Sending a Strong Message? The Refugee's Reception of Australia's Immigration Deterrence Policies

t deterrence policy information nor do they uncritically absorb and adhere to Australia's deterrence messages. My study shows that refugees engage in a complex and creative process when they receive deterrence policy messages; they draw on a range of textual and non-textual resources when interpreting this information; and they reject deterrence policy messages for reasons that are unanticipated by those on both sides of the immigration deterrence debate. In short, this study shows that the transmission' and reception of immigration deterrence messages is not straightforward.In conducting my research I drew predominately on the perspectives and audience studies that have been undertaken by cultural studies scholars. These scholars argue that researchers should examine the power relations that shape both the production of the message' and the construction of the audience' to whom that message is directed. Drawing on these ideas I propose that the refugee's reception of deterrence information is shaped by such power relations. One of the major contentions of this study is that refugees reject Australia's immigration deterrence policies, not because they are desperate or because they are opportunistic, but because their knowledge is subjugated to the knowledge of Australian politicians when deterrence policy messages and their audiences are constructed. I contend that refugees reject Australia's deterrence policy messages because the deterrence message is based on an understanding of the audience' that does not fit with the refugee's reality.