Offshore Detention in Australia: Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018)

This article focuses on the “Pacific Solution,” the Australian national policy of controlling illegal migration by detaining refugees in Immigrant Detention Centres in offshore Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru, and the human rights issues it raises. It refers to Behrouz Boochani’s prize-winning refugee memoir, No Friend but the Moun- tains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018) as both a prison narrative of resilience and a politically resistant text, and it discusses Boochani’s representation of Manus Detention camp as “The Kyriarchal System” in terms of Foucault’s “monstrous heterotopia.” The ar- ticle emphasises the issues of accountability and responsibility in the bilateral governance arrangements of the Manus Detention Centre between Australia and Papua New Guinea, and considers the possibility of more humane detention practices in the future.

Writing in and Out of Exile: A Foucauldean Reading of No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani

“Refugee” is a historically constructed term that privileged concerns that are substantially ideological and political rather than economic and ecological. But one cannot neglect the fact that environmental and economic concerns cannot be set apart from the political and hence rises the necessity to create a new inclusive category of “ essential needs” to consider their intrinsic interconnectivity as its one of the apriorism. Refugee literature essentially addresses not only the displacement but the gaps that are found in the sociological approach to “statelessness” and migration. On the other hand, literature stands for individual expressions and experience. Literature in the context of statelessness not only signifies the notion of being a “refugee” but being an “ asylum, seeker” as well. No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani is such an autobigraphcial novel written in the backdrop of his experience as an asylum seeker and consequent incarceration in the Australian detention regime. The Australian detention centre is built and worked in such a way that it satisfies the idea of the panopticon. The Kyriarchal system works in the prison even in a way that affects the psyche of the imprisoned individuals and thus these stateless asylum seekers undergo extreme existential dilemmas and commit severe crimes, turning against one another and sometimes even suicides. On the basis of the experiences of Boochani, the carceral system of Australian detention centre is expounded here through a Foucaludean idea of punishment, Bentham’s notion of the panopticon as well Fiorenza’s idea of kyriarchy where all of them are essentially different shades and shapes of exerting power.

Evaluating Ontario immigration detention centres through the lens of non-governmental organizations

This Masters Research Paper provides a critical analysis of the behavioural practices of immigration detention centres and how that affects the abilities of NGOs to support immigration detainees. This paper aims to identify the covert racism that is embedded within immigration detention centres in Canada, exploring how racialized detainees are susceptible to longer detention periods and mal-treatment due to increasing securitization. There will be focus on Ontario immigration detention centres in particular since many of Canada’s asylum claims and detention processes occur in Toronto and the greater Toronto area. This research fills the gap in directly addressing the impacts of racist practices of detention and how it impacts detainees’ ability to seek proper legal aid and interferes with NGOs abilities to aid detainees through their detention process. The methodology used begins with a theoretical framework using Critical Race Theory and background content on immigration detention centres, while drawing out the process of the criminalization of refugees. For this study there were one-on-on interviews conducted with 3 participants who are NGO representatives. Key words: immigration detention centre, detainees, national security, criminalization

Evaluating Ontario immigration detention centres through the lens of non-governmental organizations

This Masters Research Paper provides a critical analysis of the behavioural practices of immigration detention centres and how that affects the abilities of NGOs to support immigration detainees. This paper aims to identify the covert racism that is embedded within immigration detention centres in Canada, exploring how racialized detainees are susceptible to longer detention periods and mal-treatment due to increasing securitization. There will be focus on Ontario immigration detention centres in particular since many of Canada’s asylum claims and detention processes occur in Toronto and the greater Toronto area. This research fills the gap in directly addressing the impacts of racist practices of detention and how it impacts detainees’ ability to seek proper legal aid and interferes with NGOs abilities to aid detainees through their detention process. The methodology used begins with a theoretical framework using Critical Race Theory and background content on immigration detention centres, while drawing out the process of the criminalization of refugees. For this study there were one-on-on interviews conducted with 3 participants who are NGO representatives. Key words: immigration detention centre, detainees, national security, criminalization

Disrupting State Spaces: Asylum Seekers in Australia’s Offshore Detention Centres

The Australian government has spent over a billion dollars a year on managing offshore detention (Budget 2018–2019). Central to this offshore management was the transference and mandatory detention of asylum seekers in facilities that sit outside Australia’s national sovereignty, in particular on Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru. As a state-sanctioned spatial aberration meant to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat, offshore detention has resulted in a raft of legal and policy actions that are reshaping the modern state-centric understanding of the national space. It has raised questions of sovereignty, of moral, ethical and legal obligations, of national security and humanitarian responsibilities, and of nationalism and belonging. Using a sample of Twitter users on Manus during the closure of the Manus Island detention centre in October–November 2017, this paper examines how asylum seekers and refugees have negotiated and defined the offshore detention space and how through the use of social media they have created a profound disruption to the state discourse on offshore detention. The research is based on the premise that asylum seekers’ use social media in a number of disruptive ways, including normalising the presence of asylum seekers in the larger global phenomena of migration, humanising asylum seekers in the face of global discourses of dehumanisation, ensuring visibility by confirming the conditions of detention, highlighting Australia’s human rights violations and obligations, and challenging the government discourse on asylum seekers and offshore detention. Social media is both a tool and a vehicle by which asylum seekers on Manus Island could effect that disruption.

Intervention protocol to improve scabies control in enclosed communities: a case report

Objectives: To describe patients with scabies in a prison setting. Document what type of treatment was carried out. Prepare an intervention protocol to improve scabies control in the Penitentiary Center. Material and method: All cases of scabies diagnosed in the Youth Detention Centre (La Roca del Vallès, Barcelona) between November 2018 and November 2019 were recorded. The treatment used was recorded. Bibliographical research on the protocols and treatment guidelines was carried out for community-acquired scabies. Results: The study was performed with 762 inmates, of whom 61 patients were diagnosed with scabies. 39 patients’ pathologies were detected at the time of admission to the center, 11 cases were diagnosed in the first 6 weeks after entering the prison, coinciding with the incubation period of the disease. Finally, 11 more were diagnosed when they had already been in prison for more than 6 weeks and therefore could be infected cases within the center. This parasitosis was detected mainly in inmates of North African origin, 14.7% of Algerian inmates and 14.2% of Moroccan inmates presented this pathology, compared to 1.6% among Spanish prisoners. All 61 patients were treated with permethrin and 8 cases had to repeat the treatment cycle due to apparent therapeutic failure. Research literature indicates that oral ivermectin should be the drug of first choice for the treatment of scabies in prison. Discussion: The high incidence of scabies cases detected in prison led us to carry out a bibliographic review that brought about changes in the treatment protocol that may be of interest for the control of the disease in closed communities.

REINFORCING THE TRANSFORMATION OF STEREOTYPICAL PERCEPTIONS OF IMPRISONED DRUG USERS ABOUT THE CAUSES OF CRIME: UTILIZING THE METHOD OF "TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THROUGH AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE"

The commission of criminal acts has always been a social problem, both socially and scientifically engaging. Many theories have been formulated from time to time about what is considered a criminal act, as well as about the factors that contribute to the occurrence of the phenomenon, varying according to the time and the social conditions that prevailed. The study was conducted at the Detention Centre of Patras, with the participation of seven drug users and members of the KETHEA consultation programme. Methodologically, the qualitative approach has been chosen and in particular the action research with the use of group-focused interviews. The research findings are relevant to what one may come across in the bibliography, while at the same time they highlight three basic cause factors of criminal behavior: individual characteristics, family and environmental reasons, with emphasis placed upon the substance abuse, and peer pressure. Moreover, the use of the “Transformative Learning through Aesthetic Experience” method has proven to be extremely functional as far as the alteration of perceptions among groups of users-prisoners is concerned. It can also complement the therapeutic procedure and the social integration of this particular group of people. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0743/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>