Mobile sovereignty: The case of ‘boat people’ in Australia

Everuss, Louis

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102162

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…446-48) suggests that when such state mobilities trap MASs on Australian Defence Force Vessels, these military crafts are transformed into mobile spaces of exception. Indeed, as I have shown elsewhere (Everuss 2020), Australia's borders have in some instances been removed from geographical territory altogether and tied to the bodies of MASs. This occurred in 2012 when new legal categories of exclusion made it impossible for MASs intercepted within excised regions to ever technically enter Australia's migration zone, even if they were taken to the mainland (Migration Legislation Amendment (Regional Processing and other Measures) Act 2012 (Cth)).…”

Section: Post-westphalian Sovereignty In Australiamentioning

confidence: 95%

“…For Agamben sovereignty is not based on spatial demarcations, but on the creation of relationships between a sovereign and 'bare life' as both polity member and homo sacer. Sovereign spaces are consequently produced by the sovereign-polity relationships that inhabit them, and the 'outside' of these spaces is enacted by the existence of sovereign-homo sacer relationships (Everuss 2020). As demonstrated by the theories of the new mobilities paradigm, such relational constructions of space are also mobile (Adey 2006, p. 78;Sheller 2017, p. 626), and hence sovereign spaces are constructed by the (im)mobilities of sovereign agents and 'bare life' moving across them (Everuss 2020).…”

Section: Moving Beyond Westphalian Sovereigntymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sovereign spaces are consequently produced by the sovereign-polity relationships that inhabit them, and the 'outside' of these spaces is enacted by the existence of sovereign-homo sacer relationships (Everuss 2020). As demonstrated by the theories of the new mobilities paradigm, such relational constructions of space are also mobile (Adey 2006, p. 78;Sheller 2017, p. 626), and hence sovereign spaces are constructed by the (im)mobilities of sovereign agents and 'bare life' moving across them (Everuss 2020). Agambenian accounts of sovereignty thus help to explain how sovereign authority is expressed in a mobile fashion and constructs fluid borders.…”

Section: Moving Beyond Westphalian Sovereigntymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alison Mountz (2011) describes the Australian government's asylum seeker policies, especially the excisions and extensions of territory, as a form of 'state mobilities'. The concept of 'state mobilities' can also be said to include the movements of naval vessels travelling across and outside Australian waters; patrol flights monitoring potential MAS travel zones; and border guards along with government officials and other professionals moving within the mobility systems of Australia's border zones; all of which work together to enact Australia's sovereign territory (Coddington 2019;Dickson 2015;Everuss 2020). Andonea Dickson (2015, pp.…”

Section: Post-westphalian Sovereignty In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Academic scholarship has however demonstrated that a static 'Westphalian' conception of sovereignty fails to account for the performative and fluid modes by which state-based political power is exercised and resisted (e.g. Agnew 2018;Conversi 2016;Darling 2017;Earnest 2019;Everuss 2020;Hardt & Negri 2001;Burke 2002). Additionally, social scientists have illustrated that in response to the corrosive forces of global mobilities, state borders have become liquid, stretching and shrinking to manage flows of people, goods and ideas (Dickson 2015;Jones et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Westphalian sovereignty as a zombie category in Australia

Everuss

2020

Borderlands Journal

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State sovereignty is customarily connected to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which it is argued established the ideal of political authority being tied to static geographical containers. While academic scholarship has demonstrated that this ideal fails to account for performative and fluid modes of political power, Westphalian sovereignty remains an influential feature of political discourse. This article argues that Westphalian sovereignty consequently fits Ulrich Beck’s description of a ‘zombie category’, a dead social institution kept alive in political and public discussion. This is demonstrated in the context of the Australian State’s exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as asylum seekers arriving by boat. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s theories of sovereignty, I contend that these populations are excluded from the Australian polity because of how they move, while other subjects including ‘genuine refugees’ and European settlers are included due to their ideal (im)mobilities. I argue that this underlying mobile logic of Australian sovereignty and exclusion is hidden by the zombie notion of a static Australian state, which delegitimatizes humanitarian and indigenous claims to sovereignty based on experiences of forced mobility and mobile expressions of political authority.

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Section: Post-westphalian Sovereignty In Australiamentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Moving Beyond Westphalian Sovereigntymentioning

confidence: 99%