When Ghassan Hage’s seminal study on racism in Australia, White Nation, was published 25 years ago, the Cronulla riots, Christchurch massacre and Black Lives Matter movement all lay ahead. Hear from a lively panel of writers and thinkers as they consider how racism and white privilege have changed here since then and what lies ahead on the cusp of a referendum on the First Nations Voice to Parliament. Anthropologist and social critic Ghassan Hage, Palestinian-Egyptian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, The Sydney Morning Herald culture editor Osman Faruqi, and Gomeroi academic and author Amy Thunig are joined in conversation by global diaspora expert Andonis Piperoglou.
Presented with Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement.
Osman Faruqi (Australian)
Osman Faruqi is the culture editor of The Sydney Morning and The Age. He is an award-winning journalist who has previously worked as an editor at the ABC and Schwartz Media.
Amy Thunig (Australian)
Dr Amy Thunig (B.Arts, M.Teach, PhD) is a Gomeroi/Gamilaroi/Kamilaroi yinarr and mother who resides on Awabakal Country. A full-time academic in the field of education, Amy is also an author, with their first book Tell Me Again released in November 2022 via UQP. Amy is a Director at Story Factory in Redfern, contributes on various committees and councils including the AECG, and is a media commentator and panellist, regularly appearing on television programs such as ABC's The Drum.
Ghassan Hage (Australian)
Ghassan Hage is professor of anthropology and social theory at the University of Melbourne, Australia and a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. He is internationally renowned for his research on migration, on the intersection of racism, nationalism and colonialism, and for his development of critical anthropological theory. Along with the works re-published in The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism (2023), Hage’s sole-authored books include: Alter-Politics: Critical Anthropology and the Radical Imagination (2015), Is Racism an Environmental Threat? (2017) and The Diasporic Condition: Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World (2021).
Randa Abdel-Fattah (Australian)
Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Palestinian Egyptian Muslim writer, academic, activist, former lawyer and the multi-award-winning author of 14 books published in over 20 countries. Her most recent books include Coming of Age in the War on Terror (longlisted for the 2022 Stella Prize, shortlisted for the 2022 NSW and Victorian Premiers' Literary Awards), The Very Best Doughnut and her first picture story book, 11 Words for Love, illustrated by Maxine Beneba Clarke. Randa is also a Future Fellow at Macquarie University, researching Arab/Muslim radical social movements since the 1970s.
Andonis Piperoglou (Australian)
Andonis Piperoglou is the Hellenic Senior Lecturer of Global Diasporas at the University of Melbourne. He grew up on Ngunnawal country and has Cypriot and Castellorizian cultural heritage. He is a historian who teaches subjects on migration, diaspora, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. His historical work explores connections between colonialism, racism, and identity formations, as well as movements between the Mediterranean and the Pacific. He is passionate about inclusive historical practice, engagement with migrant communities, and the relationship between migration and colonialism.
