Modular housing units sit among decaying workers’ blocks on a quiet street in the remote town of Port Hedland in Western Australia. The Pilbara region where the town is located is at the centre of Australia’s booming iron ore industry yet sits at a remote edge of its territory. As Ari Jerrems discovers, distance is at the core of what makes this place work. Ari investigates how the violence of immigration detention comes together with the history of mining at this unassuming location overlooking the Indian Ocean. Speaking to Savitri Taylor, Amy Nethery, Peter Mares, Linda Briskman, Bradon Ellem and Brett Neilson, he connects the dots between the crimes of empire, extractive industries and systems of detention, in Australia and beyond. We also hear the voices of those detained who resisted and made visible the overlapping violence they were caught up in.
Additional Voice-work: James Eastwood, Sumayah Rahman, Holly Ryan and Keren Weitzberg
Useful links
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre: https://asrc.org.au/
Australian Human Rights Commission: https://humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub/asylum-seekers-and-refugees-projects-reports/immigration-detention-reports-and-photos
Refugee Action Coalition:
RISE. Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees: https://www.riserefugee.org/
Further Reading
Behrouz Boochani. No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Pan Macmillan: 2018).
Linda Briskman and Lathan, Susie & Goddard, Chris. Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia (Scribe Publishing: 2008).
Peter Mares. Borderline: Australia’s Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers (UNSW Press: 2001).
Amy Nethery. “Incarceration, Classification and Control: Administrative Detention in Settler Colonial Australia,” Political Geography 89: 102457 (2021).
Archival Materials
“An Introduction to the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.” Recorded by the Premier's Department, Government of W.A [video recording] (1970). Held at the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with their permission.
Gyzele Osmani and Ann-Mari Jordens. Gyzele Osmani interviewed by Ann-Mari Jordens [sound recording] (2006). Held at the National Library of Australia and reproduced with their permission.
This episode was supported by the Independent Social Research Fund and the Leverhulme Trust.
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