Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that contemporary Afrikaner immigrants in Australia are traumatised by the fear of violent crime in their home country South Africa. Because this fear is primarily based on stories of crime victims rather than on actual victimisation, they suffer from secondary traumatisation.

Paper long abstract:

Since the end of Apartheid in South Africa, many white South Africans, including the Afrikaner sub-group -of mainly Dutch/German descent with Afrikaans as their vernacular- have immigrated to Australia. Based on ethnographic research amongst this group, conducted in 2015 and 2016, in this paper I argue that the great majority of Afrikaners were traumatised by the fear of becoming a victim of violent crime. Due to their exposure to and experience with crime in post-1994 South Africa, they had lost their sense of safety with regards to freedom from physical harm in their home country. This loss, however, was above all based on stories of violent crime victims, not on actual victimisation. Thus, the Afrikaners suffered from secondary traumatisation, meaning that they had psychological problems similar to actual victims despite the fact that they had not become victims of violent crime themselves. In Australia, most of them needed an adjustment period ranging from several months up to ten years in order to get used to the normality of living in freedom from fear of violent crime. Most study participants experienced difficulties with letting go of old 'South African' habits with regards to attempting to keep safe from physical violence, and some experienced a post-traumatic release of long-suppressed anxiety. With time, however, the fear emotion was replaced by the emotion of trust, which allowed the Afrikaners to adjust to their new circumstances.