‘Spying for Hitler’ and ‘Working for Bin Laden’: Comparative Australian Discourses on Refugees

‘I have so many successful stories’: framing social citizenship for refugees

“…Refugees face many barriers to belonging, such as having to complete a seemingly endless stream of paperwork (Lacroix 2004) and having their welfare assistance decreased to deter new refugee and asylum claims (Hassan 2000). There is a growing literature about refugee feelings of alienation and insecurity stemming from a hostile reception in the receiving country, including harassment (Casimiro et al 2007) and being constructed as a threat to the receiving state (Kampmark 2006). This is in addition to shrinking levels of welfare assistance.…”

Who gets a fair go? A Žižekian reading of representations of asylum seekers in Australia

“…The creation of this 'suitable enemy' is evident within a range of contemporary research on representations of asylum seekers in Australian public Who gets a fair go? discourse (Kampmark, 2006;Doherty and Lecouteur, 2007;McKay et al, 2011), a dynamic also found in the UK (Baker, 2007), in the USA (Ana, 1999;Berg, 2009;Stewart et al, 2011) and in mainland Europe (Willen, 2007;Garcia, 2008).…”

“…In the dominant conservative-populist narrative, for example, the boat people's betrayal of fairness is extended through the fantasmatic image of a global queue within which 'good' (or 'genuine') asylum seekers wait around the world (Gale, 2004;Kampmark, 2006;Watters, 2007;Every and Augoustinos, 2008;McKay et al, 2011). Here Australian 'generosity' is being betrayed by 'people smugglers' who 'jump the queue' and are 'irrational and hostile' potential terrorists (Kampmark, 2006, p. 7) who are rumoured to be arriving in waves and floods (McKay et al, 2011, p. 610).…”

“…Under circumstances in which previous sedimented narratives of Australianness were being disrupted by the plight of the asylum seekers, this articulation serves to cohere these narratives by presenting the boat people in more palatable forms, in particular as an external enemy or an illegitimate threat to the 'true' Australian way of life, one Kampmark (2006) identifies as holding a similar dynamic to the 'threat' presented by Jewish refugees in Australia before World War II. The creation of this 'suitable enemy' is evident within a range of contemporary research on representations of asylum seekers in Australian public Who gets a fair go?…”

Regionalizing Immigration, Health and Inequality: Iraqi Refugees in Australia

“…From 2000 until 2010, Iraqi refugees were among the top four nationalities accepted under the Humanitarian Program [24]. Refugee-receiving states such as the United States and Australia have introduced increasingly restrictive migration legislation and policies [26]. This can be attributed to an increasingly xenophobic socio-political atmosphere, which intensified in the aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Towers and the War on Terror [8], the global increase in the number of asylum seekers in the late 1990s, and as a result of associating forced migrants with security risks.…”