Australia's Remote Detention Strategy Analyzed as Colonial Power Structure
A new analysis examines how Australia's offshore detention of asylum seekers on Pacific islands represents an extension of colonial control, with implications for immigration policy globally. The research documents how wealthy nations externalize border enforcement to poorer countries, raising questions about the sustainability and ethics of detention-based immigration systems.
Originaltitel: The Horrors of Settler-Colonialism: Remote Sites of Refugee Detention in Australia's Carceral Archipelago
<p>In this chapter, I introduce and analyse a unique contribution to anticolonialthought and the work of decolonizing power structures from marginalizedvoices that experience directly the harms of continued colonial violence.I focus on the work of refugee writers, creatives and activists through theprism of the lived experience of refugees held in long-term detention inthe carceral archipelago – sites of remote immigration detention where thenation-state border is externalized for refugees seeking protection underinternational law. Australia is among the first nation-states to enact a carceralarchipelago, sending asylum seekers to remote islands for detention andassessment of their claims for asylum. From 2001, the Australian governmentbegan ‘off-shore’ detention on remote Pacific Island sites to remove refugeesseeking protection from Australia under the 1951 Refugee Convention.This so- called Pacific Solution has seen agreements signed with the states ofPapua New Guinea (PNG) and the small and impoverished island nation ofNauru, with the Australian government paying its poorer Pacific neighboursto detain refugees that sought protection from Australia. These policiesand practices are now also being enacted by the UK and European Uniongovernments, with deals struck with states such as Rwanda to detain asylumseekers and refugees.</p>