Reading Cornelia Rau: At the Limits of Intelligibility

Abstract

This paper draws on Judith Butlerââ¬â¢s recent work concerning notions of intelligibility and viability to consider a recent case of immigration detention in Australia, in which a mentally ill Australian resident, Cornelia Rau, was detained as a suspected illegal immigrant for a period of 10 months before her case came to the attention of the Australian media and public. In this article, we trace the ways in which media releases issued on behalf of the Minister for Immigration elide notions of mental illness with notions of delinquency and criminality, to construct a wrongfully detained woman as the ungovernable, hence unintelligible other. We also trace the deployment of Rauââ¬â¢s unintelligibility as a justification for her unlawful detention, and explore the ways in which her detention can be understood in terms of corporeal vulnerability and the lawââ¬â¢s inscription on the body. Finally, we consider the ways in which critique and dissent in the public sphere are foreclosed through government rhetorics, and argue that our own intelligibility and viability as human is contingent on the responsibility we take for those with whom we share what Butler refers to as a ââ¬Ëcommon human vulnerabilityââ¬â¢.