The Reckoning of possibles: asylum seekers, justice and the indigenisation of the Levinasian Third

In this essay, I focus on the death of an asylum seeker, Josefa Rauluni, at Villawood immigration detention centre, in order to address a series of critical questions concerning ethics, justice and non-negotiable responsibility. I contextualise this constellation of questions within a Levinasian framework of ethics as a first philosophy in order to suggest what needs to be done. I conclude the essay by transposing Levinas' concept of the third, as the arbiter of justice that transcends the limitations of the self-other relation, to an Australian context preoccupied with the topics of refugees, hospitality, justice, ongoing colonial relations of power and Aboriginal sovereignty.