ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian a... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian and Australian societies, often in city ‘camps’ that show signs of institutional abandonment, neglect and extreme decay. To address this socio-economic disadvantage and improve the quality of life, the governments of these two countries have implemented what we have defined ‘parallel emergencies’, extraordinary policy measures of intervention, surveillance and control. This paper argues that these policies that aim to improve the everyday lives of Romani and Aboriginal peoples, however, often re-produce a ‘tradition’ of institutionalised racism that can be traced back to the post-Unification period in Italy and the Federation period in Australia. By drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, we highlight the approach adopted by Italian and Australian institutions in terms of ‘inclusive exclusion’. On the one hand, the government makes significant investment in schooling and employment projects; on the other, it keeps promoting the use of emergency measures, which leaves slender scope for Romani and Aboriginal voices.
Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 2015
room. In contrast, public school teachers often cited employing more current instructional practi... more room. In contrast, public school teachers often cited employing more current instructional practices that were positively associated with mathematics achievement. Overall, the authors’ findings are very compelling and make one want to cheer for public education. However, their evidence for the public school advantage in mathematics achievement could be stronger had they not relied simply on elementary school data. For example, their evidence for mathematics growth relies on ECLS-K data, an early childhood study. Readers will note that effect sizes in these analyses were small. Since achievement gaps in mathematics have been known to increase over time, it is critical that the authors’ research questions also be answered with high school data. The public school advantage would be an easier sell if these trends continued into high school. Champions of public education in various disciplines (education, sociology) will find this book to be a useful resource when engaging in classroom discussions on school choice or the market approach to education. Since the detailed methodological techniques and models are described in appendices, this book is accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students alike. Quantitative researchers might also find this a useful resource for graduate students when discussing the challenges of measuring school effects and/or using large nationally representative data sets.
Increased human mobility along with the more pronounced permeability of nationstate borders has g... more Increased human mobility along with the more pronounced permeability of nationstate borders has given way to the emergence of highly diverse multicultural cities in countries with white majority cultures. The fact that there has been a significant increase in immigration from developing countries in the Global South since the 1990s means that the social inclusion of ethnic minorities – including undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, guest workers and international students – is by no means a straightforward social policy matter; particularly if dominant patterns of majority prejudice remain unchallenged. The cultural, religious, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity new migrants bring with them presents opportunities for social inclusion and community development; but such diversity can also engender serious challenges at the level of social and political policy-making. This has been the case, for example, with recent media coverage of globally organised acts of terrorism by...
Since September 11 there has been a rise of Islamophobia in Australian public discourse, matched ... more Since September 11 there has been a rise of Islamophobia in Australian public discourse, matched by a growth of racialised attacks on visibly identifiable Muslims in public space. These cultural racisms have arisen in a context where Islamic religious signifiers and practices have come to be read as signs of fundamentalism, terrorism and threat to national political traditions and cultural values. In particular, the hijab has become a symbol of these tensions, with the veiled woman being read as the embodiment of a ‘repressive and fundamentalist religion’. However, as some Muslim and feminist scholars have proposed, these readings rob Muslim women of their ability to articulate the reasons why wear the veil or engage in gendered religious practices. This paper argues that this enacts a form of disembodiment, whereby Muslim womens’ ability to comfortably inhabit their bodies and assert themselves in the public sphere is limited. In particular the paper draws upon two case studies whi...
With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Isl... more With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Islamic texts for legitimacy, the place of Islam in western societies has become a source of anxiety, fear and suspicion. The central concern is whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens. This article uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine whether Islamic religiosity is a predictor for civic engagement and active citizenship among Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. The findings show that organized religiosity can be a strong predictor of civic engagement, countering the discourses that demonize Islam as a source of radicalization and social disengagement. While the findings show that suspicion of divisive forces and lack of trust in public institutions might prevent some young Muslims from engaging in formal political participation, grassroots civic engagement enables Muslims to demonstrate care and feel like active citizens of t...
Abstract This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, po... more Abstract This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, political and pedagogical challenges in addressing climate change, activism and justice. The provocation Earth Unbound: the struggle to breathe and the creative thoughts that follow are inspired by the contagious energy of what Donna Haraway (2016) calls response-ability or the ability to respond. This energy ripples through monthly reading groups and workshops organised by this interdisciplinary collective that emerged organically in January 2020.
The question of whether Islam and Muslims belong in the West has been the subject of considerable... more The question of whether Islam and Muslims belong in the West has been the subject of considerable political “debate” well before the events of 9/11. Indeed, subsequent events, though different but connected, have unfolded on the international scene as the “War on Terror”. This question has undoubtedly attracted public attention and the answers are more polarised nowadays as we live in the highly mediatised shadow of Al-Qa’eda and its more violent incarnation, the Islamic State (IS). Indeed, the clash of civilisation thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington had at its core a philosophical and practical assumption that Islam and the West are on a collision course because of their divergent cultural and value systems. In other words the cultural fault line that divides the Muslim world from the West is not only about democracy but also about ethics and values. The excessive securitisation of Islam and its public construction as “alien”, “foreign”, “threatening” and altogether “incompatible” with Western democratic values adds weight to the self-fulfilling prophecy that sees nothing but violent clashes in history that stretch from the Crusades to the War on Terror.
ABSTRACT Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western s... more ABSTRACT Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.
ABSTRACT At a time when public debates about radicalization of Muslim youth in the West are takin... more ABSTRACT At a time when public debates about radicalization of Muslim youth in the West are taking center stage and when questions about “home-grown” security threats are increasing in the wake of a number of terrorist attacks in many émigré societies, this article provides fresh empirical insights from the perspective of religious leadership. It outlines a picture of a highly diverse Muslim religious landscape where competing religious discourses are struggling to attract and support Muslim youth facing social dislocation and identity crises within increasingly contested social milieus. The article argues that a typology of religious leadership is clearly emerging where a spectrum of faith-based orientations and religious practice emphasize, to different degrees, notions of attachment to universal ethics and individual agency. The fact that conservative, sometimes radical, interpretations of such contestations represent a minority of voices is heartening even though the actual damage by such minority is often disproportionate to its actual size within the so-called silent majority. The empirical insights provided by the religious leaders interviewed for this study offer hope that the future of Western Muslims is more positive than we are led to think, if the possibility of combining devout faith with local political engagement becomes a real and sustainable conduit towards social inclusion and intercultural understanding and if necessary support and understanding are extended by the host communities.
Mansouri, Fethi, Lobo, Michele and Latrache, Rim 2011, Negotiating norms of inclusion : Comparati... more Mansouri, Fethi, Lobo, Michele and Latrache, Rim 2011, Negotiating norms of inclusion : Comparative perspectives from Muslim community leadership in the West, in Migration, citizenship and intercultural relations : looking through the lens of social inclusion, Ashgate, Aldershot , England, ...
Since Cronulla, racism and the resurgence of White ethnonationalism is again contesting the diver... more Since Cronulla, racism and the resurgence of White ethnonationalism is again contesting the diversity of Australian national imaginaries. This paper argues, however, that encounters with Aboriginality and connection to Country provide fresh perspectives that affirm difference. The paper focuses on Broome and Darwin, two urban centres in northern Australia with a visible Aboriginal population that have been the focus of little contemporary research on intercultural relations compared to southern cities. Such an optics from the Top End is necessary, given its unique histories of Aboriginal and ethnic minority contact that predate White settlement, as well as the ongoing resistance to dehumanising, interventionist and racially discriminatory practices and policies. This paper places affirmative ‘events of commoning’ at the core of emancipatory politics. Such a politics is informed by the theoretical conceptualisation of commoning as a relational process of ‘being-in-common’ that unfolds in cooperative practices and collective action. We focus on two events – a protest event in Broome as response to the closure of remote Aboriginal communities and a ‘celebration walk’ through the streets of Darwin during NAIDOC week. These ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ struggles reclaim the street and provide the possibility to think about how a common world can be recomposed through embodied potentiality.
This article traces stories of singular footsteps taken on a collective meandering through Brisba... more This article traces stories of singular footsteps taken on a collective meandering through Brisbane city, as a pedagogical experiment in writing for geographers. The diverse encounters recounted here took place as part of an extended workshop on the topic of light, beginning with an afternoon discussion, and ending in an evening walk through the illuminated city. This paper aims to do two things through the example of light: firstly, it explores the experiential attunements enacted in the event by resonating practices of talk with practices of movement, speculating on the enablements afforded by the conditions of the workshop. Secondly, presenting a range of writing that emerged out of this passage from world to word, this article is a performance of the diverse translations necessary to writing attunement. Refracted through an extended introduction by the event organisers, the vignettes that emerged from the day are then presented as something of a virtual walk in themselves: speaking to the entangled histories of the event, our bodies, and Brisbane city.
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian a... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian and Australian societies, often in city ‘camps’ that show signs of institutional abandonment, neglect and extreme decay. To address this socio-economic disadvantage and improve the quality of life, the governments of these two countries have implemented what we have defined ‘parallel emergencies’, extraordinary policy measures of intervention, surveillance and control. This paper argues that these policies that aim to improve the everyday lives of Romani and Aboriginal peoples, however, often re-produce a ‘tradition’ of institutionalised racism that can be traced back to the post-Unification period in Italy and the Federation period in Australia. By drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, we highlight the approach adopted by Italian and Australian institutions in terms of ‘inclusive exclusion’. On the one hand, the government makes significant investment in schooling and employment projects; on the other, it keeps promoting the use of emergency measures, which leaves slender scope for Romani and Aboriginal voices.
Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 2015
room. In contrast, public school teachers often cited employing more current instructional practi... more room. In contrast, public school teachers often cited employing more current instructional practices that were positively associated with mathematics achievement. Overall, the authors’ findings are very compelling and make one want to cheer for public education. However, their evidence for the public school advantage in mathematics achievement could be stronger had they not relied simply on elementary school data. For example, their evidence for mathematics growth relies on ECLS-K data, an early childhood study. Readers will note that effect sizes in these analyses were small. Since achievement gaps in mathematics have been known to increase over time, it is critical that the authors’ research questions also be answered with high school data. The public school advantage would be an easier sell if these trends continued into high school. Champions of public education in various disciplines (education, sociology) will find this book to be a useful resource when engaging in classroom discussions on school choice or the market approach to education. Since the detailed methodological techniques and models are described in appendices, this book is accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students alike. Quantitative researchers might also find this a useful resource for graduate students when discussing the challenges of measuring school effects and/or using large nationally representative data sets.
Increased human mobility along with the more pronounced permeability of nationstate borders has g... more Increased human mobility along with the more pronounced permeability of nationstate borders has given way to the emergence of highly diverse multicultural cities in countries with white majority cultures. The fact that there has been a significant increase in immigration from developing countries in the Global South since the 1990s means that the social inclusion of ethnic minorities – including undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, guest workers and international students – is by no means a straightforward social policy matter; particularly if dominant patterns of majority prejudice remain unchallenged. The cultural, religious, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity new migrants bring with them presents opportunities for social inclusion and community development; but such diversity can also engender serious challenges at the level of social and political policy-making. This has been the case, for example, with recent media coverage of globally organised acts of terrorism by...
Since September 11 there has been a rise of Islamophobia in Australian public discourse, matched ... more Since September 11 there has been a rise of Islamophobia in Australian public discourse, matched by a growth of racialised attacks on visibly identifiable Muslims in public space. These cultural racisms have arisen in a context where Islamic religious signifiers and practices have come to be read as signs of fundamentalism, terrorism and threat to national political traditions and cultural values. In particular, the hijab has become a symbol of these tensions, with the veiled woman being read as the embodiment of a ‘repressive and fundamentalist religion’. However, as some Muslim and feminist scholars have proposed, these readings rob Muslim women of their ability to articulate the reasons why wear the veil or engage in gendered religious practices. This paper argues that this enacts a form of disembodiment, whereby Muslim womens’ ability to comfortably inhabit their bodies and assert themselves in the public sphere is limited. In particular the paper draws upon two case studies whi...
With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Isl... more With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Islamic texts for legitimacy, the place of Islam in western societies has become a source of anxiety, fear and suspicion. The central concern is whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens. This article uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine whether Islamic religiosity is a predictor for civic engagement and active citizenship among Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. The findings show that organized religiosity can be a strong predictor of civic engagement, countering the discourses that demonize Islam as a source of radicalization and social disengagement. While the findings show that suspicion of divisive forces and lack of trust in public institutions might prevent some young Muslims from engaging in formal political participation, grassroots civic engagement enables Muslims to demonstrate care and feel like active citizens of t...
Abstract This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, po... more Abstract This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, political and pedagogical challenges in addressing climate change, activism and justice. The provocation Earth Unbound: the struggle to breathe and the creative thoughts that follow are inspired by the contagious energy of what Donna Haraway (2016) calls response-ability or the ability to respond. This energy ripples through monthly reading groups and workshops organised by this interdisciplinary collective that emerged organically in January 2020.
The question of whether Islam and Muslims belong in the West has been the subject of considerable... more The question of whether Islam and Muslims belong in the West has been the subject of considerable political “debate” well before the events of 9/11. Indeed, subsequent events, though different but connected, have unfolded on the international scene as the “War on Terror”. This question has undoubtedly attracted public attention and the answers are more polarised nowadays as we live in the highly mediatised shadow of Al-Qa’eda and its more violent incarnation, the Islamic State (IS). Indeed, the clash of civilisation thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington had at its core a philosophical and practical assumption that Islam and the West are on a collision course because of their divergent cultural and value systems. In other words the cultural fault line that divides the Muslim world from the West is not only about democracy but also about ethics and values. The excessive securitisation of Islam and its public construction as “alien”, “foreign”, “threatening” and altogether “incompatible” with Western democratic values adds weight to the self-fulfilling prophecy that sees nothing but violent clashes in history that stretch from the Crusades to the War on Terror.
ABSTRACT Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western s... more ABSTRACT Since 11 September 2001 Muslim Diasporas have emerged as objects of anxiety in Western societies. Underlying this (in)security-driven problematisation is the question of whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens while maintaining their religious beliefs, rituals and practices. This apprehension has prompted reactionary government programmes, particularly targeting young Muslims. Such responses fail to recognise the societal capacities that practising Muslims possess, including those informed by the ethical precepts of Islamic faith. This paper argues that it is timely to explore expressions of Islamic religiosity as they are grounded in everyday multicultural environments. The paper draws on survey data and interviews conducted with Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. We take into consideration key variables of age and generation to highlight how young, practising Muslims enact citizenship through Islamic rituals and faith-based practices and traditions. The paper will draw from key findings to argue that these performances provide a foundation for exploring ways of ‘living’ together in a manner that privileges ethics central to Islamic faith traditions.
ABSTRACT At a time when public debates about radicalization of Muslim youth in the West are takin... more ABSTRACT At a time when public debates about radicalization of Muslim youth in the West are taking center stage and when questions about “home-grown” security threats are increasing in the wake of a number of terrorist attacks in many émigré societies, this article provides fresh empirical insights from the perspective of religious leadership. It outlines a picture of a highly diverse Muslim religious landscape where competing religious discourses are struggling to attract and support Muslim youth facing social dislocation and identity crises within increasingly contested social milieus. The article argues that a typology of religious leadership is clearly emerging where a spectrum of faith-based orientations and religious practice emphasize, to different degrees, notions of attachment to universal ethics and individual agency. The fact that conservative, sometimes radical, interpretations of such contestations represent a minority of voices is heartening even though the actual damage by such minority is often disproportionate to its actual size within the so-called silent majority. The empirical insights provided by the religious leaders interviewed for this study offer hope that the future of Western Muslims is more positive than we are led to think, if the possibility of combining devout faith with local political engagement becomes a real and sustainable conduit towards social inclusion and intercultural understanding and if necessary support and understanding are extended by the host communities.
Mansouri, Fethi, Lobo, Michele and Latrache, Rim 2011, Negotiating norms of inclusion : Comparati... more Mansouri, Fethi, Lobo, Michele and Latrache, Rim 2011, Negotiating norms of inclusion : Comparative perspectives from Muslim community leadership in the West, in Migration, citizenship and intercultural relations : looking through the lens of social inclusion, Ashgate, Aldershot , England, ...
Since Cronulla, racism and the resurgence of White ethnonationalism is again contesting the diver... more Since Cronulla, racism and the resurgence of White ethnonationalism is again contesting the diversity of Australian national imaginaries. This paper argues, however, that encounters with Aboriginality and connection to Country provide fresh perspectives that affirm difference. The paper focuses on Broome and Darwin, two urban centres in northern Australia with a visible Aboriginal population that have been the focus of little contemporary research on intercultural relations compared to southern cities. Such an optics from the Top End is necessary, given its unique histories of Aboriginal and ethnic minority contact that predate White settlement, as well as the ongoing resistance to dehumanising, interventionist and racially discriminatory practices and policies. This paper places affirmative ‘events of commoning’ at the core of emancipatory politics. Such a politics is informed by the theoretical conceptualisation of commoning as a relational process of ‘being-in-common’ that unfolds in cooperative practices and collective action. We focus on two events – a protest event in Broome as response to the closure of remote Aboriginal communities and a ‘celebration walk’ through the streets of Darwin during NAIDOC week. These ‘noisy’ and ‘quiet’ struggles reclaim the street and provide the possibility to think about how a common world can be recomposed through embodied potentiality.
This article traces stories of singular footsteps taken on a collective meandering through Brisba... more This article traces stories of singular footsteps taken on a collective meandering through Brisbane city, as a pedagogical experiment in writing for geographers. The diverse encounters recounted here took place as part of an extended workshop on the topic of light, beginning with an afternoon discussion, and ending in an evening walk through the illuminated city. This paper aims to do two things through the example of light: firstly, it explores the experiential attunements enacted in the event by resonating practices of talk with practices of movement, speculating on the enablements afforded by the conditions of the workshop. Secondly, presenting a range of writing that emerged out of this passage from world to word, this article is a performance of the diverse translations necessary to writing attunement. Refracted through an extended introduction by the event organisers, the vignettes that emerged from the day are then presented as something of a virtual walk in themselves: speaking to the entangled histories of the event, our bodies, and Brisbane city.
This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian and Austra... more This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian and Australian societies, often in city ‘camps’ that show signs of institutional abandonment, neglect and extreme decay. To address this socio-economic disadvantage and improve the quality of life, the governments of these two countries have implemented what we have defined ‘parallel emergencies’, extraordinary policy measures of intervention, surveillance and control. This paper argues that these policies that aim to improve the everyday lives of Romani and Aboriginal peoples, however, often re-produce a ‘tradition’ of institutionalised racism that can be traced back to the post-Unification period in Italy and the Federation period in Australia. By drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, we highlight the approach adopted by Italian and Australian institutions in terms of ‘inclusive exclusion’. On the one hand, the government makes significant investment in schooling and employment projects; on the other, it keeps promoting the use of emergency measures, which leaves slender scope for Romani and Aboriginal voices.
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Papers by Michele Lobo