Race, Racism and Anti-Racism in Australia: Knowledge for Action Beyond Epistemological Divisions

Australia is a society structured by race/ism. Founded on the fiction of terra nullius, or no-one’s land, the First Nations of the land were dispossessed and denied personhood by settler colonists. Once Australia became a nation, it further entrenched racial hierarchy by limiting migration to Anglo-Celtic people through the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, colloquially known as the White Australia Policy. Racial hierarchies continue to structure Australian society yet race and racism are largely invisible in public discourse, and anti-racism is sparse. Further, a key debate in Australian sociology is between those who argue that it is important to engage with the concept of ‘race’ as the basis of social hierarchy, and those who contend that racism is the problem and should be the central focus. Is it possible to bring these two disparate approaches together? How does this debate intersect with growing calls to decolonise Australian institutions and ways of living? This session engages with these questions by asking: what approaches are likely to be most productive, if our goal is tackling racism and dismantling racial hierarchies in Australia? How/Can anti-racism build on analyses of/scholarship on race and racism? We welcome theoretical contributions, papers drawing on empirical research and critical policy analyses.