Know thy Neighbour: Residential Integration and Social Bridging among Refugee Settlers in Greater Brisbane

Positive interaction with neighbours can significantly influence new immigrants’ perception of being welcomed in the host society. This article analyses interview narratives of 47 former refugees from Ethiopia, Burma and Congo about their neighbourhood experiences in diverse and relatively disadvantaged localities within Greater Brisbane, Australia. While most interviewees had positive interactions with their neighbours, a significant minority reported either problematic or no interaction. Most respondents reflected on being restricted by the language barrier and different cultural expectations about neighbourly relations. Having come from places where neighbours may have been the first point of social contact and support and where they often overlap with extended family, our respondents found Australian suburbs to be at odds with such a concept of close neighbourliness. We argue that barriers to positive neighbourly interactions hamper the acquisition of bridging social capital in disadvantaged, ethnically diverse residential locations and, by extension, potentially slow down the English-language learning, acculturation and employment success. Implications for policy are discussed.