"The visual dehumanisation of refugees" by Roland Bleiker, David Campbell, Emma Hutchison & Xzarina Nicholson

A few years back, the Australian Journal of Political Science published the following article which is certainly apropos today. The article is entitled: "The visual dehumanisation of refugees". It was co-written by Roland Bleiker, David Campbell, Emma Hutchison & Xzarina Nicholson. It is available here. The following is the abstract:

Dealing with refugees is one of the most contested political issues in Australia. We examine how media images of asylum seekers have framed ensuing debates during two crucial periods over the past decade. By conducting a content analysis of newspaper front pages we demonstrate that asylum seekers have primarily been represented as medium or large groups and through a focus on boats. We argue that this visual framing, and in particular the relative absence of images that depict individual asylum seekers with recognisable facial features, associates refugees not with a humanitarian challenge, but with threats to sovereignty and security. These dehumanising visual patterns reinforce a politics of fear that explains why refugees are publicly framed as people whose plight, dire as it is, nevertheless does not generate a compassionate political response.

Darryl Li's New Article in the UCLA Law Review: "Offshoring the Army: Migrant Workers and the U.S. Military"

The UCLA Law Review has published an article by Darryl Li entitled: "Offshoring the Army: Migrant Workers and the U.S. Military." The following is the abstract:

Long-running debates over military privatization overlook one important fact: Te U.S. military’s post-2001 contractor workforce is composed largely of migrants imported from impoverished countries. This Article argues that these Third Country National (TCN) workers—so called because they are neither American nor local—are bereft of the effective protections of American law, local regimes, or their home governments; moreover, their vulnerability is a feature, not a flaw, in how the U.S. projects global power today. TCN workers are an offshore captive labor force whose use allows the government to keep politically sensitive troop numbers and casualty figures artificially low while reducing dependence on local populations with suspect loyalties. Legislation to combat human trafficking has done little to remedy exploitation and abuse of TCN workers because of jurisdictional hurdles and the lack of robust labor rights protections. Substantive reform efforts should address the deeper issue at stake, namely that the government uses TCN workers to carry out a core state function—namely, the use of force—without a clear relationship of responsibility to them. Unlike with soldiers, the labor of TCN workers is not valorized as sacrifice and unlike mercenaries selling their services to the highest bidder, they are frequently indebted to the point of indenture.