Haunting National Boundaries: LBGTI Asylum Seekers

Two areas of scholarship on asylum seekers and detention camps rarely consider the position of LBGTI asylum seekers: the first is legal scholarship on asylum seeker non-entr e regime policies of 'excision' and 'exile', and the second is scholarship theorising the 'bare life', or lack of political and legal rights, and related issues encountered by asylum seekers at the boundary of the nation. This article contributes to and extends these bodies of scholarship by reading LBGTI asylum seekers into Australia's recent asylum seeker non-entr e polices of 'excision' and 'exile'. Using scholarship and reports produced internationally, it raises issues for LBGTI asylum seekers in the implementation of these policies. These analyses highlight some of the different forms in which 'bare life' might be manifested in the space of inclusion/exclusion at the boundary of the nation: 'bare life' is not a monolithic category.