So What? Lectures

The relationship between Indigenous people and the nation state is framed by two opposing forces within the assimilationist approach: On the one hand there is an aggressive polemic, often masquerading as scholarship, which portrays traditional culture and the structures that protect and support Aboriginal society as reasons for chronic disadvantage and impediments to closing the gap. And on the other hand there is the reality of contemporary Indigenous nations throughout Australia whose peoples want liberation from material deprivation, sickness and social disorder, but at the same time defend what is most important to them: their culture and identity. We are a nation trapped by our history and paralysed by our failure to imagine any relationship with First Peoples other than assimilation, whatever its guise. It is this political paralysis that has motivated a number of prominent Australians – Black and white – to work together on a national dialogue to search for a new form of inclusion around paramount Aboriginal values and a pathway for honoured coexistence. It aims to stimulate a serious conversation about modern Australia’s complexities rather than continue a dysfunctional debate th at does not respond to the political and economic challenges of our time.

The mobile phone is no longer just a personal telecommunications device; it is a portal to multiple social spaces that are constantly in flux. Sites such as Facebook, and Twitter are accessed throughout the day by mobile users, as they tune in to with their different networks and share updates and images. What are the social impacts of this sustained engagement and continual presence? What does it mean for friendships and relationships? This talk will share preliminary findings from the largest study of mobile media use in Australia and consider the complex terrain between humans, mobiles and social networks.

Refugees escape from persecution, conflict, death threats and torture. The majority of refugee women and girls survive rape and sexual abuse in transit and in camps. Boys and girls are taken as child soldiers. Refugee camps are dangerous and services are inadequate to fulfil basic needs. Despite this, refugees fight to maintain their dignity, their families, their communities and their culture. They do this in the face of often insurmountable problems. Refugees bring an enormous and diverse range of skills and capacities to camps and on resettlement, but the structure of service provision often ‘de capacitates’ rather than recognise this. The rhetoric of self sustainability is empty when refugees are denied the right to work, and the most fundamental civil rights.

Little of the refugee experience is known in the developed world. The discourse of “border protection” silences their voices. Instead of compassion, and the recognition of their rights they are treated as pariahs, as illegal immigrants. We will examine the implication of this for countries such as Australia. We will suggest how this can be reversed so that refugee rights and dignity can be upheld and host countries can benefit from the skills and capacities which refugees bring with them. We will discuss how the work of the UNSW Centre for Refugee research is contributing to this change.

The two methods most frequently employed to solve our toughest social problems - relying on violence and aggression, or submitting to endless negotiation and compromise - are fundamentally flawed. This is because the seemingly contradictory drives behind these approaches - power, the desire to achieve one’s purpose, and love, the urge to unite with others - are actually complementary. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.” But how do you combine them?

Dr Grace Karskens from UNSW's School of History and Philosophy speaks on her recent research relating to The heritage of Aboriginal Sydney: placing lost histories.