So What? Lectures

By Simon TrevaksEducation

So What? Lectures episodes

April 18, 2014 Professor Patrick Dodson: So what now? Dialogue and nation building in contemporary Australia
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.
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April 18, 2014 Associate Professor Kate Crawford: Always with me: how mobile and social media are changing us
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.
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April 18, 2014 Eileen Pittaway: Innocent victims, Illegal migrants or political pawns?
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.
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April 17, 2014 Adam Kahane: Power and love: the theory and practice of social 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?
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April 17, 2014 Dr Grace Karskens: The heritage of Aboriginal Sydney: Placing lost histories
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.
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