Refugee Lives in the Archives

Drawing on the letters, photographs, drawings, maps and craftwork they exchanged with humanitiarian activists, this book explores the life narratives of asylum seekers in detention on Nauru, and how their lives in the camp are narrated in their own words

Whitlock attends with clarity to the words, images, crafts and artworks of people whose lives have been blighted by Australia’s offshore detention system. Refugee Lives in the Archives is a tribute to the archive’s capacity to bear witness – in tenacious fragments and increments – to the impacts of exclusion. This is a deft, ethical book.

Gillian Whitlock is Emeritus Professor in the school of Communication and Arts at The University of Queensland, Australia. She is a fellow of The Australian Academy of the Humanities. She has published numerous books, including The Intimate Empire (2000), Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit (2007), and Postcolonial Life Narratives: Testimonial Transactions (2015).