Use of ethnography in boat asylum seeker research in Australia : the Sri Lankan case

![CDATA[This case focuses on ethnographic methods used in a PhD project that investigates the impact that Australia’s policy asylum seeker and refugee changes have on Sri Lankan asylum seekers living in the Western Suburbs of Sydney on temporary bridging visas who arrived by boat after 13 August 2012 (the date on which a discriminatory legislative reform on regional processing was introduced by the Australian government for all asylum seekers arriving Australia by boat). Over the past two decades, Australia’s asylum seeker and refugee policy has undergone dramatic changes to regulate the admission of people seeking asylum in Australia and to restrict permanent settlement opportunities especially for asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia by boat. This study examines these effects of the policies within the exclusionary discourse of asylum in Australia. It further emphasizes the need to situate their stories in the broader questions of citizenship, border, identity, and temporality fundamental to refugee migration in Australia. This research, in this context, helps readers to understand the crucial stages of conducting ethnographic research related to migration and demonstrates how ethnographic methods are used in fieldwork to collect data from asylum seekers living in the community.]]