Introduction: Trans/formation and the graphic novel

KNOWLES, Sam, PEACOCK, James and EARLE, Harriet (2016). Introduction: Trans/formation and the graphic novel. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 52 (4), 378-384.

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Official URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1744985...
Link to published version:: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2016.1228513

Abstract

In early 2014, the Australian government’s Department for Immigration and Border Protection launched a controversial graphic novel on their website, directed against those intending to enter the country “illegally”. Titled using simple, brutal phrasing carrying ironic echoes of lazy anti-Australian stereotyping, No Way was a wordless 18-page comic discouraging potential immigrants. Although there has since been a change of Australian Premier (in September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull replaced Tony Abbott, who had been outspoken in his opposition to “the boats” a metonymical reference to those entering the country by sea [Abbott 2013], the campaign around No Way – the ominously named “Operation Sovereign Borders” – remains active. This says much about the Australian people’s capacity for consuming anti-immigration rhetoric, but it is not only Australians who think like this. As has been clear in a range of responses to the recent refugee crises in North Africa and Europe – from the output of global news networks to the content of numerous internet comment sections – attitudes towards migrant peoples have seen a steady hardening in the face of perceived increasing threats to personal and financial security in the west: from the “War on Terror” to the “credit crunch”.

Item Type: Article
Departments - Does NOT include content added after October 2018: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities > Department of Humanities
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2016.1228513
Page Range: 378-384
Depositing User: Harriet Earle
Date Deposited: 02 Mar 2017 11:47
Last Modified: 18 Mar 2021 17:31
URI: https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15249

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