This essay was written for for my Australian Foreign Policy unit in response to the following question:

How should we make sense of Australia’s approach to the arrival of asylum seekers by boat?

I suggest that we can only understand Australia’s refugee policies by viewing it as a defence of the white nation-state’s sovereignty. This attempt to legitimise white sovereignty over borders runs in tandem with the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, which is also perceived as a threat to the legitimacy of the white nation-state. In both cases, vulnerable groups are marginalised, demonised, and dehumanised by the policies of successive Australian governments. References are provided at the bottom.

Continue reading “Border Protection as a Defence of White Sovereignty” →