Mutations of the Australian camp

Abstract

This essay argues that the camp manifests and mutates the forced exclusion, separation and removal of certain segments of the population from the space of the nation. The camp is a permanent ‘exceptional’ colonial and neocolonial territorial arrangement that reproduces a white diasporic form of sovereignty that coexists with new configurations of exception.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Suvendrini Perera for her rigorous feedback and extensive discussions and to Jon Stratton for giving me encouraging responses after reading an early draft. Finally, I would like to thank Joseph Pugliese for his continuing support. This paper reworks some material published in 2007 in the ACRAWSA e-Journal at: http://www.ejournal.acrawsa.org.au (accessed 17 June, 2009).