Waiting on the islands of 'stuckedness': managing asylum seekers in island detention camps in Indonesia ; from the late 1970s to the early 2000s

"This article sheds light on the obstructed mobility of asylum seekers who were passing through Indonesia \nduring their search for permanent and eff ective protection, and the politics of their detention. \nThe fl ows of Indochinese asylum seekers who were ‘stored’ in Galang Island between the late 1970s \nand the mid-1990s, awaiting either their resettlement or repatriation, are compared with more recent \narrivals of asylum seekers from the Middle East, many of whom were hosted in open detention facilities \non Lombok Island during the mid-2000s. This comparison provides comprehensive background information \non how the asylum seekers and their claims for international protection have been handled \nin Indonesia. Given that Indonesia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, \nIndonesia off ers no formal rights to asylum seekers and refugees within its territory. Instead, Indonesia \n‘tolerates’ their presence as long as they are under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner \nfor Refugees (UNHCR) or the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Highlighting \nthe diff erences regarding the management of these two distinctive groups of asylum seekers helps to \ngrasp the full scope of ‘stuckedness’ (Hage, 2009) and also helps to understand the varied impacts of \nobstructed mobility on asylum seekers looking for permanent and eff ective protection." (author's abstract)