Susan Reardon-Smith

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Contact details

Name:
Susan Reardon-Smith
Qualifications:
Level 2 Adviser (Asylum and Protection), Office of Immigration Services Commissioner
Position:
Manager, University of London Refugee Law Clinic
Institute:
Refugee Law Initiative
Email address:
Susan.Reardon-Smith@sas.ac.uk

Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:
Human rights, Law
Publication Details

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date Details
Sep-2022 Linking Land and Sea: Intersections between Indigenous Peoples’ Dispossession and Asylum Seekers’ Containment by Australia

PeerReviewed

Australia’s harsh policy response to asylum seekers appears to be an extreme measure for a country that thinks of itself as a liberal democracy. Confining analyses of this regime to refugee law and policy overlooks the ways that Australia’s colonial history, Indigenous dispossession, and contemporary race relations interact with one another. This article argues that these historical dynamics are essential to understanding the Australian government’s response to asylum seekers in the present day, with asylum-seekers and Indigenous peoples in Australia both being utilized as tools of modern statecraft to shore up the legitimacy of the Australian state. Attention is drawn to parallels between the treatment of both Indigenous peoples and asylum seekers by the Australian government, with the increasingly harsh response to asylum seekers in Australian politics coinciding with the expansion of land rights for Indigenous Australians.

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