Skip links menu. Some links may not be available on all pages, for example section navigation may not be available on the home or landing pages.
|
Upcoming Conversations |
| Past Conversations |
11: "Oppression of Indigenous People By Indigenous People"
Presented by: Mr Wesley Aird, Coordinator of the Australian Employment Covenant, the initiative to create 50 000 jobs for Indigenous people in Australia.
Indigenous Australians have to spend a lot of time and energy working to overcome unjust or unhelpful legislation and administration. To add complexity and difficulty, sometimes the problems are caused by our own people. I intend to explore the theme of oppression of Indigenous people by Indigenous people using examples stemming from the Native Title Act, the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act, and general community conduct. There are many very good people working in Indigenous affairs that have great intentions. But there are times when outsiders simply don't have the tools or the support to effectively work with Indigenous people. This can often result in Indigenous communities being torn apart either by the outsiders or from the inside.
21 April 2009
#10: Conceptions of the Spiritual by Associate Professor Christopher Cordner
Christopher Cordner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. He is the author Ethical Encounter: The Depth of Moral Meaning (Palgrave, 2002), a Rhodes Scholar, he was a long-standing member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee and was Chair of the Working Party that recently revised the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research.
His presentation was titled Conceptions of the Spirtual.
20 March 2009
#9 - "Writer in the flesh" Alexis Wright
Alexis Wright is an author whose greatly celebrated latest novel, Carpentaria, won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards for Best Fiction Book, and the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) for Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Alexis has also published award-winning short stories, an examination of alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek, and several other works, both of fiction and non-fiction. She is a Waanji woman whose ancestral lands are in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria.
* Life as a writer
* Alexis' own approach to writing
* Different ways in which both fiction and non-fiction can illuminate life (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous)
* Indigenous attachments to country
* The role of mythology in contemporary life
* Writing as a career
The writing process
| #8 - "Scratching Australia's Racist Underbelly" presented by Stephen Hagan. | |
|
- 8th October 2008 - Streamed Video of Presentation (53 min) . |
Stephen Hagan is a Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland, a regular columnist for the Koori Mail, a film maker, a Kullilli traditional owner, and 2006 NAIDOC Person of the Year. From 1999 to 2008, Hagan publicly campaigned against the use of the word ‘Nigger' in the name of a spectator stand at a Toowoomba sporting ground. Though his legal petition to the High Court failed, his political campaign has now proven to be victorious. The Queensland Government has recently provided $2.5m for a replacement stand on the condition that the offending term does not appear. - Presentation: Scratching Australia's Racist Underbelly |
| #7 - "Christianity in a Post-Modern World" presented by Bishop John Spong. | |
|
- 3rd September 2007 - Streamed Video of Presentation (1 hr, 13 min) # A DVD will be available for loan at no cost. (Details to be advised) |
A pre-eminent voice for liberal Christianity, John Shelby Spong was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2000. Through the years he has challenged abuse and prejudice within the Christian church and these have included racism, anti-Semiticism, Biblical literalism and homophobia. Consequently he is considered by some to be a champion of a ‘critical thinking and inclusive' faith, while for others he is understood to be a source of heresy and division. He calls himself "a joyful, passionate, convinced believer in the reality of God," who seeks not to create a new religion, but to reform the church he loves. In his first visit to Rockhampton Bishop Spong will talk about aspects of his vision for Christianity in a Post-Modern world particularly drawing from his most recent book ‘Jesus for the non-religious'. In this book, Bishop Spong explores a vision for a ‘religion-less Christianity.' Bishop Spong challenges much of the traditional understandings that have for so long surrounded the Jesus of history, from the tale of the virgin birth, to the account of his cosmic ascension into the sky at the end of his life. Spong questions the historicity of the ideas that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that he had twelve disciples, and that the miracle stories were meant to be descriptions of supernatural events. He also speaks directly to those contemporary critics of Christianity who call God a "delusion". Bishop Spong invites his readers to look at Jesus through the lens of both the Jewish scriptures and the liturgical life of the first-century synagogue. Dismissing the dispute about Jesus' nature that consumed the church's leadership for the first 500 years of Christian history as irrelevant, Spong proposes a new way of understanding the divinity of Christ: as the ultimate dimension of a fulfilled humanity. Traditional Christians who cling to dated concepts of the past, and 21st Century skeptics will not be comfortable with this book. Jesus for the Non-Religious may be the book that finally brings the pious and the secular into a meaningful dialogue, opening the door to a living Christianity in a post-Christian world. |
| #6 - Lunch Time Conversation "Peace Studies & Spirituality" presented by Vernon Jantzi. | |
|
- 16th August 2007 |
|
| #5 - "Challenges and Opportunities for Social Development in Africa: The Case of Malawi" presented by Hon David Faiti. | |
|
- 28th September 2006 - Paper ( added after presentation ) |
The dawn of the millennium has witnessed an intense debate about the eradication of poverty and improved governance of social institutions in the developing world. Africa in particular has come under heavy microscopic scrutiny from the donor and international community on how development agendas are being implemented. Malawi is among many of the countries in Sub-Sahara Africa engaged in implementing development programmes that are heavily donor funded. While progress has been made on a number of fronts, development and poverty eradication remains a challenge. In this presentation I seek to share Malawi's experience in dealing with multiple issues critical to poverty eradication and further suggest how such issues can be imbued in university programs for the benefit of students who intend to work in the developing world. David Faiti is an MP and the current Minister of Economic Planning and Development in Malawi, Africa. He was elected to the Malawi National Assembly on 20th May 2004 and appointed Minister of Economic Planning and Development in June 2004, a portfolio he has held since then. He holds a Masters of Science Degree in Economics, specialising in Social Development Planning and Management from University of Wales - University College of Swansea; a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) and a Bachelor of Education both from the University of Malawi. Hon. Mr Faiti has worked as a Secondary School Teacher; Trainer and held a number of positions in the NGO Sector including the post of Executive Secretary of the Council for Non-Governmental Organizations in Malawi (CONGOMA); Deputy Manager for National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) Project. He is a leading figure in Malawian politics and has delivered numerous speeches around the world on social, political and economic issues affecting developing countries. |
| #4 - "Making Development Aid work: Ensuring conflict and peace sensitivity in development programming" presented by Dr Rebecca Spence. | |
|
- 26th July 2006 - »» Paper - (116 Kb) «« |
The process of delivering humanitarian and development assistance in conflict prone and conflict affected areas is fraught with difficulty. Unless assistance is given in a conflict sensitive fashion, it can be diverted to the war economy, can exacerbate the conflict and can have a variety of other negative impacts. However, if donor assistance is given with a longer term peace-building process in mind, then the benefits can be substantial in terms of creating active peace constituencies and promoting alternatives to violence. Using examples form post tsunami Aceh, the Solomons Islands, Bougainville and the Philippines, this seminar explores what can and does go badly wrong in development programming in conflict affected societies; and what can and is being done to produce better peace outcomes through changes to development programming. Dr. Rebecca Spence is the Director of the Peace Studies Centre at the University of New England and is a peace/conflict specialist. She has particular expertise in the following areas: Conflict sensitisation of development programming, Peacebuilding after armed conflict and Community reconstruction processes. She has conducted peace and conflict impact assessments and evaluations for international and national organizations. She has received large grants and led research projects in Bougainville, the Solomons, Timor Leste, Northern Ireland and Cambodia. She has acted as a peace and conflict development specialist consultant for a wide variety of government, international government and international nongovernment organisations and specialises in training organisations in current peace and conflict methodologies, including Do No Harm, Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment, Strategic Conflict Assessments, and Strategic Peace-building processes. |
| #3 - "The Politics of Community Capacity Building : Contestations, Contradictions, Tensions and Ambivalences of the Discourse in Indigenous Communities" presented by Dr Jonathan Makuwira. | |
|
- 20th June 2006 - »» Paper - (251 Kb) «« |
The recent hype and ascendancy of the discourse of community capacity building has generated a heated debate among development and policy experts on its applicability in various contexts. In particular, questions have been raised on the underlying assumptions of the discourse and, more so, the tension that exists between theory and practice. The presentation aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the politics of community capacity building. While it begins with a deconstruction of the theoretical principles that underpin community capacity building, it seeks to show how the concept is covertly used to subjugate and create power imbalance between the ‘builders' (supposedly those with the power) and the ‘beneficiaries' (those assumed to be powerless), in the name of development and empowerment. Assumptions, tensions and contradictions will be examined in light of the following critical questions: What is ‘capacity'? Who needs capacity? Capacity to do what? Whose interest(s) is/are served when people's capacities are built? Who determines the processes and with what effect? Who evaluates and ascertains that capacity has been achieved? The presentation concludes with suggestions for further reflection and critique. Dr Jonathan Makuwira was a Lecturer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at Nulloo Yumbah. Before coming into this position Dr Makuwira worked as a Lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of New England, where he obtained his PhD in International Development in 2003. |
| #2 - "Non-Violent Response to Terrorism" presented by Professor Kevin Clements. | |
|
- 22nd February 2006 - »» Paper - (148 Kb) «« - Streamed Video of Presentation (50 min, 10 sec) |
Events of September 11, 2001 have reconfigured the geopolitical and international relations landscapes amid escalating feeling of suspicion and insecurity. No moral code and religious teachings allow for the wanton killings of innocent people. While such acts have received international condemnation, there is one question whose answer remains elusive: How do we respond to terrorism non-violently? Professor Clements is the Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia. He comes to this position from ‘International Alert' where he was Secretary General from January 1999 to September 2003. ‘International Alert' is one of the world's largest NGO's in the world working on conflict transformation. It pioneered innovative policy and practical approaches to conflict prevention and transformation in Africa, Eurasia and Asia. It has also made a major contribution to the mainstreaming of conflict prevention within European Foreign and Development Ministries, the Economic Union (EU) and a variety of United Nations institutions. During his time there, he was on the Board of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, and past President of the European Peace Building Liaison Office in Brussels. Prior to becoming Secretary General of ‘International Alert', Professor Clements was the Vernon and Minnie Lynch Chair of Conflict Resolution at the Instititute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax Virginia USA, from 1994 to 2000 and Director of the Institute from 1994 to 1999. His career has been a combination of academic analysis and practice in the areas of peace-building and conflict transformation. He was formerly Director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, and Head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra. Prior to this he was Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Co-ordinator of Peace Studies at Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand, and earlier, a Lecturer in Sociology at Hong Kong University. He took up this position from a Post Doctoral Fellowship at Oxford University where he worked on development issues. He has been an advisor to the New Zealand, Australian, British, Swedish, and Dutch governments on conflict prevention, peace, defence and security issues. He was a member of the New Zealand Government's Defence Committee of Enquiry in 1985. He was President of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) from 1994 to 1998, President of the IPRA Foundation from 1995 to 2000, and Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association. Professor Clements has been a regular consultant to a variety of non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations on disarmament, arms control, conflict resolution, development and regional security issues. He has written or edited 5 books and over 135 chapters/articles on conflict transformation, peace-building, preventive diplomacy and development. |
| #1 - "Peace & Reconciliation in an Age of Terrorism" presented by Mark & Mary Hurst. | |
|
- 9th November 2005 |
We live in an age of fear - fear of terrorism (and terrorists), fear of outsiders (boat people, queue jumpers, etc.), fear of rising interest rates and loss of workplace rights and on and on. Politicians like John Howard are masters at using this fear and journalists know that fear sells newspapers. Fear makes us feel powerless. It limits our options. It pushes us into gated communities where we suspect anyone we don't know - at the local level as well as the international. In sharp contradiction with these events, Australians pride themselves as a society that espouses ‘reconciliation'. Mark and Mary Hurst, are pastoral workers and teachers for the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) and facilitators in the ‘Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP)'. In this presentation they will walk us through the maze of these critical issues and examine the implications for reconciliation in Australia. |
CQUniversity CRICOS Provider Codes: QLD-00219C; NSW-01315F; VIC-01624D
