Abstract
This chapter focuses on Australia’s occupation of Christmas Island, an Indian Ocean territory of Australia, which is located 300 kilometres south of Java and 2,600 kilometres northwest of Perth, Western Australia. Here, asylum seekers of today await the sealing of their fate. For many Christmas Islanders the incarceration of the asylum seeker represents a continuum of how the island has always been a place of institutionalised exclusion and disenfranchisement. The essay incorporates interviews with asylum seekers and Christmas Islanders that took place in 2009.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Enter at Own Risk?: Australia’s Population Questions for the 21st Century |
Editors | Suvendrini Perera, Graham Seal, Sue Summers |
Place of Publication | Perth, W.A. |
Publisher | Black Swan Press |
Pages | 141-159 |
Number of pages | 19 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780980631357 |
Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Australia
- asylum seekers
- mandatory detention
- Christmas Island (Indian Ocean)
- government policy
- border security