Dr Mireille Kayeye

Project Description

This research aims to investigate how the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and other agencies seek to empower women with lived experience of seeking asylum in Australia. It will provide insights into what empowerment means to women seeking asylum and ways they can be empowered, actively engage with agencies and have a voice in the community.

This thesis examines the lived experiences of women seeking asylum in Australia. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and photovoice methods, it reveals how women who are seeking asylum experience both empowerment and disempowerment. Dr Kayeye argued that while immigration policies impose power over their lives, women find ways to reclaim forms of power and exercise agency while waiting for visa decisions. The study avoids the commonly used deficit lens and amplifies women’s lived experiences while highlighting empowerment as an everyday practice of radical hope.

Supervisors

Professor Celia McMichael, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Professor Bina Fernandez, School of Social and Political Sciences
Professor David Bissell, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences