ACCOUNTING FOR STATE APPROACHES TO ASYLUM SEEKERS IN AUSTRALIA AND MALAYSIA: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF “NATIONAL” IDENTITY AND “EXCLUSIVE” CITIZENSHIP IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST “IRREGULAR” MOBILITY

Identities ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjugta Vas Dev
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers

‘I Certainly Don't Want People like That Here’: The Discursive Construction of ‘Asylum Seekers’

2003 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Saxton
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
John Howard

In October 2001, it was alleged that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard in order to manipulate the Australian Navy to pick them up and take them to Australian territory. In response to this incident, Prime Minister John Howard announced on radio 3LO: ‘I certainly don't want people like that here.’ (Mares, 2002: 135) A discursive approach is adopted in this paper to examine how asylum seekers have been constructed to be ‘people like that’ in the print media. The analysis demonstrates that asylum seekers have been represented as illegal, non-genuine and threatening in these texts. These representations were employed within nationalist discourse to legitimate the government's actions and public opinion concerning asylum seekers and to manage the delicate issue of national identity. The discursive management of the collective identity of asylum seekers by the dominant culture to construct a specific social reality is discussed and illustrated.

scholarly journals ‘Art is my language’: Afghan cultural production challenging Islamophobic stereotypes

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-129
Author(s):  
Bilquis Ghani ◽  
Lucy Fiske
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
The West ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Afghan Women ◽  
In Transit

Afghans and Afghanistan have, since September 11, risen to prominence in Western popular imagination as a land of tradition, tribalism and violence. Afghan women are assumed to be silent, submissive, and terrorised by Afghan men, who are seen as violent patriarchs driven by an uncompromising mediaeval religion. These Islamophobic tropes also inform perceptions of Afghans seeking asylum. In transit, identities are further reduced; asylum seekers lose even a national identity and become a Muslim threat – criminals, terrorists or invaders. These narrative frames permeate political discourse, media, and reports of non-governmental organisations (seeking donor funds to ‘save’ Afghan women). Drawing on fieldwork in Afghanistan and Indonesia, this article looks at how Afghans in Kabul and Indonesia are using art and other forms of cultural production to challenge over-simplified hegemonic narratives in the West, to open spaces for dialogue and expression within their own communities, and to offer a more nuanced account of their own identities.

Historical analogies under dispute: Reactions of Israeli Jews to analogies between the Holocaust and the plight of African asylum seekers in Israel

2020 ◽  
pp. 175069802090794
Author(s):  
Gal Ariely
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Historical Analogy ◽  
Population Based Survey

This article examines the characteristics that shape different public reactions to analogies of historical events while emphasizing the role of national identity. It analyzes responses by Israeli Jews to comparisons between the situation of African asylum seekers in Israel and Jews during the Holocaust via a letter written by Holocaust survivors against the proposed forced deportation of asylum seekers in 2018. A population-based survey experiment conducted during Holocaust Remembrance Day was used to evaluate whether attitudes toward the expulsion of asylum seekers were affected by the analogy. The findings showed differential responses to the analogy, including acceptance, rejection, and ambivalence, which demographic characteristics, unlike aspects of national identity, do not explain. It was also found that participation in Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations was positively related to acceptance of the analogy. The overall conclusion is that responses to historical analogy are determined more by an individual’s identity and not by demographic factors.

Imagining Zimbabwe as home: ethnicity, violence and migration

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 616-639
Author(s):  
Duduzile S. Ndlovu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Migration Narratives ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Over Time

Abstract:Migration debates tend to focus on the numbers of people moving, whether they are economic migrants or asylum seekers, deserving or not of protection. This categorization usually rests on national identity, necessitating simplified one-dimensional representations. Ndlovu uses a case study of Zimbabwean migrants memorializing Gukurahundi in Johannesburg to highlight the ways in which migration narratives can be more complex and how they may shift over time. She presents Gukurahundi and the formation of the MDC in Zimbabwe, along with xenophobic violence in South Africa, as examples of the ways that the meanings of national and ethnic identities are contested by the migrants and influenced by political events across time and space.

scholarly journals Biopolitics, borders, and refugee camps: exercising sovereign power over nonmembers of the state†

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Zeveleva
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
The Government ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the relationship between the concepts of national identity and biopolitics by examining a border-transit camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers in Germany. Current studies of detention spaces for migrants have drawn heavily on Agamben's reflection on the “camp” and “homo sacer,” where the camp is analyzed as a space in a permanent state of exception, in which the government exercises sovereign power over the refugee as the ultimate biopolitical subject. But what groups of people can end up at a camp, and does the government treat all groups in the same way? This article examines the German camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers as a space where the state's borders are demarcated and controlled through practices of bureaucratic and narrative differentiation among various groups of people. The author uses the concept of detention space to draw a theoretical link between national identity and biopolitics, and demonstrates how the sovereign's practices of control and differentiation at the camp construct German national identity through defining “nonmembers” of the state. The study draws on ethnographic fieldwork at the Friedland border transit camp and on a discourse analysis of texts produced at the camp or for the camp.

The use of exclusionary language to manipulate opinion

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Clyne
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Boat People ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lexical Items

This article explores the role of language used by the Australian prime minister and other politicians in swaying Australian public opinion against ‘boat people’, focusing especially on particular lexical items. The article contextualizes the representation and treatment of asylum seekers and the language used to do this, both generally in the contemporary period and in the history of Australia as a British outpost in the Pacific. It relates this to other issues expressed linguistically concerning national identity.

scholarly journals Defiance and Compliance:  Australia and the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Danika Grandkoski
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

<p>An analysis of Australia’s level of compliance with the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Convention) according to theories of compliance, suggests that no single compliance theory can adequately explain both instances of violation and instances of compliance. Much of Australia’s violation of the Convention, and subsequently other international human rights treaties, stems from more recent legislative changes though Australia’s offshore processing initiatives. Collectively theories of compliance are useful for identifying the driving factors which govern Australia’s handling of international obligations under the Convention. Liberal compliance theory indicates civil society and non-state actors are the most influential drivers ensuring the state is held accountable for upholding its obligations and responsibilities. Constructivist compliance theory suggests the greatest pull towards non-compliance is Australia’s notion of national identity which has influenced discriminatory policies throughout its history. National identity remains an influential driver as evidenced by current politicisation of discussion surrounding refugees and asylum seekers in Australia and subsequent legislative agendas.</p>

scholarly journals Defiance and Compliance:  Australia and the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Danika Grandkoski
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Human Rights Treaties ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers

<p>An analysis of Australia’s level of compliance with the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Convention) according to theories of compliance, suggests that no single compliance theory can adequately explain both instances of violation and instances of compliance. Much of Australia’s violation of the Convention, and subsequently other international human rights treaties, stems from more recent legislative changes though Australia’s offshore processing initiatives. Collectively theories of compliance are useful for identifying the driving factors which govern Australia’s handling of international obligations under the Convention. Liberal compliance theory indicates civil society and non-state actors are the most influential drivers ensuring the state is held accountable for upholding its obligations and responsibilities. Constructivist compliance theory suggests the greatest pull towards non-compliance is Australia’s notion of national identity which has influenced discriminatory policies throughout its history. National identity remains an influential driver as evidenced by current politicisation of discussion surrounding refugees and asylum seekers in Australia and subsequent legislative agendas.</p>

The management of African asylum seekers and the imaginary of the border in Israel

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Weinblum
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Security ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Economic Threat

This chapter engages the Israeli border discourse against the backdrop of arriving asylum seekers from Africa. Focusing on parliamentary debates, the chapter looks at how exclusionary techniques employed to regulate migrations are legitimised through the association of migrants as a problem of national security, as an economic threat, and a threat to national identity. Contrary to the literature which examines borders as dislocated sites of control, the chapter instead directs attention to the regulation of migrations through very classical discursive frameworks: as tools of ordering, controlling and physical enactment of statecraft and sovereignty.

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