'This exacting study examines the theatre, film and activism engaged with the representation or participation of asylum seekers and refugees in the twenty-first century. Cox shows how this work has been informed by and indeed contributed to the consolidation of ‘irregular’ noncitizenship as a cornerstone idea in contemporary Australian political and social life, to the extent that it has become impossible to imagine what Australia means without it.' (Publication summary)
Table of Contents
Introduction: Framing Noncitizenship; 1. The Politics of Innocence in Theatres of Reality; 2. Domestic Comedy and Theatrical Heterotopias; 3. Territories of Contact in Documentary Film; 4. The Pain of Others: Performance, Protest and Instrumental Self-Injury; 5. Welcome to Country? Aboriginal Activism and Ontologies of Sovereignty; Conclusion: A Global Politics of Noncitizenship; Notes; Bibliography; Index
'In Performing Noncitizenship: Asylum Seekers in Australian Theatre, Film and Activism, Emma Cox acknowledges the vast body of work that has already been carried out on asylum seekers and refugees in social and political science and more recently in the humanities. She makes it clear that her aim in this book is not to create an "archive of work that has responded to asylum politics" (8). Instead, she provides "thick" descriptions of selected examples of theatre, film, and activism in Australia "to elucidate them as sites of representation […] and as sites of social practice that are generative of, and not just reflective of, the ways that identities manifest in the space between groups separated-in-proximity by demarcations of national community" (9).' (Introduction)
'In Performing Noncitizenship: Asylum Seekers in Australian Theatre, Film and Activism, Emma Cox acknowledges the vast body of work that has already been carried out on asylum seekers and refugees in social and political science and more recently in the humanities. She makes it clear that her aim in this book is not to create an "archive of work that has responded to asylum politics" (8). Instead, she provides "thick" descriptions of selected examples of theatre, film, and activism in Australia "to elucidate them as sites of representation […] and as sites of social practice that are generative of, and not just reflective of, the ways that identities manifest in the space between groups separated-in-proximity by demarcations of national community" (9).' (Introduction)
