Staging Asylum

The Staging Asylum enhanced ebook includes the six contemporary Australian plays from the print edition, offering a range of narratives and perspectives on asylum seekers and refugees. It also includes two in-depth audio interviews, sociocultural and historical analysis, as well as extensive teachers' notes. The result is a curated experience of the plays as a whole: on stage and within the discourse on unauthorised asylum seekers, immigration detention, border control and the right to belong.

Staging Asylum: the plays

This unique and diverse collection includes:

- CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident) by version 1.0, a smart, ironic verbatim work that deals with the Children Overboard Affair and the SIEV X disaster

- The Rainbow Dark by Victoria Carless, a surreal domestic satire about immigration detention

- The Pacific Solution by Ben Eltham, which takes armchair cricket commentary as a point of departure for a farce about the Howard government’s excision of migration territory

- Halal-el-Mashakel by Linda Jaivin, which looks at the friendship between two detained asylum seekers

- Journey of Asylum - Waiting devised by Catherine Simmonds, a series of vignettes based upon the personal experiences of asylum seekers and refugees living in Melbourne

- Nothing But Nothing by Towfiq Al-Qady, an autobiographical play about childhood and war

The Staging Asylum enhanced ebook features:

1. The full play script for all six titles listed above
2. Academic articles from:

- Julian Burnside AO QC, exploring the core legal issues, both national and international, which are affected by Australian governmental policies regarding asylum seekers and refugees.

- Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM, sharing the amazing success story behind the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

- Judi Moylan, contributing an article that offers a concise history of Australian governmental policy regarding asylum seekers and refugees, from federation to present day.

- Dr. Joseph Pugliese, looking at how the suicide of one escaped detainee, Habib Waheedy, can be seen to reflect more broadly upon our civic duty and responsibility towards asylum seekers and refugees.

- Dr. Caroline Wake, examining the refugee determination process as a form of performance, whereby the assessed must present their case to the assessor and both parties often mislead and misjudge one another.

3. Audio interviews:

- Judi Moylan discussing the migration policies during her time as as a Liberal MP.

- Morteza Poorvadi speaking about his own personal experiences seeking asylum, being held in detention for four years, and then completing a BA in Mathematical Engineering as well as starring in Halal-el-Mashakel at the Adelaide Fringe, which was loosely based on his internment at Villawood.

4. Teachers’ notes