'Band-Aids in a battlefield': The anthropology of refugee and asylum seeker support in Australia

Abstract

This thesis examines the experiences of individuals in South Australia who have worked and volunteered with people seeking refuge over years and decades. There is considerable literature on asylum seekers, refugees, and the fraught circumstances they often endure as they navigate asylum processes. However, there has been little anthropological attention paid towards understanding associated experiences of those who provide support to people seeking refuge, throughout asylum-seeking processes and beyond. This research is approached from the perspective of activist anthropology, providing insight into the motivations and experiences of volunteers and workers who often provide crucial support to people who have fled circumstances of war, conflict, violence, torture, and trauma. The research is guided by three central questions that seek to understand the roles and experiences of supporters who undertake their work through various modes of organisation. Firstly, what motivates people to participate in refugee and asylum seeker support work? Secondly, what is the nature of their experiences resulting from differing modes of participation and organisation in this work? Finally, how can an understanding of these motivations and experiences aid support organisations (both formal and informal) to attract, retain, and care for volunteers and workers to promote sustainability in this sector? Fieldwork was undertaken with 44 asylum seeker and refugee supporters aged between 23 and 90 years in Adelaide, South Australia, from July 2019 to October 2020. Ethnographic data was obtained through surveys, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and textual analysis. I worked with a theoretical frame encompassing the anthropologies of self, identity, morality, organisations, and resilience that crosscut the thesis. My analysis demonstrates that supporters are motivated to participate in voluntary or work activities that align with morals and values, linked strongly to their senses of ‘self’ and ‘identity.’ When supporters can provide valuable assistance to people seeking refuge, in alignment with their morals and values, their sense of self is boosted, contributing to their resilience. However, varying modes of organisation and participation in the support sector determine or affect the extent to which supporters can achieve this combination of valuable support provision, moral alignment, and self-realisation. Supporters struggle when their work is not understood or recognised by others as valuable. They also struggle in settings characterised by significant bureaucracy and control. This affects their personal and professional relationships, emotions, resilience, and longevity. However, alternative modes of participation and organisation go some way to favourably affecting these things, for example those that offer democratic and egalitarian working environments characterised by high levels of trust. This thesis argues that people’s experiences of support and being a supporter are framed and affected by the modes of organisation and participation through which they engage. The interplay between individual beliefs and values and democratic and flexible modes of participation and organisation simultaneously ignite passion and cultivate resilience. In turn, this serves to enhance the broader sustainability of the refugee and asylum seeker support sector. My findings have implications for the sector in terms of how it organises, attracts, retains, and cares for volunteers and workers.