"Doing something for the future": Building relationships and hope through refugee and asylum seeker advocacy in Australia

Abstract

This chapter critically reflects on the authors’ involvement in an advocacy group based in Western Australia that comprises people from an asylum-seeking background as well as those who are Australian citizens. The chapter explores how those with lived experience of seeking asylum and those who act in solidarity can work together to respond to structural injustice. Advocacy from the group has resulted in some policy shifts at the local (state government) level, and is now contributing to a broader movement to give expression to local advocacy at the national level as well as grounding that broader movement in local work. We explore what we have learned and gained from our involvement in this group through drawing on Iris Marion Young’s concept of political responsibility for structural injustice as an act of solidarity between people seeking asylum and those who reside in their country of asylum.