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This chapter critically reflects on the authors’ involvement in an advocacy group based in Western Australia that comprises people from an asylum-seeking background as well as those who are Australian citizens. The chapter explores how those with lived experience of seeking asylum and those who act in solidarity can work together to respond to structural injustice. Advocacy from the group has resulted in some policy shifts at the local (state government) level, and is now contributing to a broader movement to give expression to local advocacy at the national level as well as grounding that broader movement in local work. We explore what we have learned and gained from our involvement in this group through drawing on Iris Marion Young’s concept of political responsibility for structural injustice as an act of solidarity between people seeking asylum and those who reside in their country of asylum.

This is a reflexive account of the messiness experienced by a Persian-Australian doctoral researcher interviewing social work and human service practitioners and people seeking asylum in Germany. This data collection was part of a cross-national comparative study of the impacts of policy on the experiences and perceptions of people seeking asylum and social work and human service practitioners in Bavaria and Western Australia. Through interview stories and the work of others, this article offers a first person account of the complexities, ambiguities and dilemmas that can occur before, during and after data collection, how these were navigated through the use of Finlay's (2012) five lenses for the reflexive interviewer, and some of the lessons learnt.

This article discusses a community-based participatory research (CPBR) project, which used photovoice to explore 43 refugee women's perspectives of settlement in Perth, Western Australia. The research was conducted between a university and a multicultural women's health service from 2016 to 17. The women were given cameras and chose topics to photograph, which represented their settlement experiences and, using reflective group dialogue, reflected on their settlement successes and challenges and provided policy recommendations for improving the settlement process. Eleven women were interviewed for further in-depth reflections, and 22 women selected photographs and wrote accompanying narratives for a travelling photography exhibition. Key themes of the importance of English language learning and family support during the settlement process are explored. Drawing on intersectionality and postcolonial feminist theories, this article discusses how government provisions for English education are incongruent with the settlement needs of women and access to family reunion is largely unattainable, which has negative implications for women's health and well-being. This article demonstrates how government policy marginalises women and reinforces an existing gendered, racial hierarchy. An intersectional approach to settlement policymaking and programmes is recommended for women's successful settlement.

Higher education remains unattainable for many people seeking asylum in Australia, where temporary visa status renders individuals ineligible for a range of government services including assistance with financing tertiary study. Many universities have responded by offering scholarships and other essential supports; however, our research indicates the challenges associated with studying while living on a temporary visa can affect the success of educational assistance. Here we highlight the importance of scholarships and other supports for facilitating access to tertiary study, particularly given the continuation of restrictive government policies, and identify the need for people seeking asylum to inform institutional and community responses.

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian universities to identify discursive representations of equity practices and connections, with our analytic gaze focused through the lens of people seeking asylum. Using a three‐part analytic heuristic examining ‘statements’, ‘practices’ and ‘connections’, we offer a critical discourse analysis of how each public university expresses its commitment to the equity agenda in powerful stakeholder‐facing documents—such as annual reports, strategic plans and media releases—and we compare this analysis against institutional stated practices with regard to people seeking asylum. In identifying misalignments between equity statements and stated practices, we suggest that institutional equity narratives articulate ‘imagined worlds’, in which all marginalised groups can access higher education. We argue that now is the time to move beyond these ‘imagined worlds’, to enact stated commitments to universal education, by instituting real and effective practices to facilitate equitable access to Australian higher education for people seeking asylum.

In response to Australian policies that impose punitive barriers to resettlement on many people seeking asylum, a range of civil society groups have initiated acts of welcome and inclusion, including some within universities. Denied permanent protection even when found to be a refugee, people who arrived from 13 August 2012 are forced to remain in limbo and many are effectively excluded from accessing higher education. A collective of people seeking asylum, academics, students and community members in Perth, Western Australia, has responded by working together on higher education projects that seek to open up the university to people seeking asylum. In this article, members of the collective critically reflect on these projects and their involvement. Its key aim is to demonstrate the importance of lived experience and collaboration in developing and enabling higher education possibilities for refugees and asylum seekers.

© 2016 The Authors. International Migration.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 findings suggest that government media and Internet strategies focused on deterring asylum seekers are adopted without full regard to how information is sourced before and during these boat journeys.

Australia’s mandatory detention policy allows for non-citizens without a valid visa to be held in sites of immigration detention on an indefinite basis. This means that asylum seekers who arrive without a valid visa can be detained from their time of arrival to Australia until their protection claim is finalised, unless ministerial discretion is exercised to enable their release into the community. Thousands of asylum seekers who arrived by boat have consequently endured long periods of indefinite detention in prison-like conditions in facilities established by the Australian government, both within Australia and in offshore locations. Many of these sites are in remote locations and there is limited monitoring provided by formal state and non-state bodies across this detention network that is systematic, transparent and independent. There are also few civil society groups and individuals with the capacity to assume a monitoring role. This article explores the inhibiting factors of monitoring immigration detention in Australia and offshore locations, and the prospects for securing systematic and transparent independent scrutiny should Australia ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). It also highlights the limits of an OPCAT-consistent monitoring system in the promotion and protection of the rights of asylum seekers.

Australia has long placed restrictions on the immigration of people with disabilities. While recent civil society mobilisation has forced some shift in policy, it is far from clear whether this will result in people with disabilities being accepted as immigrants. The issue is complicated further for people defined as ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ who have encountered the migration restrictions on disability. As a result of this policy landscape, there is limited rigorous research that seeks to understand the social inclusion and participation of disabled refugees and asylum seekers within the resettlement process. An extensive review reveals that refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities remain largely absent from both resettlement literature and disability research. This paper summarises the limited available research in the area around the following themes: processes of offshore migration and the way that disability is assessed under Australia’s refugee legislation; the uncertainty of the prevalence of disability within refugee and asylum seeker communities; the provision of resettlement services, both mainstream and disability-specific, through the transitional period and beyond; and the invisibility of asylum seekers with disabilities in Australia’s immigration detention centres, community-based arrangements and offshore processing centres. To conclude, the paper outlines implications for further research, policy and practice in the Australian context.