[csaa-forum] Reimagining Australia FULL PROGRAM Released

[Baden Offord]

Dear CSAA Colleagues,


I'm pleased to announce the release of the full program for the InASA 2016 Conference, "Reimagining Australia: Encounter, Recognition, Responsibility."


The weather is perfect in Fremantle!


Re-imagining Australia in a time of division and foreboding

Wednesday 7 to Friday 9 December

http://humanrights.curtin.edu.au/events/inasa-conference-2016/program/


Over three days, more than 200 scholars and artists from 18 countries will gather in Fremantle to re-imagine Australia as a place that is inclusive and keenly conscious of its landscape, history and contexts. The conference stands in stark contrast to the political climate of divisiveness, fear and resentment currently experienced in Australia and on a global scale. Divisions are being constructed and reinforced along the lines of race, gender, age, disability, class and wealth. This is a time of walls and ‘rings of steel’, literal and symbolic, where generosity is abandoned in favour of a sense of  unabashed entitlement and howls of ‘political correctness’ that bring down attempts to rethink entrenched exclusions.


The conference aims to lead a robust discussion and offer new directions during a time of doubt and division in contemporary Australia. Re-imagining through story, critique, reflection, art, human rights and education, the conference comprises a series of plenary sessions by leading thinkers punctuated by breakout panel sessions across nine venues in the West End of Fremantle.


It is no coincidence that the organisers, many of whom are local residents, chose Fremantle as the location for this international event. The Council’s decision to shift national celebrations from the divisive date of January 26, a day that signifies invasion and occupation to many Indigenous people, and to others, signals Fremantle’s leadership of a movement that is increasingly national, as indicated by a stirring editorial call for action in The Saturday Paper. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/11/26/change-the-date/14800788004016

<https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/11/26/change-the-date/14800788004016>to Saturday Paper editorial ‘Change the date’.]


Indigenous scholars and artists will be taking the lead in re-imagining different ways of knowing, belonging and doing.


The conference will open with a keynote by Kim Scott. Artistic directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain of the internationally acclaimed dance-theatre company, Marrugeku, will present a panel on cultural renewal in the Kimberley. They will be joined in conversation by Fremantle’s award-winning writer Steve Kinnane.


Another highlight will be a discussion of Indigenous art as the medium for acknowledging agency and engaging communities thanks to the international artist and Pitjantjatjara Elder Rene Kulitja and colleagues working in Indigenous arts and culture across Australia. Oral histories and cultural expressions will also be presented on film through the WA Indigenous Communities Stories Program.


Legal scholar Jacqui Katona will address the dangerous side of reimagining in Australia when governments ‘are committed to undermining collaboration, cooperation, shared vision between Aboriginal people across the country’. In the closing keynote session, author Tony Birch will rethink environmental controversies.


As well, the award-winning historian Anna Haebich will be reimagining Noongar history through performance.


Imaginings of Australia’s borders, internal and external, are the topic of cultural studies scholar Suvendrini Perera’s keynote address.


Author Randa Abdel-Fattah will examine ‘Racial Australianisation’ and Islamaphobic practices while renowned Indian scholar from UCLA, Vinay Lal, takes on the psychogeography of Australia by looking into Indigeneity, immigration and the global south.


These insights will form the backdrop for the discussion of refugee policy, with former detainees S. Nagaveeran and Ali Raza Yusafzai joining cultural critics Somayra Ismailjee, Maria Giannacopoulos and Joseph Pugliese to discuss Australia’s scandalous offshore detention sites. Refugee advocate and scholar Caroline Fleay will discuss refugee activism.


Indonesia calling and other stories will be presented to the conference by Ariel Heryanto, highlighting the rich complex ways of re-imagining national cultures and identities. In other sessions, Australia will be reimagined through African perspectives and multicultural Chinese encounters, with the launch of a book on Australia’s Indian Ocean Futures edited by Thor Kerr and John Stephens. Acclaimed writers Lucy Dougan, Kim Scott, Susan Bradley-Smith, Tony Birch and Ashok Mathur will give poetry readings.


Australia will also be reimagined in relation to colonization, histories, wars, gender, legends, disability, non-normative sexuality and gender, literature, music, environment, storytelling and cartoons. Outside the conference, there will be other  book launches, musical performance by local group Eastwinds, plays and publisher talks.


This bi-annual conference of the International Australian Studies Association has been organized through a collaboration of Curtin University staff from the Centre for Human Rights Education, School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts, the Asia-Australia-Pacific Institute and the Centre for Aboriginal Studies. The conference has also benefitted from collaboration with the City of Fremantle, University of Notre Dame, Perth Tourism and the bookshops New Edition and Paperbird (where 10% on all titles will be on offer to delegates).


It will be an exciting and stimulating few days and the organisers extend a warm welcome to CSAA colleagues and friends to attend and participate.


FULL PROGRAM: http://humanrights.curtin.edu.au/events/inasa-conference-2016/program/

REGISTRATIONS: http://humanrights.curtin.edu.au/events/inasa-conference-2016/registrations/


InASA 2016 Steering Committee Members

Thor Kerr, Baden Offord and Suvendrini Perera



Professor Baden Offord
Director | Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights Education
Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights
Centre for Human Rights Education | Faculty of Humanities

Curtin University
T: | +61 8 9266 7186
E: | baden.offord at curtin.edu.au
W|http://humanrights.curtin.edu.au
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J (WA).


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http://humanrights.curtin.edu.au/events/inasa-conference-2016/
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