ABSTRACT
Between 2013 and 2017, Manus Prison in Papua New Guinea, an ad hoc composition of shipping containers, transportable dongas and remnant WWII Quonset huts, was operated by private security contractors, in conjunction with the Australian government, to indefinitely incarcerate asylum seekers. Manus Prison was an all-male carceral designed to conceal human rights violations and inflict maximum harm on the body of the refugee. This chapter explores the prison’s setting and how it functioned to facilitate the subjugation of detainees through various techniques, such as humiliation, neglect, intimidation and violence. The account of what occurred in Manus Prison is told through eyewitness testimony of detainees revealing the sensorial experience and liminal state of Manus Prison, its smell, feel and sound, as well as the various structures operating within the prison, both tangible and intangible. The forensic analysis of Manus Prison’s dorm P, an elongated semi-cylindrical architecture packed with over 130 refugees, shows how an overpopulated claustrophobic space, lacking adequate natural light and ventilation, led to the deterioration of the detainee’s mental health, bodily injuries and fatalities. This chapter argues that Manus Prison is derivative of Australia’s colonial imaginary, exposing the necropolitical state and its social structures that reinforce and justify the brutal treatment of others.
