From Women’s Rights Lawyer in Pakistan to a Precarious Life in Australia: Learning From Lived Experience

Internationally the number of people displaced is at an historical high. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there were more than 79.5 million people displaced by conflict or persecution at the end of 2019 (UNHCR 2019). Australia is one of a relatively small number of countries that annually resettles refugees from overseas. In accordance with its international obligations under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Australia also provides protection to people who arrive in Australia seeking asylum. Historically, however, Australia’s policy response to people seeking asylum has been particularly punitive, including the re-introduction of temporary forms of protection for those found to be refugees. The choice to participate in higher education is an important factor for many people seeking asylum in Australia (Hartley, Fleay, Baker, Burke, & Field, 2018). Further education can provide asylum seekers with important opportunities to develop and enhance capacities and knowledge to sustain their livelihoods; aiding resettlement, social inclusion, and personal life fulfilment (Fleay, Lumbus & Hartley, 2016). Despite this, access to Australian higher education remains a persistently difficult problem for people seeking asylum who are effectively locked out because of the temporary nature of their visas (Burke, Fleay, Baker, Hartley, & Field, 2020). Because of their visa status, people seeking asylum and refugees living on temporary visas are classified as international students and are therefore pushed to pay full fees. Further, these people lose the only welfare payment they are eligible to collect if they enrol in a program of study of over 12 months duration. This has created a subclass of asylum seekers and refugees who are effectively denied access further education in Australia, unless they are able to access one of the few fee-waiver scholarships offered by some Australian universities (Hartley et al., 2018). While the gendered issues that women refugees face in accessing education have been documented (Hatoss & Huijser, 2010; Harris, Chi & Spark; 2013; Watkins, Razee & Richters, 2012), there is little known about how women from asylum seeking backgrounds access, or participate in, higher education in Australia

Displaced Voices: A Journal of Archives, Migration and Cultural Heritage Volume 2, Issue 1 (Summer 2021)

Twentieth Century Histories of Civic Society’s Responses to Crises of Displacement: A Special Issue to mark the 70th Anniversary of Refugee Council Displaced Voices is a biannual digital magazine produced twice a year by the Living Refugee Archive team at the University of East London. Displaced Voices aims to provide a digital platform for activists, archivists, researchers, practitioners and academics to contribute to issues pertaining to refugee and migration history; refugee and migrant rights; social justice; cultural heritage and archives. We welcome a range of contributions to the magazine including articles of between 1000-2000 words; reports on fieldwork in archival collections; book recommendations and reviews; and more creative pieces including (but not limited too) cartoons; photography; and poetry. We would also welcome news on activities; publication of reports, projects; letters and news from your own networks. We welcome submissions from all writers whether you are a student, practitioner, activist or established academic. The Displaced Voices online magazine is born out of the collaborative and intersectional work that we have been undertaking through our work with the refugee and migration archives housed at the University of East London. Our work to date has explored the intersections of refugee and migration studies with narrative and life history research linked to oral history methods and archival approaches to the preservation, documentation and accessibility of archival resources recording the refugee experience. This magazine is a collaborative project between the Living Refugee Archive at the University of East London; the Oral History Society Migration Special Interest Group and the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration Working Group on the History of Forced Migration and Refugees. Thematically we are looking to engage with articles that explore the intersection of refugee and forced migration studies; history and cultural heritage studies; narrative research; oral history and archival science