Live tweeting this event with @QAmity: Prof Aileen Moreton-Robinson began her career as the only Aboriginal person in her undergraduate #sociology course. She went to university with a Year 7 education. She wanted to study white people and the white knowledge. https://twitter.com/OtherSociology/status/1301062011523014656
While her peers were trying to learn social theories, Prof Moreton-Robinson wanted to understand how these theories were structured. Her peers always knew she'd be a professor; she was always debating them!
Prof Moreton-Robinson is the 22nd Aboriginal person to gain a PhD in Australia; 12th PhD outside of Theology

While having a stellar career, she's never been offered a job in #sociology, despite applying. However, others trained outside sociology are hired for sociology jobs
Prof Moreton-Robinson speaks about the importance of Michel Foucault, but also of his limitation: his theorisation of power is limited by Western ideals. He ignores the power of Mother Earth.

Still, Foucault is on her top 5 dream dinner guests, along with her grandfather
Prof Moreton-Robinson is working on a book based on Quandamooka archival materials. She's reading things she already knows through oral history. It makes for an interesting methodological approach.
Moreton-Robinson: Aboriginal women are positioned as passive figures. Quandamooka women always had agency. They worked reconnaissance for the frontier wars & they fought. "There is a whole heap of rethinking that needs to be done about what Aborignal women's gendered roles are"
Moreton-Robinson: Australia can use Aboriginal iconography on Qantas planes, but we will incarcerate 10 year old Aboriginal kids; we refuse sovereignty; we perpetuate poor health through lack of resources; we structure economic dependance through administrative & legal recourse
On the return of eco-feminism: Prof Moreton-Robinson wants to convey what it's like to feel like you're walking on something that is living. "You take care how you treat that living thing that you're a part of, and sustained by.... with a sense of respect where you put your feet"
Prof Moreton-Robinson: "It is the Earth that sustains us. And it is the power of the Earth that can destroy us." Our idea that human-centred power is all-ecompassing is flawed. We need to think differently.
Audience question: tips for people of colour surviving the academy: "I centre myself in terms of my country. And ancestors & place. I'm not disassociated with it just because of I'm in the academy... I act sovereign." What is your relationship to the sovereignty of where you are?
Prof Aileen Moreton-Robinson ends on a question they didn't get to: how to be a good "ally." She says Prof Fiona Nicoll (who is moderating tonight's event) is a good example

"It's not about being an ally. It's about being in good relations."

Thanks @wheelercentre; great event!
You can follow @OtherSociology.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: