Necrocities as Borderscapes: Necropolitics and the Production of Refugee Life in Offshore Detention

This paper examines refugee narratives to illustrate how necropower is exercised within borderscapes where life is presented at its extreme limit. Using Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend But the Mountains, I explore refugee camps as necrocities embedded within broader borderscapes that deny refugees free movement, access to civic life, and the status of being full human beings. Simultaneously, this paper examines refugees’ resistance within these spaces, focusing on testimony, narration, and epistemic resistance that challenge their subjugation. This research maps the refugee journey and settlement to explore how refugee camps act as necrocities in the heart of biopolitical states, exposing the contradictions between humanitarian ideals and oppressive practices. By highlighting resistance and working at the intersection of refugee narratives, immigration law, human rights discourse, biopolitics, borderscape theory, and necrocities, this paper argues that refugee narratives expose the ontological negation of refugees and illustrate how contemporary border regimes suspend or limit the protections envisioned by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Combining literary critique with theoretical and legal frameworks, the analysis presents the systematic dehumanisation perpetuated by border practices while highlighting how refugees reclaim their agency within these oppressive systems.