Maligned mobilities, absences and emergencies: refugee education in Australia

ABSTRACT

Refugees are seldom admired or applauded for their resolve and resilience, and their post and pre-migration experience rarely serves as the basis for the development of educational practice or policy solutions. Using a postcolonial theoretical framework this paper argues that while the maligned mobility and disparaged figure of the ‘refugee’ serves to establish and reconstruct exclusionary national identities, the same identities can be re-presented to offer new possibilities for inclusive education. Informed by southern epistemology and the sociology of absences and emergence (Boaventura de Sousa Santos, 2012. “Public Sphere and Epistemologies of the South”, Africa Development. 37(1) 43–67; Boaventura de Sousa Santos, 1997 “Toward a Multicultural Conception of Human Rights”, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, (10) 1-5), this paper discusses the anticipatory and emergent dimensions of refugee education. A focus on the pre- and post-settlement experience of refugees brings to light both their determination and strength as well as the complex and sometimes contradictory effect of racism and racialisation. Consideration of absences in relation to the anticipatory and emergent dimensions of education illuminate how inclusive education can serve as an instrument of resistance, transformation, and reconstruction. It shows how refugee mobility can open up possibilities for new forms of intelligibility, community and humanity.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee education
• postcolonial theory
• sociology of absences and emergence
• southern epistemology
• inclusive education
• racism
• racialisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Highly controversial three-year TPV were reintroduced in 2013 to deter asylum seekers arriving by boat. First introduced in 1999, they were removed in 2008 and reintroduced in 2013, for arrivals by sea or air. They are reassessed after three years and reissued. TVP holders are not eligible for permanent residency, overseas travel and family reunion, nor can they access settlement support services available to humanitarian visa holders. TPV holders over 18 are not allowed to access to government-subsidised education programmes or low-income study loans. SHEV can be held for 5 years and encourage people to work and study in regional Australia. Of concern is the fact that 95% of the 11,300 refugees who held TPVs between 1999 and 2008 were granted permanent protection (Refugee Council of Australia 2015).

2 The term migrant is a misnomer since most of those arriving in Europe are refugees. Refugees flee conflict or persecution and cannot safely return. Migrants seek a better life and may return at any time.