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Of Brothels and Colonies and “Dumb Deals”: Australia’s Migration Policy as a Precursor to Trump’s Wall and Executive (Dis)Orders

Discussing the principles of heterotopia, Foucault argues that brothels and colonies are two “extreme types of heterotopia”, adding thereto that the boat, as “a floating piece of space”, has not only been “the great instrument of economic development” and the greatest depository of imagination, but also “the heterotopia par excellence”. Drawing on Foucault’s premise of the boat as a space without a place which fluctuates between heterotopia of illusion (i.e. brothel) and compensation (i.e. colony), the paper will show how the boat in the recent history of Australia has served to lay bare “Global Capitalism without a Human Face” (Suvin), which has become the determining factor of the consensus reality. By tracing the history of Australia’s highly controversial migration policy concerning people attempting to illegally arrive to Australia by boat, which dates from 2001 and the “Tampa Affair” (which implies that Trump is “catching up” with Australia’s harsh deterrence policies), the paper will argue that in the context of Australia’s contemporary history the boat constitutes an uneasy nexus between the point of departure (heterotopia of crisis) and the point of arrival (heterotopia of deviation). The paper will demonstrate how the 21st-century heterotopia of deviation (the islands of Nauru and Manus turned into de facto concentration camps) also changes the discourse about the “things transported”: since the “things transported” do not guarantee the often evoked metamorphosis between money and commodity (the commodity in question defies cost-benefit analysis as it is no longer in circulation and generates economic loss), the heterotopia of deviation needs to be additionally justified by the state apparatus with the paraphernalia of the uncanny. This explains why the refugees inhabiting the “offshore detention centres” of Nauru and Manus have not been described by successive Australian governments solely as “irregular maritime arrivals” (denoting their lack of value), but also as potential “terrorists”, “radical Muslims” or, at best, “social problems” if they are given a chance to flock Australia’s shores (which denotes their negative value). Finally, to add a recent “Trumpian” take on the situation, the paper will refer to Obama-Turnbull “dumb deal” (Trump’s tweet) according to which the USA will arrange resettlement of Australia’s refugees housed on the two islands.

Australia ; offshore detention centres ; Trump ; Foucault

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