Film as an anti-asylum technique: international law, borders and the gendering of refugee subjectivities

Abstract

In 2015, the Australian government commissioned a telemovie as part of its strategic communication campaign to deter would-be asylum seekers from travelling to Australia unauthorised by boat. In this article we explore this film as one instance of state practices that seek to control migration at their borders, and a form of state messaging which uses gendered story-telling techniques and characterisations to do so. Officially termed ‘public information campaigns’ (PICs) by states or ‘information strategies’ by international organisations such as the UNHCR, the use of such practices has increased in volume, frequency and prominence in recent years. While there has been some academic attentio..