Towards sanctuary: securing refugees and forced migrants in multicultural Australia

The notion of sanctuary has been an integral part of the history of Europeans' presence in Australia, since the earliest interactions between Aboriginal inhabitants and Dutch sailors lost near the western coast. Throughout the nineteenth century, new arrivals (whether convicts, free settlers or participants in organised migration schemes) continued to arrive with the hope that Australia would offer them economic opportunity and safety. Indeed, whilst Europeans forcibly displaced Australia's indigenous population, the white colonies came to reimagine themselves as one part of a global network of settler societies that offered new opportunities to fashion a more just world. This chapter contextualises how the experience of receiving sanctuary and refuge affects the formation and expression of refugees' and forced migrants' identities in Australia