Claire Higgins
Biography
Publications
Dr Claire Higgins is a Senior Research Associate at the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.
Dr Higgins is a 2017 Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, and also holds a 2017 Australian-European University Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. Previously, she completed doctoral study in History as a Clarendon Scholar at Merton College, the University of Oxford, writing on the development of Australian refugee policy. At the Kaldor Centre Dr Higgins' research concerns refugee status determination in historical context, and alternative policies for processing asylum seekers. Her book Asylum By Boat: Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy was published in 2018.
Trafficking in old anxieties
The politics of “border control” is at odds with Australia’s successful record of humanitarian resettlement.
Australia’s long history of offshore detention
In 1978, then-Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Secretary Lou Engledow said detention wouldn't 'stop boat arrival nor will it produce in itself a final answer'.
Humanitarian corridors: Safe passage but only for a few
There is a counter-narrative emerging in Europe’s approach to irregular migration, even as EU governments seek ways to discourage desperate journeys to Italy.
Australian refugee policy: Twists in the tale
In the late 1970s, when deciding how to respond to asylum seekers arriving by boat, the government said Australia had a commitment to provide 'sanctuary to genuine refugees within…
