STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE POLICE-TRACKER STORY GENRE IN GOONIYANDI

This paper investigates the structure and socio-cultural functions of a class of narrative texts in the Gooniyandi language of the Fitzroy Crossing area (Kimberley, W.A.). These are ‘police-tracker stories’: narratives relating actual incidents involving the police and police trackers; most are autobiographical accounts told to me by Jack Bohemia, a former police tracker. It is argued that the texts of this type constitute a genre, characterised structurally in terms of episodes: all the texts consist of a set of seven inherent episode-types, six of which form two ternary episode-sequences. A variety of other, optional episodes may also occur. The episodal structure of the texts reflects, in an iconic way, their socio-cultural meanings and the narrator's ideology. It is argued that the texts represent an ideology of place as the organising principle for past experiences; and that they project a moral view of the world, in which ‘crimes' are ‘punished’. Some brief comments are also made rejecting the category label ‘oral history’.     

Rethinking detention and deportability: Removal centres as spaces of religious revival

This article investigates the effects of confinement on the religious subjectivities of migrants who have been held in British removal centres, elaborating connections to broader debates and mobilizations over the boundaries of citizenship and belonging. It draws on geographic scholarship on affect and the emotions to shed new light on the embodied experiences of detention, its wider socio-political effects and the complex links between intensified religious identities and politics. I argue that removal centres are acting as spaces of religious revival. African ex-detainees' narratives of their confinement dwelt repeatedly on their experiences of religious renewal, and the article explores how Christianity and the Bible provided bodily, narrative and performative ways of coping with, and countering the fraught ‘affective atmosphere’ within detention centres. Faith was a source of energy, hope and strength, created ‘communities of practice’ within and beyond the removal centres, while religious narratives affirmed detainees' humanity. Some expressions of faith underpinned directly political messages, intersecting with ideas about the self as a rights-bearing subject. By including religious responses in debates over the effects of the restrictive border controls, the discussion not only highlights dimensions of non-citizens’ socio-political agency but also demands a rethinking of the broader socio-political consequences of detention and deportability. The article is based on interviews with ex-detainees, chaplains and members of detainee visitors' groups as well as official inspection reports.