Policy Press

Visiting Immigration Detention

Care and Cruelty in Australia’s Asylum Seeker Prisons

By Michelle Peterie

Published

Jul 26, 2022

Page count

188 pages

Browse the series

Global Migration and Social Change

ISBN

978-1529226614

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Jul 26, 2022

Page count

188 pages

Browse the series

Global Migration and Social Change

ISBN

978-1529226607

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Jul 26, 2022

Page count

188 pages

Browse the series

Global Migration and Social Change

ISBN

978-1529226621

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Jul 26, 2022

Page count

188 pages

Browse the series

Global Migration and Social Change

ISBN

978-1529226621

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press
Visiting Immigration Detention

In the media

'Collateral damage of immigration detention: new research' in The University of Sydney News & Opinion

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.

"The author’s presentation of visitor’s experiences offers a penetrating and insightful account of the various practices through which harm is inflicted in Australia’s onshore detention facilities, who is affected by such practices, and the reasons these practices are perpetuated." Ethnic and Racial Studies

“This is a vital read for researchers and students studying the multiple and radiating harms of immigration detention. Offering rich, vivid empirical data and novel theoretical insights and analysis, Peterie makes a significant contribution to advancing understandings of the weaponization of despair in immigration detention.” Ala Sirriyeh, Lancaster University

Michelle Peterie is Research Fellow in Sociology at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at The University of Sydney.

Introduction: Studying Immigration Detention

Immigration Detention in Australia

Theorizing Detention Centres as Prisons

Bureaucratic Violence

Witnessing the Pains of Imprisonment

Care and Resistance

Forced Relocations

Reverberating Harms

Conclusion: Tacit Intentionality and the Weaponization of Despair