Living in Limbo: Iraqi Refugees in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.36085Keywords:
Indonesia, Australia, Iraqi refugees, security, limbo, powerlessnessAbstract
Between 1999 and 2001 about 4,800 Iraqi refugees made their way to Australia. While the vast majority reached their destination, some never got that far, instead finding themselves stranded in Indonesia for up to 10 years. The author conducted interviews with Iraqi refugees in both Indonesia and Australia, from which a number of themes emerged. Central to these was the insecurity and uncertainty faced by participants over a protracted period with a marked difference when comparing the narratives of the participants settled in Australia with those living in a limbo situation in Indonesia. The former recalled the stresses of their journey and the associated feelings of fear, anxiety, and depression. In the case of the latter group, these feelings were ever present as their journey was not yet over.
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Copyright (c) 2012 Sue Hoffman
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Refuge authors retain the copyright over their work, and license it to the general public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows for non-commercial use, reproduction and adaption of the material in any medium or format, with proper attribution. For general information on Creative Commons licences, visit the Creative Commons site. For the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, review the human readable summary.