2011). Scholarship that is important, as Nash (2008) points out, since for a nuanced understanding of identities and how individuals experience them, privileged social locations need to be included in the analysis.

My research contributes to the intersectional scholarship on transnational female migrants, where literature is rather scarce, in particular in regards to relatively privileged migrants. The available literature on relatively privileged migrants often focuses on people of white European descent, for example Lundström’s investigation of the transnational migration of white European female migrants (Lundström 2014) as well as other studies (Benson 2016, 2014; Halvorsrud 2019). Further, studies on relatively privileged women from the Global South or Eastern Europe often investigate high-skilled migrant women and the labour market (for example Grigoleit-

273

Richter 2017; Joseph 2013; Kynsilehto 2011). These studies are important from an intersectional perspective because their investigation of the trajectory of skilled female migrants questions the presupposed assumption that women are subordinated subjects in the process of migration. Nonetheless, their migration is rarely framed as ‘lifestyle migration’ and is often presented in opposition to the migration choices of white women and men from the Global North (see Benson 2016, 2014).

My contribution to the scholarship on relatively privileged migrants is an in-depth study of the nuanced ways in which privilege plays out in the everyday experiences of women from the Global South living in the Global North. I have shown how privileges translate from one context to another and in which ways they materialise in Australia. In my thesis I showed that the women experience privilege as contextual, as it changes through their migration. I also showed that the women, although privileged in Colombia, do not occupy ‘absolute’ privileged social locations. They are privileged in relation to their social surrounding. In this ethnographic study I discussed in detail the intersections of various social locations that arise through these women’s migration, how the women perceive these contradictory positions that the intersections create and how they navigate these in their everyday lives.

I would like to conclude this thesis by reiterating Teresa’s words: Eventually, once years go by in a way I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe you become a local and then that curiosity disappears in a way. Or, you got catalogued as multicultural artist or ethnic based. I don't know. I am still discovering it. We will see what happens. [Int. 4, 00:09]

‘We will see what happens’ is a reminder that social locations and positionalities are not fixed and they change over time and with location. The ways in which individuals identify with their ethnicity or their class background—how important they are— might also change over time and with context. Teresa’s way of making sense of her world might change too with every year she spends in Australia. The stories of the three Colombian women demonstrate that the multiple identities of migrant women are not fixed (that is not to say they are free floating) nor binary but rather contextual, relational and intersecting.

274

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INTERVIEW RECORDINGS

Int. 1 Teresa – 18.02.2015 Int. 2 Teresa – 09.08.2015 Int. 3 pt. 1 Teresa – 31.08.2015 Int. 3 pt. 2 Teresa - 31.08. 2015 Int. 4 Teresa – 07.09.2015 Int. 5 Teresa - 14.09.2015 Int. 6 Teresa – 09.11.2015 Int. 7 Teresa – 30.03.2018

(Int. 1 Gabriela – lost recording) Int. 2 Gabriela – 15.09.2015 Int. 3 Gabriela – 12.10.2015 Int. 4 Gabriela – 21.10.2015 Int. 5 Gabriela – 26.10.2015 Int. 6 Gabriela – 26.10.2015

Int. 1 Sol – 13.11.2015 Int. 2 Sol – 09.12.2015 Int. 3 Sol – 06.02.2016 Int. 4 Sol – 03.05.2018

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Appendix

APPENDIX A Biographical details about the women in this research:

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APPENDIX B

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APPENDIX B

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APPENDIX C

RESEARCH INFORMATION STATEMENT

Project Title: From Colombia to Australia: Life stories of shifting identities among Colombian born women living in Melbourne Investigator: Viktoria Adler, PhD Student

I would like to invite you to participate in my project. This research project focuses on the lives and experiences of Colombian born women in Melbourne. I am particularly interested in how the new social environment and the process of migration influence their self-perception and identities. Therefore I am going to listen to their life stories and experiences. I thereby hope to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a migrant woman from Colombia in urban Australia.

The outcomes of the research will be written up in a dissertation submitted to Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Some of the research results may also be published in books, conference papers or articles.

I plan to interview between 8 to 20 Colombian born women aged between 20 and 60 who came to Australia as adults. The interviews will concentrate on your life history, and your experiences and networks in Australia. Additionally I will ask to accompany you during some of your everyday activities. This would help me to better understand your stories. Remembering and talking about the past requires time, and I therefore I would like to meet you more than once.

With your approval, the interviews will be digitally recorded. My supervisors and I will be the only persons with access to the recordings. My supervisors are Klaus Neumann, Sandy Gifford and Karen Farquharson. All of them work at Swinburne University of Technology. If you want to stay anonymous, I will change your name and any other details that might identify you. I will keep any information you share with me safe and securely stored in a password- protected file.

Participation in this project is voluntary. I will ask you to sign a Consent Form. Before the start of the interview I will invite you to identify issues you do not want to talk about. You are free not to reply to a question. You will be able to end the interview at any time. You can withdraw your consent at any time and you can decide that I must not use the information you gave me. In that case I will destroy that information. If requested I will provide you a one page summary of each of our interviews.

If you would like further information about my research, please do not hesitate to contact me or my coordinating supervisors Klaus Neumann or Sandy Gifford. My contact details: Viktoria Adler; mobile-phone: 0420633945; email: [email protected]; Contact details Sandy Gifford: phone +61 3 9214 5561; email: [email protected]; Contact details Klaus Neumann: phone: 03 9214 4526; email: [email protected]

This project has been approved by Swinburne’s Human Research Ethics Committee (SUHREC) in line with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. If you have any concerns or complaints about the conduct of this project, you can contact: Research Ethics Officer, Swinburne Research (H68), Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, HAWTHORN VIC 3122, ph (03) 9214 5218 or [email protected]

I thank you in advance for your participation. I am looking forward to talking to you.

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With kind regards,

Viktoria Adler

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APPENDIX D

Información sobre la investigación

Titulo del proyecto: From Colombia to Australia. Life stories of shifting identities among Colombian born women living in Melbourne, Australia

Principal investigadora: Viktoria Adler, Candidata a Doctorado (Un proyecto del doctorado supervisado por Klaus Neumann, Sandy Gifford y Karen Farquahrson)

Me gustaría invitarle a participar en mi proyecto. El propósito del proyecto es investigar las vidas y experiencias de mujeres colombianas viviendo en Melbourne. Estoy interesada en entender como el nuevo paisaje y la migración influyen en sus identidades y autopercepciones. En mi proyecto quiero escuchar sus historias y experiencias para tener mejor entendimiento de la experiencia de ser una inmigrante de Colombia en Australia. Los resultados de mi investigación van a formar la base de la monografía de mi doctorado en Filosofía en Swinburne University of Technology en Melbourne. Algunos resultados posiblemente serán publicados en libros, conferencias y artículos. Mi objetivo es entrevistar entre 8 y 20 mujeres nacidas en Colombia de edades entre 20 y 60 años quienes vinieron á Australia como adultas. El enfoque de las entrevistas es la historia de su vida, sus experiencias y sus redes sociales en Australia. Además, me gustaría saber si puedo acompañarle en algunas actividades en la vida diaria. Eso me ayudaría a comprender mejor sus historias. Recordarse y hablar sobre el pasado necesitará su tiempo. Por eso me gustaría reunirnos más de una vez.

Con su aprobación grabaré las entrevistas con un aparato eléctrico. Solamente yo y mis supervisores tenemos acceso a las grabaciones. Mis supervisores son Klaus Neumann, Sandy Gifford y Karen Farquharson.Todos trabajan en Swinburne University of Technology.Si no desea ser identificada, cambiaré su nombre y todos los detalles necesarios. Mantendré toda la información que comparta conmigo guardados en archivos seguros.

Su participación es voluntaria. Es necesario firmar un Formulario de consentimiento. Antes de la entrevista le preguntaré acerca de temas sobre los cuales no quisiera hablar. Usted puede retirar su consentimiento en cualquier momento y puede decidir que no podre utilizar cualquier información que usted me ha dado. En ese caso destruiré toda información asociada con usted. Si ustedes querían yo puedo facilitar un resumen de una pagina sobre nuestra entrevista.

Si tiene cualquier duda o preguntas, por favor póngase en contacto conmigo o con mis supervisores Klaus Neumann o Sandy Gifford. Los detalles son: Viktoria Adler: 0420633945; email: [email protected]; Sandy Gifford: +61 3 9214 5561; email: [email protected]; Klaus Neumann: 03 9214 4526; email: [email protected] Este proyecto esta aprobado por Swinburne’s Human Research Ethics Committee (SUHREC) y conforma con el National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. Si hay cualquier duda o queja sobre la realización de este proyecto contactar: Research Ethics Officer, Swinburne Research (H68), Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, HAWTHORN VIC 3122, (03) 9214 5218 [email protected] Gracias por su participación.

Agradecidamente,

Viktoria Adler

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APPENDIX E

CONSENT FORM

Project Title: From Colombia to Australia. Life stories of shifting identities among Colombian born women living in Melbourne, Australia

Principal Researcher: Viktoria Adler (a PhD research project supervised by Klaus Neumann, Sandy Gifford and Karen Farquharson)

1. I consent to participate in the project titled above. I have been provided a copy of the Project and Consent Information Statement with this consent form. Viktoria Adler has fully explained the project to me. Any questions I have asked have been answered to my satisfaction.

2. Please circle your response to the following

I agree to be interviewed by the researcher Yes / No

I agree to allow the interview to be recorded by electronic device Yes / No

I want to be identifiable in any written outcome of the project Yes / No

3. I acknowledge that:

a) My participation is voluntary and I am free to withdraw from the project at any time without explanation. b) Neither I, nor people, names or places which may identify me will be referred to in publications, unless I wish otherwise. c) The project is for the purpose of research and not for profit.

By signing this document I agree to participate in this project.

Name of Participant: …………………………………………………………………

Signature & Date: …………………………………………………………………….

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APPENDIX F

Formulario de consentimiento

Titulo del proyecto: From Colombia to Australia. Life stories of shifting identities among Colombian born women living in Melbourne, Australia.

Principal investigadora: Viktoria Adler, Candidata a Doctorado (el proyecto de un doctorado supervisado por Klaus Neumann, Sandy Gifford y Karen Farquahrson)

1. Yo estoy de acuerdo en participar en el proyecto de estudio de investigación anteriormente mencionado. Yo he recibido una copia de la información sobre el proyecto y del formulario de consentimiento. Viktoria Adler me explicó el proyecto y me ha contestado satisfactoriamente cualquier pregunta que pueda tener.

2. Por favor marque sus respuestas:

Estoy de acuerdo con ser entrevistada Si / No

Estoy de acuerdo con que la entrevista seá grabada con un aparato eléctrico Si / No

Yo quiero ser identificable en todos los resultados escritos Si / No

3. Reconozco que

a. Mi participación es voluntaria y yo puedo retirarme del proyecto en cualquier momento sin explicaciones. b. Ni yo, ni otra persona, nombre o lugar que me pueda hacer identificable será utilizado en una publicación, si yo no lo deseo. c. El objetivo de esto proyecto es la investigación sin ánimo de lucro.

Con la firma doy consentimiento a participar en este proyecto.

Nombre del participante: …………………………………………………………………

Firma/ Fecha ……………………………………………………………………………….

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APPENDIX G

Interview Questions Guideline:

Could you describe me how the area looked like you grow up in? Was it a urban environment? How did the vegetation look like?

Could you tell me about the house where you grew up? Who else lived there? Where it was? What was the neighbourhood like? What where your favourite places as a child and teenager? How does the area look like you grew up in?

Can you tell me more about your family and its history?

Can you tell me about your childhood?

Can you tell me about your experiences going to school and University in Colombia?

In your experience, what distinguishes Australian and Colombian societies?

Why did you decide to leave Colombia?

Why did you choose Australia?

Could you describe the processes behind these decisions?

What were your expectations of Australia before coming here?

What were your first impressions of Australia?

Where have you lived in Australia? Tell me about these places.

Can you tell me about any difficulties you had in the beginning in Australia?

*How did you experience your time as a student in Australia? *How did you experience the transition from being a student to entering the work force?

How has your network here evolved over the years?

Do you have a lot of Colombian or Latin American friends? Are you in contact with Colombian or Latin American communities in Australia?

Do you think being a woman in Colombia is different from being a woman in Melbourne? If so, how so?

How do you stay in touch with your family and friends in Colombia? Do you talk regularly to them?

Do you miss Colombia? What do you miss about it?

What would you miss about Australia if you returned to Colombia tomorrow?

Where and how do you see your future?

*Only if applicable.

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