[csaa-forum] FW: CCR monthly research seminar, reminder notice, 18 May

[Gregory Noble]

Dear CSAAers,
 
You are cordially invited to the next CCR monthly research seminar. 

Speakers: 
Judith Snodgrass 
Negotiating settlement: The Vietnamese Australian Buddhist Women's
Association in Greater Western Sydney
and 
Helen Armstrong 
Disturbing Landscapes: arguing for derelict sites and wastelands in
contemporary cities (abstracts below)
 
Date: 18 May
Time: 2-4.30pm
Venue: Superintendent's Cottage, Building ET, Parramatta Campus,
University of Western Sydney



Judith Snodgrass 
Negotiating settlement: The Vietnamese Australian Buddhist Women's
Association in Greater Western Sydney.

 
The seminar will introduce my new research project on the history and
current activities of The Vietnamese Australian Buddhist Women's
Association (VABWA). The association was formed in 1984 when residents
in the Fairfield area objected to the rapidly increasing Vietnamese
presence. Mrs Nhu Hoa, the founder and current president, organised the
association in response to racism and court action. The initial press
campaign she mounted attracted the attention of then Premier, Barry
Unsworth, who acted to defuse the issue, and instigated a now
well-established point of contact between the community and political
leadership at all levels. Once formed, VABWA came to play a significant
role in negotiating the settlement of the Vietnamese community. 
 
 

Helen Armstrong, Adjunct Professor, CCR 
Disturbing Landscapes: arguing for derelict sites and wastelands in
contemporary cities

In growing cities such as Sydney, contemporary urban landscapes are fast
becoming uniform landscapes of consumption punched through by conduit
landscapes of infrastructure.  The most regrettable change is the loss
of derelict sites and wastelands. Urban designers are keen to
reconfigure such disturbing places, in their quest to achieve attractive
and consolidated cities.  They also hope to lure the so-called affluent
'Creative Class' by marketing an urban pseudo sense of place, a
commodity manufactured by the Heritage Industry. Most often people see
derelict sites and wastelands as ugly and unpleasant.  As the French
landscape architect, Christophe Girot (2004), describes them, they are
'landscapes of contempt'.  But should we be so contemptuous of these
time-laden landscapes?   They present time in penetrating ways,
providing uncanny insights that could never emerge from the thin
landscapes of the Spectacle City  or the ersatz 'placeness' carefully
orchestrated for the so-c!
 alled Creative Class. The prevailing qualities of disturbing landscapes
are the uncomfortable memories of flawed dreams and visions.  Vast
derelict industrial landscapes resonate with messages of recent failure,
possibly explaining why they are being erased so quickly in growing
cities. It is in shrinking cities, particularly in former soviet Europe,
where urban voids and wastelands are increasing, that we see new
micro-tactics associated with the return of social concerns along with
innovative approaches to future landscapes. This talk will explore the
value of disturbing derelict sites and wastelands.

 

 


Dr Greg Noble
School of Humanities and Languages
University of Western Sydney
Bldg C - Penrith campus
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia
 
and
 
Centre for Cultural Research
Bldg EBa - Parramatta Campus
http://www.uws.edu.au/ccr
 
Tel  +61 2 9685 9634
Fax +61 2 9685 9610
 
Co-author of Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other
(Sydney Institute of Criminology, 2004)