Refugee Update

Asylum seeker students 'all of a sudden just disappear', says Victorian principal (GA, 11 February 2016). "Head of Glenroy College says he is afraid his three asylum seeker students who were part of the high court challenge will be removed imminently." | Victorian principal risks jail by speaking out about asylum seeker students at his school (The Age, 9 February 2016)

Manus Island asylum seekers given anti-malarial drug known to cause mental health problems; Immigration Department moving to offer alternatives (ABC, 11 February 2016)

These Are The Queer Refugees Australia Has Locked Up On A Remote Pacific Island (Buzzfeed News, 9 February 2016). "In 2012, Mohsen, who is bisexual and a Christian convert, fled his home in Iran after his uncle hit him with his car and, when he survived, vowed to finish him off."

The Truth-Silencers Demand the Truth: In Defence Of The ABC (Matilda, 10 February 2016). "The Immigration Department... has attacked the ABC for making a factual error in a news story about asylum seekers. This is the same department which sacked 10 Save the Children social workers after accusing them of coaching asylum seekers to lie about trauma and assaults. In the subsequent inquiry into the dismissals, the accusations proved to be false; instead the inquiry found evidence of rape, sexual assault of minors, and guards trading marijuana for sexual favours from female asylum seekers. This is the same department which incorrectly blamed asylum seekers for starting the violence in Manus Island detention centre that led to the eventual murder of Reza Berati."

Catching up on links:

Scott Morrison won't apologise after claims detainees coached to self-harm (GA, 22 January 2016) | Save the Children staff forcibly removed from Nauru should be paid compensation, departmental review says (ABC, 16 January 2016)

Manus Island residents air grievances about hosting Australian detention centre (GA, 22 January 2016). "About 1,000 people gather in Lorengau to air grievances about how promised benefits for hosting Australia’s immigration detention regime have not been seen."

Meanwhile, onshore: Australia's harshest detention centre revealed (SMH, 21 January 2016). "Melbourne's Maribyrnong detention centre is the harshest in Australia, according to figures that show guards restrain and handcuff asylum seekers or deploy other force at a rate far outstripping other facilities." Also includes statistics comparing self-harm and assaults at different onshore detention centres.

Collecting

The Special Features on the complete 1960s Batman boxed set are not just unusually high in quality, but charming, including "Holy Memorabilia, Batman!". There's a wonderful, relaxed sense of fun about it all - documentaries about fans are so often uptight and apologetic. But what I wanted to comment on was a section where Jordan Hembrough, host of "Toy Hunter" (whatever that may be), describes the process of collecting:

"It's very primordial. It's very caveman. Ever since we evolved from Neanderthals*, and they were hunting food - people are hunting the toys now, because it sparks something in us. We need more. It's insatiable. And then you start looking around. You start hunting. You start asking questions, you start tracking it - now it's time to jump. [You pay for it] - that's the kill. That's when you get it. You take it home - just like the cavemen dragged home the bear or the mammoth** - and you have it, you feast on the collectible, you enjoy it."

You could get a thesis out of this, especially since he goes on to compare collecting to sex, but what struck me was how little the collecting process resembles the adventures of that ultimate figure of natural maleness, the caveman - whether real or imagined.

In the documentary, Hembrough's analogy is bracketed by quotes from collectors describing their process, which is not so much the solitary stalking of prey, but involves a lot of foraging and a lot of trade. There's clearly an element of cooperation involved in building a collection - just as no caveman would have gone after a bear on his own. Palaeolithic women, too, hunted small game collaboratively. Similarly, collectors browse, whether on auction sites or in shops, which is a lot more like gathering food than hunting for it - work we associate with stone age women, not men.

In short, the whole caveman analogy breaks down: the collectors act like cavewomen as much as they act like cavemen. Even the solitary "man cave" of the collector's display room is a mismatch for the ancient cave in which the whole tribe huddled together.

Having said all of which, I completely understood what Hembrough was getting at, because I am a collector too - not of things, but of pieces of information. It's not at all unusual for me to be the solitary stalker of a specific book or article or quote or fact, which can't be too different from the "quest" one collector describes for an item one has made up one's mind to buy. I really believe there is something in the brain about foraging, too - in fact, I'm sure supermarkets depend on it, or at least the ability to pick out specific colours in a complex background. (There's a reason it's called a Web "browser", too.) An awful lot of my research involves looking at whatever books are on either side of the one I'm looking for***. In fact, I am a terrible lay scholar - I accumulate the most enormous piles of facts, but often have no framework to fit them together.

One form of hunting I am good at, though, is the type of chase where you just persistently follow your prey, never letting it rest, until it finally gives in through sheer exhaustion. Oh yes, Egyptian Healing Statues in Three Museums in Italy: Turin, Florence, Naples, you shall (eventually) be mine.

On a related note, from Tumblr: "I think my biggest “huh” moment with respect to gender roles is when it was pointed out to me that your typical “geek” is just as hypermasculine as your typical “jock” when you look at it from the right angle." Now read on.

* Let it ride.

** I actually can't make out this word, but this seems like a reasonable guess.

*** Which is why I'm so sorrowful that so much of Sydney University's collection has gone into storage. But at least that means they haven't chucked it out!