ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates that the asylum-seeking policies adopted by Australia and the United Kingdom are fundamentally similar as they are informed by a protectionist discourse. It argues that a global discourse of control and deterrence permeates through and undergirds Australian and UK responses, resulting in the liminal and marginalised positions of asylum claimants irrespective of which part of the developed world asylum seekers are located in. The chapter uses the concepts of governmentality and neoliberalism as frameworks to illustrate how the asylum policies are similar. It draws attention to the similarities in the discourses which legitimate and result in practices that marginalise, constrict and exclude asylum seekers in both countries. The chapter presents the comparative analysis that serves as a proxy for understanding, in other national contexts, the link between asylum seeking, globalisation, governmentality and individual nation states; glocalised legislative and policy frameworks.
