Journal article
Women Within The Refugee Construct: "Exclusionary Inclusion" in Policy and Practice - The Australian Experience
Susan Kneebone
International Journal of Refugee Law | Oxford University Press (OUP) | Published : 2005
DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eei002
Abstract
Whilst women arc a significant proportion of the world's refugee population, they are less likely than men to make a claim for refugee status in a Western state. But if they do, they are most likely to succeed upon the basis of a claim as a victim of violence in a patriarchal society. This paper demonstrates how this paradigm constructs women 'culturally' or socially as objects of a power relationship, and how this diminishes their experiences as women refugees. In the case of Refugee Woman, this exacerbates the trend to 'exclusionary inclusion' of asylum seekers in our political and legal systems. Recent developments in Australian law and policy illustrate this argument.
Grants
Funding Acknowledgements
I thank the Monash Law Faculty for an initial grant under a Faculty Research Enhancement scheme to enable me to commence this research, Eliza Meehan, Kobi Leins, Caterina Popa and Edwina Howell for their research assistance at different stages of this project, and Tania Penovic and Sharon Pickering for helpful comments on the paper. I also thank the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford where the article was completed during my affiliation with the Centre as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow in May 2003. This article is a much expanded version of a paper presented to the 32nd Triennial Conference of the Australian Federation of University Women Conference (AFUW), Cato Conference Centre, Melbourne, 25-26 Apr. 2003.