The empire strikes back : refugees, race and the reinvention of empire

In this chapter, the authors explore the ongoing cultural, economic and ideological impact of the British Empire in Australia. Using Australia's history of immigration and its more recent response to asylum seekers under the former government of Prime Minister John Howard as a case study, the authors contend that the "end of empire" has not yet come; rather "empire thinking" is thriving and continuing to shape global refugee movements and international politics. Empire has been divorced from the overt evidence of its existence, enabling the "common sense" of racism and capitalism to be redeployed in a postmodern guise to continue the economic, cultural and political domination of peoples from the global south, wherever they may live.