In 2015, the Australian government commissioned a telemovie as part of its strategic communication campaign to deter would-be asylum seekers from travelling to Australia unauthorised by boat. In this article we explore this film as one instance of state practices that seek to control migration at their borders, and a form of state messaging which uses gendered story-telling techniques and characterisations to do so. Officially termed 'public information campaigns' (PIC) by states or 'information strategies' by international organisations such as the UNHCR, the use of such practices has increased in volume, frequency and prominence in recent years. While there has been some academic attention to PICs, to date, the gendered dimensions of these campaigns have remained largely unexamined. In this article, we argue that a feminist analysis of PIC is critical to understanding both how state borders 'gender' refugee subjectivities as well as international law's authorisation of the violence of state borders more generally. By allocating blame and responsibility on individual refugees and their gendered choices, rather than on state actions and state violence, the film reveals how the institution and policing of state borders simultaneously rest upon gendered imaginaries of refugee responsibilitisation and the invisibilisation of state responsibility.
My first thought: what is 'doing feminism'?My next thought: 'what is feminism'? I suppose 'doing feminism' could indicate an orientation, a set of work that we undertake, an emotional connection, a way of thinking about the world and putting it into practice. Do I 'do feminism'? I am unsure. I'm certain that I (try to) 'do' solidarity, and work towards justice and orient myself towards those others with whom I want to be in partnership. That I critique and question. That I try to enact a form of Jewishness-Jewish memory, history, politics, femininity and embodiment-that is beautiful and imaginative. 3 See The Dhadjowa Foundation, dhadjowa.com.au/. 4 'Veronica Marie Nelson: Inquest begins today', VALS, 26 April 2022, vals.org.au/veronica-marienelson-inquest-begins-today/.
In Australia in 1946, the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act was passed. This Act was intended to support the postwar migration to Australia of British children, unaccompanied by their parents, and to provide them with a guardian in Australia—the Immigration Minister. Despite subsequent amendments, this key provision continues. Children who attempt to migrate to Australia unaccompanied by adult family members are subject to the minister’s guardianship. In 1948 Arthur Calwell, the then Minister for Immigration, described himself in parliament as the ‘father’ of these such children. This article focuses on the period from the 1970s to explore what this notion of fatherhood entails. What can it tell us about how children, families and the role of the minister in child refugee policies, have been imagined? I examine how the Act functions as a form of biopolitics, to discipline and regulate intimate relations for child refugees. The article asks how the Act produces a set of historically specific interdependent relationships and highlights the ways successive governments have subordinated concerns for the ‘best interests of the child’ to concerns of the policing of the Australian border.
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