Tag Archives: Australia
A Privileged Past: British Migrants in Post-War Australia
A modest exhibition at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum poses a fairly simple question: do some immigrants have it easier than others? The answer is yes, though few if any immigrants would describe their experiences as easy. But the exhibition also encourages visitors to consider a more profound question: should some immigrants have it easier than others? […]
Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy
By Benjamin T. Jones The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key moments in Australian political history, looking at what happened, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has repeatedly claimed that Australia is the world’s most successful multicultural nation. While the sentiment has bipartisan support today, […]
Stitched Together: The Rajah Quilt
It’s taken me a while to appreciate the art of the quilt. When I was young, I associated quilts with infants, women’s groups, and the olden days—none of which interested me very much. Quilts didn’t feature prominently in my family, though two stand out now. My mother made a quilt for her grandchild, my brother’s […]
Making a New Home: Olveston, Linden, and the Jewish Museum of Australia
In 2002 I visited Poland for the first time. I took an overnight train from Berlin and arrived in Katowice on a freezing November morning. The skies were overcast, buses belched smoke, and the ground was covered in muddy ice and snow. In other words, it was miserable. And yet, as I made my way […]
A warning from an Australian: do not let your immigration detention centres out of sight
I’ve been living on Lesbos since November. As a volunteer, and then as an NGO employee, I moved freely in and out of temporary accommodation sites for refugees (otherwise known as refugee camps) doing my daily work. When the EU-Turkey deal came into force and the EU started deporting newcomers to Turkey, the camps on […]
Cry the Beloved Prejudice: Reflections on South Africa
A few weeks ago I discovered an intruder in my back yard. An uninvited guest who had taken root among the natives. When I asked my gardener about the exotic foreigner who seemed so nonchalant about interrupting my peace and quiet (and views), he simply replied, “definitely not from here. Probably South African.” Strange. If […]
‘If we want people to come the legal way, we have to clean up our act’: Part II of The Migrationist’s one-on-one with the UN’s independent expert on the human rights of migrants
Earlier this week we posted Part I of our interview with François Crépeau, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants. Crépeau is also the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Professor in Public International Law at the Faculty of Law of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where his research focus includes migration control mechanisms […]
Great Beauty, Great Barriers: an Eastern European migrant in Australia’s north
Lilla Proics, a teacher and journalist in Hungary, arrived in Cairns, Australia last summer with her son and daughter. The town is a regional centre and attractive tourist spot in Australia’s north. With a fabulous coral reef in close proximity and rainforests all around, it seemed to be the perfect choice for a potential immigrant. […]
Terror, Faith and Australian Identity: A Young Muslim Migrant’s Voice
Islam is a controversial topic across the contemporary Western world. Questions about terror, race, violence and identity are often interconnected whenever the topic of the Islamic faith is raised. The Australian sociopolitical climate is becoming increasingly hostile towards Islam and its followers. To discuss these issues I spoke to Abdullahi Alim , 22 year-old Somali-born […]
A Gentleman and a Scholar: Migrationist Community Mourns the Loss of Prof. Graeme Hugo
It was one of those steamy late June days in Ottawa, blasting sun one minute and drenching rain the next. Inside the minimalist cool of the Carleton University Art Gallery, Professor Graeme Hugo stood at a podium painting vivid pictures of a world in motion. His words were simple, his delivery understated, but Hugo’s presentation […]
The Migrationist 