Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Australian Literature

Edited book (chapter)


Hourigan, Daniel. 2020. "Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Australian Literature." Gildersleeve, Jessica (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Australian Literature. New York. Routledge. pp. 254-261
Chapter Title

Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Australian Literature

Book Chapter CategoryEdited book (chapter)
ERA Publisher ID3137
Book TitleThe Routledge Companion to Australian Literature
Authors
AuthorHourigan, Daniel
EditorsGildersleeve, Jessica
Page Range254-261
SeriesRoutledge Companions
Chapter Number26
Number of Pages8
Year2020
PublisherRoutledge
Place of PublicationNew York
ISBN9780367643560
9781003124160
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003124160-33
Web Address (URL)https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003124160-33/asylum-seekers-refugees-australian-literature-daniel-hourigan
Abstract

Australian literatures that develop asylum seeker and refugee characters and narratives are numerous, rich, and complex. 1 However, there are far too many volumes that target multiple audiences, ranging from children to young adult and adult, to say something generic or essentialist from within the illusory construction of a ‘refugee literature’ itself. 2 In light of this plurality, it is far more useful to look to literary criticism to understand how literatures that develop refugee narratives are positioned, overdetermined, and coopted by the current culture and politics of exceptionalism that condition the imagining of the refugee in Australian society. The predominant trend in the critical reception of refugee and migrant characters from Australian literature is to understand them as figures of a psychic complex of political anxieties about the arbitrations of sovereignty, nationalism, colonial histories, and the possibilities of jurisdictional power. Refugee figures pepper Australian literature in often-traumatic narratives, as Tony Simoes da Silva has noted: ‘In Australia, as elsewhere, refugees increasingly crudely signify as catalysts to emotional, at times irrational responses, whether empathy or suspicion, pity or contempt, paranoia or mass hysteria’ (68). This chapter will offer a ‘law and literature’ perspective on the literary and critical responses to the idea of the refugee as an exceptional figure for Australian literature.

Keywordsliterary criticism, Australian literature, asylum seekers, refugees
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020470502. Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature)
Byline AffiliationsUniversity of Southern Queensland
Institution of OriginUniversity of Southern Queensland
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