- Title
- Being Australian and the problem of detainees : Petro Georgiou and inclusivity
- Creator
- Rodan, Debbie; Mummery, Jane
- Date
- 2006
- Type
- Text; Conference proceedings
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/42378
- Identifier
- vital:1841
- Abstract
- The plethora of public and political discourses concerned with refugees/detainees in Australia coalesced in 2005 around the private members bill introduced by Petro Georgiou (Member of Parliament for the House of Representatives affiliated with the Liberal Party of Australia) in May 2005. This bill, aimed at reforming Australia’s immigration detention policy, brought about significant changes at the legislative level (June 2005) with regard to Australia’s practices in the mandatory detention of refugees, especially the detention of children and families. These changes were also both prefaced by and led to a considerable amount of public debate in the Australian media. On this basis, 2005 has been a highly significant period with regard to the public sphere discussion of detainees, mandatory detention, and ensuing issues of national inclusivity, exclusivity, and just what it means – and takes – to be Australian. This paper thus aims to unpack part of this public discussion by analyzing letters to the editor devoted to the above issues and published in Australia’s national broadsheet The Australian between January and July 2005. In addition to outlining the major public discourses in use in these letters, this paper also flags the need for a methodology able to consider not only content but its situatedness in and implications for broader socio-political theory. Given the inextricability of such public discourses from broader social and political theories – those concerned, for instance, with identity, representation, difference, democracy, and governmentality – we use here a cross-disciplinary approach that utilises both media and discourse analysis and contemporary political and cultural theory. Consequently this paper is in two key parts. After identifying and examining the discursive positions prevalent in these letters, we then move to analyse their socio-cultural implications, unpacking just how these discursive positions function within and in terms of broader social and political theories.
- Publisher
- Oxford
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
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