Disciplining subjectivity in Australian migrant deterrence campaigns

Abstract

Abstract This article examines public information campaigns designed to deter asylum seekers from entering Australia via boat. Through analysing the institutional context and content of a graphic novel that was circulated within Afghan Hazara communities in 2014, I show that certain Australian public information campaigns mobilize an ethos of cultural sensitivity rooted in ethnographic data-gathering projects that reinscribe migrants as ignorant and socially deviant subjects. Such campaigns both situate Australia as an impossible destination and render migration a dangerous, futile act that will bring further misfortune to migrants’ families. The Australian case shows that in contexts where cultural sensitivity and externalized border control simultaneously guide migration policy, cultural knowledge becomes weaponized not only to keep migrants immobile but also to discipline migrant subjectivity and ultimately exclude them from pathways to refuge.