“These Few Small Boats”: Representations of Asylum Seekers During Australia’s 1977 and 2001 Elections

Peterie, Michelle

doi:10.1080/14443058.2016.1223150

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…In telling their friends’ stories and declaring their worth, these interviewees evoked and contested dominant discourses that frame IMAs as a burden and threat (Dunn et al. , p. 574; Peterie ; Every & Augoustinos ). As such, they made clear—but distinctly personal and thus less contestable—political statements.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal care as political activism: Refugee and asylum seeker friendship programmes

Peterie

2018

Aust J Social Issues

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal care as political activism: Refugee and asylum seeker friendship programmes

Peterie

2018

Aust J Social Issues

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“…Australia's relative proximity to the conflict zone, the bipartisan desire to distance parliamentary discourse from the White Australia policy era, and the Fraser government's own ideological support for those fleeing the perceived spread of communism meant there was little dispute of the validity of boat arrivals' claims to political asylum. Then Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Michael MacKellar described those fleeing as Australia's "allies" (Peterie, 2016). Parliamentary discourse in this period consequently does not portray boat people as a significant threat to Australia's sovereign borders, but takes an approach described by Stevens (2012) as more "pragmatic" than "inclusive.…”

Section: Three Waves Of Parliamentary Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

'Boat People' and Discursive Bordering: Australian Parliamentary Discourses on Asylum Seekers, 1977-2013

Kooy

Magee

Robertson

2021

Refuge

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This article draws upon content analysis of Australian parliamentary transcripts to examine debates about asylum seekers who arrived by boat in three historical periods: 1977–1979, 1999–2001, and 2011–2013. We analyze term frequency and co-occurrence to identify patterns in specific usage of the phrase “boat people.” We then identify how the term is variously deployed in Parliament and discuss the relationship between these uses and government policy and practice. We conclude that forms of “discursive bordering” have amplified representations of asylum seekers as security threats to be controlled within and outside Australia’s sovereign territory. The scope of policy or legislative responses to boat arrivals is limited by a poverty of political language, thus corroborating recent conceptual arguments about the securitization and extra-territorialization of the contemporary border.

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“…This portrayal of asylum seekers as the dangerous 'Other' has been present both in the media and politics for at least two decades, where asylum seekers have often been described as "queue jumpers" or "illegals" leading to their connotation as social pariahs (Muytjens and Ball 451). Indeed, the use of language to portray asylum seekers as criminals that became so wellknown during the Howard government years (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007) is mirrored in the way the Fraser government described Vietnamese asylum seekers in the late 1970s as pseudo-refugees (Peterie 2016). Likewise, Howard's juxtaposition of the dangerous, immoral 'Other' against the egalitarian Australian Self (Peterie 438) can be also seen in former prime minister Gough Whitlam's call in 1977 for restriction and quarantine to stop the spread of drugs and disease, thereby associating asylum seekers with crime and infection (Neumann 276).…”

Section: A Faceless 'Other'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Likewise, Howard's juxtaposition of the dangerous, immoral 'Other' against the egalitarian Australian Self (Peterie 438) can be also seen in former prime minister Gough Whitlam's call in 1977 for restriction and quarantine to stop the spread of drugs and disease, thereby associating asylum seekers with crime and infection (Neumann 276). Howard also continuously painted asylum seekers as not real refugees, as pseudo-refugees or queue jumpers ahead of the truly deserving, thereby dehumanizing and delegitimizing their claim to asylum (Peterie 2016). This association between asylum seekers and deviousness would be continued in constant references to asylum seekers as "illegals," "illegal asylum seekers" or "illegal immigrants," despite the solid legal fact that it is not illegal to claim asylum in Australia (Peterie).…”

Section: A Faceless 'Other'mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, once again control would remain important with Australia acknowledging its responsibility to take refugees for resettlement but also that it retained the ultimate say over who would be resettled and that resettlement in Australia was not always the best solution (Neumann 262). It was also during this time that much of the language seen in recent years regarding asylum seekers reared its head -"pseudo-refugees," "queue jumpers," and "illegals" were terms applied to those arriving in Darwin in 1976 (Peterie 2016). Once again there was little talk of the identity of the 'Other,' they remained faceless in that they were once again taking the role of the uncontrolled 'Other.'…”

Section: Controlling the 'Other'mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Australia

2019

Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies

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The need to redefi ne Australia has been particularly urgent in the recent two decades when the image of this antipodean society as almost a model multicultural one, craving for freedom and tolerance, was demolished by growing intolerance and nationalisms. In today's world, torn by confl icts of interests, racial hatred and social divisions, the nineteenth-century concept of a nation and national ideology, which only apparently faded away in the era of the late twentieth-century globalisation, is now being given a new prominence not just by minor politicians who want to win the favour of their electorates (Pauline Hanson and others), but by surprisingly large sections of democratic, egalitarian societies as Australia and New Zealand undoubtedly are. In the period of national self-defi nition, i.e. since the 1890s through the time of the Great War to the 1930s and 1940s, Australia produced a specifi c kind of national consciousness, being in part a response to English colonialism and cultural imperialism, but largely a form of self-produced enthusiasm for the unique native environment and the myths of (white) pioneers who in eff ect embodied masculine ideals of self-reliance, courage and persistence, which, in time, took the form of the renowned Australian mateship-an egalitarian bond between men based on classless point of view. As a nation of former convicts, migrants and refugees, Australia, since the times of abandonment of its 'white only' migrant policies of the 1960s, served for decades to follow as an example to the world of how to tackle migration problems in a peaceful and rational way, and how to build a democratic, egalitarian society. However, the 2005 Cronulla race riots and mob violence that followed was a rude awakening for most Australians. The riots, which stemmed from tensions between youths from Sydney's Lebanese, Muslim and local Australian population, proved that there exists an extreme form of Australian nationalism-'Aussie Pride'-the ideology of which has been to fi ght the 'wogs,' the 'Lebs,' the 'Pakis'; that is, the non-white migrants. The eleven articles collected in this issue represent, then, a wide spectrum of approaches to the notions of Australia's national identity, its literature art, culture, history and politics. They comprise an insightful, informative and original contribution to Australian studies and attempt to redefi ne the concepts of national and individual identities. Although the specifi c contributions approach the issues of historical heritage and contemporary perspectives on Australia diff erently, they Ryszard W. Wolny Ryszard W. Wolny all complement each other in scrutinising a complex issue of a cultural slash in present-day Australian multicultural and multiethnic society. Among the problems that have been addressed in the volume are the concepts of nationhood, postwar trauma (the Great War), multicultural society and relations between Indigenous people and offi cials as well as representatives of the white community on the degree of integration of various ethni...

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“These Few Small Boats”: Representations of Asylum Seekers During Australia’s 1977 and 2001 Elections

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Personal care as political activism: Refugee and asylum seeker friendship programmes

Personal care as political activism: Refugee and asylum seeker friendship programmes

'Boat People' and Discursive Bordering: Australian Parliamentary Discourses on Asylum Seekers, 1977-2013

Australia

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