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

John van Kooy; Liam Magee; Shanti Robertson

doi:10.25071/1920-7336.40661

Auteurs-es

John van Kooy Monash University
Liam Magee Western Sydney University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2696-1064
Shanti Robertson Western Sydney University

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40661

Mots-clés :

Australian parliament, asylum seekers, ‘boat people’, discourse analysis, borders

Résumé

Cet article s’appuie sur une analyse de contenu de transcriptions de débats parlementaires australiens sur les demandeurs d’asile arrivés par bateau lors de trois périodes historiques: 1977–1979, 1999–2001 et 2011–2013. Nous analysons la fréquence et cooccurrence des termes afin d’identifier des tendances dans l’utilisation spécifique de l’expression « boat people ». Nous identifions ensuite comment le terme est déployé dans les débats parlementaires à travers le temps et discutons du rapport entre ces utilisations et les politiques publiques et pratiques gouvernementales. Nous en arrivons à la conclusion que des formes de traçage discursif de frontières ont amplifié les représentations des demandeurs d’asile comme une menace sécuritaire devant être contrôlée à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur du territoire souverain de l’Australie. L’étendue des réponses politiques ou législatives à l’arrivée des bateaux est limitée par la pauvreté du langage politique, corroborant ainsi les arguments conceptuels récents autour de la sécurisation et de l’extra-territorialisation de la frontière contemporaine.

Statistiques

Chargement des statistiques…

Bibliographies de l'auteur-e

John van Kooy, Monash University

John van Kooy is a researcher and PhD candidate at Monash University. He can be reached at john.vankooy@monash.edu.

Liam Magee, Western Sydney University

Liam Magee is an associate professor at Western Sydney University. He can be reached at l.magee@westernsydney.edu.au.

Shanti Robertson, Western Sydney University

Shanthi Robertson is an associate professor at Western Sydney University. She can be reached at s.robertson@westernsydney. edu.au.

Références

Bacchi, C. L. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Pearson Education.

Bacchi, C. L. (2012). Why study problematizations? Making politics visible. Open Journal of Political Science, 2(1), 1–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2012.21001

Bächtiger, A., Hangartner, D., Hess, P., & Fraefel, C. (2008). Patterns of parliamentary discourse: How “deliberative” are German legislative debates? German Politics, 17(3), 270–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644000802300486

Betts, A. (2013). State fragility, refugee status and “survival migration.” Forced Migration Review, 43, 4–6. https://www.fmreview.org/fragilestates/betts

Betts, K. (2001). Boat people and public opinion in Australia. People and Place, 9(4), 34–48.

Bourdieu, P. (1991). The peculiar history of scientific reason. Sociological Forum, 6(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01112725

Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago Press.

Brawley, S. (1995). The white peril: Foreign relations and Asian immigration to Australasia and North America, 1919– 1978. New South Publishing.

Cameron, M. (2013). From “queue jumpers” to “absolute scum of the earth”: Refugee and organised criminal deviance in Australian asylum policy. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 2(59), 241–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajph.12014

Castles, S. (2006). Global perspectives on forced migration. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 15(1), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/011719680601500102

Commonwealth. (1978a). Parliamentary debates. House of Representatives, no. 19 (Raymond Braithwaite MP, National Country Party, Queensland).

Commonwealth. (1978b). Parliamentary debates. Senate, no. 19 (Senator Douglas McLelland, Australian Labor Party, New South Wales).

Commonwealth. (1979). Parliamentary debates. Senate, no. 23 (Senator John Carrick, Liberal Party, NSW).

Commonwealth. (1999a). Parliamentary debates. House of Representatives, no. 230 (Duncan Kerr MP, Australian Labor Party, Tasmania).

Commonwealth. (1999b). Parliamentary debates. Senate, no. 200 (Senator Christopher Schacht, Australian Labor Party, South Australia).

Commonwealth. (2001). Parliamentary debates. Senate, no. 12 (Senator Robert Ray, Australian Labor Party, Victoria).

Commonwealth. (2011). Parliamentary debates. House of Representatives, no. 13 (Tony Abbott MP, Liberal Party, NSW).

Commonwealth. (2012). Parliamentary debates. Senate, no. 8 (Senator Michaelia Cash, Liberal Party, Western Australia).

Corlett, D. (2000). Politics, symbolism and the asylum seeker issue. University of New South Wales Law Journal, 23(3), 13–32.

De Genova, N. (2013). Spectacles of migrant “illegality”: The scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(7), 1180–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.783710

Every, D., & Augoustinos, M. (2008). Constructions of Australia in pro- and anti-asylum seeker political discourse. Nations and Nationalism, 14(3), 562–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j1469–8129.2008.00356.x

Goot, M., & Watson, I. (2011). Population, immigration and asylum seekers: Patterns in Australian public opinion. Department of Parliamentary Service: Parliament of Ausralia. https://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Pub_archive/Goot.ashx

Gosden, D. (2006). “What if no one had spoken out against this policy?” The rise of asylum seeker and refugee advocacy in Australia. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 3(1), 1–21.

Haslam, N., & Pedersen, A. (2007). Attitudes towards asylum seekers: The psychology of prejudice and exclusion. In D. Lusher & N. Haslam (Eds.), Yearning to breathe free: Seeking asylum in Australia (pp. 208–218). Federation Press.

Jakubowicz, A. H. (2016). Once upon a time in ... ethnocratic Australia: Migration, refugees, diversity and contested discourses of inclusion. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 8(3), 144–167. https://doi.org/10.5130/ccs.v8i3.5239

Johnson, C., & Wanna, J. (2015). Conclusion: Reflections on Abbott’s gambit—mantras, manipulation and mandates. In J. Wanna, C. Johnson, & H. Le (Eds.), Abbott’s gambit: The 2013 Australian federal election (pp. 425–436). ANU Press.

Jupp, J. (2002). From white Australia to Woomera: The story of Australian immigration. Cambridge University Press.

Laver, M., Benoit, K., & Garry, J. (2003). Extracting policy positions from political texts using words as data. American Political Science Review, 97(2), 311–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055403000698

Leach, M. (2003). “Disturbing practices”: Dehumanizing asylum seekers in the refugee “crisis” in Australia, 2001–2002. Refuge, 21(3), 25–33. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.21301

Liberal Party. (2001). Launch of the Liberal Party’s election campaign. Sydney Recital Hall, 28 October.

Little, A., & Vaughan-Williams, N. (2017). Stopping boats, saving lives, securing subjects: Humanitarian borders in Europe and Australia. European Journal of International Relations, 23(3), 533–556. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116661227

Lueck, K., Due, C., & Augoustinos, M. (2015). Neoliberalism and nationalism: Representations of asylum seekers in the Australian mainstream news media. Discourse & Society, 26(5), 608–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926515581159

Markus, A. (2001). Race. Allen & Unwin.

Martins, B. O., & Strange, M. (2019). Rethinking EU external migration policy: Contestation and critique. Global Affairs, 5(3), 195–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2019.1641128

Mayblin, L. (2019). Imagining asylum, governing asylum seekers: Complexity reduction and policy making in the UK Home Office. Migration Studies, 7(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx060

McKay, F. H., Thomas, S. L., & Blood, R. W. (2011). “Any one of these boat people could be a terrorist for all we know!” Media representations and public perceptions of “boat people” arrivals in Australia. Journalism, 12(5), 607–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884911408219

Mezzadra, S., & Neilson, B. (2013). Border as method, or, the multiplication of labor. Duke University Press.

Muytjens, S., & Ball, M. (2016). Neutralising punitive asylum seeker policies: An analysis of Australian news media during the 2013 federal election campaign. Journal of Australian Studies, 40(4), 448–63. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2016.1223153

Parliament of Australia. (n.d.). Hansard. Parliament of Australia. https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/hansard

Peterie, M. (2016). “These few small boats”: Representations of asylum seekers during Australia’s 1977 and 2001 elections. Journal of Australian Studies, 40(4), 433–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2016.1223150

Phillips, J. (2017). Boat arrivals and boat “turnbacks” in Australia since 1976: A quick guide to the statistics. Department of Parliamentary Services: Parliament of Australia. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/4068239/upload_binary/4068239.pdf;fileType=application/pdf

Philips, J., & Simon-Davies, J. (2017). Migration to Australia: A quick guide to the statistics. Department of Parliamentary Services: Parliament of Australia. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/3165114/upload_binary/3165114.pdf

Philips, J., & Spinks, H. (2013). Immigration detention in Australia. Department of Parliamentary Services: Parliament of Australia. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/prspub/1311498/upload_binary/1311498.pdf;fileType=application/pdf

Pickering, S. (2001). Common sense and original deviancy: News discourses and asylum seekers in Australia. Journal of Refugee Studies, 14(2), 169–186. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/14.2.169

Pugh, M. (2004). Drowning not waving: Boat people and humanitarianism at sea. Journal of Refugee Studies, 17(1), 50–69. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/17.1.50

Rayner, J., & Wanna, J. (2015). 1. An overview of the 2013 federal election campaign: Ruinous politics, cynical adversarialism and contending agendas. In J. Wanna, C. Johnson & H. Lee (Eds.), Abbott’s gambit: The 2013 Australian federal election (pp. 17–34). ANU Press.

Reeves, M. (2014). Border work: Spatial lives of the state in rural Central Asia. Cornell University Press.

Robertson, S. (2019). Status-making: Rethinking migrant categorization. Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783318791761

Rowe, E., & O’Brien, E. (2014). “Genuine” refugees or illegitimate “boat people”: Political constructions of asylum seekers and refugees in the Malaysia deal debate. The Australian Journal of Social Issues, 49(2), 171–193. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1839–4655.2014.tb00307.x

Rumford, C. (2006). Theorizing borders. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(2), 155–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006063330

Saxton, A. (2003). “I certainly don’t want people like that here”: The discursive construction of “asylum seekers.” Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 109(1), 109–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X0310900111

Stevens, R. (2012). Political debates on asylum seekers during the Fraser government, 1977–1982. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 58(4), 526–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01651.x

Tavan, G. (2005). The long slow death of white Australia. Scribe.

Wittgenstein, L. (2009). Philosophical investigations. John Wiley & Sons.

Wodak, R. (1999). Critical discourse analysis at the end of the 20th century. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 32(1 & 2), 185–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.1999.9683622