Linda Briskman
Biographic Data
| ID | 164490 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Linda Briskman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Linda |
| FAMILY NAME | Briskman |
| SIGNATURE | BRISKMAN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western Sydney University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5328-0339 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 169 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Muslim children as a threat
This study explores the impact of Islamophobia on Muslim children in Australia, shedding light on their lived experiences and the long-term consequences of anti-Muslim hostility. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions (FGD) conducted with Muslim parents, predominantly mothers, across New South Wales and Victoria, the study highlights the ways in which children are perceived as threats, often facing harassment in…
And Then One Day, Me and My Husband, We Learned How to Cross the Street”: Hazara Women’s Experiences in Sydney and Yearnings for ‘Home’
As numbers of displaced people throughout the world steadily increase with the rise in global conflicts, many Western nations, including Australia, increasingly thwart asylum-seeking and place harsh restrictions on entry. Nonetheless, Afghanistan’s troubled political history over several decades has generated steady movement of refugees to Australia, and Australia has offered protection, although often conditional and limited. Little is known abo…
Activist leadership in social work education: A recent Australian example that secured paid placements for students
This article provides an account of the collective activism of four social work academic leaders who formed a coalition with students and trade union advocates to bring about one of the most significant progressive reforms to higher education in Australia in decades. Our campaign, involving a multipronged strategy, resulted in the Federal Government announcing a Commonwealth-funded ‘Prac Payment’ to help 68,000 students (studying social work, nur…
Doesn't Matter If You Stopped Me, I've Still Got to Chase My Dream: Tibetan Youth in NSW Navigate Racism and Intergenerational Differences
Racism and discrimination, family disjuncture and differential experiences depending on migration experiences influence resettlement in new environments and sense of belonging. This article focuses on a little-known group in Australia – Tibetan youth. This article centres the voices of Tibetan refugee youth in the state of New South Wales seeking to understand, from their frame of reference, how they establish networks and social relations in the…
Deter, Detain, Dehumanise: The Politics of Seeking Asylum
Taken together, this body of work examines how Australia has politicised the right to seek asylum, to the detriment of asylum seekers and refugees as well as Australian citizens, and tentatively offers hope on how we might seek to normalise, legitimise and re-humanise the processes.
Human Rights and Social Work: Towards Rights-Based Practice
Human Rights and Social Work: Towards Rights-Based Practice helps students and practitioners understand how human rights concepts underpin the social work profession and inform their practice. This book examines the three generations of human rights and the systems of oppression that prevent citizens from participating in society as equals. It explores a range of topics, from ethics and ethical social work practice, to deductive and inductive app…
Islamic Principles and UAE Policies Regarding Protecting Senior Citizens’ Rights and Safety
Islam influences Muslim societies through rules, regulations, and legislation. This paper highlights Islamic principles and legislation that protect the rights and dignity of older adults and compares them to policies and laws that have been applied and implemented in the United Arab Emirates. A comparative method was utilised to conduct this study, relying on sources that present the rights of older adults in Islamic Sharia, as well as official …
Australian Students’, Educators’, and Practitioners’ Experiences of Modified Field Education Standards During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Long-standing concerns about the sustainability of social work field education requirements were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) implemented revised Education and Accreditation Standards (ASWEAS) during the pandemic as existing standards had become unworkable. The revised ASWEAS (during 2020 and 2021) allowed greater flexibility regarding how placements could be delivered, enabling student…
Re-Envisioning Field Education in Australian Social Work to Combat Placement Poverty: Students’, Educators’ and Practitioners’ Perceptions
In Australia, pressure is mounting from multiple stakeholders for a full review of the national social work education standards for field education as evidence grows about compulsory, unpaid placements exacerbating student poverty and the related adverse consequences for students’ learning and well-being. This article reports on the findings of an Australian nation-wide qualitative and quantitative survey that explored social work students’, educ…
Absolutely it was not safe: Indigenous LGBTIQSB+ experiences of education in Australia
Indigenous LGBTIQSB+ individuals occupy a unique intersection of identities that inform their lived experiences and the ways in which they navigate colonial settler educational institutions. Despite a considerable body of evidence demonstrating the importance of inclusion, educational policies in Australia remain outdated. These policies are frequently informed by a deficit approach that justifies the absence of Indigenous and gender/sexuality di…
Indigenous LGBTIQSB + People’s Experiences of Family Violence in Australia
The findings of this study demonstrate the intersectional nature of family violence highlighting the fact that Indigenous LGBTIQSB + young people are integral parts of extended kinship networks, families and communities and are deeply impacted by any acts of family violence. The study's findings also support current research into family and community violence for LGBTIQ + people that shows the differential behaviours and actions of rural and urba…
This is our place, but we’re the outsiders’: The navigation of identity and spaces of belonging by Indigenous LGBTIQ + women in Australia
A secure sense of identity and belonging plays a crucial role in social and emotional wellbeing. While there has been research that investigates the exclusion of Indigenous people from a broad range of the workings of society in Australia, such as social spaces and institutions, there exists limited literature that specifically focuses on Indigenous LGBTIQ + women’s experiences. Building on the limited research on Indigenous LGBTIQ + individuals’…
Covid-19 in the UAE: Social Work, Human Rights, and Mental Health
Mobility Tactics: Young LGBTIQ+ Indigenous Australians’ Belonging and Connectedness
By Corrinne T. Sullivan, Georgia Coe & 5 more. Drawing from qualitative interviews with LGBTIQ+ Indigenous youth, we explore concepts of belonging and connectedness and how these concepts relate to their identities and lived experiences of ‘community’
Social and emotional wellbeing of indigenous gender and sexuality diverse youth: Mapping the evidence
There has been little exploration of the social and emotional wellbeing of young Indigenous populations who identify as gender and sexuality diverse. Given the vulnerability of this cohort in settler colonial societies such as Australia, Canada and the USA, wider investigation is called for in order to respond to their needs and aspirations. Using a scoping review, this paper maps existing research on the intersections of youth, gender and sexual…
This Group Is My Country”: Sri Lankan Tamil Women’s Narratives of Isolation and Connectedness in Australia
Refugees lose their networks and support systems on their journey from their home country. In addition, they may experience torture, trauma, and socio‐economic hardship. A critical question concerning refugee wellbeing is how refugee belonging, inclusivity, and community connectedness can be better understood, strengthened, and promoted. In this article, we discuss how members of the Tamil Seniors Group, supported by the NSW Service for the Treat…
I felt invisible”: First nations LGBTIQSB+ young people’s experiences with health service provision in Australia
There is an absence of research into the effectiveness of service provision for First Nations LGBTIQSB+ young people in Australia. To address this gap, interviews were conducted in Australia to highlight young people’s perspectives on essential components of service provision. Participants expressed their concerns about the ongoing impact of implicit and explicit settler-colonial heteronormativity and racism on services providing support for youn…
Social Exclusion/Inclusion and Australian First Nations LGBTIQ+ Young People’s Wellbeing
There is little known about the social, cultural and emotional wellbeing (SCEWB) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia. What research exists does not disaggregate young people’s experiences from those of their adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ peers. The research that forms the basis for this article is one of the first conducted in Australia on this topic. The article uses information from i…
Social Inclusion and Exclusion for First Nations LGBTIQ+ People in Australia
This thematic issue of Social Inclusion highlights the connections between First Nations LGBTIQ+ people’s intersecting identities and inclusionary and exclusionary process in settler-colonial Australia. In this editorial, we briefly introduce key concepts and summarise the different contributions in the issue, providing some general conclusions and guidance on a possible future research agenda
The Impossibility of Home: Displacement and Border Practices in Times of Crisis
We launched the call for papers for this issue in March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly around the globe, disrupting lives and stalling movement as country after country went into lockdown, and death tolls starkly revealed racial and economic inequalities within and between nations [...]
Disrupting Human Rights: A Social Work Response to the Lockdown of Social Housing Residents
The article probes the disproportionate impact on marginalised populations to reduce the spread of COVID-19 (COVID-19 is an acronym that stands for coronavirus disease of 2019).. It explores this problematic through research with refugees residing in social housing in Melbourne, Australia. The focus is on the specific pressures facing this cohort with the 2020 deployment, without notice, of armed police to enforce lockdown in the central Melbourn…
Indigenous Health Ethics: An Appeal to Human Rights
"This book examines the intersections of bioethics, human rights and health equity. It does so through the contextual lenses of nation states while presenting global themes on rights, colonialism and bioethics. The book is framed by the following propositions on indigenous health: it is a human rights issue; it is located within the politics of colonization; and subjugated indigenous knowledges require restoring"
Critical Social Work: Theories and Practices for a Socially Just World
Reversing Colonial Practices with Indigenous Peoples
Turning to critical social work pointers, one of the most powerful constructs to find its way into theorising Indigenous issues is that of 'whiteness', stemming from the work of Ruth Frankenberg in the United States and applied increasingly to the Australian context. Understanding the gap in wellbeing between Indigenous and other Australians is an important starting point for critical social workers. International trade and internal trade routes …
The People's Inquiry into Detention: Social work activism for asylum seeker rights
In 2008, findings from the People's Inquiry into Detention were published as Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia. The People's Inquiry, led by social work academics in Australia, exposed injustices within Australia's privatised detention network for asylum seekers and interrogated policies and practices that ensued since mandatory immigration detention was introduced by legislation in 1992. With reference to the global context, th…
Islamophobia in Australia: From Far-Right Deplorables to Respectable Liberals
In Australia since about the turn of the millennium, discrimination against Muslims has been increasingly normalized, made respectable, and presented as prudent precaution against violent extremism. Vilification of Muslims has posed as defending 'Australian values' against those who will not integrate. Liberal political leaders and press leader-writers who formerly espoused cultural pluralism now routinely hold up as inimical the Muslim folk devi…
Reclaiming humanity for asylum-seekers: A social work response
This article explores the role of social work with asylum-seekers in the UK and Australia. It raises the questions of the contradictions for the profession in the light of increasingly repressive policies in both countries. Comparing the policies in the two countries, questions are asked about current social work engagement and the potential for an enhanced role. French Cette recherche examine le rô le du service social auprè s des demandeurs d'a…
Missing the Boat: Australia and Asylum Seeker Deterrence Messaging
Many of Australia's border protection policies have focused on attempts to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. These include government ‘messaging’ in the hope this will influence the decision‐making of would‐be boat arrivals. This article outlines the findings of an exploratory study on the sources of information accessed by asylum seekers, prior to and during their boat journeys to Australia, about their destination country. The findin…
Reviving social work through moral outrage
Inspired by Hessel’s (2011) call in Time for outrage and drawing on the concept of ‘moral outrage’, we argue in this article that addressing contraventions of human rights and social justice issues demands an emotional connection with the nature of injustice. We propose that contemporary social work in Western liberal democracies has lost touch with the moral imperative, sentiment and affective encounter as a positive impetus for collective actio…
Hidden Men: Bearing witness to mandatory detention in Australia
The Australian government policy of mandatory immigration detention has been the subject of critique by human rights bodies and civil society. With many immigration detention facilities being located in remote sites, distance and expense means that few people get to observe detention practices in Australia directly. Through direct observations and through the voices of three men detained in the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre outside of the r…
Care or Collusion in Asylum Seeker Detention
This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work …
The People's Inquiry into Detention: Social work activism for asylum seeker rights
In 2008, findings from the People's Inquiry into Detention were published as Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia. The People's Inquiry, led by social work academics in Australia, exposed injustices within Australia's privatised detention network for asylum seekers and interrogated policies and practices that ensued since mandatory immigration detention was introduced by legislation in 1992. With reference to the global context, th…
Courageous ethnographers or agents of the state: Challenges for social work
Tensions arise for social workers when confronted with wicked policies, particularly in paving their way through dual loyalty issues and risk paradigms. By merging radical, critical and human rights perspectives and drawing on their practice ethnography, social workers can become confident advocates in challenging dominant discourses and contributing to social change. In this article, illustrative case studies are provided in the fields of social…
Asylum, children's rights and social work
Although it is only a minority of displaced and persecuted people globally who seek refuge in ‘Western’ countries, they meet an increasingly hostile reception. This paper focuses on the situation facing children seeking asylum with or without their families in Britain and Australia, and the implications for children's rights and for social work. The policy background and its racist foundations in both countries are outlined. Despite geopolitical …
Disrupting Human Rights: A Social Work Response to the Lockdown of Social Housing Residents
The article probes the disproportionate impact on marginalised populations to reduce the spread of COVID-19 (COVID-19 is an acronym that stands for coronavirus disease of 2019).. It explores this problematic through research with refugees residing in social housing in Melbourne, Australia. The focus is on the specific pressures facing this cohort with the 2020 deployment, without notice, of armed police to enforce lockdown in the central Melbourn…
Challenge and collusion: Health professionals and immigration detention in Australia
This article describes the impact of immigration detention on the health of asylum seekers. Drawing on specific examples, it explores the roles of professional staff working within the detention system and/or challenging the practices as advocates. Using oral testimony from a citizen-initiated campaign, The People's Inquiry into Detention, we interrogate the harmful experiences of force-feeding, deportation practices and the incarceration of chil…
I felt invisible”: First nations LGBTIQSB+ young people’s experiences with health service provision in Australia
There is an absence of research into the effectiveness of service provision for First Nations LGBTIQSB+ young people in Australia. To address this gap, interviews were conducted in Australia to highlight young people’s perspectives on essential components of service provision. Participants expressed their concerns about the ongoing impact of implicit and explicit settler-colonial heteronormativity and racism on services providing support for youn…
Moral outrage! Social work and social welfare
As guest editors of this Australasia-Pacific Special Issue, we are inspired by Stephane Hessel's poignant call in Time for Outrage! (2011), which implores us to shirk complacency and indifference and be moved to react to the unbearable things we see around us. Social work/social welfare practitioners are critically placed to bear witness to these injustices and morally obligated to speak out, act up and resist. Infringements of ethical standards …
Social Exclusion/Inclusion and Australian First Nations LGBTIQ+ Young People’s Wellbeing
There is little known about the social, cultural and emotional wellbeing (SCEWB) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia. What research exists does not disaggregate young people’s experiences from those of their adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ+ peers. The research that forms the basis for this article is one of the first conducted in Australia on this topic. The article uses information from i…
Refugees, Islamophobia, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Challenging Social Work Co-Option
As global discourses on refugees and Muslims become more exclusionary, the ethics and traditions of our profession mean social workers arguably have a particular responsibility to work for transformative change. This column argues that social workers need to be wary of direct complicity with harsh policies through implementation roles and, indirectly, through co-option into dominant discourses about refugees and Islam more generally and Muslim wo…
Cultures in Refuge: Seeking Sanctuary in Modern Australia
Linda Briskman reviews the book 'Cultures in refuge: seeking sanctuary in modern Australia', edited by Anna Hayes and Robert Mason, published by Ashgate, Burlington, 2012
Technology, Control, and Surveillance in Australia’s Immigration Detention Centres
Although mandatory immigration detention for “unauthorized” arrivals in Australia receives considerable attention, the use and abuse by government of technologies within sites of detention is less publicized. Control and surveillance are exercised in a number of ways. Immigration detainees have been denied adequate access to technologies that would enable them to fully communicate with family and friends and are deprived of the capacity to acquir…
Let Them Land: Christmas Islander Responses to Tampa
Christmas Island is the site where Australia's mandatory immigration detention policies are implemented. Protests by Christmas Islanders against the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers have surfaced since boatpeople began arriving in 1992 and reached a pinnacle during the Tampa affair. Based on interviews conducted in 2009 with island residents and archival material, the paper explores Christmas Islanders’ responses before and dur…
Researching the Margins: Strategies for Ethical and Rigorous Research with Marginalised Communities
Researching the Margins: Strategies for Ethical and Rigorous Research with Marginalised Communities Marian Pitts, & Anthony Smith (Eds.) Basingstoke, Hampshire & New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
Australian Students’, Educators’, and Practitioners’ Experiences of Modified Field Education Standards During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Long-standing concerns about the sustainability of social work field education requirements were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) implemented revised Education and Accreditation Standards (ASWEAS) during the pandemic as existing standards had become unworkable. The revised ASWEAS (during 2020 and 2021) allowed greater flexibility regarding how placements could be delivered, enabling student…
Re-Envisioning Field Education in Australian Social Work to Combat Placement Poverty: Students’, Educators’ and Practitioners’ Perceptions
In Australia, pressure is mounting from multiple stakeholders for a full review of the national social work education standards for field education as evidence grows about compulsory, unpaid placements exacerbating student poverty and the related adverse consequences for students’ learning and well-being. This article reports on the findings of an Australian nation-wide qualitative and quantitative survey that explored social work students’, educ…
This Group Is My Country”: Sri Lankan Tamil Women’s Narratives of Isolation and Connectedness in Australia
Refugees lose their networks and support systems on their journey from their home country. In addition, they may experience torture, trauma, and socio‐economic hardship. A critical question concerning refugee wellbeing is how refugee belonging, inclusivity, and community connectedness can be better understood, strengthened, and promoted. In this article, we discuss how members of the Tamil Seniors Group, supported by the NSW Service for the Treat…
Asylum seekers in the global context of xenophobia: Introduction to the special issue
In 2015 the global media fixated on the 'Syrian crisis' that became the 'refugee crisis' for Europe. This construction of crisis was Eurocentric, temporally narrow and presented as problem for European nation states. We view the 'problem' rather as the nationalism and racism of receiving countries with a resurgence of a discourse of ethno-nationalist European identity sharpened by the global financial crisis and neoliberal austerity. Despite disp…
And Then One Day, Me and My Husband, We Learned How to Cross the Street”: Hazara Women’s Experiences in Sydney and Yearnings for ‘Home’
As numbers of displaced people throughout the world steadily increase with the rise in global conflicts, many Western nations, including Australia, increasingly thwart asylum-seeking and place harsh restrictions on entry. Nonetheless, Afghanistan’s troubled political history over several decades has generated steady movement of refugees to Australia, and Australia has offered protection, although often conditional and limited. Little is known abo…
Indigenous LGBTIQSB + People’s Experiences of Family Violence in Australia
The findings of this study demonstrate the intersectional nature of family violence highlighting the fact that Indigenous LGBTIQSB + young people are integral parts of extended kinship networks, families and communities and are deeply impacted by any acts of family violence. The study's findings also support current research into family and community violence for LGBTIQ + people that shows the differential behaviours and actions of rural and urba…
Workable ethics: Social work and progressive practice
This paper explores the limits inherent in social work codes of ethics in the light of progressive developments in social work theory and practice. The authors contend that in spite of significant developments in theory and ideology, exploration of the ethical and moral base of the profession has at best been minimal, and, at worst, tokenistic. This has implications for the teaching and practice of social work. In critiquing professional codes of…
Asylum, children's rights and social work
Although it is only a minority of displaced and persecuted people globally who seek refuge in ‘Western’ countries, they meet an increasingly hostile reception. This paper focuses on the situation facing children seeking asylum with or without their families in Britain and Australia, and the implications for children's rights and for social work. The policy background and its racist foundations in both countries are outlined. Despite geopolitical …
Reclaiming humanity for asylum-seekers: A social work response
This article explores the role of social work with asylum-seekers in the UK and Australia. It raises the questions of the contradictions for the profession in the light of increasingly repressive policies in both countries. Comparing the policies in the two countries, questions are asked about current social work engagement and the potential for an enhanced role. French Cette recherche examine le rô le du service social auprè s des demandeurs d'a…
Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia
In 2005, in the wake of the Cornelia Rau scandal, a citizen's inquiry was established to bear witness to events in Australia's immigration-detention facilities. Until then, the federal government had refused to conduct a broad-ranging investigation into immigration detention, and the operations within detention centres had been largely shrouded in official secrecy. The People's Inquiry into Detention (as it came to be called) heard heartbreaking …
Researching the Margins: Strategies for Ethical and Rigorous Research with Marginalised Communities
Researching the Margins: Strategies for Ethical and Rigorous Research with Marginalised Communities Marian Pitts, & Anthony Smith (Eds.) Basingstoke, Hampshire & New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
Challenge and collusion: Health professionals and immigration detention in Australia
This article describes the impact of immigration detention on the health of asylum seekers. Drawing on specific examples, it explores the roles of professional staff working within the detention system and/or challenging the practices as advocates. Using oral testimony from a citizen-initiated campaign, The People's Inquiry into Detention, we interrogate the harmful experiences of force-feeding, deportation practices and the incarceration of chil…
Border Crimes: Australia's War on Illicit Migrants. By Michael Grewcock
Journal Article Border Crimes: Australia’s War on Illicit Migrants. By Michael Grewcock. Get access Border Crimes: Australia’s War on Illicit Migrants. By Michael Grewcock. Sydney: Institute of Criminology Press, 2009. 351 pp. AUD$49.95 / £25. ISBN 978 0 9751967 93. Linda Briskman Linda Briskman Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Perth, Australia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal o…
Let Them Land: Christmas Islander Responses to Tampa
Christmas Island is the site where Australia's mandatory immigration detention policies are implemented. Protests by Christmas Islanders against the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers have surfaced since boatpeople began arriving in 1992 and reached a pinnacle during the Tampa affair. Based on interviews conducted in 2009 with island residents and archival material, the paper explores Christmas Islanders’ responses before and dur…
Radical Social Work in Practice: Making a Difference
Radical Social Work in Practice: Making a Difference Iain Ferguson & Rona Woodward Bristol, UK, The Polity Press, University of Bristol, 2009 192pp., ISBN 9781861349910, £16.99 (paperback) The popu
Care or Collusion in Asylum Seeker Detention
This paper explores ethical questions arising from the work of health practitioners in immigration detention centres in Australia. It raises questions about the roles of professional disciplines and the ways in which they confront dual loyalty issues. The exploration is guided by interviews conducted with health professionals who have worked in asylum seeker detention and an examination of the outsider advocacy role undertaken by the social work …
Please Knock Before You Enter
Please Knock Before You Enter Karen Lillian Martin Teneriffe, Post Pressed, 2008 168pp., ISBN 9781921214370, $54.95 (paperback) It is humbling to review a book that is written from an Aboriginal pe
Courageous ethnographers or agents of the state: Challenges for social work
Tensions arise for social workers when confronted with wicked policies, particularly in paving their way through dual loyalty issues and risk paradigms. By merging radical, critical and human rights perspectives and drawing on their practice ethnography, social workers can become confident advocates in challenging dominant discourses and contributing to social change. In this article, illustrative case studies are provided in the fields of social…
Hidden Men: Bearing witness to mandatory detention in Australia
The Australian government policy of mandatory immigration detention has been the subject of critique by human rights bodies and civil society. With many immigration detention facilities being located in remote sites, distance and expense means that few people get to observe detention practices in Australia directly. Through direct observations and through the voices of three men detained in the Curtin Immigration Detention Centre outside of the r…
Equality and Diversity in Social Work Practice
Linda Briskman reviews the book 'Equality and diversity in social work practice', edited by Chris Gaine, published by Learning Matters, Exeter, 2010
Technology, Control, and Surveillance in Australia’s Immigration Detention Centres
Although mandatory immigration detention for “unauthorized” arrivals in Australia receives considerable attention, the use and abuse by government of technologies within sites of detention is less publicized. Control and surveillance are exercised in a number of ways. Immigration detainees have been denied adequate access to technologies that would enable them to fully communicate with family and friends and are deprived of the capacity to acquir…
Cultures in Refuge: Seeking Sanctuary in Modern Australia
Linda Briskman reviews the book 'Cultures in refuge: seeking sanctuary in modern Australia', edited by Anna Hayes and Robert Mason, published by Ashgate, Burlington, 2012
Asylum Seekers
Reviving social work through moral outrage
Inspired by Hessel’s (2011) call in Time for outrage and drawing on the concept of ‘moral outrage’, we argue in this article that addressing contraventions of human rights and social justice issues demands an emotional connection with the nature of injustice. We propose that contemporary social work in Western liberal democracies has lost touch with the moral imperative, sentiment and affective encounter as a positive impetus for collective actio…
Social Work Ethics in Saudi Arabia: An Exploration
Ethical approaches to social work are central to professional practice, with social workers expected to adhere to ethical standards in their work contexts. The expansion of social work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has coincided with changes in life patterns that saw a decline in the social solidarity of families, tribes and communities. Discussion of social work ethics has not been robust at this stage and nor has the desirability or otherwise …
Social Workers Without Borders: Voices for Justice
In a 2014 special edition, the Ethics and Social Welfare journal expressed its commitment to deepening an awareness of human connectedness, what Africans refer to as Ubuntu. Ubuntu offers a way for social workers to demonstrate their responsibility to one another and to the improvement of the human condition in ways that transcend borders. In keeping with the spirit of connection, a gathering of social work academics and practitioners took place …
Moral outrage! Social work and social welfare
As guest editors of this Australasia-Pacific Special Issue, we are inspired by Stephane Hessel's poignant call in Time for Outrage! (2011), which implores us to shirk complacency and indifference and be moved to react to the unbearable things we see around us. Social work/social welfare practitioners are critically placed to bear witness to these injustices and morally obligated to speak out, act up and resist. Infringements of ethical standards …
Missing the Boat: Australia and Asylum Seeker Deterrence Messaging
Many of Australia's border protection policies have focused on attempts to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. These include government ‘messaging’ in the hope this will influence the decision‐making of would‐be boat arrivals. This article outlines the findings of an exploratory study on the sources of information accessed by asylum seekers, prior to and during their boat journeys to Australia, about their destination country. The findin…
Asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia: Problems and potentials
Asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia increasingly experience protracted waiting times for permanent settlement in other countries. They have few, if any, legal rights, coupled with extremely limited financial resources and no access to government provided services. In response to the prospect of living for many years in this difficult and liminal space, a small community of refugees in the West Java town of Cisarua has built relationships, sk…
Refugees, Islamophobia, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Challenging Social Work Co-Option
As global discourses on refugees and Muslims become more exclusionary, the ethics and traditions of our profession mean social workers arguably have a particular responsibility to work for transformative change. This column argues that social workers need to be wary of direct complicity with harsh policies through implementation roles and, indirectly, through co-option into dominant discourses about refugees and Islam more generally and Muslim wo…
Islamophobia in Australia: From Far-Right Deplorables to Respectable Liberals
In Australia since about the turn of the millennium, discrimination against Muslims has been increasingly normalized, made respectable, and presented as prudent precaution against violent extremism. Vilification of Muslims has posed as defending 'Australian values' against those who will not integrate. Liberal political leaders and press leader-writers who formerly espoused cultural pluralism now routinely hold up as inimical the Muslim folk devi…
Sociology (48 works) · Political science (43 works) · Law (28 works) · Law (20 works) · Social Work (17 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (17 works) · Criminology (16 works) · Gender Studies (16 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (16 works) · Politics (16 works)