Questions of national (be)longing – critical and theoretical engagements with citizenship

Image by Monika Nuemann, Pixabay

In Australia, a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is set to be held during this parliamentary term. This moment follows the recent Love/Thoms High Court decision which raises legal questions of constitutional belonging. In this context, questions of citizenship are currently at the forefront of Australia’s national consciousness.

This Symposium invites interdisciplinary imaginings of citizenship’s stakes in Australia and the broader Asia-Pacific region, but potentially more widely. Citizenship is an abstract concept with a concrete history and a capacity to affect individual, national, regional and global imaginings of belonging. The legal status of citizenship operates at the intersection of law, culture, and politics, and is marked by a tension between individualism and membership of a political community.

This Symposium is generously supported by ANU College of Law, the ANU Gender Institute and the ANU Centre for Law, Arts and the Humanities.

PROGRAM

Download program and abstracts.

8.45-9am Registration
9-9.10am Welcome and Acknowledgment of Country
9.10-10.15am Panel 1: Citizenship on Indigenous land: belonging, place and sovereignty
Speaker 1: Asmi Wood, “Arrogating the power to decide over Aboriginal people’s place on this continent: the Executive’s position in Love v Thoms”
Speaker 2:  Elisa Arcioni (online), “Territoriality at the heart of membership: insights into community”
10.15-10.30am Break: morning tea
10.30-11.45am Panel 2: Imperialism, citizenship and crisis
Speaker 1: Adil Hasan Khan (online), “An imperial genealogy of the practices of minority management and protection: the making of a citizenship crisis in South Asia”
Speaker 2: Christoph Sperfeldt, “Citizenship and statelessness: reflections from Cambodia”
Speaker 3: South Asian Research and Advocacy Hub (SARAH), “Identity in the Australian Colonial-State and the ‘ongoing struggle for [Australian] Indians’ souls’”
11.45am-1pm Panel 3: Constructing the good citizen
Speaker 1: Gianmaria Lenti (online), “Burden or benefit? How Australian Federal Policy stigmatises aspiring residents living with HIV”
Speaker 2: Anne Macduff, “Constructing the ideal citizen: good character, citizenship values and the Australian national identity”
Speaker 3: Melany Toombs, “The National Subject: the acquisition and removal of citizenship from a gendered perspective”
1-1.30pm Lunch
1.30-2.50pm Panel 4: Citizenship: exclusions and agency
Speaker 1: Kate Ogg and Olivera Simic, “Broken bonds: Australia’s COVID-19 border policies and transformations of conceptualisations of citizenship”
Speaker 2: Jaskiran Kaur Rekhraj, “Citizenship and statelessness: the issue of belonging and place in the world”
Speaker 3: Makiko Nishitani, “‘Innocent illegal’ migrants: exploring ‘citizenship’ and belonging through the migration of Pacific children to Australia”
Speaker 4: Kim Rubenstein, “Overcoming the ‘migration integrity’ paradigm — moving from citizenship as exclusion to citizenship as nation-building”
2.50-3.05pm Break: afternoon tea
3.05-3.50pm Panel 5:  Emotions of Citizenship
Speaker 1: Amy Hamilton, “Metaphors of citizenship: tethered/severed bonds and ties in Love and Benang”
Speaker 2: Jordana Silverstein, "The emotions of statelessness and citizenship"
3.50-5pm

Panel 6: Citizenship’s past
Speaker 1: Peter Prince (online), “How did Australia’s High Court get the history of Indigenous belonging so wrong?”
Speaker 2: Susan Hutchinson

Date & time

Fri 19 May 2023, 9am–5pm

Location

Moot Court, ANU College of Law

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Updated:  7 September 2023/Responsible Officer:  Convenor, Gender Institute/Page Contact:  Gender Institute