PHOTOESSAY: Refugee migration: Turning the lens on middle Australia.

Kasun Ubayasiri

doi:10.24135/pjr.v29i1and2.1319

Kasun Ubayasiri Griffith University, Queensland

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24135/pjr.v29i1and2.1319

Keywords: Australia, human rights journalism, photojournalism, photoessay, refugees, refugee migration, visual politics

Abstract

This non-traditional research paper explores the role of photojournalism and documentary photography in shifting the power dynamic inherent in photographing refugee migrants in Australia—the refugee as an object of photographic scrutiny. It draws on visual politics literature which argues refugees have been subjected to a particular ‘gaze’, where their migration narratives are mediated, mediatised, dissected and weaponised against them in the name of journalistic public accountability in and for the Global North. This photo-documentary praxis project subverts this ‘gaze’ of the Global North and decolonises the power dynamics of the visual politics of refugee migration by turning the lens on middle Australia. Instead of questioning refugees, this project asks what is our moral responsibility to support them? These images are drawn from three years of photographically documenting the Meanjin (Brisbane) community that rallied around and eventually triggered the release of about 120 medevaced refugee men locked up in an urban motel in Brisbane for more than a year in 2020-21. In these images taken outside the detention centre, community members go ‘on the record’ to articulate their motivations for taking a stand—an enduring Fourth Estate record of their social and political stance as active participants within the mediated democratic process of holding power accountable in the refugee migration space. The refugees central to this project have now been released into the community but as they continue to languish in an immigration purgatory, the project is ongoing and continues to manifest through an activist journalism framework, drawing on human rights-based photojournalism practice.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Kasun Ubayasiri, Griffith University, Queensland

Dr Kasun Ubayasiri is a senior lecturer and programme director of communication and journalism at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He is a journalism ethicist and a former Sri Lankan and Australian journalist and documentary photographer. His research examines the role of journalism in human rights including environmental social justice; the role of news media in armed conflict and refugee migration; and media censorship and its impact on democratic accountability.

References

Akkerman, M. (2021). Financing border wars: The border industry, its financiers and human rights [Policy briefing]. TNI Border Wars, April. https://www.tni.org/en/publication/financing-border-wars

Berry, M., Garcia-Blanco, I., & Moore, K. (2015). Press coverage of the refugee and migrant crisis in the EU: A content analysis of five European countries [Report]. Report prepared for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. http://www.unhcr.org/56bb369c9.html.

Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., & Nicholson, X. (2013). The visual dehumanisation of refugees. Australian journal of political science, 48(4), 398-416. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2013.840769

British Red Cross. (2023). What is the new Rwanda asylum plan? British Red Cross. https://www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/get-help-as-a-refugee/information-on-the-policy-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda

Dickson, A. (2015). Distancing asylum seekers from the state: Australia’s evolving political geography of immigration and border control. Australian Geographer, 46(4), 437-454. doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2015.1066240 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00049182.2015.1066240

Georgiou, M., & Zaborowski, R. (2016) Media coverage of the ‘refugee crisis’: A cross-European perspective. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Hall, B., & Swan, J. (2013) Kevin Rudd to send asylum seekers who arrive by boat to Papua New Guinea. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/kevin-rudd-to-send-asylum-seekers-who-arrive-by-boat-to-papua-new-guinea-20130719-2q9fa.html

Home Office News Team. (2022). Factsheet: Migration and Economic Development Partnership. UK Government. https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/14/factsheet-migration-and-economic-development-partnership/

Howard, J. (2001). Address at the Federal Liberal Party campaign launch, Sydney [Transcript]. https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/2001-john-howard

IPSOS. (2022). World Refugee Day 2022: More than eight in 10 Australians say people should be able to take refuge in other countries. IPSOS. https://www.ipsos.com/en-au/world-refugee-day-2022-more-eight-10-australians-say-people-should-be-able-take-refuge-other

Kennedy, R. (2016). The mapping journey, Bouchra Khalili’s searing refugee. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/arts/design/the-mapping-journey-bouchra-khalilis-searing-refugee-project.html

Locke, C. (2017). Military-grade camera produces eerie photos of refugees. Wired. https://www.wired.com/2017/03/richard-mosse-heat-maps/

Lydon, J. (2022). An Australian politics of indistinction: making refugees visible. New Formations, 106(106), 100-117. doi.org/10.3898/NewF:106.06.2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3898/NewF:106.06.2022

Magnum Photos. (2016). Photographing a crisis. Magnum Photos. https://www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/migrants-theory-and-practice/

O’Brien, B. (2011). Australia’s founding father of mandatory detention. The Drum, ABC. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-11/obrien-the-founding-father-of-australias-indefinite-mandat/3658804

Phillips, J. (2014). A comparison of Coalition and Labor government asylum policies in Australia since 2001 [Parliamentary research paper]. https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/rp/rp1314/asylumpolicies

Rettberg, J. W., & Gajjala, R. (2016). Terrorists or cowards: negative portrayals of male Syrian refugees in social media. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1), 178-181. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2016.1120493

Sontag, S. (1977). On photography. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Stewart, L. (2016). Sovereign borders: the militarisation of asylum seeker discourses in Australian television news media. Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation, 2, 1-20. DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2016.2.5

The Local. (2021). Danish prime minister wants country to accept ‘zero’ asylum seekers [Online news article]. The Local. https://www.thelocal.dk/20210122/danish-prime-minister-wants-country-to-accept-zero-asylum-seekers

Wilmott, A.C. (2017). The politics of photography: visual depictions of Syrian refugees in UK. Online Media, Visual Communication Quarterly, 24(2): 67-82. doi.org/10.1080/15551393.2017.1307113 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15551393.2017.1307113

Wright, T. (2022). 2001: The year Howard drew a line in the sand and transformed Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/2001-the-year-howard-drew-a-line-in-the-sand-and-transformed-australia-20211223-p59jwv.html

Zaborowski, R., & Georgiou, M. (2019). Gamers versus zombies? Visual mediation of the citizen/non-citizen encounter in Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’. Popular Communication, 17(2), 92-108. doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2019.1572150 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2019.1572150