This book analyses the use and abuse of social welfare as a means of border control for asylum seekers and refugees in Australia.
Offering an unparalleled critique of the regulation and deterrence of protection seekers via the denial or depletion of social welfare supports, the book includes contributions from legal scholars, social scientists, behavioural scientists, and philosophers, in tandem with the critical insights and knowledge supplied by refugees. It is organised in three parts, each framed by a commentary that serves as an introduction, as well as offering pertinent comparative perspectives from Europe. Part One comprises three chapters: a rights-based analysis of Australia’s ‘hostile environment’ for protection seekers; a searing critique of welfare policing of asylum seekers as ‘necropolitics’; and a unique philosophical perspective that grounds scrutiny of Australia’s policing of asylum seekers. Part Two contains five chapters that uncover and explore the lived experiences and adverse impacts of different social welfare restrictions for refugee protection seekers. Finally, the chapters in Part Three offer distinct views on human rights advocacy movements and methods, and the scope for resistance and change to the status quo.
This book will appeal to an international, as well as an Australian, readership with interests in the areas of human rights, immigration and refugee law, social welfare law/policy, social work, and public health.
Author(s): Peter Billings
Publisher: Routledge/Glasshouse
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 281
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Table of Contents
Preface
Contributors
Introduction
PART 1 Context and critique
Part 1 commentary: a crescendo of violence that might be
better called a war
1 Regulating refugees through welfare: Australia’s hostile response to unauthorised maritime arrivals
2 The welfare policing of asylum seekers as necropolitics
3 Spectres of subjugation/inter-subjugation/ resubjugation of people seeking asylum: the kyriarchal system in Australia’s necropoleis
PART 2 The depletion of social welfare for refugees: impacts and experiences
Part 2: commentary: slow violence in Australia and
the United Kingdom: connected histories and
contemporary exclusions
4 Destitution by design: the impacts of Australia’s in-country deterrence regime on people seeking asylum
5 The growing challenge of precarious housing and homelessness for refugees and asylum seekers in Australia
6 Financial precarity and health for temporary refugee and asylum-seeking visa holders in Australia
7 Navigating the threat of refoulement arising from the trifecta of welfare conditionality, behavioural codes, and short-term visas
8 Asylum seekers, healthcare, and the right to have rights: the political struggle over Australia’s “medevac” law
PART 3 Protecting and promoting respect for refugees’ human rights
Part 3: commentary: countering the toxic policy
exchange: reflections on UK and Australian approaches
to ‘immigration control’ and academic-activist
partnerships of resistance
9 Social welfare paradoxes for asylum seekers:
challenges for human rights
10 “I spoke the truth about myself and that’s when you connect with people”: advocacy within the political system in response to living on a safe haven enterprise visa
Index
