Artist Vernon Ah Kee is of the view that Indigenous communities should be advocates for refugees and engage with them more fully. It is in these solidarities that new doors can be opened: for researchers, for advocates, and for policy makers to gather evidence, build critical mass and mobilise for change.

After a picturesque rail journey from Glasgow to Kings Cross station, I was in shock when confronted with the crowds, and not happy about lugging two suitcases up several flights of busy staircases. There was further affective congestion to come as I stayed in university accommodation near Oxford Street, took the packed tube to be a tourist and see friends, and struggled to enjoy walking on the hustling streets.

In my academic work for the past five years, I have examined a series of refugee-themed documentaries, and audience responses to them to argue that we need to move beyond the expression of transient empathy to take responsibility for systemic change.

So how are refugees who have been resettled in the community, as well as those endlessly waiting for their claims to be processed, coping? Can we put these coping mechanisms under the umbrella of ‘resilience’? Wouldn't this merely provide us shelter from our own affective discomfort? Refugees in precarious conditions are not being served by the discourse of ‘resilience’ that is employed by both sides of politics to sell the idea that certain kinds of migrants are more socially and economically beneficial.

A few weeks ago, Radio National’s Life Matters featured a discussion on the latest refugee crisis, with a focus on the emotional response evoked by the photograph of the drowned Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi. While a couple of panellists – and most callers – called for an empathetic response that extended beyond politics, one of the interviewees, sociologist Klaus Neumann, suggested that an emotional reaction is likely to be fleeting, and that we need to go deeper.