Tag: Australia

CFP ICA 2024: Communication & Global Human Rights (Australia)

ConferencesCall for proposals: Theme call for papers: Communication and Global Human Rights, International Communication Association, 22-24 June 2024, Gold Coast, Australia. Deadline: 1 November 2023.

The purpose of this year’s theme, Communication and global human rights is threefold: to take stock of the contributions of communication scholarship to the study of human rights; to foreground current research and practice; and to  outline promising directions for communication studies.

Human rights is a global priority. It is a political and moral language, grounded on the notion that all human beings share universal attributes and deserve recognition and support. It is a normative horizon for making our world more humane and just. It is central to the cosmopolitan imaginary that posits the existence of a moral and political order above nation-states. It is woven into fundamental questions of our times, such as overlapping crises (e.g., climate/environment, health, migration, food insecurity), entrenched global inequalities, armed conflicts, threats to public safety, and social exclusion and hate.

Communication is central to contemporary global human rights in many ways. It is manifest in public debates spurred by the mobilization of “rights” movements as well as political/cultural backlash; efforts to raise public awareness about the significance of rights, especially given continuous violations of human rights and the tragic failure of inter-government institutions, states, and other actors to enforce rights; the evidentiary claims of human rights reporting, based on both standardized and contested communication practices; the use and critique of human rights as a discourse; conflicts over the balance between speech rights with other rights such as privacy and safety; debates over whether human rights is a universalist project embedded in Western principles and globalist projects, or an inspiring political, moral and legal framework sensitive to difference, inclusivity, localization, and reappropriation.

As a research topic, human rights cuts across the vast landscape of communication studies. Several areas of specialization explore theoretical and empirical questions situated at the intersection of communication and human rights: linguistic, historical, legal, epistemological, and political dimensions; rights movements and counter-movements; narrative about rights violation and repair; large-scale persuasion and information campaigns; institutionalization and enforcement of rights in communication and media policies. Altogether, these lines of inquiry lay out wide-ranging research agendas, as well as theoretical and empirical questions and arguments, with significant implications for scholarship, education, and public engagement.

U Queensland: Political Science & International Studies (Australia)

“Job

Professor and Head of School, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia. Deadline: 23 July 2023.

The School of Political Science and International Studies is at the forefront of teaching and research in political science, public policy, international relations and peace and conflict studies in Australia. The School’s academic teaching and research staff include internationally recognised scholars who are leaders in their research fields and award winners for innovation and excellence in teaching. We are seeking an exceptional academic leader in the above focus areas to lead the UQ School of Political Sciences and International Sciences through the next phase of its development.

Ideally, you will be an experienced and inspiring leader of world-class standing, with the capability to develop and implement an aspirational School strategy aligning with UQ’s and the Faculty’s vision and strategic objectives. You will have experience in developing and maintaining strategic and academic planning functions, including setting goals, targets and key performance indicators in the context of University and Faculty or Institute strategic and operational plans. You will have an understanding of key contemporary issues in political science and international relations and a commitment to implementing UQ’s Reconciliation Action Plan and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research and Innovation Strategy. You will be an excellent communicator, with a strong ability in building School resilience, adaptability and receptiveness to change. As Head of School, you will be expected to foster an inclusive and collegial School culture, cultivating and empowering high-performance as well as forging productive, collaborative partnerships that deliver strategic value.

 

Australian National U: Human Migrational & Mobility (Australia)

“JobResearch Fellow, Human Migration and Mobility, The Migration Hub, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Deadline: 23 April 2023.

They are seeking a Research Fellow to make research, teaching and service contributions to the School, College and University, particularly in relation to Professor Alan Gamlen’s four-year Future Fellowship research program, and to help drive the establishment of the Migration Hub. The Future Fellowship program is entitled ‘Mobility Shocks’, and focuses on the disruptions to human migration and mobility caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

This role will work closely with Professor Gamlen and the Hub team. You will be responsible for compiling the latest Australian migration data from a range of sources and analysing it using cutting-edge statistical and computational research methods, as well as developing geospational data visualisation tools to make the findings of the ‘Mobility Shocks’ project accessible and interpretable for a range of audiences. You will coordinate an annual course on migration, including all teaching, assessment and student support responsibilities.

Monash U: Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Relations (Australia)

“JobUNESCO Chair in Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Relations/Professor, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Deadline: 25 April 2023.

Reporting to the Head of School the appointee will act as a key bridge builder between researchers, civil society organisations and policy makers, both nationally and internationally. As the incoming UNESCO Chair in Inter-Cultural and Inter-Religious Relations, you will have a distinguished research record, an international reputation, and demonstrated expertise in any disciplinary area pertaining to intercultural and inter-religious exchange and social inclusion. The work of the Chair and their team will support a proactive research program that aligns with UNESCO’s aims of promoting the values of tolerance and understanding through dialogue, in the pursuit of peace and human development. Recognition of diversity and social justice constitute the foundation upon which such goals are conceptualised, pursued and achieved.

As the successful candidate you will be responsible for actively engaging in a specialist research area in line with the Faculty’s research strategy. Fostering research excellence through securing competitive research grants and other external research funding opportunities. Providing strong and committed leadership in teaching, curriculum development and research mentoring and maintain and broaden collaborative partnerships with external agencies and communities, including other UNESCO Chairs, both nationally and internationally making a significant contribution to the profession and to the discipline.

U Melbourne: PhD Studentship in Applied Linguistics (Australia)

“Studentships“

Ph.D. Studentship in Applied Linguistics, School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Deadline: 25 November 2022.

The University of Melbourne invites applications from suitably and highly qualified candidates for a PhD scholarship in the Applied Linguistics discipline, with a specific focus on sociolinguistics issues. The PhD scholarship is part of a larger Australian Research Council DECRA project led by Dr Trang Nguyen. The aim of the DECRA project is to investigate migrant youth’s experiences and management of linguistic discrimination, and its impact on their linguistic citizenship, in the regional Australian context. The successful applicant must commence by 27 February 2023, and will be enrolled in the School of Languages and Linguistics, the University of Melbourne. The candidate will pursue an independent research project under the supervision of Dr Trang Nguyen and Professor John Hajek. The candidate will join the DECRA team and is expected to actively contribute to the wider project, while also responsible for the development of their own research agenda.

 

CFP International Symposium on Bilingualism: Individual Papers (Australia & Hybrid)

Conferences

Call for papers: 14th International Symposium on Bilingualism: Diversity Now, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 26-30 June 2023. Deadline: 30 November 2022.

The conference theme of ISB14 is Diversity Now:
The United Nations General Assembly has declared the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to draw attention to the critical status of many Indigenous languages across the world and encourage action for their preservation, revitalisation, and promotion. As we move into this decade, ISB14 encourages work especially involving lesser studied bilingual communities and interdisciplinary work to tackle bilingualism across the life-span, cultures and societies. In service to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, IBS14 will focus on collaborative work with Australian Indigenous communities on various Indigenous languages and issues.

Organizers now invite abstracts for two categories of submissions: individual papers and posters. (They previously invited submissions for panels, but that deadline has passed.) Individual papers are formal presentations on original research or pedagogy-focused topics by one or more authors, lasting a maximum of 20 minutes with 5 additional minutes for discussion. Posters on original research or pedagogy will be displayed in sessions that offer the opportunity for individualised, informal discussion with others in the field. Posters are especially effective for presenting work-in-progress, fieldwork, and results of empirical research for which data can be presented visually. Posters will be available throughout an entire day of the conference with presenters in attendance for a 90-minute poster session.

A Pot of Courage: Food and Intercultural Dialogue (Australia)

Applied ICDA Pot of Courage in Ballarat, Australia, is a not-for-profit social enterprise cafe empowering women of diverse cultural backgrounds through hospitality training and employment opportunities.

Sharing stories is what. . .breaks down cultural barriers.

A Pot of Courage founder Shiree Pilkinton turned a women’s group into a cookbook and a not-for-profit, converting cooking skills into income. “We call it an intercultural cafe because it’s more active than a multicultural cafe,” says Pilkinton. “Whether you’re Anglo Australian, Aboriginal or Persian, it doesn’t matter – there’s a place for you here.”

See the original article: Levin, Sofia. (11 July 2022). This Ballarat hidden gem empowers women through a culturally diverse cafe. SBS.

Digital Linguistic Diversity in the Global South (Germany but Online)

EventsThe ordinariness of digital linguistic diversity in the Global South, guest lecture by Sender Dovchin, sponsored by Digital Language Variation in Context, University of Hamburg, Germany. Online, 12 May 2022.

Recent debates of linguistic diversity have problematised paradigms such as bi/multilingualism, and code-switching for reifying static language boundaries and for their inability to account for communicative practices constructed out of a diversity of linguistic repertoires. Instead, trans- perspectives have been introduced to capture the critical linguistic diversity, especially in the context of digital platforms. This emergent trans- tradition in reflects the difficulty, if not futility, of demarcating linguistic features according to specific languages, for the fluid movement between and across languages.

Yet, this recent tradition still tends to celebrate and thus exoticize the presumed digital linguistic diversity in and from the Global South, although it is indeed ‘quite normal’, ‘unremarkable’ ‘ordinary’, ‘basic’, ‘everyday’, and by no means a new phenomenon. In so doing, scholarship inadvertently constructs and exoticizes a linguistic Other whose digital linguistic diversity are expected to be made legible according to normative epistemologies of diversity.

This lecture is based on the premise that the analytic potential of the trans- tradition can be enhanced through a stronger focus on such practices as reflective of everyday, quotidian, basic, mundane, unremarkable, banal, and ordinary occurrences, rather than of peculiar, exotic, eccentric or unconventional ones. It is important to recognise that digital linguistic diversity in and from the Global South is neither to celebrate nor to deplore, but something to observe and examine with interest like anything else, as it is inevitable that peoples and cultures have always been mixing and mingling. I conclude that ‘linguistic ordinariness’ is rather ‘diverse’ – a necessary condition of ‘linguistic diversity’ is its ‘ordinariness’.

Dr Sender Dovchin is an Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow and Director of Research at the School of Education, Curtin University, Australia.

Sabrina Sharma: Dialogue of Reflective Thought

Guest Posts

Dialogue of Reflective Thought. Guest post by Sabrina Sharma.

The “Dialogue of Reflective Thought” (DORT) approach is a type of dialogue allowing parties to engage without a mutual resolve or change per se.

DORT is a process whereby two or more parties engage in dialogue, each without the intention to transform the other’s thought process or to expect that the other party would be placed in a position of mandatory consideration of the other to birth a ‘perception changing’ view. Although a shift may ensue from the dialogue itself, the goal is rather to share experiences and thoughts. If a transition occurs, it appears in the natural course of the dialogue itself.

Download the complete essay as a PDF.

CFP International Symposium on Bilingualism (Australia & Hybrid)

Conferences

Call for papers: 14th International Symposium on Bilingualism: Diversity Now, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 26-30 June 2023. Deadline: 1 September 2022.

The conference theme of ISB14 is Diversity Now:
The United Nations General Assembly has declared the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to draw attention to the critical status of many Indigenous languages across the world and encourage action for their preservation, revitalisation, and promotion. As we move into this decade, ISB14 encourages work especially involving lesser studied bilingual communities and interdisciplinary work to tackle bilingualism across the life-span, cultures and societies. In service to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, IBS14 will focus on collaborative work with Australian Indigenous communities on various Indigenous languages and issues.

Proposals for symposia are invited. Symposia are 120-minute blocks that allow for extended, interactive discussion on a specific topic, focusing on a cluster of independent yet related papers. Each symposium consists of four slots, and should consist either of four presentations, or of three presentations and a discussion. Proposals must include a general abstract describing the symposium as a whole (max. 1 page), as well as abstracts for all individual presentations (each no longer than 1 page, plus up to 1 extra page for figures and references). Sufficient detail should be provided to allow peer reviewers to judge the merit of the proposal. The person submitting the symposium proposal is responsible for securing the permission and co-operation of all participants before the proposal is submitted.