Abstract

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.

‘Examining the radical political and ethical possibilities that arise when refugees in Australia perform their exclusion from the political norm, Emma Cox goes beyond accounts of exclusion to trace how refugee theatre may offer the beginnings of new political forms that question the restriction of political speech and political action to citizens.’ —Prem Kumar Rajaram, Central European University, Budapest

‘A welcomed addition to the growing field of theatre studies in exile, mass migration, and activism, this book offers a telling reading of today’s Australia. It is a society and a culture shaped anew in the emerging public debate on the strategies of survival, culture and artistic output of the country’s noncitizens.’ —Yana Meerzon, University of Ottawa

‘This book offers a vital new perspective on the legal, social and affective interactions between Australian citizens and asylum seekers. Emma Cox’s rigorous analysis of activism and performance in the context of asylum has implications for all refugee-receiving countries.’ —Agnes Woolley, Royal Holloway, University of London

‘A thought-provoking and timely study of Australian asylum issues. The central concept of “noncitizenship” introduces an innovative theoretical framework that inspires application beyond the book’s immediate case studies. This is an excellent and important contribution to performance and asylum scholarship.’ —Silvija Jestrovic, University of Warwick

‘Examining the radical political and ethical possibilities that arise when refugees in Australia perform their exclusion from the political norm, Emma Cox goes beyond accounts of exclusion to trace how refugee theatre may offer the beginnings of new political forms that question the restriction of political speech and political action to citizens.’ —Prem Kumar Rajaram, Central European University, Budapest

‘A welcomed addition to the growing field of theatre studies in exile, mass migration, and activism, this book offers a telling reading of today’s Australia. It is a society and a culture shaped anew in the emerging public debate on the strategies of survival, culture and artistic output of the country’s noncitizens.’ —Yana Meerzon, University of Ottawa

‘A thought-provoking and timely study of Australian asylum issues. The central concept of “noncitizenship” introduces an innovative theoretical framework that inspires application beyond the book’s immediate case studies. This is an excellent and important contribution to performance and asylum scholarship.’ —Silvija Jestrovic, University of Warwick

Emma Cox is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London.

‘This book offers a vital new perspective on the legal, social and affective interactions between Australian citizens and asylum seekers. Emma Cox’s rigorous analysis of activism and performance in the context of asylum has implications for all refugee-receiving countries.’ —Agnes Woolley, Royal Holloway, University of London

This exacting study makes the case that a diverse range of theatre, film and activism engaged in the portrayal or participation of asylum seekers and refugees since 2001 has been informed by and contributed to the consolidation of ‘irregular’ noncitizenship as a cornerstone idea in contemporary Australian political and social life. This idea has been reified as a direct consequence of the asylum seeker–related public discourse that has been prominent in twenty-first century Australia, to the extent that it has become impossible to imagine what Australia means without it. ‘Performing Noncitizenship’ is the first book-length study of its kind to focus on Australia’s urgent and fraught asylum politics, and its implications extend beyond one country’s problems. To date, there has been little attention paid to theatre and performance’s implicatedness in how irregular noncitizenship has been taken up in Western neoliberal democracies as a core diagnosis for the ills of a precarious social and economic status quo. This study is unique among studies of asylum seeker and refugee representation in theatre, film and activism in its interest in the ways representations of asylum seekers are informed by and inform identity politics among citizens. The book’s purpose is to identify and illuminate the increasing leverage of noncitizenship as a marker of twenty-first century human illegitimacy.