Visiting Immigration Detention: Care and Cruelty in Australia’s Asylum Seeker Prisons (Global Migration and Social Change)

Visiting Immigration Detention documents the experiences of friends, loved ones and supporters who visit detainees in Australian immigration detention facilities. In doing so, it makes three main contributions to knowledge. First, the book provides a rare qualitative account of how harm is enacted through carceral practices in Australia’s onshore immigration detention facilities. It exposes the shifting systems of deprivation and frustration that dictate life in these facilities, corroding health, hope and relationships, and maintaining a debilitating asymmetry of power.Second, the book adds to international understandings of who is harmed by detention regimes. Building on extensive research concerning the adverse impacts of detention on people who are detained, it documents harm beyond the detainee. It also examines the emotional politics of solidarity within detention spaces, illuminating the potentials and pitfalls of (mutual versus paternalistic) care as a form of political resistance. Finally, the book makes a theoretical claim concerning why harmful practices endure and replicate in detention environments. It demonstrates that the direct and ‘collateral’ harms detention imposes are not failures of the detention system but evidence of its essentially malign function. Cruelty is the point. Ultimately, this book offers a fresh angle on the human and societal costs of immigration detention regimes. Front Cover -- Series -- Visiting Immigration Detentio: Care And Cruelty In Australia's Asylum Seeker Prisons -- Copyright Information -- Table Of Contents -- List Of Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- Series Preface -- Preface -- Introduction: Studying Immigration Detention -- The Veil Of Secrecy -- Detention As Deterrence -- The Study -- Outline Of The Book -- 1 Immigration Detention In Australia -- Hannah's Story -- The Imperative To Act -- The Evolution Of Australia's Asylum Seeker Policies -- From White Australia To Multiculturalism -- The Introduction Of Indefinite Mandatory Detention Howard's Pacific Solution -- Labor's New Politics Of 'compassion' -- Operation Sovereign Borders -- The Anguish Offshore -- The Onshore System -- Medical Evacuations -- Support For People Seeking Asylum -- Conclusion -- 2 Theorizing Detention Centres As Prisons -- Elizabeth's Story -- Immigration Prisons -- The Pains Of Imprisonment -- Referred Pains -- Conclusion -- 3 Bureaucratic Violence -- Moina's Story -- The Totality Of The Institution -- Visitor Application Processes -- Visitor Entrance Procedures -- Approaching The Facilities -- Submitting To Security Screening -- The Admission Of Gifts The Admission Of Food -- Conclusion -- 4 Witnessing The Pains Of Imprisonment -- Kylie's Story -- Immigration Detention And Harm -- Inside The Visiting Room -- Everyday Visits -- Communal Celebrations -- Death By A Thousand Cuts -- Inadequate Recreation -- Reduced Agency -- Lack Of Certainty -- Harm And Hope(lessness) -- Detainee Pain -- Institutional Responses -- Conclusion -- 5 Care And Resistance -- Paul's Story -- Theorizing Resistance -- Disrupting Despair -- Recognizing Personhood -- Affirming Agency -- Agitating For Change -- Advocating For Detainees -- Bearing Witness -- Conclusion 6 Forced Relocations -- Carole's Story -- Carceral Mobility -- The Relocation Process -- 'disappearances' -- Being Transferred -- The Human Costs -- Disruption And Disorientation -- Isolation And Radiating Harms -- Conclusion -- 7 Reverberating Harms -- Robyn's Story -- The Benefits Of Volunteering -- The Collateral Impacts Of Immigration Detention -- The Sociology Of Trauma -- Perceived Powerlessness -- Everyday Disempowerment -- Moments Of Crisis -- Ontological Disruption -- Harmful Institutions -- Complacent Citizens -- Visitor Attrition -- Visitor Endurance -- Conclusion -- Conclusion Rebekah's Story -- The Human Costs Of Immigration Detention -- Plain And Tacit Intentionality -- References -- Index -- Back Cover Michelle Peterie. Description Based Upon Print Version Of Record. Electronic Reproduction. Baltimore, Md Available Via World Wide Web. Michelle Peterie’s revealing research offers a fresh angle on the human costs of immigration detention. Drawing on over 70 interviews with regular visitors to Australia’s onshore immigration detention facilities, Peterie paints a unique and vivid picture of these carceral spaces. The book contrasts the care and friendship exchanged between detainees and visitors with the isolation and despair that is generated and weaponised through institutional life. It shows how visitors become targets of institutional control, and theorises the harm detention imposes beyond the detainee. As the first research in this area, this book bears important witness to Australia’s onshore immigration detention system, and offers internationally relevant insights on immigration, deterrence and the politics of solidarity. This study of immigration detention policy in Australia presents first-hand accounts of more than 70 people visiting and supporting asylum seekers. Documenting and theorising their experiences and treatment, it delivers new perspectives on the profound human costs of hardline immigration policy, both in Australia and beyond.