Postcolonial Asylum Seeking Sanctuary Before the Law

Deprived of political rights yet caught up in the law's vested interest in portraying them as "other" to its citizens, individuals seeking asylum often experience a relationship of "inclusive exclusion" with their host nation. Concentrating on legislation, ethics, and political identity in Britain, Australasia, and the European Union, David Farrier engages in this book with asylum as an emerging postcolonial field through readings of postcolonial authors and filmmakers-including J. M. Coetzee, Leila Aboulela, and Stephen Frears-framed by the work of theorists, including Gayatri Spivak and Jacques Derrida. Postcolonial studies has typically understood displacement in terms of hybridity, and this accessible introduction represents a new direction for understanding belonging in a globalized world.

David Farrier is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary English Literature at the University of Edinburgh.