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SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

Karin Speedy

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In 1901, the year of Australian Federation and the implementation of the White Australia Policy, a small boatload of suspicious, brown, Muslim men landed 'illegally' on the Far North Queensland coast. The reaction to their arrival on the part of locals and the authorities highlights the collision of ideologies in a space where established practices of Indigenous and non-white mobilities and openness to outsiders arriving by sea were being challenged by a new national framework that revolved around the policing of coastal borders and the restriction of movements. This article discusses the men's gendered identities and the ways in which they were racialised and criminalised by the authorities and the press before being rejected as undesirables. In this early Federation coastal drama, we recognise the exclusionary discourses that have characterised Australia's fixation with border security and the consequent imperative to keep out non-white others said to pose a threat to the nation on racial, religious or moral grounds. It provides yet another historical echo to the twenty-first century 'Stop the Boats' discourses and anti-refugee policies.

Publication Date

2016-01-01

Publication Title

SOLON Law, Crime and History

Volume

6

Issue

2

First Page

15

Last Page

30

ISSN

2045-9238

Deposit Date

April 2017

Embargo Period

2024-10-23

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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