Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that the lecture slides I provide below contain images and names of people who have died. This week we are looking at the role of punishment in modern society, predominantly the exponential growth of prisons. What role do…
After mid-semester break, this week we looked at gender and power mainly through the lens of social reproduction and the colonialist of gender. The main readings for the week were by Silvia Federici and the Combahee River Collective Statement. This week I invited Professor Alison Phipps,…
This week we were joined by Kristin O’Connell of the Antipoverty Centre. Kristin gave us an extremely informative and searing lecture about the corruption of the government’s work for the dole – which especially affects Aboriginal communities – and mutual obligations schemes. She also paid attention…
This week we have been reading segments from Imogen Tyler‘s fantastic book, Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. I invite you to explore Imogen’s website for plenty of excellent resources on the book, especially the excellent graphic essay, From Stigma Power to Black Power. This connects really…
This week is our second ‘perspective’ (or case study) week, bringing together some of the themes discussed in weeks 1-4 by zoning in on Indigenous Resistance in ‘Australia’, and specifically the Aboriginal Black Power Movement and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. The purpose of perspective weeks (like…
This week, we were honoured to have a guest lecture from Dr Chris Lemoh. Dr Lemoh focused on the impacts of Covid-19 on health justice. We also focused on vaccine apartheid, particularly in tutorial activities The talk was structured around three questions: What has COVID-19 revealed…
This week’s focus is the Coloniality of Power. I begin by establishing what is at stake using Russia’s current war on Ukraine as an example. It has not escaped notice that the approach to the 3 million Ukrainian refugees who have so far fled the country…
This week is a ramble through some basic idea about capitalism, how it works and what it means for us. I found a lot of cool things online that help students understand profit and surplus value, etc. A good tool someone has by David Murphy is…
For the first week of my undergraduate course, Politics, Power and resistance, we are going to looking at the Black Panther Party’s understanding of politics as war. We are also going to be thinking about the epistemic questions arising from whose knowledge we foreground. The ethos…
Politics, Power & Resistance is a course I have been teaching since I began at Sussex University in 2006, when it used to called Political Sociology. Since I joined Western Sydney University in 2012 it has gone through a few iterations. And this year I am…