Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- An introduction to international relations: the origins and changing agendas of a discipline
- 1 Theory and practice in Australian international relations: the search for identity and security
- Part 1 Theories of international relations
- Part 2 The traditional agenda: states, war and law
- Part 3 The new agenda: globalisation and global governance
- 20 Multilateral economic institutions
- 21 Global trade
- 22 Global finance
- 23 Non-state actors: multinational corporations and international non-governmental organisations
- 24 Global poverty and inequality
- 25 Globalisation and its critics
- 26 The globalisation of Islam
- 27 Global terrorism
- 28 Humanitarianism and armed intervention
- 29 Human rights
- 30 Migration and refugees
- 31 Global environmental politics
- 32 Global governance and the United Nations
- Glossary of terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
30 - Migration and refugees
from Part 3 - The new agenda: globalisation and global governance
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and boxes
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgments
- An introduction to international relations: the origins and changing agendas of a discipline
- 1 Theory and practice in Australian international relations: the search for identity and security
- Part 1 Theories of international relations
- Part 2 The traditional agenda: states, war and law
- Part 3 The new agenda: globalisation and global governance
- 20 Multilateral economic institutions
- 21 Global trade
- 22 Global finance
- 23 Non-state actors: multinational corporations and international non-governmental organisations
- 24 Global poverty and inequality
- 25 Globalisation and its critics
- 26 The globalisation of Islam
- 27 Global terrorism
- 28 Humanitarianism and armed intervention
- 29 Human rights
- 30 Migration and refugees
- 31 Global environmental politics
- 32 Global governance and the United Nations
- Glossary of terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
This chapter will proceed in five sections. The first section looks at how the two terms, migrant and refugee, came to be defined as distinct from each other in the context of the modern state. As the reification of borders intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, citizenship became an essential part of ‘belonging’ to a state as well as indicating the strength of the state itself. Hence, the categorisation of those ‘outside’ the state developed as a way of ascertaining who belonged and who did not. The second part of this chapter then examines how states define and categorise refugees through laws that seek to contain and limit their flow. The third section is concerned with the consequences of limiting the definition of a refugee, which has led to an unequal burden between developed and developing states. In the fourth section, we look at the specific case of Australia and the development of its relationship with refugees. The final section examines the case of the MV Tampa and traces how the Australian government's response to this boatload of rescued asylum seekers marked a new chapter in its migration laws. Ultimately, this chapter seeks to demonstrate that the choices made by states in border protection become the key determinants of how refugees will be accepted. Adherence to international refugee law will not necessarily address all the problems associated with refugees, but nor will seeing refugees as unwanted intruders in contrast to ‘desirable’ migrants.
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- Chapter
- Information
- An Introduction to International RelationsAustralian Perspectives, pp. 350 - 361Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007