Social Exclusivism Versus Cosmopolitan Acceptance: Competing Constructions of ‘Australian Values’ in Discourse Surrounding People Seeking Asylum

ABSTRACT

Australia is highly polarised about its treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, with the available literature indicating that public, political, and media discourse routinely constructs them as culturally incompatible with the broader society. These discourses present refugees and asylum seekers as undesirable ‘others’ and in turn, their deservingness of protection becomes contingent upon arbitrary notions of who gets to belong (and why). Rhetoric about what it means to be Australian pervade these discussions, however little is known about the various linguistic functions these ideas serve. This paper presents the findings arising from Critical Discourse Analysis of interviews with 24 Western Australians. Findings revealed that notions of ‘Australian values’ were regularly called upon to further arguments that both deny and advocate for the nation's acceptance of people seeking asylum. While some constructed ‘Australian values’ as incompatible with asylum seekers’ cultural practices and beliefs, others asserted that open, compassionate, and charitable treatment of people seeking asylum is a key facet of ‘being Australian’. Examined with consideration of the literature on Social Exclusivism and Cosmopolitan Acceptance, I discuss the discursive features of these contrasting ideas, emphasising key implications for both societal and scholarly understandings of Australia’s ongoing asylum debate.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum seekers
• Australia
• Australian values
• discourse
• cosmopolitan acceptance
• social exclusion

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Associate Professor Farida Fozdar from the University of Western Australia and Professor Rob Cover from RMIT University, both of whom offered valuable guidance and support over the course of this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship and was undertaken at the University of Western Australia.

Notes on contributors

Ashleigh L. Haw

Ashleigh L. Haw is Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne and an Honorary Fellow at the Melbourne Social Equity Institute. She specialises in examining public, media and political constructions of marginalised groups, with emphasis on the implications for democracy, human rights, and social cohesion.