Open AccessDetained asylum seekers, health care, and questions of human(e)ness
Author(s) -
Koutroulis Glenda
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 1326-0200
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-842x.2003.tb00413.x
Subject(s) - dehumanization , refugee , harm , politics , bureaucracy , government (linguistics) , vulnerability (computing) , criminology , everyday life , sociology , health care , psychology , political science , nursing , medicine , law , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy , computer security , computer science
This paper contains some personal observations of life inside Woomera Detention Centre and certain aspects of the detained asylum seeker experience. This is from my own reference point as a psychiatric nurse who in 2002 undertook a six‐week contract at Woomera, and from my subsequent sociological reflections on this experience. I draw attention to the disintegrative effect of detention on the individual and the bleakness of everyday life symbolically expressed in for ms of self‐harm. Then, through the example of medication administration, I show the vulnerability of those in detention to bureaucratic procedures that become micropolitical sites, providing the machinery for dehumanising acts. I conclude by calling for sociologists, health care workers, and the public health community in general to take a more active political stance against a Government and its policies that actively erode spirit, the body and, for some, even life.