Dialogue and Decentralisation in Australian Asylum Anthologies

Abstract

We, the Iranian asylum seekers in Port Headland, Villawood and Baxter are writing to tell you that we escaped from the country of Iran for our freedom and our survival. (Letter from Iranian detainees, Another Country) In Australia, the field of contemporary creative representation on asylum is enriched by diverse non-professional and community-based work, including self-narratives by asylum seekers and refugees. This essay situates three Australian asylum anthologies as products of heterogeneous community engagements and dialogues. Another Country: Writers in Detention (2004, expanded 2007) is edited by novelists and human rights advocates Thomas Keneally and Rosie Scott; Alone, Together: Writing from Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Australia (2006) is collected and edited by the Refugee Claimants Support Centre in Brisbane; Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories by Young Writers Aged 11–20 Years (2004), is edited by Sonja Dechian, Heather Millar and Eva Sallis. In each anthology, a range of subject-types—men, women and children from different ethnic, cultural, religious and educational backgrounds—coalesces so that a diversity of voices is presented within the privileged space of the book. Drawing lines of rhizomatic connection between autonomous sections of society, the texts map the grassroots structures of support, advocacy and community within which relations between asylum seekers, refugees and Australians operate. In each, writers engage in acts of speaking across the borders of language, culture, education and power, claiming a subaltern stake in cosmopolitan conversation.