ABSTRACT
This chapter presses its ear to the wall of the immigration ‘removal’ or ‘detention’ centre. Ostensibly gender-blind in their functioning, detention systems in fact present particular forms of risk, threat, and silencing for women – yet they have also surfaced as hubs of noisy female-led dissent, within and outside of their walls. This chapter therefore turns to the politics of sound as the basis for feminist creativity, which is explored via the life narrative and performance poetry of Somali-born, Australian-detained writer Hani Abdile, and via ‘Hear Her Singing’, a collaborative art and music project with women in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) developed by artist Charwei Tsai. The ‘sonic politics’ at stake in these works present important lessons about the feminist politics of listening as well as speaking, and reveal ‘deep listening’ practices as a productive basis for transcultural feminist activist praxis.
