‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are respectfully advised that this website contains images of and references to deceased persons. All viewers are respectfully advised that the site contains images of and references to the deaths in custody of Indigenous peoples, Black people and refugees that may cause distress’.
With the ultimate aim of ending deaths in custody, the Deathscapes project maps the sites and distributions of custodial deaths in locations such as police cells, prisons and immigration detention centres, predominantly working across the settler states of Australia, the United States and Canada.
It presents new understandings of the practices and technologies, both global and domestic, that enable state violence against racialized groups in settler states. Within the violent frame of the settler colonial state, centred on Indigenous deaths as a form of ongoing clearing of the land, the deaths of other racialized bodies within the nation and at its borders–including Black, migrant and refugee deaths–reaffirm the assertion of settler sovereignty.
To focus on Indigenous deaths and other racialized deaths is not to collapse the differences between racialized groups, or to ignore the presence of other racialized population’’s in these states, but to address some of the shared strategies, policies, practices and rationales of state violence deployed in the management of these separate categories.
Deathscapes seeks to ‘humanise what has been dehumanised’ by incorporating the aesthetic as part of the infrastructure of the site. The artworks on the site offer testimony of what otherwise would remain unsaid and unrepresented; they offer graphic examples of acts of protest and resistance; they instantiate agency in contexts in which it is often so brutally denied; they amplify, through their visual languages, the key analytical and political concerns articulated in the various case studies of racialised deaths. More on the aesthetics of the site can be accessed here. Notes on teaching with the Deathscapes site can be accessed here.(Source: Deathscapes: Mapping Race and Violence in Settler Societies)
A link to Deathscape site is now archived by the National Library of Australia, as it has been recognised as a site of “national significance.”
Deathscapes, the Project, was developed by a collaborative team of investigators, researchers and advisors.
Project Personnel
Chief Investigators
Professor Suvendrini Perera, Curtin University
Professor Joseph Pugliese, Macquarie University
Partner Investigators
Professor Marianne Franklin, Goldsmiths, University of London
Professor Jonathan Inda, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Researchers
Michelle Bui, Curtin University
Pilar Kasat, Curtin University
Beatriz Maldonado, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ayman Qwaider, Curtin University
Charandev Singh, Indigenous Social Justice Association
Dr Raed Yacoub, Goldsmiths, University of London
Project Manager
Dr Dean Chan, Curtin University (2016-2018)
Ethics Advisory Board
Dr Safdar Ahmed, Refugee Art Project
Assoc Professor Maurizio Albahari, University of Notre Dame
Ms Lorena Allam, Guardian Australia
Mr Ruben Allas, Independent writer and researcher on Criminal Justice and Aboriginal Visual Arts
Ms Tess Allas, Independent Researcher and Curator
Dr Sean Anderson, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Ms Renata Avila, Smart Citizen Foundation
Dr Robin Barrington, Curtin University
Professor Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University
Professor Chris Cunneen, University of Technology, Sydney
Professor Nicholas De Genova, University of Houston
Dr Maria Giannacopoulos, Flinders University
Assoc Professor Richard Frankland, University of Melbourne
Professor Mishauna Goeman, UCLA
Mr Abdul Karim Hekmat, Journalist and Photographer
Professor Joy James, Williams College
Dr Lara Palombo, Macquarie University
Dr Barry Lavallee, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak
Dr Hannah McGlade Curtin University
Ms Lena Nahlous, Diversity Arts, Sydney
Ms Carly Nyst, Human Rights Lawyer
Professor David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University
Emeritus Professor Phil Scraton, Queen’s University, Belfast
Dr Wendy Teeter, Fowler Museum, UCLA
Professor Sunera Thobani, University of British Columbia
Dr Nicole Watson, University of Sydney
Prof Ray Watterson, Retired Law Professor
Links and Resources
In 2022, a book on the project – Mapping Deathscapes – was published by Routledge. Perera, S and Pugliese, P (2022) Mapping Deathscapes: Digital Geographies of Racial and Border Violence, Routledge. Link: https://www.routledge.com/Mapping-Deathscapes-Digital-Geographies-of-Racial-and-Border-Violence/Perera-Pugliese/p/book/9781032056579
Perera, S and Pugliese, P (2022) Interview. The Funambulist Project at https://soundcloud.com/the-funambulist/suvendrini-perera-joseph-pugliese-deathscapes As the Funambulist project describes: ‘This interview of Suvendrini Perera and Joseph Pugliese is a complement to the conversation with Jan Turner in our 44th issue (Nov-Dec 2022), The Desert. Entitled “The Impact of a Life (and a Death): Colonial Encounters and Aboriginal Desert Practices,” this conversation revolves around the life and death of Aboriginal leader and artist Mr. Ward, whose death was investigated by the project, founded by Suvendrini and Joseph: Deathscapes. Together we discuss the various methodologies they use in this project that documents Indigenous and migrant deaths in detention by settler states (in particular Australia), as well as the crucial need to practice these investigations in the utmost respect of the grief of those who lost a relative or a community member.’
Email Campaign Archive from the Deathscapes Project. https://us16.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=6f3de369e336fc0ecd343cc25&id=eb47e1026a
Book Reviews of Mapping Deathscapes
Reviewed by Monique Hurley, Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, Australia. Read Review
Reviewed by Dr Bosco Opi, University of South Australia. Read Review
Deathscapes has received the following reviews and recognition
- CHASS Prize Shortlist: 2019 The ARC Discovery Project, Deathscapes: Mapping Racial Violence in Settler States, shortlisted for the Council of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Distinctive Work Prize 2019, https://www.chass.org.au/chass-media-releases/ The citation stated: ‘Creating new spaces and possibilities for understanding a difficult topic, this is an exemplary, impactful humanities research project.’
- Paul Gregoire, “The Racialised Violence of Settler Colonialism: An Interview with Deathscapes’ Joseph Pugliese,” Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 12 February 2021, https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/the-racialised-violence-of-settler-colonialism-an-interview-with-deathscapes-joseph-pugliese/
- Maria Giannacopoulos, “‘Your Laws Are Killing Us’: The Death of Kumanjayi Walker and the Crisis of Colonial Law,” ABC Religion and Ethics, 20 November 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-death-of-kumanjayi-walker-and-the-crisis-of-colonial-law/11722836
- Gretchen Coombs, “An Online Project Documents Settler Violence Around the World,” Hyperallergic, 14 November 2019, https://hyperallergic.com/528400/deathscapes-australian-online-project/
- Jordana Silverstein, “Mapping Deaths in Custody to Dismantle Carceral Logic,” Overland, January 2019, https://overland.org.au/2019/01/mapping-deaths-in-custody-to-dismantle-carceral-logic/
- Bertrand Tungandame, “Deathscapes: Mapping Indigenous, Refugee and Migrant Deaths in Custody,’ SBS, 11 February 11 2019 https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/aboriginal/en/article/2019/02/11/deathscapes-mapping-indigenous-refugee-and-migrant-deaths-custody
- Emma Young, “Custody deaths in WA, Manus Island Spark Global ‘Deathscapes’ Project,” Sydney Morning Herald, 31 January 31 2019 https://www.smh.com.au/national/custody-deaths-in-wa-manus-island-spark-global-deathscapes-project-20190131-p50uv1.html
- Alison Whittaker, “Message for the Deathscapes Sydney Launch,” Redfern, February 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=qdf573v_6h8
- Cinzia D’Ambrosi, “Deathscapes Amplifies Horror of Deaths in Custody,” Warscapes, 30 November 2018, http://www.warscapes.com/blog/deathscapes-amplifies-horror-deaths-custody