Sonia Tascon

Narratives of race and nation: Everyday whiteness in Australia

Australias history as a white nation has been riddled with not only mis-treatment of the ‘other’, but in more recent times of a type of invisibility of the ‘other’ that has disabled many within this nation from recognising the continuation of practices and policies of racial discrimination. This paper presents the findings from research conducted over 2001–03 during the ‘boat people’ crisis in Australia, when a number of everyday individuals volunteered time to assist refugees. It goes on to argue that while the policies of Multiculturalism of the 1970s had attempted to create a more inclusive society and had for the participants in this research transformed into nation-defining narrative, its failure to incorporate everyday people in its inception and continuation was productive of a blind spot in relation to racial treatment because most could believe all was well in this arena.Australias history as a white nation has been riddled with not only mis-treatment of the ‘other’, but in more recent times of a type of invisibility of the ‘other’ that has disabled many within this nation from recognising the continuation of practices and policies of racial discrimination. This paper presents the findings from research conducted over 2001–03 during the ‘boat people’ crisis in Australia, when a number of everyday individuals volunteered time to assist refugees. It goes on to argue that while the policies of Multiculturalism of the 1970s had attempted to create a more inclusive society and had for the participants in this research transformed into nation-defining narrative, its failure to incorporate everyday people in its inception and continuation was productive of a blind spot in relation to racial treatment because most could believe all was well in this arena.

Considering Human Rights Films, Representation, and Ethics: Whose Face?

Human Rights Film Festivals have been growing in number across the globe since the late 1980s and have become embroiled in recent cultural shifts towards visual culture without a commensurate exploration of the philosophical and cultural effects of such use. By attending to debates present in the media, visual, and film disciplines in relation to representation, politics, and ethics, this paper garners the work of various scholars, including Gayatri Spivak, bell hooks, and Emmanuel Lévinas, to begin the much-needed exploration and analysis of the use of films for human rights purposes.