Lecture Notes: Creative Resistance and Narratives from Australian Offshore Refugee Prisons

Introduction

• Speakers: Don Fischer (interim principal), Helena Zeri (assistant professor), Dr. Omid Toan, Elah Zardar
• Location: UBC Vancouver
• UBC campus on traditional land of the Musqueam people
• Themes: Colonization, human liberation, interconnected futures

Acknowledgments

• Green College, Heather McCartney, Sarah Ing for organization support
• Aliah Ahmed Yan lectures at UBC for speaker facilitation

Speakers

• Dr. Omid Toan: Lecturer in philosophy, studies intersection of citizen media, displacement, and discrimination
• Beus Bani: Kurdish asylum seeker, collaborator with Dr. Toan
• Elah Zardar: Iranian artist and filmmaker, detained on Nauru, activist in refugee rights

Offshore Detention in Australia

• Background: Australia's policy of detaining asylum seekers offshore, e.g., Manus and Nauru islands
• Historical context: Australia’s colonial past and its impact on indigenous and migrant communities
• Key Figures: Beus Bani (detained asylum seeker, writer)

Creative Resistance

• Narratives and Collaboration: Using storytelling and media to counter narratives of victimhood
• Key Works:
  • No Friend But the Mountains: Book by Beus Bani (transmitted via WhatsApp)
  • Choka Please Tell Us the Time: Film using smuggled smartphone footage
  • Elah’s artwork: Reflects detention as gender-based violence

The Carceral System

• Intersectionality of violence (race, gender, colonialism)
• Use of architecture as a weapon in detention settings

Creative Works

• Elah Zardar’s Art: Explores themes of time, hope, and gender-based violence in detention
• Shared Philosophical Activity: Collaboration between refugees and academics
• Horrific Surrealism: Artistic approach blending surrealism and horror

Global Context

• Global trend of outsourcing detention (e.g., UK’s proposal to use Rwanda)
• Comparison with historical colonial practices

Philosophical Themes

• Thought experiment: Prison and mind, allegory of the cave
• Charles Mills and W.E.B. Du Bois: Philosophical influences

Audience Engagement

• Discussion on global migration policies
• Importance of changing public narratives

Conclusion

• Emphasis on creative resistance as a transformative tool
• Importance of collaboration in advocating for refugee rights