Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/225636

Title

Indigenous populations and asylum seekers in Australia: human rights perspective

Author(s)

Briskman, Linda

Abstract

Increasing evidence in Australia reveals extreme levels of disadvantage for Indigenous populations, particularly those who were removed from their families and communities, and refugee populations, predominantly those emerging from immigration detention centres. The paper argues that interdisciplinary perspectives supplement the field of demography in analysing the reasons why such disadvantage persists. Using the concept of 'racialised banishment', the findings from qualitative and ethnographic research in Australia are presented to examine how both Indigenous peoples and asylum seekers/refugees have been excluded from the nation state through removal to sites of isolation (reserves, missions, immigration detention); by denial of normative state rights (liberty and economic and social rights); and through the denigration of cultural, spiritual and religious identities (Indigenous relationship with land and Muslim asylum seekers). The paper poses the question of how exclusionary trends might be reversed to overcome disadvantage and to reinstate rights to both population groups.

Publication type

Seminar, speech or other presentation

Source

Paper presented at the 2012 NIDEA Seminar Series, Hamilton, New Zealand, 24 May 2012

Publication year

2012

Keyword(s)

Asylum seekers;  Australia;  Disadvantage;  Human rights;  Indigenous peoples;  Refugees

Publisher

National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato

Publisher URL

http://www.waikato.ac.nz/nidea/events

Copyright

Copyright © 2012.