Figure 1. Australia’s Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea in 2014. Photograph: Eoin Blackwell/AAPIMAGE
Driven from home by war, persecution, climate change, and poverty, unprecedented numbers of people are now on the move. This is generating social, cultural, and political challenges and raising questions about the responses of liberal democracies. Nonetheless, border externalisation, incarceration, and offshore processing are approaches increasingly adopted by European and other countries confronted by arrivees whose existence is untenable at home (Agnew et al. 2020). Such is the case with Australia, which makes use of its privatised offshore detention centres to “preserve” its territorial integrity from the threatening arrival of the “other”. Accordingly, this blog aims to deconstruct the institution of ‘detention centres’ and the broader conceptualisation of the refugee as a threat to one’s state and society from a critical perspective. In doing so, the blog aims to utilise the concepts of Securitization theory as initially proposed by Ole Waever, the feminist critique of securitisation theory made by Lene Hansen, the theory of biopolitics, and the PARIS school approach to (in) securitisation.
Accordingly, asylum seekers seeking Australia’s protection under the Refugee Convention are directed to either the small island nation of Nauru or Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, where they remain in detention while their claims undergo assessment (Tazreiter 2020). The significant level of securitisation observed in these immigration detention facilities not only underscores the state’s pivotal role in security matters but also exceeds what is deemed necessary. Given that those detained are awaiting visa processing, the presence of towering fences, a high number of security personnel, and strict movement restrictions perpetuate a narrative of “preemptive protection” by the nation-state alongside emotive and rhetorical assertions of fear and danger (Tazreiter 2020).
In this context, those in positions of power often utilise the tool of securitisation to assert control over an issue. Consequently, those implementing such policies can easily manipulate them for their own interests. For instance, in arguing that in turning away or re-directing refugee boats, they are preventing deaths by drowning, the state merely seeks to justify its ulterior motives through the process of ‘othering’ (Kampmark 2024). As a result, refugeeism becomes a subject to selective invisibility, with individuals being relocated to remote detention centres on offshore islands while simultaneously facing heightened surveillance in border zones (Agnew et al. 2020). Hence, it is often the case that the ‘illegality’ of border crossings is made more visible than the state violations of refugee rights, creating a dominant narrative of refugees inciting instability and chaos in the host state (Agnew et al. 2020). Following this, when the ‘otherness’ of such refugees is seen as a threat to the very identity of the nation-state, a seemingly political issue transforms into an imminent security threat.
Hence, it is imperative to promote the idea that such “issues” can be addressed outside the realm of security and to ensure that the institutional mechanisms of the state apparatus acknowledge this perspective. Considering them as threats to one’s national security, sovereignty, or even survival does nothing but reproduce and further perpetuate the “us vs them” dichotomy and reinforce ethnocentric hierarchisations. With the core premise of the notion of security underscoring the centrality of the state in addressing security concerns, it is imperative to note that whenever the notion of security is expanded, it simultaneously empowers the state vis-a-vis citizens (Wæver 1995). Therefore, in both scenarios—whether viewing refugees as a collective group seeking safety in another nation-state or as individuals held in detention centres—de-securitisation should be regarded as the primary approach to facilitate their rehabilitation.
In drawing upon the experiences of refugees in detention centres, it is often the case that the experiences of men are treated as the norm, given that they constitute the majority of the general population (Rivas 2018). Most often, it is the case that the larger intersectional identities of race, nationality or religion subsume gender as a differentiating category in delineating subjectivities. Such a phenomenon is known as ‘subsuming security’. However, even when the experiences of women are taken into account, the focus tends to be only on their parenting role as mothers and the lack of a familial support structure around them, again subsuming their identity as women into the broader dynamics of the institution of family. In addition, the process for lodging visa applications requires each family member to be recorded as a dependent on the form of the principal applicant, usually the family’s male head (Rivas 2018). While women can file separate applications, they are still seen as part of the larger collective of the family unit and not separate individuals. Nevertheless, there is more to a woman’s experience than just playing the role of a mother.
Additionally, domestic violence is also a common experience for women who are detained with a husband or partner (Rivas 2018). They are doubly oppressed in such cases, with both the patriarchal as well as ethnocentric structures operating upon them. However, in contrasting the neoliberal background of the Australian state in charge of these detention centres against this domestic abuse, another gendered aspect of securitisation theory comes to the fore. A phenomenon called ‘security as silence’ occurs when insecurity cannot be voiced when raising something as a security problem is impossible or might even aggravate the threat being faced (Hansen 2000). In the context of these detention centres, women, especially as part of family units, cannot voice these concerns as it might prove to be a hindrance to their acceptance into the host country for fear of potential exploitation without a male “protector”. They may even face increased exploitation and abuse if separated from their husbands or partners. Another worst-case scenario might be that such a voicing out of concerns could lead to deportation from the host country, where apart from domestic abuse, a multiplicity of existential threats could operate upon the body of the woman.
Therefore, to account for such epistemological gaps, bodily performance within the speech act should be an additional analytical focal point. With performativity overcoming the barrier of silence, the body works to securitise the threat when the speech cannot (Hansen 2000). Visuality also serves as a powerful conveyor of sentiment in this regard. Whether it be visible markers of abuse or behaviour consistent with it, moving beyond the verbalisation of threats to recognise the individual and collective as independently coherent but interconnected entities, it finally provides a gendered collectivity with the opportunity to emerge as a separate referent object (Hansen 2000).
Similarly, these detention centres also serve as sites of biopolitics where the disciplinary power of the state operates on refugee bodies. The regulation, control and disciplining of migrant populations constitute the two poles around which the organisation of power over life is deployed (Foucault 1990). A number of methods are consequently employed to discipline the migrant population —moulding them into obedient subjects and docile bodies. This is how governmentality occurs in modern society, where biopower or power over life operates through various state institutions, ultimately making the body species the central referent object. Here, power acts on the population in an anticipatory manner — to make effective or optimise a state of life (Foucault 1990). Accordingly, several similarities can be observed between immigration and criminal justice detention to enable surveillance and discipline. To that effect, high razor wire fences around the facilities, constant surveillance, body and room searches, roll calls, solitary confinement, handcuffing, and referring or speaking to detainees using numbers rather than their names (Agnew et al. 2020) prove to be effective mechanisms for such disciplining and rendering obedience amongst the “other”.
Therefore, in contrasting the aforementioned Foucauldian perspective of biopolitics with the theorisations of Achilles Mbembe, biopower, as wielded by the state, goes beyond mere disciplining and regulation to create a population of the ‘living dead’ (Mbembe 2003). Through the creation of peripheries within the nation-state, the state builds an indifference for the “other”, creating a distinction between lives worth saving and lives that are not. In such a case, these detention centres come to signify a state of exception, with the lives of migrant populations stripped bare of any political value (Mbembe 2003). The refugee becomes paradigmatic of bare life, which is all very Homo Sacer, breaking the link between “nativity and nationality” and thus no longer represented by the sovereignty of a nation-state (Ramrath 2021).
Deterritorialisation and offshore detention centres of Australia, lying outside the migration zone, then come to symbolise the literal creation of a space of exception in which the laws governing asylum and the rights of those seeking it are suspended (Ramrath 2021). Thus, the birth of the Australian detention camp can be traced along the lines of Agamben’s biopolitical narrative, likening it to the creation of Nazi concentration camps (Ramrath 2021). With their legal status being suspended, these refugees are effectively transformed into animals devoid of any dignity. Consequently, this space of exception acquires a permanent spatial arrangement that remains continually outside the normal state of law (Mbembe 2003).
As a result, understanding that security and insecurity do not constitute a binary opposition and that both situations share the security problematique illuminates the increasing salience of “societal (in)security” (Wæver 1995). Security is then taken to be a continuum with no concrete demarcation between security and insecurity. It secures and insecures simultaneously, especially in the state of exception, such as detention centres where even the referent object can be controlled to some extent.
In conclusion, the critical examination of Australian offshore detention centres reveals a complex interplay of securitisation, gendered experiences, biopolitics, and the creation of spaces of exception. Recognising these dynamics is essential for addressing humanitarian and ethical challenges to the discourse of refugee politics and their rehabilitation.
References:
Agnew, Vanessa, Kader Konuk, and Jane O. Newman. Refugee Routes: Telling, Looking, Protesting, Redressing. transcript Verlag, 2020.
Foucault, Michel. The history of sexuality: An introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. NewYork: Vintage 95 1990. (Selection: Part Five: Right of Death and Power over Life).
Hansen, Lene. 2000. ‘The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’. Millennium 29 (2): 285–306
Kampmark, Binoy. “Securitisation, Refugees, and Australia’s Turn Back the Boats Policy, 2013–2015.” Antipodes, vol. 31, no. 1, 2017, pp. 61–75. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.13110/antipodes.31.1.0061. Accessed 12 Apr. 2024.
Mbembe, Achille. ‘Necropolitics.’ Public culture 15, no. 1 (2003): 11–40.
Ramrath, Ronya. “An Agambenian Critique Of The Australian Immigration Detention Camps.” Episteme 32.1 (2021): 3.
Rivas, Lorena, and Melissa Bull. “Gender and risk: an empirical examination of the experiences of women held in long-term immigration detention in Australia.” Refugee Survey Quarterly 37.3 (2018): 307-327.
Tazreiter, Claudia. “Suffering and its Depiction through Visual Culture.” The Academy in Exile Book Series| Volume 2020: 211.
Wæver, Ole. “Securitisation and Desecuritization.” In On Security, edited by Ronnie Lipschutz. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Gleeson, Jane McAdam and Madeline. “Australia’s Offshore Asylum Centres Have Been a Cruel Disaster. They Must Not Be Replicated by the UK | Jane McAdam and Madeline Gleeson.” The Guardian, 2 Oct. 2020, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/02/australias-offshore-asylum-centres-have-been-a-cruel-disaster-they-must-not-be-replicated-by-the-uk. (Figure 1)
Thank you for this insightful analysis. Considering that this type of refugee scenarios is nothing new, as can be seen in China, UK, France, and so on; what do you think is the relationship between developed countries and refugees. Is it not alarming that developed countries or the higher strata of those located in the global south like India and China, are the ones enforcing these refugee detention policies? What can you make out of this pattern?
Thank you for this insightful analysis of Australian offshore detention centers. Given the potential risks associated with voicing these concerns, such as deportation or increased vulnerability, how do you envision creating safe spaces for women to seek support and protection within these environments?
I enjoyed this write-up By Diya! She closely focused on detention centers and how people see refugees as dangerous. She looked at different ideas like securitization theory, feminist critique, biopolitics, and the PARIS school approach to give a full picture of migration issues. she breakdown and makes us think about the right and wrong ways to control borders. which helps us see how it all affects society and politics.