Middle Passage. 1 The area of the Atlantic Ocean between Egypt Map Tourist Attractions the west coast of Africa and the West Indies. 2 The voyage through these waters by African Egypt Map Tourist Attractions slaves captured in Africa. Middle Temple. See Inns of Court. Militia.
From Country Info;
So, in further consideration of civic space, or democratic space as I more precisely term it, these works begin to allow a political agency that, similar to notions of place, is neither fixed nor static but, rather, emergent and complex. Through the specific reflections about each project and discussions in the conclusion, the chapter considers larger themes in this blog around impacts on concepts of civic and democratic space, the politics of participation and interaction and, how contemporary design work can reflect the transforming experiences of place and identity in a global urban context.
The Pacific Solution and the SIEV X Memorial
In September 2001 the Migration Amendment (Excision from Migration Zone) Bill 2001 amended the Migration Act 1958 to excise Christmas, Ashmore, Cartier and Cocos (Keeling) Islands from the Australian migration zone (DIMIA 2004a). As a result, any unlawful noncitizen attempting to enter Australia via one of these islands is now prevented from making an application for a protection visa or refugee status unless the Minister for Immigration determines that it is in the public interest for such a person to do so (DIMIA 2004b). Towed back out of Australian waters, the asylum seekers face deportation from Indonesia, a country which has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention. This is known currently and colloquially in Australia as, The Pacific Solution’. These measures arose as a direct response to the controversial Tampa incident in August 2001 when 433 asylum seekers en route to Australia were rescued by a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa. These asylum seekers were refused entry to Australia, transferred to HMAS Manoora and (along with later arrivals) sent to a mandatory detention centre on the Pacific island of Nauru.
Meanwhile in Darwin, Australian government negotiators were stretching the border to a point hundreds of kilometres off the northern coast in negotiations over a new maritime boundary with East Timor. Under the waters of the Timor Sea between Australia and the East Timor lie vast reserves of oil and natural gas. There are tens of billions of dollars worth of oil and gas from an area of the Timor Sea that is currently subject to overlapping maritime boundary claims by the two countries (Ensor 2003). The long-standing tradition of setting Australia’s national boundaries according to international law was abandoned in favour of a new elastic band’ approach to fencing the borders. This new policy approach involves the Australian government simultaneously shrinking or stretching its borders according to principles of self-interest, which could be construed from an ethical perspective as greed.
